by Keith
July 11, 2013First off - If you live near a 7-11 remember that today is free Slurpee day. Get yours if you're a Slurpee fan.
My second topic for today is dungeon crawling with 4-year olds.
I posted last week about having the opportunity to enjoy HeroQuest with my son. He loved the game and we're going to delve deeper into the quests included with Heroquest, but that game took us about 45 minutes and if I remember correctly, the longest quest in the game only takes about 2 and a half hours to complete if you clear each room. On the bright-side none of our characters have found any good loot at this point, and he missed out on the 80 some odd gold in the first mission which should make outfitting the characters far more challenging for mission number two.
I am, as always, researching ahead of what I'm actually playing right now. I can read the writing on the wall that he's going to want to play this more actively with me over time so I've been investigating what it'll take to either mine gold in my back yard to buy Heroquest expansions (I still own my copy of Lich Lord or something like that) from eBay or here.
I've narrowed the choice down to the D&D Adventure Series rather than Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) because I just don't think the complexity will scale well for a 4 year old and I also feel like the missions may be too involved for him. He needs good old fashioned hack and slash adventure that he can understand to some degree. I believe something like Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game fits the bill perfectly for that, though I'm open to being corrected on this point.
The problem is ... I'm not entirely sure where to start. They each sound like a pretty great place to enter the system. I am leaning pretty heavily on Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game because my son loves dragons and if it goes well the timing would be perfect to add Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game around Halloween for some spooky fun with him. I also like that Ashardalon and Ravenloft seem to intermix well to create additional adventure types.
In general, both seem like a great place to enter the system and I don't think I'm too concerned about the relative difficulty or depth of the system. I want my son to have a good time with me and the game. This series seems to allow co-operative play which will be a lot of fun, like Heroquest, because I can drive the game and he can make his choices while I do my best to play Jake the Dog to his Finn the Human.
Bacon Pancake Break!
Youtube Video
Here's where I need some guidance though ... I am a little worried about things going out of print. I see that Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game is getting lower in stock in a lot of online outlets. Will this be a permanent thing? Are people buying this one up because it's the "best" or because of the name recognition that Drizzt brings to the product? I know the Drow were the badassery of the late 90's so I suspect there may be some of that going on with this particular product compared to say Ravenloft which I remember from the early 90's.
In addition, I am wondering if this is going to be a series with additional games or are they done after this initial trio of releases?
Any guidance or advice on this would be hugely appreciated.