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Dragonwood
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Description
Dare to enter Dragonwood! Deep in the heart of this mythical forest lurk angry ogres, giggling goblins, and even the famed and fearsome fire-breathers themselves! Collect sets of adventurer cards to earn dice, which you will use to roll against your foes. Stomp on some fire ants, shriek at a grumpy troll, or strike the menacing orange dragon with a magical silver sword. Choose your strategy carefully because the landscape of Dragonwood is ever-changing. Only the bravest will overcome the odds to emerge victorious!
Dragonwood is a deck-building, dice-rolling, family game, said to be suitable for two to four players. However, five or six can easily play this game too. A game will typically take between 20 and 45 minutes. Players are adventurers, on a quest to defeat many mythical and woodland creatures, scoring points and using magical enchantments on the way.
Gameplay
Dragonwood is best played seated around a table. There are two sets of cards, Dragonwood and Adventurer cards. Five mythical creatures are drawn from the Dragonwood deck and displayed face-up in the centre of the table. The creatures have different strengths. When a more challenging foe is chosen, the rewards for defeating them are greater but the risks are increased. Battles are fought by rolling up to six dice. The maximum number of dice that can be used is determined by the number of Adventurer cards played by the player from their hand.
The Adventurer cards depict five helpers (or suites) to assist the player on their quest and are numbered from one to 12. Each turn players have two choices; either to draw an additional Adventurer card (up to a maximum hand of nine), or to attack a specific creature. These cards are concealed from the other players.
By developing the hand of Adventurer cards, players can choose the type of attack. A run of cards with consecutive numbers can allow a strike attack. Cards of the same number can allow a stomp. Groups of the same adventurer will enable a player to scream at a creature! Each creature has different vulnerabilities. For example, fire ants can be easily overcome by a stomp but an ogre needs a strike.
The dice are labelled to give a maximum score of four. If the total score of all dice rolled exceeds the creature’s vulnerability then the attack has been successful. This Dragonwood card is then captured by the player for scoring at the end of the game. The player then discards all the Adventurer cards used and play continues. If the dice score is too low a player must forfeit one card of their choice. This means that, before launching an attack, it will help to gauge the chance of achieving different totals with certain numbers of dice.
The game ends when all the creatures have been defeated or both dragons have been slain.
Thoughts on Dragonwood
Dragonwood, by Gamewright, comes in a small box with cards, dice and rules. The rules are clear, colourful and well laid out, with very straightforward instructions to first-timers. The cards are of standard playing card size and quality. The compact and sturdy box means it can easily be packed and taken to play anywhere.
This is a popular game among our children. It is relatively simple and can easily be mastered by children of eight years or older. The theme of being an explorer and stumbling across deadly creatures can make it a fun family game. The deck management mechanism teaches young children the importance of planning ahead. By collecting the necessary cards, this can improve the probability of success in subsequent attacks. Children will also learn how numbers of dice will affect the chance of success or failure. From just a few cards and dice there are some maths concepts that are wrapped up in this little box. This is not a maths game but in playing it children will certainly grapple with probabilities.
Dragonwood is definitely family-friendly. There is an element of luck in the Adventurer cards drawn but there is some co-operation in that all the players need to defeat all of the creatures to complete the quest. There is no “nastiness” or direct battling of each other. The only competition is ensuring you achieve more battle points and capture more Dragonwood cards than everyone else.
To assist in the adventure, a number of enhancement cards can be added to the deck. This provides more decisions whether to use valuable Adventurer cards to gain enchantments – and make later battles easier. Alternatively, you could go for a quick win against the creatures already present. Some enhancements are for single-use only. Others will have an effect on all other battles later in the game. Each spell has a different value and is “captured” in the same way as the creatures. This means that their relative value might reduce as the game progresses. These enhancement cards do certainly “enhance” the game and make the game far more interesting. Indeed the game needs these enhancement cards to help in the battles with some of the more challenging creatures.
The game will end when all the creatures are defeated. This usually takes about 30 minutes for a four-player game. However, the number of cards (and enhancements) can be varied according to the time available. The winner is the adventurer who has the highest total points scored on their captured Dragonwood cards.
Closing Thoughts
Dragonwood is a good little filler game for the family. It is very portable, making it suitable to be taken on holiday. Younger children will enjoy the theme of defeating mythical creatures as adventurers. Others will take to the deck-building and chance element of the game.
Parents can justify playing the game as it teaches maths concepts to younger children without them realising they are learning planning and probabilities at the same time.
Following a friend’s birthday party my son came home extolling me with stories about a game they had been playing and how much he had enjoyed it. That game was Dragonwood. Released in 2015 by Gamewright Dragonwood remains a popular game with their similarly designed Dragonrealm being released.
Since my son was so excited, I decided to buy the game and see what all his fuss was about. Here are my thoughts.
