For ages the vile Doom Knights have sought to gather the remaining Thunderstones to fulfill a prophecy of corruption over the lands. Now the first Thunderstone has been discovered in the Dungeons of Grimhold and the Doom Knights have sent their minions to claim the relic. The Villagers of Barrowsdale gather brave souls to face the dungeon and keep the Thunderstone out of the hands of the Doom Knights.
Thunderstone is a fantasy deck-building game much in the style of Dominion. Before the game starts a selection of Village and Hero cards will be randomnly chosen that players may add to their specific decks. Like Dominion, every player starts with a basic deck of weaker cards that they can use to purchase other more powerful cards. In Thunderstone these cards may be different Heroes such as mages, archers, thieves, or warriors or they may be supplies the heroes need like weapons, rations, or light to reach further into the dungeon.
A dungeon deck is also created by combining several different groups of monsters. Certain groups of monsters may be more or less susceptible to different Hero types, so players will have to take this into account when they choose what to buy.
Rather than buying puny Victory Points, players will use their deck to defeat monsters in the dungeon. From the monster deck a row of cards is laid out. Players may on their turn choose to attack a monster in the deck rather than visit town and buy cards. If they do this they play cards from their hand and resolve their abilities in order to boost strength and have enough light to reach a specific monster. Some monsters also have special abilities which may hinder the player. If they have enough strength they defeat the monster and place that card in their deck. This card is worth victory points and often can be used as money to purchase other cards. In addition to this, players are awarded experience points for defeating monsters which can be used to upgrade their heroes into more powerful versions. The game is played until the Thunderstone is revealed from the dungeon and a player is able to claim it. The player with the most victory points in their deck is the winner.
The basic Thunderstone framework was updated in the implementation of Thunderstone: Advance.
Integrates with
Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin
Thunderstone: Dragonspire
Thunderstone: Starter Set
- pure deck building game
- host owns all expansions
- plays really long
- pure deck builder archetype is limiting
- other deck builders (Dominion) do it better
- modern games need additional mechanics beyond deck building
- difficult to part with due to expansion ownership
- Dominion (superior alternative)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I'm very Cutthroat here - I much rather save budget for a new game, save space for new games
- not all games are forever games - sometimes it's totally okay to buy a game with the expectation of playing it for about five years and then not wanting to play it again
- I can still respect I played a lot of Steam, but I just don't want to play it anymore
- there's so much hate on like oh you can't be like dipping your chosen to miniature games - but as adults there's so much hate on that
- when you own a lot of games there's a lot of rules up here and the tough thing is that when there's so many rules up here you need some games that you teach or play later to be a little intuitive
- the difficulty I have with it is that when I explain it to new players it's tough to explain - each player has a different ruleset
- I think that's one of the first games that if it didn't invent that concept at least popularize it
- if the game is going to warrant me having to do separate explanations for everybody, extra effort - it's got to be really damn good and Vast isn't really damn good
References (from this video)
- Adds fantasy theme to deck building
- Combat-focused gameplay
- Longer play time
- More complex
- Clogs gameplay compared to Dominion
- fantasy
- dungeon
- combat
- Dominion
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- board games are diverse but card games really could feature anything
- players are all doing this simultaneously and so you want to be the player that stays in the longest
- if you turn over to many matching cards then you end up with nothing
- auction games are are well served by the sort of card game mechanisms
- play very quickly for three to six players
- an excellent excellent game
- take that card games or I think the most combative sort of card games
- totally silly extremely random but essentially we're playing cards to attack other players
- still one of my favorite games
- each card is a floor on a building
- there's a whole genre of what we call take that card games
- you could place bombs or or murderers into these buildings or the police can then take away a murderer
- Seven Wonders was the sort of figurehead for the cloud drafting games
- sushi go has been an enormous hit
- now the figurehead for the genre is probably sushi go
- deck building was created really by the game of Dominion
- there's something delightful about the simplicity of a game like Dominion
- you can teach to people really easily and play very very quickly
- a form of set collection again
- classic tableau builder would be something like San Juan
- this is a fantastic card game
- buying cards laying them out in front of us and they're going to keep generating us money
- this really is one of my favorite genres
- anybody can play these games and not everybody can play them well
- I love speed games I think it's a fantastic category of card games
- trick-taking games very very straightforward in their basic format
- the basic mechanism can be turned into all these different games
- all tweak it slightly in different ways
- my top ten card game mechanisms
- hopefully I've given you a broad picture of the world of card games
References (from this video)
- thematic feel with dungeon-crawl flavor
- quality components and art
- clear endgame pressure when the dungeon advances
- clunkier and slower than Dominion
- prone to stalls where few viable actions exist
- endgame mechanics can allow abrupt termination with attacks
- heroic dungeon exploration with monsters
- fantasy dungeon crawling
- story-driven fantasy
- Magic: The Gathering
- Dominion
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- attack/defense with limited interaction — Interaction exists but can be light; attacking monsters can be used to hinder progression without penalties.
- deck-building with dungeon exploration — Players draw and manage a hand, decide to buy or upgrade, and move into a dungeon to face monsters.
- leveling up heroes — Heroes gain levels via experience to improve capabilities.
- monster combat and dungeon depth — Monsters provide victory points and gold; advancing to deeper dungeon levels ends the game.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It's not like Magic; it's a Solitaire-like experience unless you tailor the Attack cards.
- There is almost no downtime in Dominion; you lay out your hand and go.
- Thunderstone is clunkier and slower than Dominion.
- The art stock on Thunderstone is nice; Dominion stock is fragile and shiny.