Nightfall

This game is a deck builder that gets right to the point. Most deck builders take a while to get going while you build up the deck, spend time cleaning it up before it gets to a point that it feels like its actually functioning.
This game is also not so much a deck-builder because well, you’re deck reaches a streamlined condition so fast, sometimes it feels like you didn’t really build a deck at at. It just quickly evolved from your starting minions to some more powerful ones.

This game is more of a deck manager. The depth of the this game comes more from understanding and anticipating your opponents rather than unlocking the synergies of the cards.

In traditional deck-builders, there is little player interaction and your decisions are really limited to how well you can break down the effectiveness of the cards you drew. Often times, there isn’t really any decision making just the hope that the right combo of cards were drawn from the decisions you made acquiring the cards.

Nightfall offers you a deeper decision making experience with the chaining mechanism. The first couple of games, you’ll be feeling like it really is nothing more than a matter of timing and card availability. After a few games, you start to appreciate that you need to manage your deck. Just because you can chain your whole hand, or get a particular kicker out, its not always the best move, because the cards in hand can be saved for your next draw. And because your deck streamlines down to decent size, it’s much easier to know what might be coming up and how best to manage future chaining.

What most appeals to me about this game, is how deep and brain burning this game can become. Most deck-builders, you’re really not concerned with what is in another persons deck. In Nightfall, you most certainly care and can strategize accordingly.

If you pay decent attention to what cards people are drafting and what starting minions have been exiled from their deck, you have a decent understanding of what their deck is designed or capable of. You can now make decisions according to this knowledge and for brain burner fans, this is massive treat when playing a deck-builder.

Nightfall offers a new experience and depth to gamers who want a deep interactive game play from a deck builder.

Some folks don’t like the chaining affect, which is fine. I don’t believe Nightfall is for everyone and many deck-builder fans prefer the more traditionaly pure experience of something like Dominion. But for gamers who want to play a deck-builder, with deep player interaction, extended management of their hand beyond just heir turn and a slight politicking aspect of choosing who to attack, then Nightfall deserves a serious try beyond a few games.

Let’s be honest – the market is flooded with deck building games. Its hard to not see all the different games coming out onto the market this day that involve a deck building concept. So, its becoming increasingly difficult to find a game that offers something unique. I can honestly say that Nightfall offers some very interesting mechanics.

Mechanically speaking, you start the game with a fixed deck. Each player starts with the same deck, so you can guess to a certain degree what the opponent COULD be playing at first. When you play cards, you start a chain. First you get a chance to play cards, then the opponent can play cards. The way this works is that you play a card, then you can play another card if its moon matches the color that the previous card creates. I know, that’s a bit hard to say – so let’s use an example. I play a werewolf that creates a yellow moon. The next card I play must cost a yellow moon to play. As you build your deck, you need to focus on how the cards can interact with one another to make the most out of the deck building process. Also you need to read the timing for the chain as well, as sometimes playing a card is not the best option for you – I’ve run into a few times where I hurt myself by playing certain cards at certain times. The game goes until all the WOUND cards are removed from the stack, with the player who has the most WOUND cards loosing.

I really like the idea of how you play cards using the chain system. It offers a lot of thinking because you need to time things right as well as how the synergy of the cards can best serve you. I also like how the game has a lot of teeth to it, no pun intended. It has a very aggressive feel to it and I can honestly say that it really does appeal to me – even if it may be a little too aggressive for some players. On the flip side, I feel that the game with just its base set is a bit limiting and the cards don’t always synergize as well as they should. I also think the game is a bit complex at first go, and it would take a few games for some players to get into the groove of the game.

Who would like this game? Well, card floppers for one. I think anybody who enjoys deck building games or who are coming from a CCG/TCG/LCG background they may enjoy this game. Its aggressive and in your face, and that’s what those kinds of games are built on. People who like an aggressive play style would enjoy the game, and people who enjoy a little more depth to their DBGs. Who would not enjoy it? Its a bit more aggressive, so players who don’t like confrontation in their game may shy away from it a bit. People who don’t like card games, and people who don’t like the dark goth-like theme of the game may not enjoy it either. I would definitely suggest trying this game as least once or two, it does provide a terrific game night I can honestly say.

