Nightfall - Game Review

A deck-building game about the conflict between vampires and werewolves, Nightfall breaks new ground with high interactivity and numerous clever mechanics.

Players: 2 to 5
Time: 45 minutes
Designer: David Gregg
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group

Components: Well-written rulebook (with character stories!), 60 Wound cards, 34 card dividers, 24 draft cards, and 228 Order cards (five 12-card starter decks, and seven each of 24 different types of order card). Order cards are nicely illustrated and high quality.

Gameplay Summary

Players each get a starter deck of 12 minion cards, and then draft two piles of orders to use as a private archive. Eight common archive piles are turned up in the center, each player draws five cards, and the game begins.

Your turn has four phases:

1) Combat

All of your minions in play must attack other players. They do damage equal to their strength, and are then placed in your discard pile. Defending players may absorb damage using the health of their minions in play; any damage remaining must be taken as wound cards in the defending player's discard pile.

This phase is the meat of the game. You may play any one card from your hand. That card will have two small moons on it, known as the link colors. If you have a card in your hand whose main color matches a link color, you may add it to the chain. If you then have another card that matches one of the link colors of the last card played, you may add that to the chain as well.

Once you have chained as many cards as you like, the player to your left may add to the chain if she has a card that matches a link color of the last card played. That player may add as many cards to the chain as she likes, following the above rules.

The chain continues around the table until all players have had a chance to be a part of the chain. Finally, the chain text on all cards played is resolved in reverse order, with the last card played resolving first. Minions played in a chain come into play when they resolve.

3) Claim

You may claim cards from your private archives or the common archives, by paying their cost in influence. You get two free influence per turn, plus one per card you discard. Claimed cards are placed in your discard pile.

4) Cleanup

Draw your hand back up to five cards. You may then once discard any wound cards and draw two more cards per wound.

The game ends when the wound deck runs out, and whoever has the fewest wounds wins.

NOTE: This is only a brief summary, with many details omitted.

Good Stuff

Nightfall is dripping with theme. From the short vignettes in the rulebook, to the evocative art, to the character names, quotes, and slogans, it's easy to be drawn into the world they've created.

High interaction and little downtime. At the beginning of your turn, anyone you have will attack other players, who have to choose whether (and how) to block. And whenever you start a chain, every other player gets a chance to add to it. This is a game where you are doing interesting things on everyone's turn, not just on your turn.

The innovative chain mechanic that drives the game deserves special mention. It's easy to understand, keeps you playing on other people's turns, and adds a whole new dimension to the game. You may buy a card not because it's the strongest, but just to help you extend a chain.

Each (non-starting) card has a main color, two different link colors, and a fourth kicker color. This means you can't play two of the same (non-starting) card in a row, and forces you to diversify.

Your starting minions exile themselves as you play them, so they won't clog up your deck late in the game. The mandatory attack prevents anyone from building up a defensive army to stall the game. The Cleanup phase means that the first player injured won't be at an immediate disadvantage.

The whole game shows a wonderful attention to detail. The way that a minion's health is easily shown by rotating it 90 degrees per hit is an elegant mechanic. And the box is clearly designed to have plenty of room for expansions.

Sometimes it's hard to tell a yellow linking moon from a white linking moon if you're across the table.

If it turns out after revealing the common archive that someone's private archive has the only card of a certain color in the game, that player will have an advantage in creating chains.

The empty space in the box left for the expansions will start to taunt you for not having the expansions.

Conclusion

Nightfall may be the best new game I've played this year. Too many deck-building games end up feeling like yet another cloned imitation of previous games. Nightfall feels completely different, has set out to do something new and succeeded marvelously, resulting in a highly thematic and viciously interactive game where it's always your turn and the card play is smooth and elegant.