Clank! Catacombs
- rank: 52
- rating: 8.2
- published: 2022
- designer: Paul Dennen
Print Status
- in print
Why It's On The List
- Smoosh Dungeonquest and Ascension together and you'd get something close to this fantastic deck-building dungeon crawl... with the very clever “clank” mechanic binding the two together and acting a game timer and source of tension - that's the base game of Clank! Then add in a randomly generated map plus a variety of other smart decisions, and you've got Clank! Catacombs
Tips & Tricks:
- While there is a lot of witty color text, it’s small and doesn’t make the cards more difficult to read.
- The graphic design of the cards is really smart – they have used consistent iconography and clear text instructions to make it easy to understand what the card does for you, even when you add in the expansion cards.
- The procedurally generated map means that players have to adjust their preferred strategies for the reality of the dungeon they've entered. (Yes, I realize that it's not a real dungeon. That's what happens when you're trying to write about fantasy stuff.)
Extras
- Both expansions for Clank! Catacombs work well. While I don't think Underworld is strictly necessary, I'm glad I have in my set. Lairs & Lost Chambers, OTOH, really expands the game options and the variety of cards/tiles.
- You can read my Welcome to the Clank-iverse overview of most of the expansions available for the original Clank!... and includes Kulkmann's homebrewed rules for a Clank! campaign. (I say "most" because Adventuring Party appeared after I wrote the article.)
- Clank! In! Space! is excellent as well... with a slightly higher rules overhead.
- My boys and I loved Clank! Legacy. It is longer per game by about 50%, but we had a blast.
- I still love the original Clank! - it landed just outside the top 100 (well, #108).
- The Clank! expansions have been packaged well in appropriately sized boxes... and have all been worth their cost as far as enjoyment and variety goes. (Better than you can say for some franchises - I'm looking at you, Adrenaline: Team Play DLC and Carcassonne: The Catapult.)
- There's actually a really nice free app from Renegade that has a solo mode for Clank! which works well.
- This is the first of two games on the countdown from designer Paul Dennen.
No comments:
Post a Comment