Introduction

I play games with a lot of different groups of people. In almost all groups, I'm the one responsible for supplying and explaining the games. Because of this I have to think carefully which games I bring to which groups. These considerations for, in this case, Shadows over Camelot will be the heart of this review. Hopefully this will give you some insight in whether Shadows over Camelot is suitable for your specific group.

Information

Shadows over Camelot (SoC) is a cooperative game for 3-7 players. Although the game scales pretty well, 5-7 players makes the game more livelier and easier. The players each represent a single knight of the round table, and as such you are expected to quest, squash evil, and do good. Players try to work together to beat all the challenges ahead. Being succesful means adding white swords to the round table, and when the table is full the game ends. Alas, halfway during the game players secretly check whether they are a traitor or not. If a player is a traitor he will secretly try to undermine the group efforts without getting caught. This feeling of paranoia permeates throughout the second half of the game. The challenges increase in difficulty and cooperation grinds to a halt because nobody trust anyone anymore. In the end either the good team or the traitor wins the game by having repectively more white and black swords on the table.

The rules are clear, but cluttered. It's not a difficult game by any means, but the first game with a lot of new players tends to be a bit unwieldy. The quests have their own manual, and even though most of the information is on the board, it is not quite clear from the go what course of action is wisest. Subsequent games however increase teamwork and overall effectiveness of the knights.

The components are very nice. Beside the beautiful main board, there are multiple gameboards for quests, some of which are double-sided. Each player has his/her own plastic figurine, player aid and dice. After setup it looks like chaos, but not in the sense of unordered, but more as in so much nice things to look at.

What will "they" think of Shadows over Camelot?
Note that the stars indicate preference/attitude and not quantity, i.e. 1 star for playing time for a eurogamer means a dislike for duration for this game (i.e. too long). More stars equals more positive on a given subject. Of course caveat emptor and YMMV, because this classification is highly subjective. This means that these ratings are based on my opinion and experiences and may not correspond with others. Please leave some constructive feedback and I'll adjust the ratings accordingly.

1) Euro-gamers
overall
learning curve
playing time
strategy & tactics
luck
participation & downtime
fun-factor
look & feel
chance to hit the table

2) War-gamers
overall
learning curve
playing time
strategy & tactics
luck
participation & downtime
fun-factor
look & feel
chance to hit the table

3) Ameritrashers
overall
learning curve
playing time
strategy & tactics
luck
participation & downtime
fun-factor
look & feel
chance to hit the table

4) Non-gamers
overall
learning curve
playing time
strategy & tactics
luck
participation & downtime
fun-factor
look & feel
chance to hit the table

My $0.02 on Shadows over Camelot

The nicest thing about SoC is the cooperation it requires. In the first half everybody and his brother has an opinion on what someone should do to optimize the overall effectiveness. In the second half however, when the quests become harder, people start to question each other's actions, acting more selfishly out of distrust. This makes the game extremely fun to play with the right people.

Not everybody will enjoy SoC. You have to be in the "right" mood to be a willing participant. There's no quiet hanging back in this game. It's all about player interaction in every sense of the word. The interaction is the gameplay. It's pretty easy to teach, and the game can be played in 2 hours. I strongly recommend that at least one experienced player is present, of the game will wind up whooping the player's behinds.

Playing the game with 3-4 players is possible, but it makes the game a bit harder, because there simple are fewer knights around to quest. There are multiple variants and house rules on BGG that mitigate this. We tend to draw a free white card each turn, which makes it a lot easier.

I wouldn't call SoC a party game, but it's definately a recommended game for a larger group of friends looking for a laugh. The game scales up to 7 players, and expansions increase this even further. Ideal for large groups when games with 2-5 simple will not work.