This review was originally posted on http://www.nerdbloggers.com.

In the not too distant future, the Earth has been plunged into darkness. Supernatural creatures are rising to power in the eternal moonlight, and the human race is being hunted like game. Vampires, Werewolves, and Ghouls are locked in a mortal battle with the Human “Hunters” who dare to defend mankind. They all fight to claim the inky darkness of this changed world as their own… or so they think. Unknown to all, there are unseen hands pulling the strings from behind the curtain of darkness, making and breaking hidden alliances between both friend and enemy clans. In this land of Nightfall, you are the puppet master, and these creatures your unknowing minions.

Nightfall is a competitive Deck Building game created by first time game designer David Gregg, and published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG). The Story of Nightfall’s publication is an interesting one, and a source of inspiration for aspiring game designers. Although Nightfall’s designer, David Gregg, had been a collectible card game player for most of his life, he had only recently discovered designer board games when he joined the popular gaming community boardgamegeek.com in 2009. Inspired by his new found hobby, he began openly working on a game design that would merge the sensibilities of the CCG with some of the popular deck building mechanics found in modern designer games. The game design that was born out of this process was called Chainmaster, named for the unique card chaining mechanism Gregg had devised. Many game designs reach this point of development, and then fade into obscurity, but Gregg’s design was fated for a brush with serendipity; Todd Rowland, the Senior Brand Manager at AEG, had recently pinpointed the need for a competitive deck building game to fill a hole in the game market and AEG’s game catalog. Only a couple of weeks had passed before Rowland ran across the Chainmaster prototype while browsing online message boards. He was impressed by the design, and subsequently, AEG picked up the title for publishing. It’s through this collaboration that Gregg’s first design, Chainmaster, evolved and ultimately found its way to store shelves as the game Nightfall.

In Nightfall, players control a band of supernatural creatures, locked in battle against their opponents. The players compete to build, and utilize a deck of cards representing Vampires, Werewolves, Ghouls, and Humans. Cards are acquired during gameplay to dynamically form a private deck that the player draws from to unleash creatures and actions upon his opponents. Cards can be chained together to form powerful combos, but the cards that are played must be carefully chosen, as other players have the opportunity to add their own cards onto the chain, potentially changing the nature of the original combo entirely. Players use their minion cards to deal damage and block attacks, but any damage that isn’t blocked is issued to the receiving player in the form of wound cards. When all of the wound cards have found their way into the players’ decks, the game ends, and the player with the least amount of wound cards is the winner.

Components:

Cards – Being a card game, Nightfall consists almost entirely of cards. The illustrations on the cards are detailed and vibrant, and share the style of a high quality graphic novel. Even though the cards were illustrated by a handful of different artists, they maintain a consistent art style, delivering a pleasing and cohesive package. The illustrations really help to sell the theme, and make me genuinely curious about the stories behind the characters on the cards.

The graphic design of the cards is clean, looks nice, and is functional, but there are some areas that I think could have been improved. There is a lot of information that is communicated on every card, but during my first few plays, the lack of iconography made it difficult for some players to differentiate between the number values on the cards. Players would often try to use the influence cost of a card as the attack power, or vice versa. This confusion went away after a few plays, but the confusion could have been avoided entirely with some icons that better conveyed the purpose of each number. The chaining mechanism also relies heavily on recognizing and matching colors. These colors are presented as tinted moon icons. The moon icons are almost identical apart from the color, and in incandescent lighting, the yellow and white moons can be tricky to differentiate.

The cards themselves have a good quality and thickness. However, moving away from the linen textured cards in Thunderstone, AEG has chosen to use smooth paper stock for Nightfall. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, but the back of the cards are almost solid black, so the cards collect noticeable smears and fingerprints when they are handled. Nightfall comes with a coupon for card sleeves, in the box and I would definitely suggest putting the cards in sleeves before playing.

