Dark Pact: Discussion
Transcript
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Hey everyone, welcome back to Board Games Unlocked. And Brian and I are doing a discussion over Dark Packed, which is a new Tom Layman game about uh deck building. I don't know what else he does. I think all he does is card card driven [snorts] games. Yeah. Um, the latest one that came out before this one was Res Arcana, which I think is a game that I loved immediately and its expansions are amazing. I think you've come around to it over the years a little bit. Yeah.
Um, it's expansions for that game definitely help. But the only uh thing I knew about this game was it's it's a deck building game that kind of wants you to break it.
Mhm. Uh, and that always kind of intrigues me because I play a lot of rogike games that are also in that same vein of where you can in any given run you could potentially just get this really broken build and I've always kind of been in interested in a board game version of doing that. Now, whenever you had taught this game to me, I was very much getting Dominion vibes. It clearly is inspired by Dominion.
Very much so. but with a lot of really interesting twists to that. Uh the the dark packed element and the multiplier element are two systems that are thrown into here that I really like. I do really like this game. However, I don't think this game would be fun with more than two.
Yeah.
Um
definitely not solo. any of you guys that know that I'm the kind of the solo person. I tried sitting down with the solo bot for this game and I was aruck about how convoluted and crazy and horrible it was. Well, like I just I hate those kind of solo deals like like cuz we you know I I've never I haven't played the solo for like an acne and stuff like that, but this has that whole flowchart which is not a convoluted flowchart if you look at that in the book
but then
it when they you have to make a decision for the bot. It's like there's a list of like 15 things. It's like okay this is the priority list of what they get rid of or what they buy
and there's a list for each one of those and it's just like you have to go through and spend all this time looking at the cards and all that. is like, "Yeah,
yeah, these kinds of games I would it's it's like, you know what? Instead of spending time designing a soul, a physical soul, just make an app. Just put that time towards an app so that you can play Dark Pack and it's all done done that way."
Exactly.
Uh but this one had me intrigued because um cuz I I do re I mean I really love Dominion uh and I love Rez Arcana. So, I just had a feeling that this game would be uh really good. Uh but I knew nothing about it,
right?
And man, is it it's it's like not a crunchy game, but it's crunchy at the same time because you have to meticulously plan out your entire turn.
And before you know it, it just gets way out of hand uh super quick because it's like if you're playing Dominion, it's not impossible to get around, you know, a turn like this, you know. Oh, okay. I'm going to play this. It gives me two actions, lets me draw, yada yada yada yada. But at the end of the day, for most of it, it's like, okay, I've acquired all this money. Now, I'm just going to buy 35 provinces and win the game,
right?
But this game doesn't have those kinds of end game endame conditions. So, yeah, there was a moment where I like discard a card and it's like I get a draw 12. All right, Brad, hold on. Sorry. It's still my turn. like uh so I I'm very impressed with it. I'm curious what your thoughts are on it.
Oh, I like it. I like I said, I mean, I bought it mainly because
it was soloable
and that since that's out now. Now it's pretty much going to be running at two-player. My wife has she looks at the box and has no interest in the art or any of that. So, it's not going to get played very often.
I like it.
I'll take it off your hands.
Well, I mean, I I don't know about that. We'll see. But anyway, um I like the the um dark pack version of this game. Like how they're all unbelievably crazy when you first see them, but then
it it's once the snowball starts rolling downhill, you can kind of do it. Like I had actually about three turns before your ending turn. Um I was going to uh I decided I'm going to try to run that deck out. I was gonna because I have all these cards that was just gonna be like and I was gonna play my multipliers and just keep wiping out the deal and because I had a lot more insight points versus and that would have been how I would have won.
Yeah.
So I was just like, okay, do I just start just blowing out the supply and just start refilling it with 10 cards every time? Cuz that would have been there's not very many cards here.
And I thought about that, too. I was like, okay, that deck's getting real low. I'm nowhere near getting 40 coins.
There's 19. I would have had to have done it twice.
Done it twice. Yeah. And
man, your sleeves make it look a lot more.
But I was thinking, okay, I I there's no I have nowhere near
40 coins, so I have to try and go a different route. But then I had one turn where it was kind of like this. I just had a bunch of actions. And then the dark pack came out. Hey, I have 15 different cards in play. I'm like, okay, I need to get that because that's that's apparently the the build that I have right now. I think the other cool thing with it is they have two separate locations for cards to go. They have a graveyard.
Yeah.
Which is your trash normally like you do. And then there's the exile.
And there's ways to mess with both of them.
Yeah.
You know, so like there's So when they go over there, they're not technically they're they're temporarily out of the game unless you play something cuz I had two cards that would have let me pull something back out and put it back in the supply.
