Pyramid: Pyramid Pick: Descent: Journeys into the Dark

Pyramid Pick

Descent: Journeys into the Dark

Published by Fantasy Flight Games

Designed by Kevin Wilson with Darrell Hardy

Cover by Jesper Ejsing

Illustrated by Jesper Ejsing, Lou Frank, & John Goodenough

Full-Color Boxed Game (see components, below); $79.95

Last year's Doom: the Boardgame was a big box of fun, delivering gun-toting, chainsaw-swinging, demon-blasting game play. In sending UAC marines through the corridors and rooms of the Mars base, it emulated the play, the desperation, and the action of the godfather of all first-person shooters. It did all this in easy-to-play fashion at the heart of which lay clever dice mechanics that handled range, damage, ammunition use, and more in one clear, simple dice roll.

Now those same mechanics are back, not in another sci-fi shoot 'em up, but another genre altogether -- classic dungeon-delving fantasy. So instead of a dungeon crawl with guns -- arguably what Doom: The Board Game is -- you get a dungeon crawl in true, sword-swinging, spell-slinging fashion. Descent: Journeys in the Dark is Doom: The Board Game's bigger sister. Much bigger sister. The 10-lb. box contains more components, more options, more monsters, more characters, and more action. All of which are delivered in full color, barring the miniatures -- and you can paint those.

Designed for two to five players, one of whom takes the Overlord role, the background to Descent is simple. Heroic adventurers delve into the caverns and corridors below, . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.

Article publication date: October 20, 2006

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