Despite my criticism, when all is said and done, the cards are enjoyable to look at and play with. Most of the concerns about card layout go away after the first few plays, but it is worth mentioning, as it may be a barrier to entry for some.

The Box – It is rare that a game’s box is brought up when talking about components, but Nightfall’s box bears mentioning. Where many deck building games have struggled with the problem of organization, especially with multiple expansions, Nightfall offers an elegant solution. The Nightfall box is large, with a reinforced interior, and two compartments for cards. Custom printed dividers for each of the different card types are included to allow for easy organization and retrieval of the different cards. The cards in Nightfall take up a very small amount of the real estate in the box, with foam spacers taking up the rest of the space. As new expansions are released, spacers can be removed, and the new cards put in their place, allowing for multiple expansions to easily fit in the same box; if the size of the box is any indication, we can expect a lot of expansions in Nightfall’s future.

Theme:

Popular media has seen a flood of vampire and werewolf related themes lately. This can elicit groans from some people when the word “Vampire” is even mentioned. However, the Vampires in Nightfall are more akin to the violent creatures at the end of Quentin Tarantino’s film From Dusk Till Dawn than the kind that would hang out in a high school cafeteria.

Nightfall paints the picture of an apocalyptic future that gives a nod to classic pulp horror; a time when contemporary literature and role playing games hadn’t painted werewolves and vampires as being dire enemies. This pulp horror connection can be found in the short stories that bookend the game’s instructions, and in the subtle nod to The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the gameplay examples.

What may be my only disappointment with the theme, is that it has the potential to paint a rich narrative, but doesn’t really deliver. The short stories in the manual are fun to read, as are the quotes sprinkled throughout. The illustrations on the cards are wonderful, and have such personality. But, all of those things only seem to hint at a deeper story that never materializes. If none of these things were included in the game, I’m not sure that I would even be mentioning the theme. Most other deck building games have a somewhat pasted on theme, and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. But, that tease of a deeper story in Nightfall really has me wondering who all of these characters are. In another game I might refer to a card as “The card that lets me deal one damage to a player”, but in Nightfall I see “Lilith Lawrence”, and wonder what her story is, and why she hangs all of those weapons on chains when shelving would be much more economical. There are several references to http://www.hunting-by-night.com in the manual, presented as a site where the hunters post messages. The address is real, but it directs to the Nightfall product page. Perhaps AEG has secret plans for the site in the future. I would love to see an ARG style environment where more game fiction might be released.

Mechanics:

Although components and theme add to the overall game experience, the meat of a game is in the gameplay, and this is where Nightfall really shines. It pulls from both the collectible card game and in-game deck building genres to produce a fun game that takes the best of both worlds, while leaving the chaff on the cutting room floor.

One of the biggest complaints about pure deck building games is the anticlimactic feeling of building a deck just for the sake of building a deck. The deck building concept was incubated in the CCG world, where building a deck was just a prelude, but using the deck to defeat your opponents was the main event. The deck building game Dominion pioneered the idea of turning deck construction into a game itself, where players would add to their decks as the game progressed, and whoever built the most efficient deck won the game. However, Dominion’s deck building was more about creating an economic engine than building an unstoppable force, unlike its CCG heritage.

Nightfall brings the direct conflict of the CCG back into the deck building genre. It distances itself from the bureaucracy and politics of medieval feudalism, and replaces it with the pure destructive nature of pulp horror. Nightfall is about action, direct conflict, and power. The creatures in Nightfall live and breathe combat; if they can attack another player, they will, and all you can hope to do is direct their rage. There is no economy, no trading, and no gold in Nightfall; if you want something, you take it by force. The currency of Nightfall is “influence”, which roughly translates to the amount of destructive power you are willing to throw at a problem.

