BraveGuard Is A Bright, Unique RPG For Families and Adult Board Gamers Alike
Seth Ryals-Fernandes
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The Quick Deets on BraveGuard:
- Ages 8+
- 45-90 Minutes
- 2-4 Players
- Currently being funded on Kickstarter
- $54 per copy
- Estimated Release March 2018
- Fantasy RPG
- Kickstarter Page
What is BraveGuard?
BraveGuard is a competitive Fantasy RPG game. The design of which, in my humble opinion, is simple but intuitive. The goal of BraveGuard is to collect 10 Glory points, and be the first to return to town to them. If you do this each other player gets one more turn to surpass your glory points, and if they do so they win.
Before we talk about how you attain glory lets talk a little bit about the setup and main game loop. At the beginning of the game you shuffle the encounter deck, treasure deck, and quest deck. Then each player picks a hero card and gives themselves the health designated on it. After that each player draws a quest, this is each player’s starting quest.
Each turn players will roll the die and move the shown spaces or less. Players move around the board completing quests and fighting in encounters to gain gear and glory.
Gaining Glory in BraveGuard
Glory can be directly gained in two ways. One way is to complete quests. The other way glory can be acquired is by fighting Fiends. Fiends reside in the Fallen Palaces. Fiends are difficult monsters that players can fight for Glory. They can fight one every turn the reside in the Fallen Palaces.
This presents a risk for the player though. Because if they player dies at any point they will start back at the nearest Camp, where they will have to wait one turn to refill all their health. Forcing them to lose basically two turns.
Combat in BraveGuard
This is something that I think is really cool about the game. When you fight in an encounter you can choose a way to fight each monster. You then flip over the card and read the action and take a “skill check”. Presumably adding bonuses from equipment gained from encounters and quests.
The Art
Usually I would not really talk too much about art except in passing. But in this circumstance the art of this game is what drew me to it. Because the game is meant to be able to be played by young kids, it has that nice cartoonish, bright art style that really pops.
Obviously this art is all digitally rendered and not actual pictures of what the components will look like. But it is fairly safe to say that the art will look almost exactly like this. I personally think it’s beautiful and cheerful in a way that can be enjoyed by families and adults alike.
General Thoughts on BraveGuard
The game looks simple and fun. I’m considering backing the game. I think it would be fun to play with friends on board game night or something. But my one hesitation is the price. $54 is a lot of money for a game like this. Although it is a fairly large game. Personally seeing it I thought that was a little bit of a steep asking price.
The one justification for this that I see is that two of their stretch goals involve donating copies to charity. I think that this justifies the price point for me. If all the stretch goals are reached they would donate a total of 50 copies of the game to charities revolving around children and families. That is something I find very commendable and also something that I never really see with board game kickstarters.
Concluding Thoughts
If these kinds of games are your cup of tea. And you aren’t looking for something super complex, I think BraveGuard might be a good game to add to your collection. Whether it will even be funded is to be seen. It isn’t very far along at the time of this writing, but it still has a long ways to go.