Another Vlaada Chvátil game - Dungeonlords.

Dungeonlords.
Haven't seen this mentioned here before. It looks more interesting than Dorn.

i was really interested until i saw stuff like this

Time to check the age on Adrian's F:AT card ...

Yep, that looks like an abstract eyesore, probably some kind of lame worker placement deal, or else a breakthrough in flowchart concepts. Pass.

www.cliquenabend.de/videos/burgevent2009dungeon.wmv

Link to Vlaada explaining the game. Once they get into it, he's speaking in English although it's still a little hard to discern exactly what he's talking about.

It smacks of worker placement, but I'm not ready to write it off just yet because Vlaada always throws something interesting into the mix. Not like him to design an Agricola clone.

What looks like a flowchart, I think, is just where you plan your actions. Action 1 leads to action 2 etc..

A review of the prototype is here . If I'm reading it right, it's worker placement plus indirect player interaction equals victory points. Oh yeah!

worker placement + indirect player interaction + victory points = boring eurogame

Worker Placement is the Brussels Sprouts of boardgaming.

Sag.

Hey! I'll thank you not to insult Brussels Sprouts in my presence.

If a game mechanic can inspire people to use the phrase "agonizing decisions" in a positive voice it's likely one to avoid. I just don't understand why WP is having such a run right now. My prediction is that five or ten years from now everyone is going to be looking back at it and scratching their head.

Sag.

moss_icon wrote:

i was really interested until i saw stuff like this

I was worried that I was developing near the same game as this until Frank reassured me they were nothing alike. I saw that same picture a little bit ago and know that they are nothing alike.

I think I read somewhere that Vlaada's is supposed to simulate several seasons of being a dungeon lord. Maybe somehow that player mat helps keep track of everything.

Mr MOTO wrote:

I think I read somewhere that Vlaada's is supposed to simulate several seasons of being a dungeon lord.

So Dungeon Lord is a contractual position? I always figured it for an FTE.

Sag.

Allow me to play devil's advocate for a minute...

It seems like the worker placement in this game might be somewhat (dare I say) thematic. Each player is a "dungeon lord" who builds up his dungeon by using the resources of the surrounding area/villages. The worker placement mechanism comes into play in this way, but unlike Agricola, more than one player can extract resources from the same village. It is important to get to the village before the other DLs though, because the first one there has the option to pay for resources. Every other DL has to take the resources at the cost of his reputation, i.e. he becomes more "evil" in the eyes of the villagers.

Once the dungeon building parts of the game are over and it's time for the heroes to come try themselves against your creation, the most evil dungeon lord will get the strongest hero (or heroes, if he's really evil) knocking on his door.

My biggest problem with worker placement is that it usually doesn't make any sense for one player to not be able to take an action because another player is taking an action. But in this case, it might actually be thematic. I don't know what all of the actions are or if the consequences of not getting to the actions before other players are consistent with the theme throughout, but I have to hold out hope that VC isn't just making another caylus/pillars/leonardo/agricola game with a dungeon theme on it. I just can't see the designer of Through the Ages and Space Alert doing something so done.

Am I living in denial?

Worker Placement generally implies that if you take it first, no one else can have it. Your description does not seem to imply WP. This is exactly what I said on the Stronghold thread where the phrase was used as well, in spite of it not appearing to be a correct application of it there either.

If getting there second means you can get what you want at a higher price, that ain't worker placement.

Sag.

clockwirk wrote:

Am I living in denial?

Unfortunately, yes. According to the review, the first player to choose a resource in a season actually gets the least amount of that resource (with one caveat, see below). The second gets more, and the third gets the most (considerably more than the others, too). It would only be the fourth player, then who would get locked out of the resource. Now I can stretch this in to something thematic, but I have to stretch it to do so.

More broadly, I don't think that worker placement is always inherently unthematic. I just think it's boring.