Tiny Epic Quest got here about 4 days before predicted, awesome! The itemeeples look neat and the box is quite hefty. I think they've finally reached critical mass of what they can fit in a box of that size. Repacking everything will be a challenge.
Tiny Epic Quest wall of text: I finally made it through the rules, resolved some questions on BGG, and played a 2-player game with myself. I didn't want to try the solo mode until I learned the multiplayer rules, especially since I hope to teach the game to a group this weekend.
It uses a fair bit of table space since the map alone takes up a 4x4 grid of Tiny Epic boxes, and each player has some cards and pieces.
The 22-page rulebook seems like the best I've encountered from a Tiny Epic game yet, though I still ended up posting on BGG to get some official answers (which are given quite quickly, something I appreciate). As mentioned I only did the solo mode, and I didn't use the mini-expansion, in order to make things as simple as possible.
I think the game itself is quite solid, with an odd mix of planning and RNG. Remember how Race for the Galaxy and Tiny Epic Galaxies allow other players to follow actions? In this, players take turns choosing movement types during the day, and everyone else gets to follow for free. Players take turns rolling dice at night, and everyone else who's still adventuring gets to follow certain symbols for free. It feels almost co-op in that sense, and at least one of the quest cards even suggests the other players are allied kingdoms, merely competing for quests.
There seems to be little if any way to hurt other players with one odd exception: No matter how many players are in the game, only 3 quest cards can be available at a time. There are 2 types of quest cards, and the rules mandate that you always have 1 of each type available, otherwise you start discarding the rightmost quest and sliding the others over. The long and short of it is, someone who attempts the middle or rightmost quest, if it involves exploring a temple (a time-consuming process), runs the risk of randomly losing their quest before they even get to roll dice because of a quest card someone else happened to draw. The developer suggested on BGG that people who don't like this should play with a variant that only the newest drawn quest is discarded, and I think that's the best way to teach new players. Maybe advanced players who like a little more randomness or sabotage could use the rules as written.
Aside from that, it's all very charming with a tight mix of several mechanics. Various movement types let you travel the map, which is laid out randomly but with some guidelines. Goblins impede movement, and you can choose to fight them for one scoring category. Some neutral spots let you gain power, gain health, and/or use a special action. Temples let you advance along a track to earn legendary items in various categories, which give you special powers, and also possibly complete a treasure quest for a unique item that has its own power. Legendary items are another scoring category.
A third scoring category comes from completing quests, which either come from moving your 3 meeples into various configurations that match current quest cards, or from completing temples as referenced earlier. The final scoring category is spell level, which is pretty clever. Gaining spell levels gives you more max power. Gaining spell levels requires going to various locations around the map which correspond to spells of differeng power levels. To earn a higher spell you need a global magic level cranked up, which generally happens through rolling dice later in a phase. Increasing the magic level also increases the risks of bad things happening so it's a push your luck thing that ties into everything else. The level also resets every round so you can't just push it to max and let it sit there.
Does this sound like a lot? That's why the rulebook is 20 pages, to go over all the mechanics and how entwined they are with the turns and phases. Despite all that, it feels quite simple and intuitive once you get going.
On another note, one of the things that has been advertised is the unique plastic meeples. They have tiny holes in their arms to hold tiny items and weapons. The items feel SO tiny and fragile that I suspect they'll break unless you're very careful, especially since they connect rather snugly to the meeples. They're cute, though. The game also comes with a kind of funny cardboard item rack you have to assemble, but it seems a bit unstable, the items seem likely to fall off, it would take forever to put them on, and it's 100% unnecessary.
Since I've gone on long enough, I'll finish with pros and cons from first impressions.
Pros:
- The components are nice despite the tiny, delicate items and the humorous item rack. Engraved dice, solid map cards, nice straightforward artwork, lovely matte finish poker-style quest cards, wooden markers. It feels polished.
- Graphic design is good. I had some questions about wording in the rules or on cards, but pretty much everything symbolic is clear, if tiny. There are lots of reminders on the cards how mechanics or rules work if you forget.
- Despite the RNG of dice rolls and card draws, there's a substantial amount of planning involved in thinking about exactly where you need to spend the current round's moves, and what types of movement are available, in order to maximize your chances of doing whatever it is you want to do.
- It's low-conflict for people who like that. Pretty much the only way to sabotage someone is try to crank the magic level up, which can also help them and hurt you, or to use the rules as written and try to get their quest auto-discarded.
- The mechanics are entwined so solidly that just maneuvering and performing the various actions feels good.
- From my sample size of 1, the game seems balanced. My scores were 25 to 24.
Cons:
- The tiny items feel like they will break, and managing them plus remembering which meeple has which ability is a little fiddly.
- There are a lot of rules to take in, thus the 20-page rulebook. Some people might initially be daunted by this.
- Paradoxically, the game feels almost simplistic once you learn everything, because it's so clear and straightforward. You see the same map tiles every game and, I suspect, most of the quest cards every game. The exact map layout varies within a framework, the quest order is different, and dice rolls will be different, but I could imagine it feeling samey if a group played it constantly. However, the unique items with powers do push players towards certain strategies, and different strategic balances seem viable. I haven't tried the mini-expansion but I imagine that's nice to mix things up a little.
Overall I'm happy, and I suspect this could be even more appealing to random new players than Tiny Epic Galaxies.