Or there was those cards that you got a chance to play. I was going to be playing on my next turn where we'd each get a demon card out of there that I would pass out. You know, it was like,
well, that's a strate that's a cool strategy of, okay, I'm going to play this card that lets me exile those,
you know, that lets me exile this 12 cost that none of us are are any anywhere near. I'm going to play this card that lets me give those out.
Cool. I got a free 12 card at the beginning of the game. That's disgustingly. And I even thought about trying to go for the 19 insight because this one was worth 10, right? So, I was thinking, damn, okay. Uh, can I even possibly do that? But I had so many curse cards that I wasn't ever able to buy more. That was my only way of gaining them and then they quit coming out.
Yeah. So, you know, there there's a lot of creative stuff with this.
Um, it's definitely something that, you know, the more you're going to play it. I mean, cuz we saw most of the cards. I want to say like there's a few of them that we probably didn't that we didn't get to. Like the dark the dark packs. This is definitely going to be one that I hopefully he
if it's truly a game that gets legs.
Yeah.
That they add expansions to because there's only 13 dark packs is all there is. I mean, they're listed on the back of the card. That's what they have.
So, like they need to put more dark packs in there. They need to put more card types in there.
I was already feeling that. Um, yeah, after we had been playing it, I was thinking,
okay, this this is a really neat system. I think it's multiplier is something I haven't seen before.
Uh, where cuz initially you're thinking, man, can I only do one multiplier per card? Nope. You draw a bunch of multipliers and all of a sudden this three cost card turns into a 15. And it again once your deck is once you really start get getting your deck going it's it's just bonkers.
Um but but yeah it it you never really want to feel like you're going through the exact same cards. And this game just came out so these games take time to I mean Res Archon again was the base game. I I like the base game, but then it came out with two expansions and then the duo that was essentially a third expansion.
So, and then well, and the Race for the Galaxy has
like Yeah. five or six.
So, I'd be surprised if he just did this as a one and done.
It's going to be a lot up to the cuz Trick-or- Treat Studios is who did this.
Okay. They're they're the they're the company that traditionally prior to this um are the ones that did like the the Halloween the horror the like the Friday the 13th and Halloween and
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They they did a lot of those kind of games.
Um and then this came out and I saw Trick or Treat Studios. I'm like
a
but then I saw you know they people comparing it to Dominion being an interesting little deck builder. I was like I'll give it a shot. So this is kind of their own separate
little deal now. It's not taking a movie IP and trying to make something of it. So maybe they will take it because it was this game was only like
I think it was like 20ucks
it was 25 or 30 I can't remember how much I paid for it. I mean I bought it
at a game store so I didn't get the online price but
right
but uh it wasn't an expensive game at all and it shouldn't be. I mean it's it's a very
nound cards. Uh there's 200 and some total if you count all the cuz there's cards we didn't get to
if you play three or four and all that stuff too.
Um I mean cuz I think again the dark packs are all really they're all unique. Um but I will say that a lot of them are kind of like the actions of the cards are more or less to the same end point. Uh like one is okay have at least 20 unused actions. Um which again all comes down to the multiplier gimmick where you can play one card that says hey you plus two actions. Well that's that's a physical two. Uh so I'm going to drop a bunch of multipliers on it and oh that's 15 actions and then as long as you can kind of snowball a little bit more out of that then that's how you get your 20. I like the fact that there are two types of dark packs as well with the keepers, the one that stay out and you can just have as many of those out as you want versus the instance.
So, it has that element of
you can physically see what I'm aiming for, but you might have an instant in your hand that you can just out of nowhere be like, "Oh, and I got 19 enlightenment points, so I auto win."
Right? Uh, it has a decent amount of card play, but kind of like with Dominion, the attack cards, there's very little interaction between players.
Well, and I didn't see hardly any more of those react cards because like you bought you bought one of them or maybe a second one, but I didn't really see many react cards
in terms of react. Oh, yeah. React cards. I bought one. I barely Yeah, I barely saw any, but there were a few others that were part of cleanup that all the ones that I saw was leave this in play. While this is in play, you can't be affected by attacks, right?
And then it goes away. So,
I think this game can really, you know, have a lot of staying power if it actually gets some support. The problem with this game though is how do you support it with uh with balance, you know? I mean, unless it's a game that's not really meant to be balanced, but
I mean, you could ask the same thing about any deck builder that gets expansions, though. I mean, Dominion, look how many expansions are for Dominion,
right? There's going to be play testing amongst all the sets.
Yeah, but Dominion doesn't have I think it's because of the multipliers. Yeah, like the the multipliers are are the the key difference because and then the main difference with Dominion again is you have a you have a set of okay, I have 10 piles out,
right?
And this is all that's ever going to be out for this game. It's 10 cards, but they all come from a shuffled deck.
