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A Touch of Evil: Dark Gothic box art

A Touch of Evil: Dark Gothic

Game ID: GID0012601
Game Info
Year
2014
Collection
Ratings
Creator Score
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Description

Dark Gothic is a deck-building game set in Flying Frog's A Touch of Evil game series.

Each player represents a particular monster-hunting hero in the game, and that hero determines the player's starting deck and grants a special ability. The heroes work together to some degree to defeat villains and monsters as they collectively lose the game if ten cards land in the shadows during play. That said, the game has only a single winner – the player who has the most investigation points at the end of the game. (Villains come in three levels of difficulty, and at the start of the game, you create a villain stack with one card of each difficulty level being chosen at random.)

The game uses three currencies – combat (red), cunning (green) and spirit (blue) – with some cards having a silver cost that can be paid with any currency. Players can acquire cards from a row of six that are available from the main deck or from piles of cards that are always available. If you fight the "Hungry Dead" – an always available card that costs one of each color – you can remove a card from your deck or from the central row.

"Dark Secrets" are a special type of card that get added to your deck through various means. The card is worth negative points at the end of the game, but should you draw it during play, you remove it from the game, then draw a "Shocking Discovery" – which will affect you or all players with some kind of pernicious effect.

Description

Dark Gothic is a deck-building game set in Flying Frog's A Touch of Evil game series.

Each player represents a particular monster-hunting hero in the game, and that hero determines the player's starting deck and grants a special ability. The heroes work together to some degree to defeat villains and monsters as they collectively lose the game if ten cards land in the shadows during play. That said, the game has only a single winner – the player who has the most investigation points at the end of the game. (Villains come in three levels of difficulty, and at the start of the game, you create a villain stack with one card of each difficulty level being chosen at random.)

The game uses three currencies – combat (red), cunning (green) and spirit (blue) – with some cards having a silver cost that can be paid with any currency. Players can acquire cards from a row of six that are available from the main deck or from piles of cards that are always available. If you fight the "Hungry Dead" – an always available card that costs one of each color – you can remove a card from your deck or from the central row.

"Dark Secrets" are a special type of card that get added to your deck through various means. The card is worth negative points at the end of the game, but should you draw it during play, you remove it from the game, then draw a "Shocking Discovery" – which will affect you or all players with some kind of pernicious effect.

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All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 3
This page: 3
Sentiment: pos 1 · mix 0 · neu 0 · neg 0
Mentions per page
Showing 1–3 of 3
Video II1_rTEjgyQ Board to Death TV - Board Game Reviews Review at 0:03 sentiment: positive
video_pk 130968 · mention_pk 372557
Board to Death TV - Board Game Reviews - A Touch of Evil: Dark Gothic video thumbnail
Click to watch at 0:03 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
  • High quality artwork and photography on cards
  • Plasticized components are durable
  • Fast and fun gameplay
  • Well-organized rule book
  • Advanced rules for hardcore gamers
  • Cooperative play option
  • Great concept and feel
  • Nice production values
  • Has expansions
Cons
  • Some images are a little cheesy
  • Cast look like theater performers
  • Cards were sticky at first
Thematic elements
  • Players must hunt down one of four classic villains (werewolf, vampire, headless horseman, scarecrow) terrorizing the town.
  • 19th century in a small town called Shadowbrook
Comparison games
  • Arkham Horror
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
  • Area Movement — The map is divided into five key areas, and players move their characters around it.
  • Attribute Improvement — Character attributes (Spirit, Cunning, Combat, Honor) can be upgraded through training or items.
  • Card drawing — Players draw cards when landing on specific areas, which can lead to items or attacks.
  • character abilities — Each of the eight characters has a special ability and different stats.
  • clue gathering — Players pick up clues around Shadowbrook to help find the horror's lair.
  • Dice Rolling — Dice are rolled for fights, checking a Minion sheet for outcomes, and potentially encountering the boss.
  • Doom track — A Doom track advances each round, making lair cards cheaper but bringing players closer to losing if it reaches zero.
  • Hand Management — Players can get event cards kept in hand to be played as actions.
  • Secret information — Town Elders have secret cards that can provide bonuses or betray players if chosen to help.
  • Set Collection — Collecting a lair card is necessary to initiate the final showdown.
  • token management — Investigation tokens are used to buy items, heal, find secrets, and obtain a lair card.
  • Villain Hunt — Players choose one of four classic villains to hunt down at the start of the game.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • I'm Felicia and I'm Mela dezar
  • This game is a game that is set in the 19th century the adventure takes place inside a small town called Shadowbrook
  • The point of the game is to walk around Shadowbrook picking up clues that can help you find the horror Lair and kill him in an epic showdown
  • If the track ever reaches zero you all lose the game
  • When we first opened the box we got three surprises
  • The third surprise was that everything is plasticized it looks like the game is been dipped in wax
  • I'm going to give it a 9 on 10
  • I agree I liked it a little more than Arkham Horror as well
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video T7Cyb3P0n54 Board to Death TV - Board Game Reviews Review at 0:20
video_pk 130953 · mention_pk 372553
Board to Death TV - Board Game Reviews - A Touch of Evil: Dark Gothic video thumbnail
Click to watch at 0:20 · YouTube ↗
Pros
none
Cons
none
Thematic elements
none
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Mechanics unknown.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • I love that they put the solo rules in there cuz sometimes you just want to make a cup of tea, pop in a soundtrack CD, light a candle, and hunt that bastard down.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video uk5ADKNqHoc The Dungeon Dive Analysis at 2:16
video_pk 86928 · mention_pk 226532
The Dungeon Dive - A Touch of Evil: Dark Gothic video thumbnail
Click to watch at 2:16 · YouTube ↗
Pros
none
Cons
none
Thematic elements
  • Supernatural
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Mechanics unknown.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • man they came really quickly they came I think a day after I had ordered them and they arrived literally minutes after I had edited and uploaded the long review
  • I don't need uh boxes in fancy packaging for my expansions because I try to get as much stuff in the base box as possible
  • this is where they kind of introduced The Experience system
  • so you can start your Heroes out with their Advanced ability and that will add four dots to the hero side and then to balance that out you can also start with some zombie Advanced abilities
  • so that's what I'm going to do so here we have our two new hero cards rise to the challenge
  • so that's pretty powerful a good zombie swarm card
  • so it looks like a hero pack 2 so this is missing all of the her heroes from hero pack 2 that is unfortunate I did not know that
  • so you have to go out as the heroes as the survivors you have to go out and find the items and bring them back to your safe space
  • so this is kind of a new way to set up the game where you are kind of playing almost a tower defense where you have the hero area and the zombie area
  • what would be really cool is if you if the zombie player moved a zombie off the opposite side of the board here and then that zombie came back as as a behemoth zombie or some kind of king zombie that would be super cool that would be a really fun little house rule to play
  • so this would allow the zombie player to move towards the hero they want but that's kind of how I play solo I ignore the zombie zombie hunger Rule and I play my zombies more like the zombies in Return of the Living Dead where they do have a little bit of intelligence to make the choices of who they want to attack
  • so that was uh revenge of the Dead I think revenge of the Dead sounds the most interesting so far
  • nuke it from orbit uh the only chance for survival is to find enough flares to let them know that are still survivors
  • so you do need to come up with something for your uh flare tokens if you don't have that expansion
  • so that's a a look at the web exclusive expansions for last night on earth if you haven't gotten them yet and you were interested in what they had to offer I hope I provided you some good information
References (from this video)
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