Game Info
Year
2026
Players
3-4
Age
14+
Playtime
120 min
Collection
Your Tier
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Description
A troops-on-a-map strategy game in which shamans compete for dominance and control of temples under the influence of an alien monolith through tactical combat and resource management.
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Images
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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 2 ·
neu 0 ·
neg 0
Showing 1–3 of 3
Video 6BFExwUvvYA
Bower's Game Corner Preview at 0:15 sentiment: mixed
video_pk 112051 · mention_pk 322779
Click to watch at 0:15 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
mixed
Pros
- Lots of plastic
- Good price for the amount of plastic
- Has a striking table presence
- Tactical maneuvering
- Opportunity for well-timed backstabbing
- Solid price point
- Good shipping for the amount of plastic
Cons
- Terrible description
- Terrible main image
- Generic artwork
- Boring box
- Lack of detail in description
- Confusing pledge tiers focused on art
- Restrictive player count (initially presented as 3-4 only)
- Misleading funding goal
- Underwhelming Kickstarter campaign
- Game is a war game and not clearly highlighted
- Old main image was better than the current one
- Wasted space in the box
Thematic elements
- Slay your enemies and offer their hearts to the vile monolith.
Comparison games
- Dead of Winter
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Like is there action selection? Are there action points?
- Area Control — This is an excellent area control game.
- Asymmetric powers — Asymmetric powers.
- Cooperative — Tell me it's completely cooperative.
- deck builder — Tell me it's a deck builder.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- Slay your enemies and offer their hearts to the vile monolith.
- Terrible description, terrible main image.
- Oh my god, it's a dice tower.
- This feels like such an old school Kickstarter project where it used to be good enough to just have great art and great components and a slick looking slick looking video because that video was slick looking, but gameplay-wise, tell me tell me what that gameplay is about.
- Just It's just who who's running this ship? Like, who's like, "Yes, this boring generic."
- The original funding goal was $20,000 and this one is $50,000, which is them pretty much just lying...
- Wow. Holy crap. 70 bucks. You're doing two3 boy grade bump down just immediately.
- It's a highly interactive battle game reminiscent of classic dudes on a map games with the striking table presence, tactical maneuvering, asymmetric powers, the opportunity for some welltimed backstabbing.
- It's a war game.
- The price feels good and I think part of the reason why it feels good is because they already ordered the games... $81 is legitimately for that much plastic. That's a dang good price.
- But at the end of the day, controversy does help and I'm here because of the controversy, honestly.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video 2WAzGb6MpYQ
BoardGameCo Review at 0:02 sentiment: positive
video_pk 111576 · mention_pk 321146
Click to watch at 0:02 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- One of the easiest area control games to learn, teach, and play relative to its depth.
- Excellent ratio of simplicity to game quality.
- Strategically deep with rules-light presentation.
- Brilliantly structured timing between order and action phases creates compelling trade-offs.
- The first player to commit getting four actions is incredibly impactful.
- Shamans provide strong, impactful asymmetric abilities.
- Divination cards are amazing and a favorite part of the game, feeding into strategic trade-offs.
- Game length is reasonable, generally around 1.5 to 2 hours.
- Slaying is not overly abundant and serves strategic positioning.
- Top-notch components and miniatures.
Cons
- Events and objectives do not have as much impact as desired; they feel like small details.
- Tunnels on the board are easy to get lost and forget about.
- The red lines indicating impassable mountain scapes could be more clearly represented physically.
- The monolith's random outcomes can ruin a turn's plans despite mitigation efforts.
- There can be a huge shift in ability to execute plans if the monolith outcome is unfavorable.
- Some characters can seem overpowered, and balance is not fully confident.
- The physical monolith component can block line of sight and feels awkward when placed off the board.
Thematic elements
- area control
Comparison games
- Blood Rage
- DEI Divide et Impera
- Wonderland's War
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — The game is broken up into three phases: the order phase, the action phase, and then the rest phase. Players take turns spending hearts to perform actions like slay, boast, and maneuver.
- Area Control — The Monolith is a three-to-four player area control game that plays out across four days in which players are trying to do area control thingies. It's basically an area control game.
- Asymmetric Player Powers — Each shaman has a strong asymmetric ability that changes how the game is played. Some might seem overpowered but have nuance and depth.
- bidding/auction — Divination cards are acquired through a bidding system where players bid hearts. Other players can outbid, and if the original bidder is outbid, they have an opportunity to increase their bid for free (no action cost).
- event cards — An event deck is used in the cleanup phase, and the player with the least favor gets to choose how an event resolves.
- Objective Fulfillment — Players get points for various objectives, some of which they start with and others can be earned by controlling scriptoriums.
- Resource Management — Players spend 'hearts' to perform actions. Hearts are gathered and committed at the end of rounds, and players must balance spending them in the order phase versus the action phase.
- Set Collection — Collecting dead bodies on the board is important as they can be traded in for a variety of effects.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- The Monolith is a three-to-four player area control game that plays out across four days in which players are trying to, well, do area control thingies.
- The order of the action phase and the order phase and the timing of it all is a brilliantly set up structure in which you won't want to make as many choices as possible during the order phase cuz you a lot more control over how things are set up.
- The divination cards over here, these cards are amazing. Possibly one of my favorite parts of the game.
- The bigger issue is the monolith itself.
- For me, I'm still going to come in at a four out of five. I still think this is a phenomenal game.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video jUdI15KLh5A
BoardGameCo Playthrough at 0:00 sentiment: mixed
video_pk 111079 · mention_pk 319536
Click to watch at 0:00 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
mixed
Pros
- Encourages boasting for favor.
- High degree of player interaction and direct conflict.
- Offers flexibility with cards like "out of nowhere".
- The "haste" card is useful.
- The "necromancy" card is very useful, especially with the limbo pool.
- Provides interesting tactical decisions regarding positioning and action usage.
Cons
- Can lead to difficult choices and regrets.
- The "quickening" card can make a space a recruiting spot for anyone.
- Some actions feel less productive than others.
- Players can get "caught underground" thematically.
- The "surge" mechanic can be dangerous and might be better off without.
- Some players find certain cards "terrible" in hindsight.
- The game can be perceived as "violent" and "bloody".
Thematic elements
- attacking, destroying, fighting each other
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Players choose from actions like move, recruit, divine, commit, boast, and slay.
- Area Control — Players aim to control regions like temples, mausoleums, and scriptoriums for points or benefits.
- bidding — Players can "outbid" each other for cards like divination cards.
- Hand Management — Managing cards like chain lightning, necromancy, and haste.
- Set Collection — Collecting objectives and divination cards to gain advantages or points.
- Worker Placement — Spending hearts into an action tableau in the monolith to define available actions.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- The order phase is mostly where we spend our hearts.
- The action phase where we're then going to spend our our hearts from the monolith in order to take key actions, which mostly involve killing each other.
- The game really does want you to like, you know, aggressively boast.
- This is a prototype. All rules and components have to change.
- Basically, Meg's going to drop her tokens down here, but as the first player to do so, she gets this surge card, which means she gets four actions normally on a turn.
- I want to kill everybody.
- I don't want to have to kill you, Alex.
- This character should never surge. This character needs to be killed before they surge.
- It's so hurtful.
- And then we're going to score for everything else.
- The game is not as easy to pass through as you might think.
- It feels like you have two attacks there. That's still a lot.
- This game really matters a lot.
- I hate that he died over here. What was wrong with you? You crazy guy.
- It's almost like we're not living for your convenience. Person who's drastically ahead on points.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Transcript Navigation
Showing 1–3 of 3