The Malice of Light - A Whole New Adventure!
Transcript
Today we've got the next game from the Saddler Brothers. This one is called The Malice of Light. And if you're familiar with them, or even if you're not, we'll give you a little brief rundown. Uh the Saddler brothers have designed a number of games over the years, uh including some like Street Masters.
Yeah. Brock City, Alter City, Alter Quest. But this one in particular has a little bit more in common with something like Warhammer Quest.
Yeah, they they did the Warhammer Quest adventure card game. And I know they've they've had a long road to get to to this point. I think it's also worth noting that they've decided to uh start their own company so that they can handle from start to finish all the production. So, we've got a prototype of this new mouse of light game, which interestingly enough is actually set in a world of novels that Brady Settler has written,
one of the brothers, which is kind of cool,
has written some novels. This one is set in that universe. And like Ryan said, this is from their new studio, Twin Tale Studios. Uh, and like I said, it takes some of the adventure card game that you'd expect from something like Warhammer Quest, um, and adds some things and sort of fine-tunes it, tweaks it, and I would say even streamlines it in some respects, but at the same time adding a tactical element where you have this board where you're moving these miniatures around as well because you kind of like use that in conjunction with what you're typically doing with the cards in their games.
Yeah. A lot of the original game, if you remember Warhammer Quest or even Heroes of Teranoth, which kind of used the same system. So, if you're seeing here, this was like what Warhammer Quest was. It was it was this part. It was your playerboard with your action cards. You had some relics and some upgrades that you could put out. And then you were you were managing this to fight against these enemies that would kind of stack up here. They've taken this, like David said, and added this part. So, now it's not so much that you're here fighting this monster. This monster is now represented on the board as well. and where it tactically is located is going to change some of how it works. So, there were elements of that original adventure card game that are still very much present. And if you loved that game, I think you're going to love the the carryover from that into this. But, of course, when you add a map like this that gives you like actual location-based objectives you have to deal with, it's going to add a pardon my pun here, a new dimension to the gameplay.
Yeah, it it does. And while we're talking about games that you have played before and why you might like this one, there are some other games I would include in that maybe Ryan a little less so, but it has elements in this game that you find familiar with a lot of sort of adventure card games that you'd find from FFG. Yes. you know, not the overall game and how it plays, but there's going to be elements in this game that remind you of things that happen, say, in Arkham Horror, uh, things like Marvel Champions even to some degree, but there's no deck building or anything like that.
Oh, you don't you don't bring like a pre-built deck. You you come in with you choose your character. Your character has a very specific starting setup. Now, as you go through the game, you are going to upgrade your character. You're going to upgrade these abilities on these cards. You're going to add those relics. you're going to add upgraded versions like from these different decks and a lot of that is going to be from these tokens that you can find on the board. But like any good adventure card game, and I think this is the part where I would agree with you most, it feels like a puzzle because when you're setting it up, it's it's modular. You can kind of choose different bosses to play with different scenarios. You're going to play through three scenarios, like two basic scenarios and then a boss scenario. And you can kind of choose any two scenarios. So you are kind of pairing up like what we have here on the bottom with this set of cards which represent the scenario versus what we have up here which represent the boss.
Now we did just get a prototype so we're kind of limited. We don't have the full
Yeah. We have one we have one threeact sort of situation going on like Ryan said scenarios. There's act one, there's act two and then there's the finale. The finale is going to be driven mostly by the villain up here, but the villain is present throughout as well. And we can mix and match. Not to mention this board here is also associated with specific encounters. So this act down here, this area, the ruins of Arath is this board right here. The flip side might be the villain and we have another board that is the second act. But you can do these acts in any order. In fact, if you want to watch a playthrough, because we're not going to go through all the thorough details of how to play this game, but if you want to see that, a lot of the co-op channels out there uh have covered it. One-stop co-op shop, Meet Me at the Table, uh, Co-op Guild, all have playthroughs of this, and they actually played through with the other encounter that we're not showing here. And the second act, they went to this. We're using it as the first act, which you can do,
which is part of that modularity like like you said, you kind of mix and match. You match these things together, and the puzzle is going to change a little bit every single time because there are three kind of core things that are going to be carried over from scenario to scenario. And that's these cards right here. And you'll notice that each one of these cards, like this one, is represented by blue, green, and orange. Based on which actual villain you're using, you'll notice again the blue, green, and orange. Over the course of that three act structure, the enemy is going to get stronger. They're going to level up those three different types of cards. They're kind of tied into these like runes or sigles that you'll see on the board. They're going to level up unless you can deal with the very specific linked encounter cards that come with that scenario. That is where the real puzzle I think starts to to come out is you have to collaboratively talk to your cooperative teammates and say how are we going to approach this specific scenario dealing with these specific things.
