Welcome to Weirdwood Manor, a home located on the nexus of our actual world and the magical Fae realm. Girl Weirdwood guidelines the manor and has tasked you to be one in every of her loyal Wardens. Your job is to assist maintain the steadiness in examine… nevertheless, the monsters from the Fae realm have damaged by way of the barrier and are rampaging by way of the manor. It’s as much as you and your fellow Wardens to guard the manor and defeat the Fae monsters.
Revealed by Greyridge Video games, Weirdwood Manor is a cooperative sport for 2-5 gamers that takes about 120 minutes to play. Weirdwood Manor performs finest with 2 Gamers.
Gameplay Overview:
Weirdwood Manor is a sport with a easy flip construction however with plenty of exceptions. Because the rulebook clocks in at a filled-to-the-brim 24 pages, I’m going to solely offer you a high-level overview of the gameplay right here. If you need the complete ins and outs, you possibly can obtain a PDF of the rulebook right here.
On a participant’s flip, they first play one in every of their motion playing cards to their participant board. It may be performed both face up for its particular means or face down for one of many primary actions (transfer, battle, achieve a useful resource). Then, relying on which slot it was performed into, the time of day tracker is turned to one of many three matching positions (morning, afternoon, night, night time). If the time of day tracker ever passes from night time to morning you additionally advance the day tracker at some point.
Then the participant takes their motion. This can be transferring across the manor (to any linked room) and performing the room motion, or probably combating the monster. Fight is dealt with through cube rolls, with the participant and monster rolling cube and inflicting injury on one another.
On the finish of a participant’s flip, the monster takes an motion. It first will rotate the time tracker a variety of areas (normally from 2-4), after which take an motion. This can be buffing itself, transferring across the manor, combating gamers, or spawning scarab tokens.
Then the following participant takes their flip. All through the sport, gamers can be gaining expertise on as much as 3 completely different tracks, recruiting companions, casting spells, and gaining Warden playing cards. The top aim is to defeat the monster earlier than the top of the twelfth day, or it completes its goal.
Sport Expertise:
Weirdwood Manor is a posh sport with plenty of transferring elements (pun meant). For brand spanking new gamers, I’d extremely recommend a partial studying sport of not less than a couple of rounds. I performed about half a sport earlier than I introduced it to sport night time and I’m glad I did. I used to be nose-deep within the rulebook virtually each flip throughout the studying sport. Whereas the flip construction is straightforward, there are plenty of little bits right here and there to make issues extra advanced: the place can I transfer to, how a lot do I rotate the ring, what impact do scarabs have, the aftermath of battles, how do you utilize companions, what is that this rooms motion, about 100 completely different icons (not likely, but it surely’s rather a lot)… The top result’s that your first sport can be lengthy and gradual as you wrap your head round easy methods to play the sport.
That being mentioned, when you do get a really feel for the sport, there are plenty of attention-grabbing issues taking place. In your flip, you might be introduced with a wealth of decisions. There are 4 completely different assets to handle that are used for important actions like casting spells, upgrading your fight cube, recruiting companions, and typically utilizing extra highly effective motion playing cards. So, you wish to achieve as many assets as potential to make sure that your character is correctly leveled up.
And that’s truly one in every of my favourite elements of Weirdwood Manor. The three expertise tracks and the way generously the sport doles out XP. There are rooms that grant them for visiting them, there are character powers that may present them, and each hit on a monster or scarab grants an XP. So, for those who hit the Fae for six injury, you might be transferring up six areas on the XP tracks, with many areas granting bonuses to your character. This provides you a stable feeling of energy as your Warden turns into stronger and stronger.
But the place the sport can begin to wrestle is when you want to work together with the sport board. There are 30+ rooms within the manor and getting the place you wish to go is just not at all times straightforward. The board consists of three rings of rooms, every of which has a door which will or will not be accessible once you take your flip. Because the time rings transfer, they lock and unlock entry to rooms. And with 2 impartial rings, it may be tough attempting to determine for those who even have a technique to get from room A to room B. So normally, at first of your flip, you are attempting to evaluate the place you wish to go and if that room is even accessible, which will be irritating. You could actually wish to improve a die, but when entry to the forging rooms is all blocked (by doorways or scarabs), you might be out of luck.
Nonetheless, the worst is when the day adjustments and that ring rotates as this causes each different outer room to be inaccessible. In case you occur to be in a type of rooms at first of your flip, you might be locked out from doing something aside from gaining one useful resource. In a sport the place each motion is valuable, this isn’t an incredible feeling. When you can try to plan forward and ensure you aren’t locked out, this generally is a lot tougher because the participant depend will increase. In reality, for those who play in a 5 participant sport (word: don’t ever play at this participant depend), you truly gained’t get a activate the primary day altogether, so that you’ll want to make use of a portal card to even get out of your beginning room.
That can be the explanation why I feel 2 gamers is the candy spot for this sport. Because of the ever-changing board state, this sport is extra reactionary than strategic. You may’t actually plan forward as a result of you don’t have any thought how the doorways will change because it will get to your flip. As every participant strikes the time rings, and the Fae as nicely, it’s inconceivable to plan a couple of flip forward. On the larger participant counts, you possibly can spend 20 minutes ready to take your flip, solely to be caught in a room and do nothing in your flip.
The opposite huge concern I had with the sport was it felt actually onerous to get to the monster and assault it. Every participant has solely a few playing cards that allow you to transfer and assault, which implies you’ll be spending turns transferring, otherwise you’ll must be already in an area with a monster to have the ability to assault it. And with the board so in flux, that’s not at all times potential. For a sport that’s centered round taking down the large dangerous monster, we felt like we had been doing a ton of labor simply attempting to get to the battle. And because the monster grows in energy with every passing day, for those who don’t hit him early sufficient, it is perhaps too late by the point you truly get to him.
Ultimate Ideas:
Weirdwood Manor is a sport with plenty of cool ideas, but additionally one which felt prefer it might have used slightly bit extra time in growth. Whereas we’ve got gained the sport, we’ve additionally had a couple of brutal losses. The sport is lengthy, most likely a bit too lengthy for what it’s. Nonetheless, it additionally has some neat concepts. There are many methods on your character to really feel highly effective and when issues click on, the sport is plenty of enjoyable. But interspersed amongst these moments are loads of frustrations as you possibly can’t get to the place you want to be or boring turns the place you don’t do very a lot. Because it stands now, Weirdwood Manor is an efficient sport, simply not one prepared for greatness.
Ultimate Rating: 3 Stars – Some nice and revolutionary mechanics held again by too typically moments of frustration.
Hits:
• A number of attention-grabbing concepts and mechanics
• Nice sense of character development
• Distinctive characters and monsters
Misses:
• Shifting across the manor will be an train in frustration
• Steep studying curve with plenty of transferring elements
• Longer playtime than you’d count on