Citadels - Shadow City

If you have played Bruno Faidutti's board game [u]Citadels[/u] then you were probably thinking this game's description sounds familiar. Given that it's one of my all-time favourite board games, I decided to give this game a shot, and I can now confirm that this game is indeed a lackluster rendition of that classic board game. The original game is a lot more interesting with its greater variety of ways to interact with each other players via gold, turn stealing, card stealing, multiple builds per turn, character selection order, and information gathering. This game nixes the character distinctions for the most part (the characters are all basically about gaining gold), and changes some character orders around without understanding the reasons for their specific order. All the depth and nuance of the original game has been erased into a straightforward race for gold. Role descriptions in the game are currently incorrect/bugged. The Shadow Lord, Ambassador, and Archivist have inconsistent descriptions between the card and ability use dialog; with the ability use dialog making obvious its roots in the board game. The Guildmaster doesn't work. While I can understand that making a 1-to-1 copy of the board game will run into legal issues, that doesn't excuse the watering down of the game. As a video game, this game could have tried exploring some design space that can only be done digitally and not in analog. It doesn't do that though - what a missed opportunity! But as a video game, it's relatively easy to update; I wish the devs well in developing this game further. If you have friends to play with, do yourself a favour and get the original board game; it even comes with a much larger set of characters to choose from to customise your play experience. If you only have online friends and want to play this, don't buy this; you are better off finding a local gaming group. As much as I can't recommend this game, I still adore the core mechanics of the base game. As one of my favourite board games in paper, I sincerely hope this game can become something on par with Bruno Faidutti's classic.