Nightfall also addresses some of the perceived weaknesses of the CCG format; most notably, the tendency for money to buy success. The CCG market is built around the concept of random boosters – a small package with a random assortment of cards. CCG players collect cards, and build decks with these cards. They do not know what cards they will get when they purchase a booster, but more powerful cards are usually much rarer in distribution. This usually means that the player who has spent the most money on cards has a higher probability of success. Nightfall levels the playing field by including all of the cards needed to play in the game box. There are no booster packs to buy, or rare cards to unbalance the game. Some might protest that the variation in player decks is part of the fun in CCGs, and Nightfall has a response to this as well. At the beginning of the game, there is a draft in which players pass cards around the table, and select the cards that they will have exclusive access to. This adds a bit of variation and individuality to each player’s deck.

Setup:

There are 2 main types of cards in Nightfall: Orders, and Wounds.

Orders are the cards that players build their decks with. Orders come in two flavors: action cards and creature cards. Creatures serve the purpose of attacking and blocking for the player, and stay active on the table until the player’s next turn. With Actions, however, the effect is more immediate, and lasts only until the end of the current turn.

Wound cards are put in a player’s deck when he is dealt damage. At the end of the game, the player with the least number of wound cards in his deck wins the game.

Throughout the game, players will be able to acquire order cards from various stacks on the table. These stacks are called “Archives”. There are eight archives, called “Common Archives”, that are available to all players. Each player also has two “Private Archives” that only he has access to.

Each archive is made up of seven identical copies of an order card, but there is an eighth card in each set with the word “Draft” printed across its face. These draft cards add an interesting level of depth to Nightfall, by turning the game setup into part of the game itself. At the start of the game, the draft cards are collected, and each player is given four of them. The player chooses a card from his draft packet that he wishes to include in his private archives, and passes the remaining cards to the next player.

This process continues until there are two cards left in each packet. Then, the player gets to make a very interesting decision. He gets to choose one card that will go into the common archives (which everyone will have access to) and one card that will be removed from the game entirely. If he chooses a card to put in the common archive, it is possible that his opponents will use it against him, but if he removes it from the game entirely, he denies himself the opportunity to utilize it for his own nefarious purposes. This adds a very strategic element to the game, as choices made here can affect the game in dramatic ways.

After the draft is completed, the remaining draft cards are randomly chosen to complete the common archives. Each draft card is replaced with it’s seven matching order cards, private archives are placed next to their owners, and common archives are placed in the middle of the table.

Each player is given an identical prebuilt deck of 12 creature cards, that he shuffles and places face down. He then draws five cards from this deck to form his starting hand.

A pile of wound cards is placed within reach of all the players, and the game proper is ready to begin.

Gameplay:

The crux of Nightfall is in its concept of “Chaining”. When a player puts a card into play, it is called “starting a chain”. Each card has 3 moon shaped icons in its upper left corner, one large, and two small. Each moon icon is tinted with a color. The large icon represents the color of the card. The smaller icons determine which cards can be linked to that card. If the smaller icons are green and blue, then only a green or blue card can be linked to it. Adding cards to a chain is the only way to get them into play. If you play your cards right, you can create long chains that bring many actions into effect and lots of creatures onto the table to fight for you.

The cards in a chain don’t actually take effect until the chain is complete, at which point the cards in the chain are “resolved”. Chains are always resolved from the end first. This means that the last card that has been linked to the chain is the first to resolve, so planning the order of your cards can make a big difference in the effect that they produce. The last cards added to the chain often have the biggest effect. This is important to remember, because after you finish your chain, each other player has the opportunity to add to the end of your chain. This means that they can bring their creatures and actions into play on your turn BEFORE you do, often changing the effects that your cards have. The fact that other players’ cards can piggyback on top of yours, during your turn, really keeps the everyone on their toes.

Each player’s turn consists of four phases: Combat, Chain, Claim, and Cleanup.

Combat Phase – In your combat phase, any creatures you have on the table MUST attack. The amount of damage that a creature deals is represented by a red number in the upper right corner. You can choose which player each creature attacks, but each defending player determines which of their creatures block. A creature’s heath is represented by red lines on the edges of the card. When the creature takes damage, the card is rotated to reflect his current health. If a creature takes more damage than he has health, the remaining damage is applied to the defending player in the form of wound cards that go into his discard pile. When the attack phase is over, all attacking creatures, and creatures that have been defeated, go back into their owners’ discard pile. This means that once your attack phase is over, all of your creatures are removed from play, so it is very important to get new cards onto the play field, else you become a target for your opponents.

