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[puke]

I figure there are some old Talisman nerds on this forum, so thought I'd post.



This goes on Humble Bundles every so often, so it isnt such a big deal that the Talisman Digital Edition is 90% off on Steam right now.  What /is/ a big deal, is that you can get the DLC (including the Season Pass to all future DLC) for 70% off.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/247000/

What's this about, you ask?  Glad you did.

http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Talisman_series



Talisman is a GW boardgame from the 80s.  There is no card collecting or deck building, Games Workshop probably wishes they had thought up those money making schemes but this predates all that nonsense.

It is your basic "competative quest" sort of thing, where each player is trying to reach the magical artifact.  You might cooperate when it is convenient, but only one player can win.  You can use a lot of tactics, and better players will win more often, but there is a lot of randomness in the cards and in the dice turn things around in an instant.  Someone with a commanding lead might find themselves turned into a slimy little toad, or having all their strength drained or armor dissolved, or any number of awful things.  The game can turn on a dime, and if you don't think Losing is Fun, then you probably shouldn't play.

But how do you play?  Draw a character and travel around a board experiencing events and interacting with various squares and other characters until you are strong enough to venture into the middle region, where things get a little harder.  Once you meet the requirements, you can open the Portal of Power and enter the inner region, where you have to be pretty strong and well prepared to make it through and seize control of the Crown of Command, which you use to win the game.

That is it in a nutshell.  The game has had various editions.  Second edition build upon and refined 1st ed, adding some board expansions to make the game a little larger.  Third edition strayed from the original rules a bit and was not as well received.

Fourth edition is made by Fantasy Flight Games, and is pretty true to 1st/2nd edition.  They support the game well, and expansions keep coming out.  The Digital Edition is a pretty faithful copy of 4th ed, and they are releasing all of the same expansions as DLC (hence the value of the Season Pass).

Expansions, you say?  Indeed.  A plethora of additional and horribly unbalanced characters (don't worry, you draw them randomly and even the weakest of them can win in hilarious ways) as well as extra rules and more cards, items, events, spells, and such.  Also, major board expansions.  Large corner pieces such as City, Forrest, Dungeon, and Mountains that probably more than double the playing area and add a bunch more to the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Currently the major board expansions available in the Digital Edition are Mountains and Dungeon, I think City is up next.

The rules are convoluted and complex!  so it can be frustrating to play, and probably a nightmare to program!  There are a few bugs, but it is constantly updated with the new expansions and bugs are fixed all the time.  Don't expect AAA polish, this is a small development studio.  But it is a good game, and very true to the source.

[Cthulhu]

I have it, I'd be willing to play some time.  I have a friend who would too.

Class balance can be a little wonky, I don't remember exactly but I think it's the black witch who's OP as fuck.  Thankfully there's an option to play with random heroes and that's by far the best way to do it.

[aristabulus]

why is the metacritic rating so low?

i tend not to put 100% faith in ratings/reviews, but 51/100 is surprisingly down there

Metacritic only takes the initial reviews' measuring at release.  It doesn't factor in patching, review revision/errata (as was the case with a few reviews @ Polygon over launch woes in the last year).

Also, some of that may be generalized GW hate...  I know they haven't been winning any marks in my book recently.

[puke]

also, this is not a game for most people.  It is not fair.  It is random, capricious, and unbalanced.

If you know the game well, you'll know that what I'm saying isn't entirely true.  It is similar to a roguelike in that it is just plain hard and frustrating on the surface, but there is a fair amount of nuance and balance once you know the game well enough to appreciate it.  Some of the expansions have helped the inequity between aliments a fair bit.

But I suspect the low ratings are for this reason.  Someone who does not know what they are getting into will try it out, and think WTF is this? and give it a low review.  Also, the games can be tediously long.  Expect to sink 3-6 hours per play.

This may be a GW property, but it is an ancient one.  It is not as money grubbing as their new stuff.  It isn't Warhammer, and there is not skulls on everything.  Their policy with expansions is amazingly generous:

If you play a game with other people, you can all share expansions.  If one person has the Dungeon and another has a Character Pack and another just has the Basic game, everyone gets access to everything while you're playing that game together.

[Flying Dice]

I'm a tad worried because the reviews for the Season Pass indicate that the dev arbitrarily changed it to exclude certain DLC after people had already bought it. Viable complaint or no?

[RexMundi]

On topic of the game. Have 4th revised and some expansions, and digital with season pass. Also played old second edition too.
Love the game, only reason I don't play more is time to play and set up physical game, or in case of the online one, gripes about little things.
Specifically with the little one me and siblings love to play hotseat but, the timer for spell use is a pain as we're not the fastest, and have to know each others spells and when we can cast so the one with the mouse, usually me, can cast them

To answer the new post in fake edit: The only DLC excluded is one character, iirc a new one, the Shaman. She is DLC like many characters, and it's for a 'buy dlc and part goes to charity' thing
So yea, they did sell DLC not in season pass after bought. But imo it's not bad as it's not like a whole expansion, jsut one character.

[puke]

There has been a lot of hate on that topic. 

they're a young company, and they didn't realize that it could be a bad PR move to run a charity fundraiser for children.

Based on the backlash, I doubt they'll try it again.

