Christian Strain

I love this game. I was very surprised. The only thing that I’d have to complain about is that it feels a little too over-complicated. It seems like they could have streamlined it a little to make it less complicated.

Once you get through the second round you’ll have it all sorted out though. It seems like they could have gotten rid of the selling to an Adventurer, the Artifacts, and made debunking a little less convoluted. That would keep all the fun parts of the game and make things a little faster and easy to follow.

Still, don’t let that deter you. It’s a fun game if you’re into figuring out things through clues given.

Bid for player order, plant 1 pepper that you own, walk your farmer around harvesting peppers, buy rewards with your peppers for points. Most points at the end wins. That’s the nutshell of it.

While it’s easy to learn, your first or second play through will start to reveal some interesting strategies to keep in mind. For instance, the first player gets to plant first, but you reverse order (like Powergrid) to harvest, the go back to the first player normal order to buy points.

This is where the strategy really takes place. You bid for player order in the beginning of each round, so you have to try and choose if you want to be the first to harvest, or the first to buy peppers.

During harvesting you move your farmer 1-3 steps. You can’t double-back and you can’t walk through or land on another farmer. Blocking is everything. If you harvest first, you get to block where others go. This becomes very important later one.

I lost my last game because I walked 3 steps when i should have walked 2. The third step got me a pepper I sold for $1 (or 1/3 a point at the end). If I had stopped on my second step, it would have blocked the next player from getting what she needed to beat me.

The only complaint I have about the game is that the recipes are too far in the point spread. The last player to get a recipe is almost always the winner. I didn’t get the last recipe in the last game I lost, but I was 3 points behind the winner who did, so it’s possible this isn’t always the case. Still, it seems highly probable that the last recipe determines the winner.

That’s fine if you keep that in mind. It’s a race for the recipes basically.

Overall, it’s a very fun game. I highly recommend it for players who like light, fast paced euros.

This game is for anyone who enjoys an adventure that comes at you, and doesn’t take things too seriously.

Basically, you roll to move (I know I lost a few of you there, but hold on), then interact with the space. Rolling to move is an awful mechanic on its own. Some games add things you can do to alter or adjust the roll, and that’s better. There are some characters in expansions that do this, but for the most part, you just take your roll.

Why isn’t it that bad in this game?
Well, you can go left or right at any time. That gives you two choices with your roll. You must go the full amount of your roll. Expansions add new areas that might give more choices as to where you can go with that roll.

Also, most of the spaces are the same. Often times you’ll just have a “draw a card” or a “draw a card” decision; which is what you usually want anyway. Once cards are down on the board, decisions become more defined: “I can fight a dragon in the plains or pick up a sword in the forest”.

There are 20 spaces on the outer region (where you start and spend most of your game time usually). Of those 20, 7 are not draw card spaces. Two of those 7 are basically bad to go to (Forest and Craigs). Two of the 5 left over are good for you depending on your alignment (Chapel or Graveyard). And the 3 left over are places you can buy things from or roll to interact with (City, Village, and Tavern).

As an adventurer, you’ll usually want the unknown (draw a card) over any of these spaces unless you have some good reason to visit them.

You fight each other if you wish, steal things, cast spells, get to the middle, crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women.

It’s all random fun really. That’s the important part to keep in mind. It’s low on strategy (although some expansions can add to that).

I’ve been playing Talisman for 25 years. It was the first game I was ever introduced to (besides Chess) and I’ve owned every version. I’m always up for a game.

The original game is great, but somewhat basic. The new locations, corruption, buildings, and intrigue cards bring a lot more to the table.

I would suggest not playing the Xanathar, the Lord who get’s less taken off for corruption, until you’ve played with corruption though. It’s benefits can be misleading and you’ll need to understand how the strategy works to not lose horribly playing him lol.