Chain phase – The second phase in play is the chain phase. This is the phase where you can start a chain to bring cards into the game. As described earlier, cards are chained together based on the colors of the moon icons they display. Each card has text on it that describes the card’s effect when it is resolved in a chain. There are two types of text: Chain text, and Kicker text. The instructions in the chain text are always followed when a card is resolved. Next to the kicker text, however, is another colored moon icon. If this kicker color matches the color of the card that is being linked to, then the kicker text is resolved as well as the normal chain text. As players get more familiar with the chaining in Nightfall, maximizing kickers becomes a large part of the strategy of the game.

Due to the terminology used in Nightfall, the card text can sometimes be a bit confusing for new players. The term “order” is used to refer to any card that is not a wound card, and the term “target” is used to describe the object that a player can chose to affect. So, when a player is able to chose any non-wound card to apply an effect to, it would be referred to in the card text as a “target order”. For example: The action card “Leave Me!” has the text “Chain: You choose the target(s) in target order’s text. Kicker: Resolve the text of that order twice”. Because the word “order” is a homonym with four distinct meanings, and can be used as both a noun and a verb (“I order you to heed my order.”, “order your cards in numerical order.”), reading the correct interpretation can take some practice. To add to the confusion, the word “target” can be different parts of speech as well. After a while it becomes second nature to understand that “order” is always used as a noun in the card text referring to an order card, and “target” is never used as a verb. Putting these keywords in bold text or italics, however, might have saved some frustration. There were players in my game group that were definitely turned off by the card text, even though they play Magic: The Gathering, a game that has similar issues with ambiguous text.

Claim phase – This is the phase where you “purchase” new cards, a process called “claiming” in Nightfall. The player starts his claim phase with 2 “influence points”. Any influence points that were earned due to card effects in the chain phase are added to this value, and the player may also discard any cards from his hand to gain one influence point per card. A player can claim as many order cards as he wishes, as long as he has the influence to pay for them. Claimed cards go directly into the discard pile. This may seem counter intuitive to players who have never played a deck building game before, but when the player’s deck runs out of cards, his discard pile will be shuffled, and the claimed cards in his discard pile will become available. Nightfall cycles through the deck much faster than most other deck building games, so it won’t take long before you see your claimed cards in your hand.

Cleanup phase – During your cleanup phase you replenish your hand by drawing cards to bring it back up to five. After you have drawn cards, you may use the effect of one wound card. In this first installment of Nightfall, all of the wound cards have an effect that lets you discard any wound cards in your hand, and draw twice the number of discarded cards into your hand. This creates a bit of a catch-up mechanic, allowing players with more wound cards to utilize more cards in their starting hand. In future expansions, wound cards with different effects are planned.

Conclusion:

Nightfall is a lot of fun, it plays well in all of it’s player configurations from 2-5. For the two player game, a slightly different drafting process is suggested, and the game may not feel quite as dynamic as a 3+ player game, but it is still enjoyable. However, I would definitely strive to play Nightfall with at least 3 players, as it adds more decisions and strategy to the game.

The chaining mechanism is novel, and makes for some very interesting gameplay decisions. Some people may have trouble understanding the card layout, iconography, and text at first, but given a few plays most of those issues go away. The ability to play cards on your opponent’s turn, and bring minions into play in response to something in another player’s chain is a really creative design choice. It basically eradicates downtime when other players are taking their turn, and adds a bit of psychology to the game. You never know what another player has in their hand and how they might affect your chain.

Putting abilities on the wound cards was also inspired. It keeps all of the players competitive by giving a slight advantage to those with more wound cards. The use of wound cards instead of hit points also works to keep everyone involved in the game. There is no player elimination, so everyone can have fun until the game ends, and no one is stuck sulking in the corner because he was eliminated on the second hand.