[Werdna]

My problem with the game is that it is incredibly long.  It is also brutally random - I won the very first game I played, then rage-quit the 2nd one when my first three turns had me lose three successive lives to dragon, spectre, and something else I couldn't see through the red haze.  And that was playing warrior!  Meanwhile the squishier characters were drawing things that might as well have been fluffy wamblers to fight.  Afterwards, I was thankful I could bail just 10 minutes in.  I'm sure there is some nice strategic depth - but I'm afraid it's buried pretty deep beneath the random adventure deck draw mechanic, and I just don't have the hours to spend exploring it.

It's a neat game, the sort I would've adored when I was younger, and I wish there were far more boardgames converted to online play.  I just feel that the game shows it's age, and could be streamlined into something more fun.  Then again, how do you mess with a classic?  I'm sure a Talisman-lite would turn off as many old fans as it might win.

I ran into no (noticable) bugs in the two times I've played.  Interface is nice and simple, but slow.  With a game that has so many turns, you'd think they'd have found ways to speed up each character's turn or ways to shortcut through animation.  If you lose a turn it's pretty tedious to wait through all those other character turns, but that's a problem not uncommon to older boardgames.

[puke]

If you're playing against the AI, you can crank up their speed (and the animation speed) in the game options.  This also reduces the amount of time you have to interrupt or cast counterspells, so use with caution.

You're right on the randomness.  Your warrior might have just as easily had the luck turn and made a comeback, or he might have died the next round and you might have had a better run with your next character. I've seen people win with their third character in a game.

In many ways though it has not aged well, as you say.  A modern game would be more balanced and fair, and targeted towards one or two hours of play.  Some vets say they can play games in 2 hours, but honestly I've never seen it take less than 4.  Often more, if people are talking as much as they are playing.

[Delta Foxtrot]

My problem with the game is that it is incredibly long.  It is also brutally random

Neither of which are that big of a deal when you're sitting with your friends and laughing at whoever happens to be rolling poorly this turn.
Personally I don't see the digital appeal, but it seems to sell well enough.

[askovdk]

I bought the season pass from the beginning, and am happy.
It is a 1-1 conversion of the boardgame, so it definitely have the same unfair randomness, but I'm impressed that the developers haven't had to cut corners with the implementation.

One important thing to notice is that you can queue spells and actions, so they are cast 'at the next possible time' by double clicking them (and they move a bit up on the screen), - it makes 'attack spells' so much more fun when you cast them on the oponents in the beginning on their turn - instead of on yourself 

[Werdna]

Good to know on the speed-up options, thanks.

My problem with the game is that it is incredibly long.  It is also brutally random

Neither of which are that big of a deal when you're sitting with your friends and laughing at whoever happens to be rolling poorly this turn.

100% agreed!  However, even if my circle of old h.s. friends had the time to play this one, I think we'd likely pass as we've largely come to the agreement that super-long games that feature player elimination are no-go's.  The laughter stops and the butt-hurt begins once one person is relegated to the sidelines for potentially hours (often enough experienced in our old favorite Shogun, or Five Swords, or whatever it is called now).  Perhaps player elimination is rare in Talisman however; I certainly haven't played it often enough.  I just know that table 'mercy' rules to allow a player not to be eliminated in these sorts of games are often a PITA particularly when there is incentive to pick off players for resources. 

EDIT: Just a quick addendum in defense of the digital edition and digital board games in particular... my h.s. friends are now spread across 4 states, making normal boardgames with the people I love a physical impossibility.  I'm far too old to be spending my time at hobby stores looking for new tablemates.    We do all still play once a week - but online.  Shooters, MOBAs, RPG's... but we all wish boardgames were represented better.  It's definitely not the same experience as being in the same room together, over-caffeinated and/or sauced but it's as close as we're going to get now that we have wives kids and work early the next day.  And one note in digital's favor - set-up, tear-down, resuming interrupted sessions, and most importantly, rule learning/enforcement are drastically reduced in digital boardgames, and allow us to make the most of the time. 

[nenjin]

Playing old 2nd edition, we always let people draw new characters if they're eliminated, until the Crown of Command card is revealed.

Having a full 2nd ed. game with all the expansions is the main reason I haven't bought this. I played the newer revision of the boardgame and found it bland. Yeah some of the older rules are sheer random-wank, but that's part of the game's charm. The newer edition seemed like it had stripped out a lot to make it more streamlined.

[puke]

Do you mean the new 3rd edition?  I hear from everyone it was pretty poor, but 4th ed seems like everything I remember from 2nd.

Random character redraw until the crown is active is the default settings in Digital Edition.  You can customize it a bit with selectable characters or sudden death, or alternate endings.

They're cranking out all the same expansions (excepting timescape).  They are already mostly out in the board game version, and they have maybe half of them out in the Digital Edition.  Dungeon and Highland are the two major board expansions that are out now.  Forest, Dragon Tower, and City are coming.

They also have a bunch of expansions that dont add board segments, but just expand decks.  Of these, Sacred Pool seems very well made.

[nenjin]

Can't remember if it was 3rd or 4th. I just remember buying a brand new shiny Talisman for my brother and his wife, and being really disappointed after I sat down to play a game of it with them.