Review of Casting Shadows - Player Elimination Board Game from Unstable Games
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- Build your power, transform into your Shadow Form, and eliminate your opponents with the new player elimination board game from Unstable Games - Casting Shadows. The game has great art and fun components, but the mechanics left us wanting more and feeling kind of bored while playing. We'll give you all of our thoughts in our full review video.
Have you played Casting Shadows? What’d you think? Let us know in the comments below.
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My wife and I are obsessed with this game and have played a large number of 1v1. I should note that we also have the expansion set with freeze and stun mechanics.
A few house rules for the two of us:
- We noticed that some cards and a Hex tile using the freeze mechanic were too powerful in a 1v1 scenario, so we opted to not use them
- Recovery Raven shadow companion does not cost an orb to use in addition to utilizing a conversion spell
- We do not use the No damage tile or the +1 damage tile in a 1v1
We are reading other people's house rules and may try them out as well:
- We like the idea of going in and then out of shadow form once you use it's ability, with the option of using an action point to swap your shadow companion once you re-enter it
- Possibly being only able to attack when you're in shadow form is interesting
- The game favors aggression, and most counter spell cards aren't great, so making them cost less somehow seems like a good idea
- Removing the Swamp shadow companion and having the protect action remove all cursed dice
I love this game. I have had a ton of fun playing it with my friends. I backed the game on Kickstarter at the highest tier and I'm glad I did. Not every game needs to be complex. Sometimes I just like to play a game where it is quick to learn and I can just roll dice and attack my friends. I also play more complex games as well, in case you were wondering.
Definitely going to see why everyone hates happy little dinosaurs, but asfor casting shadows, I feel like abilities could have been put on the hex tiles, and the transformations werent as exciting as they could have been, but I wasn't disappointed in the game. I went into it thinking it was going to be cute and fanciful first and then layered. It does have a lot of variance, which might turn people off, but you still have to make decisions, and you have a lot of control over your turn with 4 actions. We're going to play it more, but I think if you set the expectation to less committed and more thematic and fun, and play as if you were still a kid, this game goes from 5 to an easy 7/8 for me. You might try adding health as a house rule to show the game down and allow more spells to be picked up, but the expansion might help that already. Haven't played it yet.
Everyone play the wolves by pandasaurus.
I have played this once with my friends in a 6 player game (he got the $150 version) and I think you are kinda correct. First off he explained the game to me and we opted to not play with hex tile powers bc it’s just so much of a hassle to go find the rule book and find its power for every location. Second I agree heavily with the dice reliance, it’s a big bummer when I rolled 3 dark crystals and have to waste almost all my actions just to not take damage. I still think it is a great game and I really enjoyed playing it and I will definitely get it
I also own unstable unicorns and it’s a blast to play, and I have played happy little dinosaurs once with that same friend and that was enough (it was terrible). It’s a little disappointing bc when I first saw and played unstable unicorns I immediately thought this was the next exploding kittens making a ton of fun and funny games. Although exploding kittens team is sometimes hit or miss too (hand to hand wombat)
Definitely agree. We enjoy Unstable Unicorns and we love Here to Slay. But the rest of their catalogue has been slightly disappointing to downright bad - Happy Little Dinos. And Exploding Kittens have definitely had some misses, but we appreciate that they try something new with all of their games.
Im still waiting for my copy, for the issues you had, would you recommend any house rules I could try with my friends to minimize the annoyances you had?
We left the chart open and in front of us for quick reference. It didn't take up much space, and it was separate from the rulebook, we discussed having it laminated. I feel like many people expected too much from a light-hearted and fun based, pretty much entry-level game marketed on art and theme. The art alone is worth playing with your kids or over a few drinks with adult friends who like magical worlds. While not a perfect game, none of its faults are unforgivable to me. I hope anyone who didn't enjoy this game gives it another shot!