Yeah, you're balancing that along with wanting to level your guy up so that by the time you get to the end of the game you are at a point where you can sort of take that villain on. But like Ryan said, these cards down here are called schemes, by the way. And the tokens on them are called peril. You want to remove that peril. And what's interesting about this is each of these colors, like Ryan said, is coordinated with one of these tokens. The villain is represented by a piece that's standing right here. And when we flip over this event card, which is going to happen after we both take our turns, it's usually going to trigger one of those schemes. But it's only going to trigger it if the villain is in that space. So you for can see here, grasping roots, it's going to do that. And in this case, before it does that, it's actually going to spawn more enemies onto the board, too. Those enemies are going to not only come out onto the board, but they're going to be coming out above our player board. So, you're going to have up to three enemies there that you're going to have to deal with. And on your turn, you're going to be doing a few different things. The one thing you have to do, and you can do these things in any order, but the one thing you have to do is do one of these actions. You have a few different actions here. One that's based on attacking, one that's based on exploring, and then you can prepare. and we'll explain a little bit about those.
But in addition to that, you may move. And then finally, there's something that they call ploy, which is kind of an umbrella action that has a few different options. You could move again.
Yep.
Uh you could search, which is also something you can kind of do in another way if you explore. Uh so it gives you a lot of options on your turn. Um but like I said, after every player's turn, then you have to deal with these enemies. But you're dealing with those enemies, too, as you take these actions. Yeah. So, there there's a lot that you have to to mitigate and smart use of these actions and like we said, leveling these actions up. You can kind of level them up in two ways. Now, you'll notice that each one of these cards has a single die. That means at the start of the game, if you're attempting any one of these skills, you're just rolling one die. Later on, you could get to the point where you're rolling three dice by the end of act three. That's really helpful. Each one of these dice might have a number of successes based on the action you're using. They do a little bit of a different thing. The attack action of successes let you attack. The explore action, well, they you can explore more.
The prepare action lets you prepare more cards, which is kind of returning them from your discard pile. But every time you roll the dice to deal with these uh actions, you have to roll red dice for every monster that's engaged with you. So, at the start of the game, everyone starts with one monster engaged with them. You have to roll one dice. And this dice might make that monster activate if it's close enough to you. It might have him actually deal damage to you or it might just have him kind of stalk you, move a little closer. But this is an important key part of the game because like David and I said, yeah, you want to deal with these peril tokens. Yeah, you want to upgrade by by getting all these other discovery tokens on the board, but if you ignore these monsters, you can have three, which means you're rolling again now three red dice with every roll of your blue dice. And that can get really bad for you. Not to mention all of those monsters are activating again at the end of the phase as well.
Yeah. Now, with that said, uh like a good Saddler Brothers game, there is a lot of rewarding dice rolling. So, first of all, the dice they have in their games, there's not a lot of lows. You're going to have some highs and lows in the game, but I think the game airs more on the highs than the lows.
There's no real like full-on just miss.
There's no miss,
which which is good. I like that.
So, you're going to hit you're going to hit twice. There's an exploding die, which allows you to roll even more. And then the worst side is effectively the shield, but that's defense. So that in case you do roll one of those attack marks on the red die, any shield can defend against that. Not only that is if you don't roll attack die and you get shield, you can sort of bank that as a guard that you can use later effectively as a shield and you can even use any of the successes that you don't need to increase your focus, which again allows you to mitigate things in the future. So, it's a very generous and rewarding uh system. And again, this is a prototype. This is just the first scenario. So, I'm sure it's going to wrap up. They made this so that people, I think, can get through it.
Yeah.
Um but with that said, the more often than not, it's going to give you some flexibility and make you feel like you're at least progressing. There's not there's not much in the way of rolling dice and going, "Well, complete fail."
Yeah. I mean, the fact that you can bank a lot of your things if you didn't roll the successes, you know, if you rolled too many successes or or no successes in all defense, banking them is really satisfying. But it's interesting what you say about the difficulty because the difficulties is honestly a little bit player controlled. Those first two scenarios that you go through, uh, those encounters are going to set you up or potentially not set you up for that final third act encounter where you're fighting the boss. By the time you get to the end of that third act, hopefully you've done enough upgrading of your playerboard with those relics and with those upgraded cards and you can get some items from the search deck that will let you do rerolls and and mitigate and things like that. Hopefully, you're in a place where you're prepared to deal with the boss, but it's possible that you might have spent your attention in those first couple acts just like fighting off monsters or maybe not doing things very effectively so that when you get to act three, if you're not prepared enough, it it's going to be a much harder fight.
