Page 55 - spielbox 03/21 - English

nst the Dark Arts Adventure Games. Die Akte Gloom City
Title:
Designer: Publisher: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. Defence Against the Dark Arts Forrest-Pruzan Creative Kosmos
2
about 11+ years about 30 minutes about 25 Euros
Reviewer
Udo Bartsch
Andreas Becker
Playing appeal
5
6
Reasonably entertaining, but too long.
L.U. Dikus 7
Amazingly appropriate to the theme and full of surprising twists.
Stephan Kessler 2
Destructive, unbalanced, luck-depen- dent, and too long.
Marie Poenisch 4
I am a Harry Potter fan, but the cards are way too thin, and the game doesn‘t feel well-balanced.
Title: Designer:
Illustration:
Publisher: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Adventure Games. Die Akte Gloom City Kayleigh Anderson, Matthew Dunstan, Hauke Gerdes, Phil Walker-Har- ding
Bashar Ahmed, Maximi- lian Schiller
Kosmos
1 – 4
about 16+ years about 3 x 90 minutes about 15 Euros
Reviewer
Stephan Kessler
Andreas Becker
Playing appeal
6
6
The best Adventure Game story so far; the course, however, is pretty conventional.
The drama ... (dramatic pause) ... is not so great, though. If a wizard is lucky enough to overwhelm his opponent with curses, victory is determined before all rounds have been played. If the game proceeds not that obviously to the ad- vantage of one player, the attempts of stunning the other player can drag on for more than one hour and, in this case, be even more narcotic than the narcotics law allows. (sbw)
Gloomy and Uncomfortable
By STEPHAN KESSLER
A
er – not only according to their names. Both are gloomy and dirty cities, where many hopeless souls are mired in their poor existence. We are ex-cops of the Gloom City Police Department and follow a mysterious invitation to a sanatorium on the outskirts of the city. What we have in common is that each of us has lost somebody closely related to us, in differ- ent ways. A suspenseful initial setting is the cornerstone of the fifth Adventure Game, a game that focuses on the story and thus follows a similar principle as the previous cases.
Over the course of the narration, play- ers combine cards and also solve some riddles. In three acts in a dense atmo- sphere, you can experience the perfidious little tricks that the host has come up with for (or rather, against) the group. All the texts have been audio-recorded for an optional app that adds to the atmo- sphere.
As in the previous cases, the experience is more of an audio drama than a game. But this one is special, also because of the age recommendation of 16 years and up. The bleak graphics in black and gray with red accents ideally emphasize the uncomfortable feeling. In terms of its mechanisms, however, it cannot live up to the Grand Hotel Abaddon case.
Die Akte Gloom City proceeds in a slightly less dynamic fashion; and to begin with, the main characters are not portrayed very distinctly. Initially, players don‘t know much more than described above, so at first they can‘t establish a connection to the characters. However – depending on which person climbs a ladder, for example – different things can happen that shed more light on the re- spective character‘s biography. But these events seem random and arbitrary.
And a few more details seem kind of not up to par: Sometimes, you take damage even if the actions triggered are reasonable or unavoidable. And occa- sionally, you are even forced to do stupid things. Plus, a few riddles can be solved even before the associated location has
dventure Games. Die Akte Gloom City: Gloom City and Gotham City resemble each oth-
been discovered. In the end, a strikingly large number of cards serve only to record points, so that they are used less than usual.
Nevertheless, the visit to Gloom City is entertaining, especially due to its grown- up story level. The first chapter, set at the sanatorium with its special atmosphere, stands out in a particularly positive way. But beyond that, players will have other outstanding experiences along the way in
Gloom City.
(sbw)
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