Game: Adventurer: Card Game

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Adventurer: Card Game

willdesigns — 2008-09-10T16:07:14+00:00

Hi, Tom, I agree with several of your points but think that more than a review this is a personal opinion in dislike of the game. I own it and eventhough I do not like the art I can see the point and the audience of the game as this is mainly to be played solitary. There aren't many dungeoncrawls you can carry in your pocket and that you can play in 15 minutes. It's not a Descent of course, it's a filler but the game system is simple enough so you do not have to pay much attention if you play it in a plane or a car or just when you are bored and want an easy fantasy dungeoncrawler.

Personally I would have done a better artwork for the cards and definitely tone down the basic Microsoft Office colors used. The cards stock is good and they are well laminated.

The price is a little high but since there aren't many fantasy solitary games outthere that can fill a pocket, well it's offer-demand.

Also I completely agree with the fact that the heroes are all the same. I would have added some skills and choices but that is just me.

I play it from time to time when I need a pause at work and it does what it was created for. Truth is I like it despite all the negative. I would n't play it with others not matter what as there are plenty of multiplayer dungeoncrawlers in the market but for a solitary game is not that bad.

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Adventurer: Card Game

ScottE — 2008-09-10T06:39:01+00:00

Yep, have to agree with this review. I picked it up awhile back and we tried it. We played it as our last game of the evening and it was nice to have something that was super fast and didn't require a lot of thinking. But one game was enough to see it all and I don't expect this will ever hit the table again. It might be fun if you are abit drunk.

I know there's some expansions coming out for it but if they are just more of the same I don't see the point.

One thing to note is they have "designer" cards you can buy on their website. You get ONE card for THREE DOLLARS! Wow, even less cost effective then Runebound deck expansions. Or buy all 4 for only $12!!

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Adventurer: Card Game

Joeyeti — 2008-09-10T06:38:18+00:00

I guess you are better off with Dungeon of D, Island of D and such

Especially with the recent re-design of one of them!

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Adventurer: Card Game

Yokiboy — 2008-09-09T20:26:09+00:00

Man, that sounds awful! It's like they took all the bad points of Talisman 4th Edition and created a game out of them, leaving behind anything remotely interesting.

(By the way, Talisman works fine with kids as well. My 4-year old daughter loves it! And, yes, we use all the included variations for speeding up the game.)

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Adventurer: Card Game

scottandkimr — 2008-09-09T19:16:34+00:00

Interesting review. I tend to feel the same when I play and would not play it with adults. However, I bought this for my 7 year old boy and he absolutely loves it. Oddly enough my 4 year old very girly daughter also loves this game. Even though she can't read the cards, she knows most of them from playing it so many times and will call out "failing floor" when she draws it.

Anyway it has been a smash hit with two of my kids. My 9 year old boy liked it at first but his interest has waned. Anyway, while I can't say that I look forward to playing it, it is a quick game I can play with my two youngest that they love. It is one of the few games that the kids will play without adults. Not sure why that is.

Also my two youngest kids love to customize games and so they have made about 10 other character cards that have different abilities that are more interesting that then ones with the normal characters. For example there is a princess that can charm monsters (steal their treasures without fighting them) on certain dice rolls. There is a Huntsman character (the 7 year old has been reading the Prydain chronicles) that gains power as he kills monsters. The characters are not always totally balanced but the kids have a blast.

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Adventurer: Card Game

woodoo03 — 2008-09-09T19:09:37+00:00

FINALLY an accurate review of Chainsaw Warrior!! Thanks Tom.

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Adventurer: Card Game

SeanXor — 2008-09-09T17:26:02+00:00

I think you are selling this game a bit short. To address the issue of audience, this game is for anyone who wants to play a dungeon crawling game in 15 minutes. The fact that it is cards, also makes it much more portable than a board game. This game can also make a good gateway game, and it is excellent to play with kids. To compare this game with Descent or even Talisman is unfair, because while it is going for the same feel it is not meant to play like one of those games. I have not used them but the two expansion decks are suppose to add extra strategy and player interaction.

It is not a revolutionary or mind blowing game, but there is some fun to be had and I think the contempt that you treat with your in review is a tad unfair.

Thanks for taking the effort to make a video review though!

Thread: [Video Review] Adventurer: Card Game

TomVasel — 2008-09-09T14:14:23+00:00

Quick Summary: An awful card game that tries to simulate a dungeon quest, but is luck filled and boring.

