The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game App Review

Year: 2017 | Players: i-5 | Minutes: 30 | Ages: thirteen+

This The Dresden Files Cooperative Carte Game review was made after playing the game almost 15 times.

What is The Dresden Files Cooperative Menu Game?

The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game is a fantasy/mystery paw direction game in which you use your cards to investigate cases and fight enemies. There are 5 "Book" scenarios that you tin play through and each one is based on one of the kickoff five The Dresden Files novels.

The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game was designed past Eric B. Vogel and is published past Evil Hat Productions.

The Dresden Files Gameplay

In The Dresden Files Cooperative Carte Game, your goal is to use your cards to gather clues for the cases you're investigating, fight some of the foes who are standing in your way, and ultimately end up with more than solved cases than remaining foes on the lath.

Each game you'll choose one of the five Books to play through, or yous can create a random Side Job scenario. The Book's 12 cards are shuffled and put in two rows on the board, the ii cards furthest to the right beingness the furthest away from your characters at range half dozen.

The Volume decks contain Instance, Foe, Obstacle, and Reward cards. Your main focus is dealing with the cases and foes, but you usually have to take out the obstacles offset since they limit what you lot can do on your turn. The Advantage cards give you unlike types of benefits when they're removed.

Each of the five characters in the game has a unique 12-card deck as well every bit a Talent and a Stunt ability. The decks are made up of Investigate, Attack, Overcome, and Take Reward cards. You use Investigate cards to put inkling tokens on cases, Attack cards are for fighting foes, Overcome cards are for the obstacles, and Accept Advantage cards are played to remove Advantage cards.

Fate is the currency in the game. Each carte costs a sure number of Fate points to play and some cards crave you to roll Fate die, which can add together to or subtract from the Fate values.

Y'all take four options on your plow: play i card, discard a card for its Fate value, use your graphic symbol's Stunt ability, or pass by spending ane Fate bespeak. When you play a card, you pay its Fate toll and you cheque its range to see how far downward the two rows the ability can reach. When yous discard a carte du jour, you not merely gain its Fate points, you lot also get to use your character'south unique Talent ability. Your character'southward Stunt is his or her all-time ability, just it can only be used once per game. You don't get to draw cards at the terminate of your turn, but in that location are some cards and abilities that permit players to draw new cards.

This isn't a full-on limited communication game, merely yous aren't immune to tell other players exactly what yous have in your hand. You can talk about the strengths and weaknesses of your hand in full general terms, merely you can't state specific numbers, like Fate costs or investigate/attack values.

Each game ends with a Showdown stage, which is your concluding chance to solve cases and take down foes. The Showdown is triggered if a thespian tin can't afford the Fate cost of a card (due to a bad Fate roll), if a actor has to laissez passer and in that location are no Fate points left, or if you lot decide as a grouping to trigger it. For each remaining case and foe with a hit/clue token on it, you scroll dice and run across how many successes you can become.

You'll win if there are more than solved instance than foes remaining on the board at the end of the Showdown.

Pros

The Fate arrangement is what makes The Dresden Files experience similar a unique co-op game to me. Since Fate is a shared resource, it encourages players to cooperate in a style that you don't run into in almost other co-ops. You lot naturally want to spend the Fate to use the powers on your cards every turn, but you have to think about what's best for your grouping if you lot desire to win. That ofttimes means discarding cards to add together more Fate to the pool so other players can afford to apply their best cards. Information technology works to give players a team-first mentality.
Some other great thing well-nigh the game is that it gives you different puzzles to solve every fourth dimension it hits the tabular array. The Book cards are randomly arranged every game, you can choose different character teams (though Harry Dresden is ever included), and the dice strength you lot to constantly suit your strategies. There'due south plenty of replay value here.
I really like the Stunt and Talent cards. The character decks are all slightly different, simply it's the Stunts and Talents that actually make each grapheme experience unique. The Stunts are especially cool because you only have one adventure to use them and information technology's very satisfying when you can fourth dimension them perfectly.
I didn't retrieve I'd like the Showdown phase, but it'southward really a slap-up way to bring some added excitement to the terminate of most games. It besides gives y'all a hazard to pull off some last-2nd wins if you didn't play well during the game. Near of my grouping'southward games had close finishes – we've won about half of them on standard difficulty – and I've never felt like the randomness of the dice ruined the experience in any way.
The games are quick and have a great flow to them. Once everyone is used to the iconography, turns are very snappy. Even five-actor games take right around thirty minutes most of the fourth dimension.
The communication restrictions work to add some prissy tension to anybody's turns and to minimize quarterbacking. Since you lot don't know exactly what's in other players' hands, information technology'south really tough for one player to tell everyone else what to do.
The rulebook is first-class. It's well-written and it includes enough of gameplay examples, some card clarifications, and even some strategy tips.

Cons

I'm not a huge fan of The Dresden Files as a two-role player game. Each role player has to mix ii character decks together, which can result in some pretty bad initial hands since you only depict 9 of your 20 cards. In one of our games we only ended up with 2 low-value Investigate cards between usa, which made that game pretty much impossible. It'due south playable as a two-player game, but it's a lot better for three, 4, or five players, in my opinion.
Information technology'due south pretty disappointing that there's then much repeat artwork on the Book and graphic symbol cards. Each image works for one menu and ofttimes doesn't make sense for the other cards of that blazon, such as Karin'southward "Surprise Aikido Move," which just shows her shooting a gun. I think the card art is groovy, but I wish there was more of it.

Terminal Thoughts

I similar The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game a lot, and this is coming from someone who has never read any of the novels. I can well-nigh guarantee that fans of the novels volition get more out of this game than I exercise, just I like it because I get a full (and fun) board gaming experience from a game that only takes about 30 minutes to play. The Fate system and the advice restrictions combine to create a unique co-op, which is why this game has been in my drove for over two years now.

I definitely recommend giving this game a shot if y'all're a fan of The Dresden Files, but I also recommend information technology to anyone who enjoys playing co-op puzzle games. There really aren't too many other cooperative filler games like this out there correct now.

The Dresden Files Cooperative Menu Game Links

BGG | Amazon | Game Nerdz

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Dawbin Buttaide60