Weirdwood Manor Board Game Play-thru 

Thanks! We've definitely had a number of play-testers make a similar observation - and we’ve tried to focus on adding a lot of variability so that “puzzle” feels fresh from game to game.

@@WeirdwoodManor For sure! Definitely looks like lots of replayability

Thanks! Essen was awesome but impossible to check even half the games we wanted to see! =)

Thanks - on both counts! =)

We hope you enjoy it! =)

@@WeirdwoodManor we played it today! Was amazing! We won on day 12…just.. components are beautiful and its really fun with interesting choices! Thankyou😉

As a matter of fact, we will be posting a video of the board being disassembled on our Instagram soon (greyridgegames) so people can understand that better!

@@WeirdwoodManor Excellent!

The game plays 1 to 5, so yes, it is soloable and we’ve tested it as a solo game too. No different rules required though we recommend playing solo with two characters, which adds a lot to the experience because each character has different abilities to take advantage of. But you can play it with just one character if you want a higher challenge-especially against the harder monsters.

Not when playing against the Chaos Ogre, but you can in certain ways when playing the other two monsters. Hope you enjoy the game!

Check out our KS updates and you'll find that yes, we have done a rework of the room and corridor connections! Re:rules... 1) James played Tactician's Gambit in that spot, which let's him draw 2 more cards to his hand and then play a card overtop of Tactician's Gambit. 2) You get the 2 XP every time that happens.

@@WeirdwoodManor Awesome. Thanks for the clarifications. Very much looking forward to play it!

We’re aiming for a Spring Kickstarter (hopefully April) and will be finalizing and announcing the date towards the end of January, so I hope you stay tuned. =) We will be offering a Standard and Deluxe version of the game (the Deluxe will have the acrylic standees and not minis). I appreciate many players love minis (we do too), but we’ve had an incredible reaction to the acrylic standees at conventions when people see them in person and we feel they show the character illustrations off really well on the table. As to the cards, everything in the game is consistent in artwork and illustrations of course but Weirdwood is a broader universe we created that we’ve published books in and made mobile apps for, so sometimes we’ve pulled in some artwork on our RU-vid from those. Oh - and we are not planning full expansions as part of this KS, but rest assured we are working hard to make certain we can offer some cool goodies, stretch goals and great pricing on the pledges! We want to make certain players feel like it is worth their dollars and trust in us when they make a pledge! =)

@@WeirdwoodManor Thanks for the response! Our game company is also considering Acrylic Standees so I understand exactly where you are coming from. I signed up to be notified. We will be supporting your game :) Happy Holidays!

Glad to hear it and thanks for watching!

@@WeirdwoodManor I backed!

@@2532robh1 Thanks - really appreciate the support!