Youtube Video

Thread: rpg adventures

dimitkan — 2008-07-15T16:09:53+00:00

Adventurer is a role playing card game. Having played many RPG- style boardgames, I’ve tried to make it more interesting adding miniatures, boards and scenarios.

First, I created a scenario. There are a lot of them, from Heroquest to Descent and D&D scenarios on the web.

Second, I chose miniatures for the heroes.

Third, I used some boards from other games that were fitting my adventure.

Forth, the rules. All the rules from the Adventurer card game stay the same. But there are some new ones.
Every hero moves 10 squares.
There are places on the board where the players draw cards. These places are decided before the game begins. I keep them secret from the other players (like a GM). When a hero steps on a square with a card he rolls 1d4 (4-sided die). He draws that many cards and places them closed on the board. The player then opens the first card as usual. If another hero comes on that place, he opens another card, if available. When there are no more cards on a place, then the players can’t draw new ones.

Some places specific to the scenario have their own events. For these events I create the monsters. If the players must check for something (hearing, searching), they have to roll 2 dice and they must roll a target number.

So, the players continue to explore the map until they complete all the scenario objectives.

Thread: Review of Adventurer: The Card Game

ScottE — 2008-06-15T20:39:24+00:00

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Adventurer: The Card Game is a very light filler dungeon crawl. The game comes with 4 hero cards and 77 dungeon cards (including 1 bonus card in LE box version). Also included in the box are 2 dice.

The object of the game is to defeat Lord Lodrac. The deck includes various monsters, items, and traps. The gameplay is pretty basic. On your turn you draw a card. If it is a monster you roll 2 dice for your character, adding any weapon bonuses. The player to your left rolls 2 dice and adds the monster’s combat bonus. If the hero’s roll is equal or better, he/she wins. If the card is a trap you usually roll a number or better or lose 1 or more turns or hitpoints. Other cards you can encounter are special items like healing fountains or unguarded treasure you can immediately pick up.

Each player picks a hero at the beginning of the game. They all have 4 hit points and have one special ability. Macal can jump past failing floors, Lalliard can pass through magic locked portals, Izgar can pass by collapsed areas, & Aeria can unlock locked doors. Basically each one can bypass one type of trap or obstacle. This means they don’t lose a turn but can discard that card and draw another one.

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Item cards can be won either by defeating monsters or finding unguarded treasure. Weapons add to your combat roll but only one can be equipped at a time. Armor allows you to roll a second time if you are defeated to save from losing a hit point. Normally if you are hit by a monster you lose 1 hitpoint. But if you have armor you can roll again, adding your armor bonus. If you roll greater then the monster’s roll you are still defeated but don’t loss a hit point.

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Monsters are usually one of 5 types- Zombie, Skeleton, Shadow, Ghoul, & Ghast. There are many of these in the deck, each one slightly tougher then the last. There are 3 Vampire Brides that are the second toughest monster, with Lodrac hardest to defeat. If you win the combat you get an item as a reward. Normally the player has the option to run away by rolling a 7 or less (if carrying more then 5 items a 4 or less) unless they encounter a Vampire Bride that has the Surprise special ability. Lodrac is a special monster that if defeated ends the game. But you must have a stake weapon item in your inventory to actually win. If you defeat him without a stake then he gets shuffled back into the deck.

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Other cards are traps, obstacles, and special objects. Traps usually require a roll to avoid or you lose your turn/take damage. Obstacles block your passage and end your turn. Unguarded treasure is an item you can pick up without having to fight a monster. You can also find stationary objects that give a bonus but have to be used immediately. One interesting special card is the Golden Portal. This card allows the active player to draw 2 cards and keep the items (don’t have to defeat any monsters on the card) while the rest of the players can draw 1. This is optional, otherwise discard the card.

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Gameplay is fast! There’s not many special cards since most are monsters. You can play this game in 10-30 minutes. The box says 10-15 but can longer depending when Lodrac shows up. He could come out right away or lurk near the bottom. Since you need a stake, most likely he will get shuffled back a few times unless someone gets lucky. And luck has a big factor in this game. The die rolls swing things drastically. Even loaded with many items you can get defeated by a lowly zombie on a bad roll. Dying isn’t a big issue since you reset to 4 hit points and must lose half your items (rounded up). But you do collect a lot of items so this isn’t a big deal. There’s a fair amount of healing items and healing fountains to be found.

