Sunderfolk

Baldur's Gate 3 but more interaction between party members, tactics take more of an upfront role, and it's able to be played as a couch co-op party game. People are sleeping on this game big time

This is a cute little board game that reminds me a lot of gloomhaven. You build your party knowing little beyond some loose descriptive terms (like "simple", "tank", "damage", "support") and venture forth without the ability to change it - hope you like your build! You find yourself in the tavern of a small village of anthropomorphized animals, the owner an unscrupulous mole asking you to throw out a rude penguin. Obviously it gets more complicated from there, but not a lot less predictable. The mechanics are turn-based tactics. Pick a card, do those things in that order. Once your party goes, theirs does. You equip a subset of your full deck for each mission, so you kind of lean into a particular build or spread. You get once-per-map equipment, your deck improves as you level. Nothing earth shattering that I saw, but I also played the two "why block when can make dead" characters. There were some pretty interesting maps and a few mechanics that took advantage of it being a video game. There were certainly lots of maps I was really glad I didn't have to set up or tear down. Back in town, you can buy trinkets, improve buildings, and talk with townsfolk. Building reputation can be really rewarding, so it's important to do that - but it's also built per character, so playing a big party solo means a lot of talks. Too many for me; I started with a party of four and restarted with two when I figured that out. Improving buildings is also really rewarding and requires a pooling of resources. I spent basically no money on anything but that and I only just maxed out the town by the end of the game. The dungeon master / narrator also voice-acts all of the characters, so there's a cute "it feels like I'm playing with a friend" vibe. It also means that all important scenes are voice acted and there's no skipping ahead, so you can't speed up your interaction with the story. Overall: scratched an itch to be sure. Some minor annoyances - visual bugs meant I made mistakes with positioning or in gauging relationships. Some fights felt a bit unfair, but whatever. I wish that they said "upgrades unavailable right now!" instead of just gating it behind certain resources that you don't encounter until a later chapter. I think it would gel nicely with a parent's schedule - a mission takes 20m solo with a small party, or if you've set aside a few hours you can feel like you made chunky progress. Curious how the other characters would have played, but not enough to start another party. 3/5

Bought this to play with a group of friends on couch coop. I think that is where this game shines as a collaborative experience. Gameplay can be as hard or as easy as needed. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a different pace of play experience with rewarding builds and combinations of characters. The fire salamander is OP as a solo experience.

Lacks a control scheme suitable for steam deck/gamepad. Functional with the couch coop set up and using phones, but when trying to play single player with steam deck I am constantly running into control issues and there isn’t a community layout available. The verified tag is a joke.

Its a cute little rpg but I gotta be real the boss design is absolute garbage. Every single one is a damage race heavily stacked against the player and they will frequently add completely unpredictable elements at random intervals with absolutely no counter play. Played the game on a higher difficulty and never struggled for a moment except for the bosses that were an absolute gimmick fest. Genuinely an awful experience

Super fun with friends!

10/10 Cannot recommend enough. It's silly, play it like it's silly and you'll have a fantastic time.

Solid fun for beginners to tabletop RPG combat. Really fun for beginners, complex enough for advanced players

gutes Spiel mit Familie und für Freunden!!!

Fun game if you enjoy Gloomhaven like games. It has an easier entry benchmark than Gloomhaven in many ways and adds an element of Mad Libs which can get a bit crazy depending on the people playing. The town development has a bit of old school Heroes of Might and Magic vibes. All packaged with adorable graphics and anthropomorphized citizens (PC and NPC). Some people I play with have various forms of colorblindness and the ability to adjust color markers in settings is very useful for them.