These are all good ponderings and questions. I’m the play tester in the video and I can answer some questions and provide some details. Wally (the thief) is a strong character, but it takes some work to get in the groove with the way he steals the dice. It took me many play throughs to get the hang of how Wally worked and I don’ think he’s overall a stronger character than the others. Wally can only ever steal 4 dice maximum. In a game against the Ogre, by the time Wally has reached level 4 of the Thief’s Gauntlet, the Ogre is probably angry or enraged (meaning he battles with a minimum of 6 or 9 dice), there are probably a few blighted rooms, and he may have extra dice or extra hits. It’s not uncommon for the Ogre to have a hand of 8-10 dice or more. If Wally can only steal 4 of them, the battle is not easy to win. As Wally levels up his Thief’s Gauntlet, the monster will also be levelling up too. It’s possible that Wally can use a spell or two, or get help from other characters to increase his odds, but that’s balanced across all characters. Choosing which dice to forge is a major part of the game. Forging attack dice makes does help deliver more hits. But it may mean that you take hits too, and lose health, or lose forged dice. Taking hits in battle can slow a character’s progress by reducing health (and hand limit). Forging the balanced dice can be a great tactic, to try and get the burst icon in battle, which triggers a special action unique to each character. Defence dice are helpful… to reduce the damage taken in battle. My experience is that different players forge different dice based on their personality or strategy for the game and character in that moment. The top side of the monster activation card is definitely referenced. Knowing if the monster is going to try to move, spawn scarabs, or battle… is vital information. It can give a chance for players to leave a room (or move Lady Weirdwood) if the monster is going to attack. Or open or close a room if the monster is going to move. Game length was pretty similar for our play throughs… winning or losing. The biggest variability seemed to be number of players and the amount of decision making and discussion. Time tracking and managing the rings is a big deal. In this video we are all very familiar with the game so there wasn’t a lot of discussion about it. But in a normal game there is a lot of discussion about moving time and which time of day to play the card to and which slot in that day to play to. This can change with 4 players, especially with the outer ring, as the day can move between a player’s turns and they can be trapped if they don’t have a way out (portal, or spell or room move card). This game is open ended at the start and not all strategies for your player will go to plan, based on scarab monster movement, rooms blighting, battle success… etc. I have started this game many times with ideas of what I would do for strategy, and had to change drastically as options changed. Other players could be affected by an alpha player but as you’ve pointed out, they do get to roll their own dice and they will get to make many individual decisions for which cards to play and which XP tracks to go up. Yes the players often feel in danger. It’s common to take damage in battle, it’s common for the monster to attack back in his turn and it’s common for the monster’s other win conditions to be on the edge. This play through is not a true representation of an average game. It was played by the designer and 2 game testers who have been involved in the design and have played it many times. We played the simplest monster intentionally for ease of understanding for the viewers.

Thanks for the thoughts Tom. We're getting to this a little late (so busy with the KS) but I think James has done a great job of adding some perspective so I'll point people to his reply!

Glad you’re liking the game! Here are some notes from a play tester… The different monsters require slightly different strategies... but here are some suggestions for how to beat the monsters: -Clear the throne room. The character that clears the throne room should get enough scarabs and XP to get extra dice, and cause extra damage in battling the monster. -Have 2 characters in the room to attack the monster. That way if they spawn scarab(s), hopefully one character can clear the scarab(s) and the other can attack the monster. -Support one character to max out their dice. We’ve had good success in helping one character attack the monster, either by moving them around the manor or giving them resources (with powers or certain rooms). -Wait to attack the monster until one or more characters have more dice, and possibly companions. Even though the monster gets more powerful in the mid game/late game, the characters typically will also get significantly more powerful by gaining dice, XP, and companions. -If possible, plan attacks by a character to be on their 4th turn so there are multiple matching icons on their cards played above their board. -Depending on which monster you are playing and their powers for causing the players to lose the game… you can have all the players attack the monster one after another. There is some risk with this as the monster can attack players on the monster turn if they are all in the same room, and you may need to leave some players out of the battle to take care of spawning scarabs.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the game and yeah, it definitely can be challenging. =) Making certain you have extra hits and blocks when battling monsters is definitely import and I think the other reply on this has some good advice. Matching bonus icons on your played cards, adding companions, gaining and using Tactics Cards, forging more dice, and using certain powers can produce some devastating attacks. Good luck and we hope you'll keep battling! =)

Thank you for this! We played it again and beat the Chaos Ogre next up we take on the Wraith!@@WeirdwoodManor

This is excellent advice thank you. This will help with our next playthroughs!@@james09james

It really is a fun game though! We will be coming back to this one for a long time to come. Its on our regular rotation of games now @@WeirdwoodManor

Thanks for the feedback Gozzy… It’s worth keeping in mind that as the designer of the game, I have played it many, many dozens of times (as has James, one of our longest-serving play-testers) and so knowing the ins-and-outs of each assymetrcial character, I think we’re both trying to keep things moving along for the video by making a lot of suggestions; especially in the early part of the play-thru as I explain a lot of the game mechanics. In our testing, there is ceraintly a lot of table-talk and suggestions of what could players do and discussing options - but given the asymmetry of the characters and the weight of the game, especially against the harder monsters, we’ve not seen much quarterbacking; it tends to come from all quarters as the game progresses. We’ll be working on getting other videos released by other content creators, so hopefully you’ll see more of that with players who don’t have 50 or 100+ plays under their belt! =) Anyway, I appreciate the feedback!