Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Board Game Review - Castle Ravenloft


This might be the least timely review ever written. By this point, every other reviewer alive has chimed in about Castle Ravenloft. It was one of last year's biggest releases, and everyone had to talk about it and argue about it and disagree about it and either proclaim it the best game ever created, or call it a heaping pile of rabbit pellets. And while all that was happening, I found myself completely unable to get a copy, so that when I do finally get around to reviewing the game, I might as well be reviewing checkers.

However, thanks to Noble Knight Games, I finally have a copy of the latest big hitter in the dungeon crawl game category, and so I can now tell you why I will be playing it for a good long time, and why I am now even more upset that it will be several months before I can get a copy of Wrath of Ashardalon.

If you've been living somewhere outside a Tibetan monastery for the last six months or so, you've probably already read half a dozen reviews about Castle Ravenloft (in fact, you have probably already decided whether you want a copy). So you probably already know that it's a fully cooperative game where you go traipsing around inside Count Strahd's gloomy house, investigating corridors and rooms and being attacked by an incredible number of monsters while looking for loot. You have characters ripped right out of Fourth Edition D&D, like a dragonborn fighter and dwarf cleric, as well as a variety of unfriendly inhabitants who will pop out and hurt you.

Given the wealth of knowledge available for Castle Ravenloft, I'm not going to bother describing how everything works. You can't swing a dead lolcatz without hitting a review of the game, so I'm positive someone has told you how you draw cards and roll dice. Besides, that stuff is boring. Instead of being boring, let's just skip right to the good parts and the bad parts.

A fully cooperative dungeon crawl is hard to create. The problem is, a dungeon master is able to make monsters act tricky, and prescripted monster reactions make them predictable. And that means that instead of a tactical game, it becomes almost a puzzle game. You'll find yourself attacking less attractive targets just because they're on the right tile, or killing silly rat swarms because the treasure might let you level up.

But just because you know what the monsters are going to do, that doesn't mean the game isn't tense. The game is not very hard to win, and that's why it isn't tense. I grant you that I've only played three times so far, but we never had any trouble winning. We had fun, and wanted to play more, but we never really had a moment where we said, 'holy crap, we're all going to die!' Maybe future adventures get a little more difficult, but so far, we have sailed through them.

Another problem with Castle Ravenloft that might make it less fun is that it lacks some of the feeling that you're playing out a story. It's a little too technical and dry, and just doesn't ooze theme the way I want it to do. Every attempt has been made to pull a tale of derring-do and dark adventure out of the randomized tiles and plastic miniatures, but that story is at odds with the game itself.

For instance, you're going to draw a monster on every tile. You know this. If you don't draw a new tile, you're guaranteed to have to draw an encounter card, and then something bad will happen to you. Again, you know this. And so rather than a story or tactical battle where you're sneaking through a dungeon, you wind up with a game where you're pushing forward, trying to clear out one tile before you pull another, ignoring some traps because you won't need to pass that tile again, or arranging your miniatures to best exploit your various powers. It just doesn't create a cohesive story.

Another blow against the story is the fact that your characters cannot improve from one dungeon to the next. You start every adventure at first level, and maybe reach second level before you're done, and then the next time you play, your ranger forgot all the crap she learned last time. That shoots a hole right through the middle of the story. I like a game where each adventure feels like another step on a path, where every villain I destroy is just one step closer to the final confrontation. The scenarios build toward the eventual hunt for Strahd, but it feels like anyone could do any of them whenever they want (mostly because they can).

Story or not, however, Castle Ravenloft is fun. It's fun to tromp through a dungeon, discovering room after room, hacking away at zombies and ghouls and giant spiders. Traps pop up and shoot spears at our heroes, and scary mists roll through the hallways, making us soil our trousers and cry for our mothers. It may be a tad academic, but it's all dungeon romp, all the time.

And unlike my favorite dungeon crawl game of all time (which would still be Warhammer Quest), there is more to do than just cut things. The first adventure had me scrambling to escape the castle, and the second had us searching for the lost icon of Ravenloft in an overrun chapel full of monsters. In the third, we battled a very unfriendly kobold sorcerer and destroyed his infernal device. Other adventures have still other goals, and the game is full of specialized markers and tokens that afford you the chance to do something besides maraud from room to room and kill things (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Another strong point in Ravenloft's favor is that it is pretty darn sexy. The art is great, and the miniatures are straight out of the D&D miniatures game (though they don't have paint). There's even a huge scary dracolich, which is a cross between a dead wizard and that mean kid from Harry Potter. The tiles look neat, with piles of bones and altars and coffins and stuff, and the game has a decidedly polished look. No rookie designer built this game, I'll tell you that.

