Charterstone: Digital Edition

Having played through almost all of the board game, I am utterly delighted with the digital version so far! It is, first of all, super adorable. I imagine I would be a bit lost at first if I hadn't played the board game, but you can tap on everything and get info/rules about it all. I did want to note that the listed system requirements for 8gb RAM is wholly incorrect. I'm playing on a little 4GB RAM Acer Spin with zero issues, so if you were worried about that, please don't be. Also, highly, strongly, intensely encourage you to use the touchscreen if your laptop has it. It is a delight. So excited to start a new remote #HealthyAtHome campaign with my board-game group since we are unable to gather in person for a while. Also a feature suggestion for us ADHD players: it would be very helpful to be able to "pin" a card to my screen so I can easily refer to what resources I am trying to gather without checking my advancement cards each time.

I really wanted to love this version of the game, but there are way too many issues that make the game very hard to play. The UI is terrible. For instance, if you need to log and you make a mistake typing IN YOUR INFO, backspace doesn't delete the character....IT TAKES YOU TO THE PREVIOUS SCREEN! Who programmed that? Also, when people pick resources, they appear available to ALL PLAYERS. What?! That makes no sense. Timing is a huge issue. One player can see screens before anyone else. And, on everyone's first turn, everyone has the same description of the buildings...which means playing 6 people are reading the first 20 minutes of the play. There is basically very little explanation or tutorial in the game. It does help if you play with those who have already played, but the UI issues and the implementation makes it a no-go. I am honestly surprised this launched. The backspace issue should have stopped it from coming out. I'm very disappointed in this and I cannot recommend this game at this time.

I'm going to split this review into two parts - A review of the board game itself, and a review of this digital version of it. Read whichever ones you care about. But please note - I've watched a lot of videos about the physical version but I've never played it myself. Also, I'm not going to give a complete run down on how the game is played. There are already tons of YouTube videos that do that much better than I can. BOARD GAME: Charterstone is, at its core, a very simple worker placement game (simple enough that my seven year old beat me the other day). Turns go very quickly. After a few game plays we've decided that while there is a lot of different ways to get points, some are easier than others and can result in one player running away with the game while others struggle to get any sort of engine going. The end of the game can feel abrupt as anyone can intentionally force the game to speed up (similar to Clank! if you've played that). But end game scoring feels generally straight forward. DIGITAL VERSION: You'll immediately notice the game looks great, and the board animations are a nice touch. The music is also well done and soothing. The game responds well enough although we have run into some bugs with placing workers even months after release. I even had it crash my game completely yesterday. My biggest issue with the digital version is with the display of information. In the board game there are several pieces of information that are readily available at a glance - the Progress track, the reputation track, the Market board, your hand, and the possible achievements. In the digital version all of these are hidden behind clickable items at the top of the screen. I feel like this design decision was a mistake. I wonder if it was done to keep from having to redesign the UI for smaller screens (e.g., mobile, Switch), but it makes the game feel lacking as it's easy to forget you were going for a specific item in the Market or wanted to build a card from your hand or how far away you are on the Progress track from getting a reputation gain. CONCLUSION: Our first game was very interesting and we looked forward to game 2. After game 3 though I couldn't get my family to return to it, and I have resorted to playing solo to try to finish the campaign which I'm not even sure I'll bother doing. Even if you like the Charterstone board game, I can't recommend the digital version due to the lack of information. 2/5

Fun implementation. I had not played the board game but watched Rodney's (Watch it Played) How to video and was able to pick it up. Legacy format seems to fit Computer based delivery model as I hate the concept of ruining a physical copy of anything to show progress.

Just don't buy it if you want to play with friends online. Six of us tried for three hours to get an online game going and couldn't make it past the first turn. The game would stop updating for some players, then if they left the game they couldn't return (thanks to a save file error?!). This happened with some on PC and some on Switch, as well as with everyone on the PC version. Maybe Valve getting six refund requests at once sent a message...

