Jackbox meets Gloomhaven meets Xbox SmartGlass
I will not lie to you, gentle reader.
It’s not like I necessarily object to all these things.
I like boardgames (current favourite, Cosmic Encounters).
I like cardgames (current favourite, Fungi).
So, who are these “folk” that have been “sundered”?
You play one of six heroes, each a bestial spin on a familiarRPGclass.
Players and enemy movements are grouped into rounds.
Plot a route through an ally, and you’ll shove them into the hex behind.
There’s a salamander who mixes DPS with terrain control, performing AOE belches that set hexes alight.
It’s less great for other characters, who suddenly find their escape routes blocked by flame.
That weasel has it coming.
When giant spiders in Sunderfolk are hit, they skitter away randomly to another hex.
In this case, all the spiders ended up next to me.
The mission in question was about retrieving some stolen supplies from a spider’s egg sac.
This, we triumphantly did not do.
We had slightly better luck trying to rescue some kind of industrial beetle from ogres.
This, we triumphantly did not do.
I blame the bird mystic, in this case.
Still, the smartphone interface makes it fairly intuitive.
During your turn, you shuffle cards on your screen and stroke vertically to play them.
The constraint is that they have to be performed or skipped in descending order.
But skipping actions lets you tailor each card to the situation.
you’re able to customise the effects of different Fate dice rolls between missions.
“So we’re all very well educated in this already.”
“And I want them to be immersed in what we’re doing, and be present.
When you’re playing this game, your phone is not being used for those things.
But with a team of 28 people, there isn’t capacity for that right now.
In practice, though, having five or more people made things too fiddly.
Both Malek and Sigaty are hopeful that Sunderfolk might be the first of many smartphone-meets-TV games from Secret Door.
“Ideally, we’re doing a lot of games like this,” Sigaty told me.
“I’m very passionate about it.”
Dreamhaven’s marketing department have emphasised the comparison, but Sigaty resisted it.
“I think we can’t help but be built on values and insights from that time, right?
But he added that Sunderfolk was conceived after he and the studio’s former Blizzard staff had left.
They have needs that have to meet the equivalent ofWorld of Warcraft.”