Yeah. Again, I think we mentioned this a little earlier, but to make it clear, if you don't deal with these, these are going to get stronger. So, if these are stronger at the end of the game, it's going to be tougher. We have the first card here, but if after act one, this isn't removed. You add this one, which is a different one, sort of a leveled up one, and the same thing goes after act two, it's going to go up even harder. So, the more you can deal with the peril on these schemes down here, the better. Now, and these schemes are going to come out in act two as well. and there's even more peril on them then. So, just it definitely ramps up. I'd say the first act of the first time you play this in this sort of first scenario, that first act is going to feel probably easier than what you're going to expect certainly in act two and act three and then maybe even beyond with the game.
Yeah. And the the whole idea here is the game is throwing so much in front of you. And that's what we said at the very beginning that it kind of feels like one of those LCG puzzles that like when you sit down for a scenario, you're like, "Okay, well, we have to take all the peril. Like, we really don't want this one to level up because that one's good. So, let's focus on this orange one, but we also don't want to let the green one level up. Oh, but I also want to at least upgrade some of these cards and get one relic, but at the meantime, like but I have to use my turns to fight these monsters. So, I it's just there's so much to do and you really really do need to rely on teamwork and kind of try to set things up for your teammates and like help each other. You're really going to have to do that in a smart way, I think, if you want to have a strong chance of winning the third act.
Yeah. And one more thing I want to add to uh we've talked about the relic and talent cards. Uh the the base cards that you have on your board offer a little bit of flavor between your characters. they're going to feel like different types of actions even though they're within the same sort of umbrellas of those three types. Uh but the relics and the talent cards which you eventually get into your hand as you uncover some of these tokens not only are they going to give you more dice but your everyone at the table is going to be able to maybe add a relic or add a talent card. And when you do these cards are often just contextsensitive cards that you can play like in a certain circumstance. You know, I started with quick reflexes. It says play this card when an enemy moves into your space. So, if you have that, you can just do that when the card says you can. Or it says for a critical, so if you roll that exploding die, you can do something different than the typical exploding die action. This one allows you to do two damage to every enemy in the area.
Yeah. And you you do start with one of these and you can kind of get a good feeling for what your character is supposed to do. not only just from the cards that are in front of you because even these like David said are are asymmetric. They do maybe that that main attack action but then something a little different. My guy can give you defense and he can heal you with some of his cards. Obviously he's like more of a paladin type where your guy was a ranger who had long ranged attacks. So
you you really do lean into the theme as you kind of upgrade your character and get access to these new cards. And that also kind of goes back to that what I was talking about upgrading these because at the start of the game they all are just level one and you kind of have to decide like what what do I want my focus to be? Am I going to be heavy on fighting? Then maybe I want to upgrade my fight one or maybe one player at the table really wants to focus on exploring and you have another player really focusing on leveling up their fight action. So that that's kind of a balance too.
Yeah, that is definitely a conversation for the people at the table because if you all just like, well, I really want to upgrade my attack. you need to talk to each other because you're going to have to approach this game and say, "Okay, with all those different things we need to do, we're going to have to delegate some of those responsibilities around the table." Now, you'll have to stay flexible because things change depending on what monsters you have in front of us, where you happen to be on the board, what happens in these events, but you can kind of specialize your characters and have that conversation at the table such that like, okay, I'm going to go I'm going to run around. I'll be the peril guy. I'm going to run around from spot to pot and try to get the peril. But again, someone else at the table might say, "Well, that's not going to work because you can maybe do these, but you're not going to be able to get this, so I'm going to do a little bit on that as well."
Right. It's it is it requires you to have a level of communication. There's there's And I think that they really reinforce that. You talked about when you find these discovery tokens. I like that the bonuses you get apply to everyone. So, you don't need to decide like, "Okay, well, I've already gotten two bonuses. Now, it's David's turn. You need to go get a bonus." Like, we all share in the upgrades. So, it does keep people progressing. And you can even have one player just going around getting upgrades for people and it helps everybody on the team.
Yeah, exactly. Which I think is a nice touch because if you've ever played co-op games, sometimes you'll play a co-op game with a person who's like, "Yeah, let's do that." And then they run and get the loot,
right?
Uh in this case, at least in this scenario, uh you're running and that benefits everyone, which I also think just kind of encourages a mindset of cooperation a little bit more than some other games do. If you have any questions at all about it, please make them in the comments below. But we'll get down there and answer whatever we can. Until next time, make sure everyone has fun at the table and we'll see you then.