Negatives: The card quality isn’t great. They are very readable but aren’t to the quality of your standard CCG. Certainly playable and should hold up ok unless the game gets played heavily. The big negative for this game is how super simple it is. Replay is lacking since there are really very few special cards. Most of the game you will be defeating the common 5 monsters over and over to build up items to defeat Lodrac. I don’t see this game hitting the table very often. If you need a short game for a few laughs after a particularly long brain burning game, then I highly recommend this. If you want something with more choices and a meatier game, then I recommend something like Dungeoneer which can take a couple hours but has far more interesting cards to chose from.

The website promises more expansions coming. Hopefully these will have more interesting special cards. As a base game this fills all the normal types of encounters. But more monster variety and more unique cards would give this game more replay value. Certainly this is a promising light game and good for a laugh when people are ready to pack up for the night.

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ScottE — 2008-06-15T20:10:55+00:00

Traps, obstacles, and other special cards you can discover.

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ScottE — 2008-06-15T20:09:24+00:00

The various unguarded treasure you can find in the game.

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ScottE — 2008-06-15T20:08:29+00:00

The 5 basic monsters on the top. The tougher Vampire brides and main villain on the bottom.

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ScottE — 2008-06-15T20:07:22+00:00

The 4 heroes included with the game.

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ScottE — 2008-06-15T20:06:49+00:00

Front and back of Box (hi res)

Thread: Re: Fun filler but luck breaks out occasionally

ScottE — 2008-06-15T07:23:19+00:00

We played this tonight and it is indeed a light filler game. Was very fun since the turns go fast but doesn't have a lot of replay value. This is something you bring out every once in awhile when you need a 20-30 min diversion.

There weren't a lot of interesting cards. Many monsters but few of other stuff. If you want a much deeper game then play Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord. But then that game takes a couple hours.

I'm sure this will hit the table again but probably not for awhile.

Thread: Fun filler but luck breaks out occasionally

hyphz — 2008-02-22T12:53:24+00:00

I played this with a group of friends recently. It's essentially a very "light" filler type game where each player takes a turn to draw a card for what they encounter. The encounter can be an obstacle or static object, in which case you just follow the directions on the card, or a monster, in which case you can fight it by comparing dice rolls, or run away. If you beat the monster, you get to take the monster card, which has a description of a treasure listed on the bottom half of the card. This continues until someone draws the "Vampire Lord" monster card and beats it, plus that player has a Stake (one of the potential items) in play, whereupon they win.

The tactics are quite light: the only big decision we found to make is to either run away regularly in order to pick-and-choose your encounters, or to fight even for treasure that isn't useful in order to have discard ballast. (If you die, you have to discard half your treasure, but having lots of treasure makes it harder to run away.) That said, tactically running away wasn't that popular a choice: fighting is done by comparing modified 2d6 rolls, and the Vampire Lord's modifier is only +6, so most players didn't want to run away from him (once they had Stakes) as risking a life point for the chance of winning the game right there was worth it. The second strongest monsters are Vampire Brides at +5, but you can't run away from them. So running away was more popular from lower level monsters who had treasure the player wasn't interested in.

We did run into a small problem - according to the rules, if someone fails to beat the Vampire Lord, he's shuffled back into the remaining draw pile. If it so happens that he's the last card, by that logic he stays as the only card in the deck until he's beaten. We managed to contact the game author for a rules clarification, and were told that in this case it's OK to reshuffle the discards, but neither solution is really satisfactory. If you don't reshuffle the discards, then any player who hasn't got a Stake is stuck, and if no-one has then.. um, well, I guess the Vampire wins (actually, that's a kinda cool twist). The problem with reshuffling the discards is that it can make the game much longer, and it can introduce the possibility of the best-prepared player never getting to fight the Vampire Lord because they never happen to draw the card.

The only other issue is that there's no interaction between players, neither helpful nor harmful. This is apparently going to be added in an expansion pack.

In our game, one player had emerged as a clear leader by partway through, but then a player who had previously been trailing far behind started catching up (because they managed to snag what is probably the best treasure in the game, the Holy Book). When the Vampire came up as the last card we chose to reshuffle, and it was on the second time through the deck that the leading player managed to draw the Vampire and kill him. The Holy Book player did get to have a stab at him beforehand, but rolled very badly.

Generally this seems like a good, quick, fun filler-style game as long as you don't mind a fairly high luck factor.

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Subhuman — 2007-12-26T17:47:49+00:00

Limited Edition Cover

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Subhuman — 2007-12-26T16:25:32+00:00

Sample Cards from Games forum.