Now, in my completely biased and unfair opinion, any dungeon crawl game that wants to compete has to measure up against Warhammer Quest. And while Castle Ravenloft does some things better than my favorite game, it has downsides. Where Warhammer Quest really feels like a tale about a group of warriors battling through a dank dungeon to defeat ancient evil (or maybe just rat-people with bad hygiene), Castle Ravenloft lacks some of the flavor. The option to improve from game to game is one of the greatest things about Warhammer Quest - that, and the non-stop, fast-paced action. While Ravenloft moves very quickly, and affords the players lots of choices to make, you're going to start every adventure with a first-level guy, regardless of how long you've been playing.

There are a few other reasons that Warhammer Quest beats Ravenloft, but they're very small. I like Warhammer art, for example, and I've never been able to sign off on some of the silliness of D&D (dragonborn being one good example). On the other hand, Ravenloft offers a much wider variety of game, with lots of different games coming out of just the one box. Combat is actually faster than Quest, and it's a tighter game with a lot less accounting and record-keeping. While I am not persuaded, I could definitely see where a gamer might think Ravenloft is actually better than Warhammer Quest. I know which one I prefer, but it's awfully close.

Finally, Castle Ravenloft has an incredible amount of staying power. Never mind that there's already an expansion (not really, of course - Ashardalon is a stand-alone game, but it provides a lot more toys to throw in the toybox). Once you play all the scenarios in the box, Ravenloft provides enough doodads and widgets for an enterprising game nerd to create nearly any kind of adventure he wants, without having to buy anything beyond a pen and a sheet of paper. When you can play the same game twenty times and still never play the same thing twice, you're getting your money out of your investment.

So now you know why I totally dig Castle Ravenloft, and why I will be playing it a lot more, even though I still have Warhammer Quest regularly calling to me from the shelf where it is stored with reverence and pride. Sure, it took me a long time to get a copy and write a review. Better late than never, I suppose.

Summary

1-5 players

Pros:
Great adventure game
Lots of options and tons of replay
Incredibly slick production
Fast and easy to play, with slick rules that are easy to resolve

Cons:
A little dry
Characters don't get better between adventures

Castle Ravenloft is already priced to be a deal, considering how much awesome is in the box, but if you want to save even more, Noble Knight Games has it right here:
GO ADVENTURING

15 comments:

UniversalHead said...

I've only played the game once, but personally I can't agree that "no rookie designer built this game" - I find the graphic design incredibly bland, the typefaces inappropriate (corporate looking sans serif), the lack of illustration on the cards cheap, the overused 'flourish' element flat, the tiles without personality, the design inconsistent (pictures on some counters, none on others) ... I've got nothing against the way it plays, but they really did the design on the cheap if you ask me. From using existing figure sculpts to not paying illustrators, it all has the feel of a 'save as much money as you can' exercise.

Ahh, that feels better. :)

Jean-Christophe Gareau said...

So, if you'll have to buy a dungeon crawl boardgame, it will be this one? Or, would you recommend somtehing else?

Thank you!

Matt Drake said...

See, I thought it was tasteful, showed restraint without losing flavor, and an overall slick presentation. I appreciated the readable font, and felt that it actually felt much more cohesive than most game on the market today. Using sculpts from the previous D&D minis line didn't bother me - the miniatures are still nice, even if we have seen them before, and they do have a huge stable of figures to tap.

But your points are valid. I could see, from a different point of view, that the design may have felt sterile, and while I like that they didn't try to use some gussied-up 'fantasy' font, I can see how they could have looked corporate.

The tiles are definitely the most boring part of the game, visually speaking. Warhammer Quest, for instance, has exceptional character on every tile, even the hallways, and Space Hulk set a ridiculously high bar for excellence in game tiles. But then, games like Space Hulk and Hybrid also have tiles that can be difficult to read, with graphics that can make it tough to tell where the squares are supposed to be.

In fact, part of the game's technical feel was almost certainly a factor of the restrained design. More expressive tiles would have added some flavor, and illustrations would have helped, too. The rules don't make a story game very well, but the game itself doesn't look very exciting. I think it looks slick, but that slick look is taking away from the excitement factor.

So, uh, point taken.

Matt Drake said...

J-C, this is a good dungeon crawl game. Very good, in fact. But Warhammer Quest is better.

Dai said...

I've played through most of the adventures, and they do loosely increase in difficulty; in particular, the first few are sort of "training" adventures. That's not to say that the later adventures can't -generally- be completed successfully by a group with a little experience and a little luck, but the people I play with still fail adventures regularly enough that the game doesn't feel "solved".

Unfortunately, the "gamey" rather than "adventurey" feeling does persist and arguably get worse as you move on; barring lucky rolls, a -lot- of ensuring success in later adventures is carefully making choices to exploit the programmed monster behavior. (There's also a ton of luck.)

I do think that Ravenloft is a whole lot of fun, but it is much more of a puzzle game than an adventure game. (Although I don't know of any board game that's pulled off the adventure game feel -that- much better.)

chrismcfadden said...

Matt -

How does your experience with Ravenloft stack up against Descent? I know that the two are not truly comparable side-by-side (Descent being 1 v. all and Ravenloft being co-op) but in terms of recommending a dungeon crawl, which one would you lean towards? (Outside of Warhammer Quest, which you've stated is the one you'd generally favor)

And, thanks for a great review - entertaining and informative as always!

