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Tides of Madness is a sequel to Tides of Time and features gameplay similar to that design. Tides of Time is a drafting game for two players. Each game consists of three rounds in which players draft cards from their hands to build their kingdom. Each card is one of five suits and also has a scoring objective.
After all cards have been drafted for the round, players total their points based on the suits of cards they collected and the scoring objectives on each card, then they record their score. Each round, the players each select one card to leave in their kingdom as a "relic of the past" to help them in later rounds. After three rounds, the player with the the most prosperous kingdom wins.
Tides of Madness adds a new twist to the above game: madness. Some cards, while powerful, harm your psyche, so you must keep an eye on your madness level or else risk losing the game early as your mind is lost to the power of the ancients. More specifically, eight of the eighteen cards in the game feature a madness icon, and while scoring, you receive a madness token for each such icon in your collection of cards. Whoever has the most madness in a round either scores 4 points or discards 1 madness token — and the latter option is valuable because if you ever have nine or more madness, you lose the game immediately.
Tides Of Madness - How To Play
- Players gather knowledge about the ancient ones to score points.
- The game is played over three rounds, with each round having distinct phases.
- Different cards offer various ways to score points.
- The order of card reception ensures different choices each play.
- Players can go insane and lose the game if they accumulate nine or more madness tokens.
- Discover the secrets of the ancient ones and avoid madness
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card drafting — Players choose one card from their hand, reveal it, and then exchange unchosen cards with their opponent, repeating this process until a set number of cards are collected.
- hand management — Players manage cards in their hand, choosing which to keep, discard, or permanently remove from the game.
- Push Your Luck — Players must balance gaining points with the risk of accumulating too many madness tokens, which can lead to losing the game.
- set collection — Players score points based on collecting sets of indicated symbols or having a majority in specific suits.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Hi, welcome to Watch It Played. My name is Rodney Smith.
- In this video, we're going to learn the two-player game Tides of Madness, designed by Christian Krill and published by Portal Games.
- As you race to discover the secrets of the ancient ones you'll need to thwart your opponent and avoid certain madness.
- So, join me at the table and let's learn how to play.
- And that's everything you need to know to play Tides of Madness.
- If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to put them in the comments below and I'll gladly answer them as soon as I get a chance.
- But until the next episode, thanks for watching.
References (from this video)
- Fun
- Tides of Time
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Shelf 16 is kind of a an odd mix here
- This shelf has twice as many games as most shelves
- one of my favorite two-player games, but it's very difficult to learn and play
- Fantastic abstract strategy game
- Such a classic game and I like it a lot
- I don't know why I like it so much, but I do
- one of the most beautiful dexterity/party games there are
- There are so many games on the shelf