Although I didn’t mention it in my gameplay description, there is another very creative aspect of Nightfall. All of the character cards in the player’s starting deck are removed from the game instead of discarded. This keeps the game moving much more quickly. In games like Dominion, the end game is often slowed down because players have a lot of low level cards that are no longer relevant clogging up their deck. Nightfall automatically solves this problem by creating a limited lifespan for those low level cards by design.

I think Nightfall is very successful in merging the CCG and the deck building genres, and at 30-45 minutes playing time, it’s the sort of game that can be played multiple times in a sitting. I hesitate to call it “filler”, because there is quite a lot of depth in the game, but that depth is found in layers. Someone can play Nightfall as a beginner, and enjoy the game, but as they become more familiar with the combination of cards, and the different kickers, a whole new level of card management opens up. Although I have only been playing the game for a couple of weeks, from what I have experienced, I think Nightfall has staying power, and that’s not even taking into account the expansions that are planned. In fact, the next expansion to Nightfall, Nightfall: Martial Law, has already been released, and introduces a new gameplay mechanism called “Feeding”.

If you like card games, CCGs, and deck building games, and you enjoy a directly competitive experience, then you should go out and pick up a copy of Nightfall. If you don’t like conflict in games or tend to avoid games that take a few plays before they really click, then I would recommend playing Nightfall before purchasing. But, I would definitely recommend giving it a try, it’s mechanics are unique and refined, and you might be surprised at how much fun you have.

For me, this game is a keeper, and I can’t wait to see how David Gregg and AEG evolve both the game, and the shadowy fiction of Nightfall.

One of the main criticisms of deck building games, such as Dominion and Ascension, is that you’re not really playing against another human being but instead playing a game of multiplayer solitaire. Nightfall is a game that addressees that balance. It takes many of the deck building mechanics but turns the genre into a game of direct confrontation.

In the world of Nightfall the sun has disappeared and the humanity has been overrun by vampires, werewolves and ghouls. If you’ve played any of White Wolf’s World of Darkness roleplaying games or seen Kate Beckinsale’s shiny bottom in the Underworld films then you’ll be comfortable with the theme. You take control of human and supernatural minions as you attempt to cause as much damage to your opponents as possible. Damage comes in the form of wound cards that are added to your opponents’ deck; when the wound deck runs out the game ends and the player with the least wounds is the winner. Nightfall uses a typical deck building set-up with a twist; a selection of eight sets of cards that players can purchase using influence points are set-up in the centre of the table. This is referred to as the common archive. The twist is that players also have a two card private archive that only they can buy from.

Cards come in two separate forms; minions and orders. Each minion has an attack value (how much damage it does) and a health value. The health value is marked as a series of lines on the edge of the card. When a minion is wounded the card is rotated through 90° to represent how much damage is taken. It’s a simple but effective mechanic, the only issue being that a card’s abilities get easily forgotten when the card is upside down. At the beginning of your turn all of your minions in play have to attack and then they are discarded. There is no holding minions to block against other players, it’s all in and fully represents the savage nature of this game. Orders are instant effect cards that are played during a chain. These have a range of abilities such as drawing more cards and dealing direct damage to players or minions.

Nightfall’s most interesting mechanic is the chain. To put a card into play you start a chain, you can then continue adding cards as long as it continues the chain. Each card contains a large coloured moon and then one or two smaller coloured moons. The larger moon is the chained from colour and the smaller moons tell you what colour you can chain to. When you’ve finished your section of the chain then the chain then progresses to the next player. This continues until all players have either added to the chain or passed. The effects of the cards are then resolved in the reverse order. There is also the kicker effect an additional effect that occurs when a card is chained from a particular colour.

This chain mechanic is fundamental to your success in the game. The more cards you can chain the more minions you can get into play and the more orders you can trigger. If you can get a large number of minions in play just before it’s your turn or chain card after card of direct damage dealing you are going to cause significant damage to your opponents.

In Nightfall you’re going to be taking wounds pretty quickly but having them added to you deck isn’t as bad as you first think. Of course you need to have less wound than your opponents but at the end of each turn you can discard wound cards to draw more cards. This represents your supernatural being becoming more enraged with each wound you get and means that a few wounds in your deck can help your game.