Got several points to make with this review. 1) I could have gotten this game a year ago, but the system requirements stated it needed 8 GB ram in order to play. I recently bought a cheap game on Steam that required 8 GB ram thinking it wouldn't work, and it did. I checked my system, yep, it says my computer has 4 GB ram. So yesterday, I revisited Charterstone, all the other requirements seemed okay, so I bought the game (which was on special). And surprise, surprise, it works perfectly...no lag, no 1 FPS...kind of ticked off about it actually. I could have been playing this game a year ago, if only the system requirements stated 4GB instead of 8GB. 2) Before I bought the game, I checked the other reviews of the game and noticed a lot of negative comments, mostly about the interface. Not sure if those issues have been addressed since those negative comments were made, or if those reviewers are just off base, because I haven't had any issues with the interface, the rules or gameplay at all. So take that for what its worth. 3) The game has no tutorial, but they suggest first time players play the local/single game as their first game. I did this, having never played the board game before (though I had seen it played)...and I was completely lost. Overwhelmed by the choices, and not knowing how anything worked. I backed out and started a new Campaign game instead...so much easier to learn. In the Campaign mode, the board is mostly empty, each player has a small pool of options available, and as the game progresses, new mechanics are introduced...much, much easier to learn the game playing the campaign. Just my take. If you have played the board game previously, maybe the other game mode works better for you. I have played the first two games of the campaign and am loving it (playing solo, controlling all six factions). I can't speak to multiplayer mode or online play. But so far, I am LOVING this game. Highly recommend it. I play on an older computer that runs Windows 7 and it runs so smoothly. So if you aren't running System 10 or don't have 8-16GB of ram, don't be afraid to download this game!

I bought this to play Charterstone asynchronously with friends. Unfortunately, I think it's terrible for asynchronous play. It's pretty, and crossplay (across different kinds of devices) works fine. The problem is that this is a legacy game and all of the story events and rules changes are really hard to track. You do see the contents of boxes that are opened in game, but there is no log of past events. We have a discord on which we discuss the games we play (we play many async) and most of the players on the discord are pretty lost as to what's happening in this game. And it's the fault of the implementation; we don't have this problem in other games we play async. I think if you played this realtime it would probably be fine - it does look good and plays smoothly - but I would discourage this for async. One other small grumble: Because it's a board game, there are often times when you have no action to take, such as when all you can do is recall workers, or when you just have to confirm an event but there is no decision to be made (only one mandatory option). In async play the game makes you log in to confirm these non-choices before the game moves on to the next player. It would have been better if they included an option to skip turns in which you make no decisions.

不针对游戏，贵公司的游戏我还是非常喜欢得。针对对于CONCORDIA得定价，我搞不懂为什么国区定价会高于美区定价，V社建议定价是76，然后你们得定价是150?我觉得大批量得调整所谓低价区得定价本身也是一种歧视，在这种歧视面前我很难给出好评。 Not specifically for games, I still really like your company's games. Regarding the pricing of CONCORDIA, I don't understand why the pricing in China is higher than that in the United States. Valve suggests price is 76, and then you have a pricing of 150? I think adjusting the pricing of so-called low price zones in large quantities is also a form of discrimination, and I find it difficult to give positive feedback in the face of such discrimination.

This implementation is very buggy for multiplayer. Our group had to restart a campaign because the game is stuck and no one can make it proceed. Luckily, that was only on game 2 or so. Now we're much further in and I can't join the game even though it shows up on the lobby list. I will agree that the game rules appear to be implemented well, but randomly being forced to lose progress in incredibly frustrating. Edit: Big hours played number is leaving the game running in the background waiting for others turns. Actual time interacting with the game is about 10 games worth.

For the love of god, fix the UI and AI. It is so poorly done, the AI hoard all the crates and buildings then stick their thumb up their ass. It pathetic! I am screaming at my screen for them to do anything useful, for themselves even smh. Just like my dad saying he is only getting milk at the store, I am left waiting and disappointed. Fix the AI and I might give this a positive review.