I thought of a few different rules to implement after my first playthrough that could make it more exciting
1) I printed out 5 additional copies of the hexagon description page for everyone
2) I used the dice as the action counter. After you roll, you collect the smaller versions of the dice. As you take an action, you pass the die to the next person.
3) rule one: after you utilize your shadow form special ability, you devolve back to the cute part (similar to Digimon vs pokemon)
4) rule 2 (not sure about this one) once you evolve, your hp increases by 5/ regenerate all hp to 18.
RNG could be tough sometimes. So we added house rule that using "protect" ability allows to protect from all of the cursed crystals (not just one). Makes the game feel more fair.
And yeah... all Unstable games have problem with lots of small text all over the place. And they should add a lot more iconography into their games.
I thought of a few different rules to implement after my first playthrough that could make it more exciting
1) I printed out 5 additional copies of the hexagon description page for everyone
2) I used the dice as the action counter. After you roll, you collect the smaller versions of the dice. As you take an action, you pass the die to the next person.
3) rule one: after you utilize your shadow form special ability, you devolve back to the cute part (similar to Digimon vs pokemon)
4) rule 2 (not sure about this one) once you evolve, your hp increases by 5/ regenerate all hp to 18.
The third rule is bad, shadow forms kind of suck anyways, the only thing they got going for them is companions, otherwise the skills are js better most if the time
Thanks for the review
I think i've decided to purchase this game as well as happy little dinosaurs and here to slay. Reason being that they seem like a good intro game to people who arent into board games like twilight imperium or comic encounters or stuff like that. Plus they're cheap and they're fun to look at so i guess even with their generally unfavorable rating i'm still going to give them a shot.
Dont know if you guys have any suggestions for some fun/simple intro board games?
Here to Slay is a good one we enjoy. We also enjoy Unstable Unicorns by them as well. Very intro: we like Exploding Kittens, Organ Attack, and Herbaceous. A little more to it but not difficult: Parks, Floriferous, 7 Wonders.
@@PartyTails Awesome, I'll check those out as well then, thank you!
Here to Slay was amazing. Happy Little Dinosaurs was terrible
Im still waiting for mine to get delivered from the kickstarter, while I do, do you recommend any house rules to make this a more fun experience, and not as complicated for me and my friends to enjoy?
I think house rules are the way to go. God forbid you play with 6 players, but if you do, play as teams.
@@TheGilzam Do you have any suggestions? im planning on whipping this game out with my friends at some point and want to make it as fun as i can
Yeah we just got deeper into this creator and I'm finding the same issues with them.
Played unstable unicorns and felt like, why play this when here to slay was basically the same thing but better. And my issue with casting shadows is that it's basically the same thing but with much more setup time and complexity. Laaameeee
Curious what you think of the ice storm expansion and if it adds anything to the game play or not
We have not gotten a chance to play the Ice Storm expansion yet.
Do I need to buy the vinyl figures to use as tokens (and if not are they worth it)?
You don’t have to. They sell a non-deluxe version. Definitely don’t think it’s worth it, but some people may disagree. It’s going to depend on how much you like the game. We’ve deluxified several games even though it wasn’t necessary, just because we like the game that much. We just don’t think this is one of them.
Interesting take. My family enjoyed the games we have so far and we see a lot of possibilities. The dice roll can be tough, but you can re-roll right?
Also, I think you should mention how cool it is to block opponents by refreshing cards once you got the upper hand. There's a lot of strategy in this game, but I agree that too much reliance on dice is a bad design.
Though for that, you can always position yourself in spots that has a resource you need, and roll 5 dice with a higher chance of pulling whatever plan you have.
The hex tiles, I super agree on this. I'm printing out a sticker for them so it's essier for us.
Overall, it's a 8/10. Everything in my opinion is great except for the hex tile description and the dice roll reliance.