Chris

tin0men said...

Universal Head said:
"the typefaces inappropriate (corporate looking sans serif)"

On font & design choices, looking at it from 48-year old eyes, I've found over the last 5 yrs or so that my love of 'purty' is increasingly being trumped by my love for 'easy to read quickly at first glance'. Especially in games where after you've played them a few times, you often just want to keep the 'fun' gameplay on the road with the fewest obstacles. :D

And when it comes to ref material for games, I've increasingly found myself creating my own quick references (though I love UH's material where he's put them together!), and when I do, rather than going with the more common 7pt body fonts, I'll generally bump things up to an 8.5 Abadi Condensed or so, and increase the whitespace slightly. It makes for more pages printed out, but makes it much easier for me personally to read. ;D

Anyway, I'm just saying that what looks great and easy to read at 25 or 30 or even 35 could tend to be a little more of a challenge moving into your mid 40s or higher. And from the publisher's perspective, there's a lot to be said for serving the entire range of eyeballs out there. And when considering WOTC & the D&D community, we all know that there are a lot of legitimate geezers making up the sweetspot of that audience :P

Jolo said...

How does your experience with Ravenloft stack up against Descent?

I am not Matt, but I did sleep in a Holiday Inn last night! So I feel qualified to give an opinion.

I love Descent, and would rather play it than Castle Ravenloft. I have played CR about half a dozen times and WoA once, then I put CR on my trade list.

The biggest arguement against Descent is the time committment, CR is 90 minutes, descent can be 5 hours.

I thought CR was dry and boring. It is too easy to work around the contstraints of the monsters while in Descent the OL can move the monsters how they feel.

Matt Drake said...

Chris, I love Descent, but it's even more 'gamey' than Ravenloft. Players end their spaces before they get to the treasure so they can deny the bad guy a spawn point. They plan their moves around their special abilities.

I prefer Descent, but it's a hell of a lot harder to find players, because it's a slow game. Ravenloft is like 45 minutes; Descent can go 2-4 hours.

If you prefer a dungeon game that's a little lighter, Ravenloft wins, easy. If you like a little more depth, and the option to improve between adventures, Descent (plus Road to Legends) is my pick.

Matt Drake said...

Jolo's point is also excellent - DM-controlled monsters are simply more interesting. Ravenloft is easier to play and appeals more to a mass market, but Descent is a more compelling and involved game.

chrismcfadden said...

@Jolo - That's really what I was thinking about - how does it feel to play "board generated and controlled monsters" versus "player generated and controlled monsters."

@Matt - I see your point. It's sort of what you have the time, manpower, and energy for, but you see both games fitting nicely in that "dungeon crawling" niche. Oh, and Warhammer Quest! :) I haven't played that, but I need to now!

We played a 6-week campaign in Descent: Seas of Blood and I had fun. The Overlord won. Although if you're gonna play for weeks and weeks, why not play an RPG??? My best guess is you'd go with Descent because 1) It's all in one box, 2) It requires zero prep work, and 3) You can fool your friends who would 'never play DnD' into...playing board game DnD with you!! :)

UniversalHead said...

On typefaces, by 'appropriate' I don't necessarily mean a fantasy font at all. There are plenty of easy to read fonts (I'm 45 and my eyesight is getting dodgy too!) that have a personality that doesn't make you think of corporate letterhead.

Good design is about functionality AND aesthetics and a perfect balance between the two. In this case I think they just made a font choice that certainly complements the blandness of the overall design. Oh, and personally I'm also annoyed by titles in all caps - that does make reading harder.

Anyway, just my opinion after 20+ years in the design biz! (During which I've certainly made my share of bad type choices) :)

PS Sorry about the tiny type on my references but it's the only way to fit it all in; the choice is always there to print it at a bigger size.

tinomen said...

UH: Sorry, I thought you were requesting that they made more use of more thematic 'headline' fonts, and I was assuming that that could lead to decreased readability.

And yea, I was sort of assuming that what you'd prefer to see was reflected in your choices in your own reference designs. that's why I dragged your work into the discussion.

From that perspective, I figured, since you consistently use smaller fonts and dense blocks of text, that aside from 'for page efficiency', that part of the equation was because you find those fonts & layouts easier to read than I do. :D

I didn't intend it as a knock - your content and summaries are always 100%! - I just figured, that you may not be aware some folks had problems. :P

Pete said...

Matt: STOP PLAYING RAVENLOFT BY THE ADVENTURE BOOK NOW.

Try this, then tell me this isn't one of the best Dungeon Crawls ever...so much so, in fact, that (as you know) I just sold off my D&D Fantasy Adventure Boardgame stuff!

http://www.box.net/shared/11dyod630i

DC said...

Matt,

How would you compare Ravenloft with the likes of 'D&D: The Fantasy Adventure Board Game'?