Dragonwood In Brief
The first thing that struck me about the game was how much game was fit into so small a box. It packs away really tidily. The artwork is clever in that it looks like classic fantasy art but with a comic style twist, a nice complement to how the game is in its feel too. Like a classic adventure but with an undertone of fun.
Gameplay is nice and easy to pick up, you’ll feel confident nice and quickly with this game.
There are two decks, the Dragonwood deck and the Adventurer deck. On a players turn they may choose to “Reload” by drawing a card from the Adventurer Deck or to try and “Capture” a card from one of the five visible Dragonwood Deck cards.
The Adventurer Deck contains Adventurer cards that you use to make Capture attempts. These have a different colour and number that power three different attacks the Strike, Stomp and Scream that are then used to try and capture a card; more detail on this later. If this deck is played through twice the game ends after each of the players’ have taken one last turn.
The Dragonwood Deck contains three types of card Creatures, Enhancements and Events. The creatures are foes that players try to capture and include the Orange and Blue Dragons that are loaded into the bottom half of the Dragonwood deck. Both Dragons being captured is another way that the game can end.
All creatures have Victory Point value and players score points at the end of the game for each creature they have captured. Enhancements, on the other hand, look like creature cards with a purple background. They are generally things like items and potions that give advantages to future capture attempts. Events are just that, for example “Thunder Storm”, when they appear events are immediately resolved with good or bad effects.
Playing Dragonwood
Setting up the game you deal out 3 adventurer cards to each player and place 5 Dragonwood cards out on the table.
As noted earlier, players in Dragonwood can choose to make a capture attempt on their turn. To do this, they look at their adventurer cards, looking for numbers in a row (for a Strike attack), cards of the same number (for a Stomp attack) or cards of the same colour (for a Scream attack). The number of cards in either of these categories indicates the number of dice that they can roll for the capture attempt. They will then choose a creature or enhancement card to try and capture. The creature or item will have a required score for each type of attack and may be much easier to capture with a particular attack. For example, the Fire Ants creature is very weak to Stomp attacks when compared to their Strike or Scream values.
This is where strategy and decision making come into Dragonwood. The dice are custom numbered 1,2,2,3,3,4 and this needs to be kept in mind when considering whether to make your attack. How likely are you to fail? If you fail, you will lose an adventurer card for no gain. Might you be better to reload again, drawing a new card and hoping to be able to increase your chances on the following turn? This might, however, run the risk of allowing an opponent to capture a strong creature or powerful enhancement. Should you try and arm yourself with enhancements or capture a load of creatures to get an unmatchable quantity of points? The answer might change from game to game. This is something I like in a game, the capacity for it to feel a bit different each time you play.
This simple reload/capture system becomes muscle memory as you play so you’ll start quickly moving through reload turns and then having to slow down as you consider potential captures. This makes the game quick to play through.
You continue the game until either the adventurer Deck has been played through twice or the two dragons are captured, whichever happens first. At this point players add up their points to determine the winner.
Family Friendly Fun
The game is recommended for ages 8 and up, this is a pretty good indication of its accessibility; so Dragonwood is an ideal game for families to use to get everyone around a table and play.
There is also an element of luck to Dragonwood. If you do not draw required combinations of adventurer cards for strong attacks and other players do, you can quickly find yourself falling behind in points or frustratedly unable to capture enhancements. However, there is enough strategy and informed decision making to keep you engaged and entertained. I always think an element of luck is handy in family games as it can be used to ease the frustrations of younger players who struggle with losing and also help them overcome older players with better ideas of strategy.
Likes and Dislikes
Likes
- Simple gameplay, perfect for families.
- Quick and easy set-up, you are playing quickly from the box.
- 30ish minute play time that can be tweaked. You don’t need to set aside a whole evening.
Dislikes ·
- Potential to feel repetitive over time, having only owned for a short period I can’t be sure but do feel it could be an issue.
Final Thoughts
I have enjoyed playing Dragonwood. My son also enjoys it and plays it with his friends. I recently introduced it to customers at my local gaming store looking for a game for younger players and they were similarly impressed. In the instructions, Gamewright have suggested some alternatives to gameplay that can be used. These include the “Dragon Spell” attack where you can use colour-matched numbers in order for two dice each but only when challenging one of the dragons. Also, suggestions for an “Advanced Mode” where there are two seen adventurer cards alongside the next draw, I’d imagine this might speed up captures a little too. These tweaks will also add some variety as you get used to the game.
Overall, if you’d like a relatively low-cost game that you can enjoy with your family on a regular basis you would do well to invest in a copy of Dragonwood.
Zatu Score
You might like
- Quick and simple to learn.
- Easy to set-up.
- Can be played almost anywhere.
Might not like
- Very simple mechanics.
- Some element of chance.