You don't have to play by unstabel's rules you can tweek them to make them suit your cup of tea. If you don't like luck then change the dice roll mechanic to that were you roll the dice iduvidualy and get 2 FREE re rolls
it would mean that you would think and stratagise.
just my take tho lmao :p
Just got this last night. You guys are ruining it for me before i even try it 😂
I mostly agree with your points about the game. it gets kind of repeatative real Quick. But what i dont agree with is the hate against happy little Dinosaurs. I LOVE this game. You can play it with everyone and still it gives room for tactical gameplay. I got a big variety of people top play with but I NEVER had someone who didnt like it. unstable unicorns and exploding kittens had mixed reactions alltough I love them too.
We haven’t gone back and revisited Happy Little Dinosaurs since they’ve updated the rulebook, so it might be better than our original impression of it. However, when we first got one of the early copies and played it, it was a mess. Even if we play the updated version, we still might not like it, but that’s the fun of board games. There’s something for everyone! And we agree on UU and Kittens, we enjoy them, but we also know a lot of people don’t.
Oh, they've updated the rulebook? Since when? :o @@PartyTails
Another thing i’d like to point out is that the shadow form of the meeples suck, like you get a companion, but the shadow abilities they have aren’t great, for example the fox does 1 damage to everybody, terrible for 1v1’s, and still bad even if theres a lot of people, when you get the evolved shadow form theres absolutely no reason to not reroll the shadow fragments because of how useless they become
The oh song
I backed it but I definitely agree. Looks great! Plays 💩
So this review just talkes about how they could of organized the board better but doesn't actually talk about the issues of the actual gameplay itself so does that mean that the gameplay is actually good and it's the organization is just bad ?
The gameplay is okay for what it is. Other games do it better, especially other Unstable Games. Some issues with it: certain spell cards are unbalanced or broken depending on other cards played. The dice rolling is frustrating. And it takes longer to accomplish tasks than a game of this level should. If you pair that with the lack of references on the tiles and the amount of reading on the cards, it can take even longer to play, especially for your first few times.
@@PartyTails do u guys run into issues where players target the best player with attack spells first just to get them off the board ? Pretty much bully them to 0 hp before it gets back to their turn.
Sometimes that happens due to the nature of the game, but we don’t do it to be mean, it just makes the most strategic sense in certain scenarios.
L take nit picky complaining about RNG in a board game 😂
Oh no, this is so disappointing. The game looked so good😢
That's what unstable games do, they lure you in with great artwork but zero gameplay thought it balancing
@@alonweinberg9248 Here To Slay has pretty tight and solid gameplay. Sure it has dice rolling, but that’s what the rng mitigation cards are for. It’s a light romp with some decent tactics and chances to mess up your friends for those drinks and chill game nights. I’ll still give this one a go.
These guys are probably way more qualified and have played many more games than me, so I'm not insulting their opinion because it's theirs, and it's honest. But to me, they were a little hard on the game. It's not meant to be a masterpiece like scythe or something. It's so cute and fun, and they (unstable games) aren't deceptive in their approach. Gameplay is simple but tight. Theme is adorably epic, and there are lots of spell cards to explore still. Plenty of luck will help you for sure, but you can't be careless about your decisions. I really enjoyed it, but maybe I'm a sucker. I encourage you to give it a shot.
Game enjoyment is subjective and everyone will have a different opinion and that’s one of the many reasons why we love board games. So, we’re always happy to hear when someone enjoys a game even if we didn’t! We also hope other people will give it a shot and form their own opinion, but with games being more and more expensive and time consuming these days we hope to give some of our insight into a game if people are weighing their options. Objectively, this is the second game from Unstable that we’ve played recently that felt undercooked with some basic game design- granted, not as bad as HLD. We’re fans of Unstable and they have shown that they can make games with fun artwork and mechanics that we enjoy, which is why we might be a little harder on them. They don’t get the benefit of the doubt of being a first time company that made some mistakes.
How dare you guys say that happy little dinosaur is not that good. My classmates think that happy little dinosaur is a really fun game