Two Rex Plays #1 - Heroes of Tenefyr
Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts which provide an overview of the games that we’ve played and loved over the last few years. Rather than providing a traditional review, the idea is to focus on the aspects of the design or gameplay mechanics that we thought worked well and are doubtless rattling around our brains as we come up with our own effort…
Kicking us off is Heroes of Tenefyr from Broken Mill Games. This was my first taste of the modern wave of board games and provided a great introduction to the ingenuity that can be found in modern tabletop games.
Part dungeon crawler, part deck builder, you pick from four distinct character classes and zigzag across five dungeons of varying difficulty in order to prepare your party’s decks before facing off against a final boss. There’s complete freedom to move through the dungeons as you see fit, allowing you the opportunity to sequence-break the easier dungeons in favour of better rewards available at higher difficulty levels. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and an early exit from a harder dungeon rapidly consumes the limited number of turns before the final boss fight is triggered. This encapsulates the clever risk/reward balances that run throughout the game.
My first experience with the game was through an official version on Tabletop Simulator (‘TTS’) - perfect for remote play during the pandemic. I’ve played a number of TTS games now and consider this to be a great adaptation which closely replicates the boxed version. The economics behind this really interests me - for now I like to think that supporting a free, feature rich version ultimately creates more interest in a game and outweighs any cannibalism of providing a version of the game without charging for it. It certainly worked in our case as we both went out and bought physical copies!
Other aspects we love:
Distinct character classes make co-op play meaningfully co-operative. You need to communicate with each other, understand the roles of each character class, and balance the strength of your party’s decks.
Successfully replicates a number of core D&D experiences in a much more accessible game.
Top quality TTS adaptation, officially supported by the creator, which provides a great entry point to the game.
Strong art direction, playing homage to traditional D&D ideas but still finding a fresh voice.
Satisfying end game - the final battle looms over you from the start & creates a natural win / lose state. No need to count up victory points here.
I played the physical version with my son who was 8 years old at the time - after walking him through the mechanics he was able to fully participate in the game & really enjoyed playing a co-operative role alongside the grownups.
On this final point, I think TTS is fantastic, but in my experience younger children struggle with keyboard and mouse controls & really enjoy the independence of not having an adult enact their turn for them*. This autonomy, alongside the social aspects of face-to-face play, still make physical games my preferred way of playing wherever possible.
* Fast forward a year and, thanks to Minecraft, he has now mastered the vital life skill of dual analog stick controls. Is anyone at Berserk Games up for the challenge of adapting TTS on Switch?
Interested in Heroes of Tenefyr? Find out more here:
Broken Mill Games
Broken Mill Games (brokenmillgames.com)
Official TTS workshop
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1661612938