I must first admit I’ve never played Dark Souls. Through geeky osmosis I’ve gathered it is a highly regarded dark fantasy video game and the punishing difficulty is a feature, not a bug. From this limited perspective and squinting carefully, Ragemore hits those same themes in a tiny package fitting in your backpack and on your desk that can be played in a half-hour over a lunch break at work.
Ragemore is an 18-card purely solitaire game that asks if a small band of heroes can defend a village against a horde of monsters. While the premise is nothing special, the Gothic artwork helps sell the setting. The monsters and heroes lack extremely detailed definition giving them all an haunting, almost ghostly look. But each character is defined well enough to imbue them all with personality. I think the best design choice was to limit the color palette. The two-toned color scheme adds to the overall creepiness of the scene.
Each hero and monster has a strength rating and one or two suits. Heroes can fight monsters by comparing strength and explore quests by matching suits. There is only one way to win and multiple ways to lose. In order to win, a player must explore at least three quests in two different suits. But if the graveyard contains more than three corpses (losing too many fights), the monster deck has no more monsters (recruiting too many monsters), or an unsolved quest pile contains four monsters (not exploring enough). These paths to defeat forces players to balance their actions and ensure tension.
Each player action has unique twists. Heroes with higher strength than monsters will kill the monster and flip it over to add a new hero to the team. If the strengths are tied, the monster and hero are both sent back to the monster pile. If the monster is stronger, the monster is flipped and added to the party but the hero dies and is sent to the graveyard. To recruit new party members a hero must match their suit with the monsters. The monsters are recruited while the hero is sent back into the monster pile. However, not every monster can be recruited. Finally, exploring is also done with a hero’s suits but with more limitations. These explored monsters are moved to the completed quest section.
All the heroes have the same available actions and each monster has an individual ability that activates if the monster does not fight or is not recruited. Players need to take in to account these monster abilities. Passing a turn and allowing the monster to join the active quest piles (provided the monster won’t trigger a loss) and activating the ability might be good.
As a total package Ragemore is excellent and tight gameplay in a mere eighteen cards. It takes minutes to learn but is not an easy game. Losing comes quick, not a noticeable downward spiral. Each action requires foresight and patience. It is a great Button Shy game and at the moment you can pre-order with estimated shipping of December 2022.
The Keasy Depot 