Uh so the way that they come out, you're going to have 10 pretty much unique cards out every single time. So I don't know. I mean, I definitely think it's it's doable,
but with a game that's almost designed to be broken.
Yeah.
Uh there's a fine line of, okay, it's broken and unplayable versus, okay, cool. We're all in the same vein of being of breaking it at the same time.
Right.
The other thing that was kind of weird to me was the grimoire.
That was Yeah. Well, I don't I don't understand the point of it. Yeah. Other than just
you have to take time to get those cards out because they weren't like the super powerful card. I mean, there was a times two, there was another
a money card and then a a spirit card
that you could pull out of there. And I'm and it was just like, you know, I didn't know if like you just had 13 cards in your deck to start the game instead of the 10. I guess this is maybe a fallback if there's nothing out there to buy. That's what I was going to say is because this game does not [clears throat] have like most deck builders where it's a supply of, oh, I don't have enough money to buy from the market, but I can buy a a two, I can buy a silver over here.
So, yeah, you have a curse, you have a times two, and then you have your another silver that are all easily affordable with the cards you start in your deck. So, yeah, if they because again, you just shuffle all the cards together and it's 10 random ones. They're all sevens or 15s or whatever that you can't ever afford. Well, now I could buy something for my grimoire that allows me to kind of pick things up so I can start buying from here.
But there was I I had one card that allowed me to pull a card and put it into my grimoire. You can kind of reserve it.
Right. Right.
But there's not that many of those. So I was kind of feeling like you. It's like what's even really the point of that? It almost feels like again you don't start with any multipliers. Uh or you do you start with you start with two.
Um
but it almost feels like it's trying to temper you a little bit so it doesn't break that quickly.
Well, and especially because the first one there's four starting ones.
Yeah.
Um and well, some of them went out in play. There'd be a Newman numeral three. This would have been a starter one.
Yeah.
That was 20 25 curse points. So, it's kind of like the
Yeah.
Uh, put this in play. If you have at least 25 curse points, you win.
And then this one is
This one was 45 insight.
45 insight. This was 40 coins. And then 22 cards in play,
not stored, you win.
So, those So, those are you're not going to do any of those.
Yeah. So, those the starting four always feel
way harder to do than the ones you can actually get. But that's also because one, so you don't win the game immediately. And two, because they're not in contention
when these come out. It's not people trying to exile them or take them from you.
So again, like for a game like this, this could have easily just been a unplayable like busted game.
I mean, props for attempting to make a solo version for a game. I mean, look at this. Look, look at this. draw like I drew 12 cards in one play and then just kept and I had my whole deck in hand.
The bot plays just like a human player, but you have to make every decision for every card played. So, you're going to be going through that priority list for every action.
I know.
I'm just like there's no [ __ ] way.
I know. Just it's almost like just play two-handed at that point. Um, one other thing I want to point out really quick was I wasn't sure the usability of why they had that, but I could see with the there could be in cards saying if there's the same number of demons as there are players then pass out. So that's why they have that as a sorter. Yeah.
For the exile cards. Um, that would make it a little simpler like having to constantly Yeah. have grab the exile deck and be like one.
So you can kind of see them all spled out there which is kind of a neat idea as well.
It is. It is a little neat, but at the same time,
it's not necessary, but yeah, it is not necessary. And at the same time, then you have to shuffle them all together again. So you
because like otherwise at all.
Well, whenever you're setting up the the market to play it again, you have and hopefully they're not all grouped together so you don't draw all the dark packs again.
Gotcha. And it could be a color or like a color blindness help thing too, maybe.
Maybe. But they all say it at the top of what they are.
Yeah. Well, and that's the other thing. It's like it's difficult. There's so many different cards
that you're constantly that was shut up and sit down's biggest complaint was that you're going to spend half of your time like this
like looking at all the cards because they're not like
like I couldn't tell you by looking at the art what they do.
Oh, no.
You know, so it's like you're going to have to be like staring at all those cards and looking at every single card that comes out.
Yeah. Yeah. And if you're unfortunately that player who's facing backwards, you just have to
I mean, you have to be that person who takes it.
Oh, no. And there's no way to really fix it unless you
I mean, I guess you could make it difficult for both people and make that face you and the bottom row face you,
you know? I mean, I don't I don't know.
I mean, the fix for Dominion is one, the cards are static of what they are. So, once you read them all out, the And then two, you can do what I did and buy a lazy Susan for it. uh which is just super sexy to have. But but yeah, it this one I don't think it's it's not that complex of a game either. I can definitely see people getting overwhelmed with how many actions. This is what I learned from Moon Rakers is you play them out to just remember where all your actions are going. But yeah, I mean, it's just super cool to not have to have your whole deck be built around drawing, for example, where you could just play one card that lets you discard one card to draw 12 cards.
