There are those games where the player builds a deck and duels other opponents. Thunderstone by Mike Elliot is interesting in the sense that the players build their decks as they play the game. Each player starts off with a basic deck. Then the players add heroes, monsters, shopping purchases and diseases to their decks. The aim is to collect cards that are worth Victory Points (VP). Other cards collected help the players to achieve this.
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| A typical turn layout. |
There are two sources of VP (that I've encountered so far). The main source is by beating up monsters in the dungeon. The other is to collect level 3 heroes. In order to beat up monsters, the player has to muster enough Attack to match the monster's Life. Heroes, equipment and supplies contribute to Attack.
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| Shopping at the village mall. |
At the start of the game, unless there is a weak monster available, the player will typically go shopping in the village to buy equipment and supplies or hire heroes. Gold for that turn is determined by the gold value of all cards in hand. Unless the card mentions 'Destroy', spending gold does not cost the player any cards.
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| Challenging a monster in the dungeon. |
Instead of shopping, the player may spend his or her turn in the dungeon and challenge a monster. If the player is successful, the monster is added to the player's deck. A monster adds a one-time XP bonus and is usually worth gold for village shopping - they impress villagers for some reason. More importantly, most monsters have a VP value, which adds to the player's final score.
Typically, if the player draws a hand with a good Attack, he or she would explore the dungeon. If he or she draws cards with gold, a visit to the village would be a good idea. And if the player has a bad hand, there is the 'Rest' option where the player may 'Destroy' a card in his or her hand. This is usually used to remove weak or useless cards from the deck, which is likely the cause of the bad hand in the first place.
It should be noted that there are limited cards available in the village shopping mall. When XP is spent to level up a hero at the village, the relevant card is taken from the mall to upgrade that hero. Thus it is not possible to level if the card is not available.
(Officially, it in the game, it is known as 'village'. But I like to call it 'the mall' since it has so many selection of goods and it has monopoly.)
For each type of hero, the mall presents the level 1 version initially. Once the level 1 cards of a type of hero are gone, the mall will start having level 2s and later, level 3s available. This presents an alternate strategy where the player builds an economic deck to hire those level 3 heroes to add VPs to his or her deck.
However, there are monsters with much higher VPs than level 3 heroes. Level 3 heroes would be helpful in taking down these tough monsters, but it is still possible to win with lesser heroes backed by good equipment and supplies.
The game continues until someone claims the Thunderstone. As monsters are defeated, the Thunderstone will eventually appear in the dungeon. When the monsters in front of the Thunderstone are defeated or somehow removed, the player who caused that to happen will claim the Thunderstone, which is worth 3 VPs.
There is a Tutorial to explain the basic gameplay. However, the more intricate rules and strategies are up to the player to figure out. The learning curve is hard but Thunderstone is an enjoyable game once the player figures it out.
It should be noted that only the Core Set of the game is available for free. There are additional sets, which contain new and interesting cards. These sets must be purchased. Think of it as purchasing expansions to the game. The extra cards in the expansions may be previewed in Skirmish from the Main Menu.
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| Final results - second place! |
