The Path of the Priest Review: The Path Less Traveled
Transcript
Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vasel and today we're taking a look at a little game called The Path of the Priest. I first played The Path of the Priest um a I guess it was last year when I was at a little convention in Mexico. And this is a little solo game that was up for an award there that then won that award. But I sat down and played this game. I remember them showing it to me and oh, it's a solo game and I played it time and time and time again. I played this game quite a few times. So, kind of going into this review, I really do enjoy it. But you probably haven't heard of it, but it's worth checking out. Let me show you. What you're going to do in this game is you put the apprentice at one end of the path and the deity at the other end and the other 14 cards are in between. I just put them here in two lines of seven so they fit on screen better, which I often do in person, too.
There are different masters here. They're the blue cards and then there are fake masters, which are the red cards. And they all different numbers on them. On your turn, you're going to pick any of the fake I mean, any of the masters, the true masters, and activate it. So, let's say for example, I pick prayer. Prayer says, "No, I don't want to do prayer." Let me see what Let me see here. I'm going to pick use philosophy. Philosophy says, "Choose a card that is two spaces away from this card and move it two spaces." So, I'll pick this one and go one, two. So, it moves here. So, that that was my move. After your move, every one of the red cards goes off in order. So, for example, doubt says, "Swap the two cards that are adjacent to this card."
And if you're unable to do it, move this card one space toward the path. So then I I was able to do it. Then Grudge says, "Destroy the lowest adjacent card." Bam! Laziness is now destroyed. Uh Fear says, "Send the lowest adjacent card to the beginning of the path." So that's where seven goes, all the way to the beginning of the path. And then uh Doubt six is the next one. Send the lowest adjacent card to the space before the Grudge. So this goes and it moves one space in front of the Grudge. And then 11 is Envy. Move the lowest adjacent card two spaces towards the Grudge. And even if it's moves beyond that. So that is how everything has moved.
Now, this card, the Apprentice card, can be one of the cards that's moved. You'll notice it's zero. And this card really kind of centers around the Grudge because if any card if the zero's ever next to the Grudge, it's destroyed. If your Apprentice is ever destroyed, you lose the game. Or if you can't activate a Master on your turn, you lose the game. So I'm trying to get the Apprentice. I'm going to try to move him up towards him. These other red cards, like you saw, I just maneuvered laziness so that it was destroyed. And you'll notice that many of the red cards are lower numbers. So if you can get them next to Grudge, but Grudge is not going to be destroyed itself. So you have to be very cautious. And every game's going to feel different when you put these 14 cards out. If I get the Apprentice next to the deity, you win. That's how you play.
Now, I don't imagine here that the First of all, I want There's a couple things I want to talk about. I like the theming of this a lot. It's fun to have these false teachers and other teachers. And the idea of moving things around is very interesting. But I don't imagine that after probably dozens of play, you might feel like the game starts to feel samey because there is infinite amounts of ways that the cards can go out there and I think I'm assuming that they're probably all beatable, although I can't say that for sure. I win this more than I lose it. Barely. So, I'm a little over 50% with it. And every time I'm like, well, I wonder if I go back in time and move this. Because you have a certain number of options that are out there, right? There's only so many bad cards. I think there's five bad cards out of and then there's nine good ones and you are using those good ones trying to manipulate the bad ones to getting destroyed. Or sometimes manipulating a good card to get destroyed. Whatever it takes to get that apprentice all the way to the thing. Like I said, everything kind of revolves around that grudge card cuz that grudge card is taking a card out every turn.
The game's not going to be more than 14 turns because it's going to destroy everything next to it. But how you manipulate things, how you move the different cards around is for me a fun and entertaining puzzle. This box is way bigger than the game actually needs to be. It could be a little wallet game, but I think this kind of box is fine because you want it to have some shelf presence here. But this is a solo game that you could play anywhere. Yes, 14 cards is long, but let's say I'm playing it on an airplane tray, I could just make three rows of five or you know, whatever how many cards and it's going to shrink as time goes by. But moving the cards around, everything's there. You're just picking one blue card using that blue card and then going through the red cards in order. Which at first feels overwhelming. Like I did one good thing and five bad things happen.
But I don't think of them so much as bad things as they're forces of nature. And you are rounding up these forces of nature and trying to manipulate them so that you can then get that apprentice to the master. It's a simple game, but I think the theme is interesting. I think it's a fun solo exercise. I'd like it a lot. This is an 8.5 for me, the path of the priest. I'm very uh happy. I think very highly of this little game. Definitely, if you get a chance, check it out. I'm Tom Vasel, and you've been watching the Dice Tower.
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