Like, that's just that's really neat. Um, and I think this game has a really nice balance of by the time the game is over or by the time your deck is like that, the game's probably over,
right? Yeah. That's crazy. So that would let you draw two 10 because it was the cost,
right?
Yeah, that's nuts.
Yeah, it was um which one was it?
It was
Oh, that ball one up there. The inside card up there.
Um it was I don't I remember using it a couple times. I just
Yeah, it was one that doesn't exist anymore. I don't know. I don't know where it's at. But yeah, it was dis it was. Oh, there it is. It was the sacrifice. Destroy a card from hand or your play area to gain draws equal to its cost number. So that down there. So, and this gives you an action. So, at that point, I like drew my entire hand. And then it was just a matter of I need to have 15 different cards. I need to make sure that I play I don't play duplicates,
right?
Um or peter out on actions because I miscalculated because that would suck. So, yeah. I mean, I I would be very happy. I mean, any of these kinds of games, I'm I'm always just more excited for expansions, uh, cuz that just gives way more variety and legs to the game. But
pretty solid, uh, unique deck builder, which is kind of rare nowadays to have a small deck builder come out and then not just be a reskin of another one that's already it's like, oh man, this is pretty much Dominion just with
dark pictures. Okay, I'm just going to stick with Dominion because there's 15,000 expansions. So,
yep.
Uh, so yeah.
Uh, Brad, what would you give this one on a scale of 1 to 10 [sighs] if the solo was viable?
The solo is viable. You just have to read a flowchart for an hour.
It would be higher because I would get it played more. As the way it is right now, I'm probably sitting at about a seven.
Seven.
Seven and a half. That's down there. It's not bad at all. I mean, I like the game. It's just knowing that it's not going to have that
get played a whole lot, you know, at this point. Um, it's because, you know, I the flowchart itself is just this. It's very simple.
Yeah.
It's just do they do this? Yes. No. But then it's like when you get into all the priority lists and all that crap is when it just becomes dumb. Yeah. Like I don't really see even if it even if the even if the solo bot played just like for example if you were playing yours and then it did exactly what I did which would be really cool in and of itself. How was that fun? How would that be fun to sit down? I mean, I wasn't even I guess it's not even that fun playing with another person because you just sit there and like watch the other player do out play out their whole deck when your whole next turn is all right, I'm gonna buy this. All right, go back to you. Oh, I'm and then I'm going to do and then and then oh, I'm going turn this into 80 coins and I win. Yeah. It's like all right. Now, was it fun for you? It's like the person like these kinds of games going to turn into well I'm the only one that got to have an orgasm.
Well, when I was so close I was I was I was
Oh, were you almost there?
I was edging was like cuz I mean I had that I had the chance. I I was probably a couple turns,
two, three turns away [clears throat] from get I just need to get that card and then get one more insight that would have gotten me up there. But yeah, it was it wasn't that it was a blowout by any means. Like there was a couple of turns I didn't really do a whole lot because I was hoarding cards trying to do something
but then but then I think I'll sacrifice this,
you know. So, but yeah. No, I think seven seven and a half right now, you know, it's it's good.
It's just one of those that I
a need to play more and b I'm not going to be able to play more. That's that's going to be the thing cuz my wife is not does not look interested in this at all.
Um yeah, my girlfriend would re cuz she loves Dominion and this theme is right up her alley. So, I think she would like this uh probably even more than Dominion, but I'm I am going to temper myself though because I I'm going to give it an eight.
Yeah. uh with the way it played the mechanisms with the multiplier and the the ex like extreme turns. I think this game could be amazing in if it got to not dominion level. That's just insane. But like I think two big box expansions I think uh where just you need you just need card variety and you need it's it's like with any rogue like base game this is good but I played it
five times and I've seen everything it has to offer. Oh wait, they just announced DLC. Cool. And then new boons or whatever get involved,
right?
Uh this is how these games have to go. So, with it having Tom Layman's name on it, I don't think he's made a game that doesn't have expansions.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Uh cuz Yeah. Like I said, Res Arana had at least two. So, and I'm glad it didn't come out and it was Oh, wait. This is just Resarchana just with dark gothic theme. Yeah.
You know, cuz like we had Resarch then Etherstone came out, which isn't Tom Layman, but it's Oh, wow. This is pretty much
Resarchana just slightly different.
So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, only time will tell. I think he's a great designer. I like a lot of his games, and I'd be looking forward to the future with this. But yeah, I'm going to sit at an eight, but it could easily be uh it could be a nine, potentially a 10 if if it really gets some support,
right?
So,
all right.
All right. Anything else?
Nope.
All right. Well, that's our thoughts on Dark Pack. Let us know what you think of the game in the comments below. Other than that, like, comment, share, and subscribe, and have a wonderful whatever day it is for you.