Nightfall is a furious and bloodthirsty game. The mechanics mean that it’s very difficult to sit back and build up your defences. Instead you have to try and cause as much damage as quickly as possible. Careful selection of cards into your deck isn’t just about collecting the most powerful cards but also about creating the chains needed to play those powerful cards. The game plays between 2 and 5 players and scales pretty well. There are more aspects to juggle with more players as you’ll need to keep tabs on which of your opponents appears to have the least wounds and timing when to play your chains becomes important but the chance to play onto a chain on each player’s means that downtime is kept to a minimum.

Nightfall is a complicated game. There are a lot of rules and the first few games are a bit of a struggle just to learn those rules. It gets even more complicated when you consider that every card has its own effects and your starting minions act differently to minions available from the archives. Players then have to get their head around the chaining and kicking mechanic, an issue that isn’t helped by some colours looking the same under certain lighting conditions. Nightfall lacks the simplicity of Dominion but you shouldn’t be playing Nightfall if you want a deck builder. All the other games in this genre involve the collecting of some form of victory point card that then clog up your deck. Nightfall is more a confrontational card game with deck building elements; you don’t need to build your deck to win, you need to cause damage.

The theme of the undead punch up runs throughout the game. The artwork is good (though a little ropey in places) and the characters evoke the dark world in which they live. One place where the theme falls down a little is that each minion is a named individual; this means you could have two identical characters facing off against themselves.

In the past I have described Nightfall as a mad scientist’s attempt to create a hybrid of Dominion and Magic: The Gathering. That description suggests something cruder that what Nightfall actually is. Rather than a ham-fisted butchering of the various mechanics Nightfall is a delicate surgery of the best parts of both genres. The surgeon has carefully crafted a fast and furious confrontational game dripping with bloodthirsty theme.

The good
– Deck building mechanics build into a game with direct player confrontation
– Chaining mechanic means that card combinations are key
– Wound cards have a benefit
– Furious gameplay that forces you into the offensive.

The bad
– Complicated rules that will take a few games to bed in
– Theme isn’t quite fully realised with multiple players owning the same minion

Taken from my blog at http://www.polyhedroncollider.com

Nightfall takes all of the elements that I love about the deck building genre and meshes them together with a great horror theme.

I had put this game off for a very long time, thinking it was simply Dominion: Twilight. Besides that, many gamers that had tried it seemed to find the game overly complicated.

Thankfully, I put these opinions of Nightfall aside and decided to form my own opinion, once the Martial Law expansion hit store shelves. Against what I had heard, I found the game very intuitive and the manual a quick read with great examples.

The Chainmaster mechanic that Nightfall is based on is a wonderful new way to get cards to the table in front of you.

This game is certainly not for the timid or for players that do not like direct conflict. The first part of each players turn finds themselves attacking or under attack from other players.

If you are a fan of deckbuilding games, are looking for a new twist on the genre, or you loved the theme of the 2003 film Underworld, give this game a fair shot with some like-minded gamers.

Nightfall is my go to deckbuilding game when I am looking for a highly interactive boardgame. Not only do you get to chain your cards off of other players but you send your minions to attack other players. There is a certain amount of risk management as you can choose to block opponents attacking minions which leaves you with less minions to attack back with. Unblocked minions deal damage in the form of wounds, which are the way the game ends, the player with the least wounds is the winner at the end of the game. The Wounds are not a total hinderance and provide additional effects to the players and can even provide them a way to get ahead in the game.

Now I’ve only played this game once so Im just giving my initial impression. Llike my title starts to indicat; if ya threw dominion and magic in a food processor you’d end up with something an awful lot like nightfall. The deck building is similar to dominion, but you must summon creatures to battle like Magic. Unlike magic the game is self contained so you don’t have to take out a housing loan to build a great deck. Basically if you like the aforementioned game mechanics from Magic and Dominion I predict that you will at least like this game, if not to totally love it.