Die of the Dead - A KickStarter preview
2-5 Players, apx 40min, dice manipulation/area control, Radical8 Games Designers: James Allen and Mark Stockton-Pitt Artwork: Rusembell AS EVER THIS IS NOT A PAID/REIMBURSED PREVIEW, C&P just like the game a lot! Halloween in the UK means cheap masks at Asda, not answering the door for 5 days after 6pm, and eating all the bagged sweets you bought with no intention of ever giving out. For me as a sound designer and composer, it also means hours upon hours of sitting in front of a sequencer from August onwards creating sounds and characters with the sole intent of scaring the behecksus out of the general public. This year is going to be a weird one, with that little viral beastie still kicking around, so a few game nights playing monster and ghost games might be on the cards instead. We like to think of Halloween as a big deal in Europe and N America, but for residents of Central and South America, the end of October is a much more cultural affair. Nov 1st & 2nd sees the celebration of Dia de Muertes – The Day of the Dead. What strikes you first about anything to do with the celebration is the sheer splendour of colour and design. Just about everything involved with the celebration is a panoply of vibrancy, echoing the central philosophy of the holiday of celebrating, not mourning, the souls of those who have passed. What also struck me, was the playfulness of the festivities which often include sharing not just good stories of beloved friends and relatives, but often the funny and ridiculous, even foolish stories of their lives too. Though cultural misappropriation is a very lively topic in boardgames at the moment (and rightly so – 3Minute Boardgames’ current work on respectful handling of the Māori culture in games is a good example, as well as the many discussions over slavery portrayal as part of the #BLM dialogue). The joy, colour and playfulness of Dia de Muertes lends itself more comfortably as a subject for a potential boardgame to me – and yet, there are surprisingly few. Two in a relatively short list are the new version of Skull (though in design only), and the 2017 card game Dia de los Muertos. ARTISTIC DESIGN/COMPONENTS So, loving the aesthetic of the celebration as I do, I was drawn immediately to a small table at Airecon this year where an explosion of colour greeted us to the game Die of the Dead from Radical 8 Games. Die of the Dead is a dice manipulation / area control game where players take the roles of friendly spirits, gently guiding the souls of the departed up the marigold steps and back into the land of the living for the festival. The first player to have one of their souls reach the village step of the altar, is the winner. I’m shameless in my admission that I’m going to be more interested in a game that looks great – I know, but I can’t deny it. Die of the Dead had me hooked immediately. It looks utterly beautiful and features some astonishingly original components. What I hadn’t realised until I dug a little deeper, was how far-reaching this design goes. Radical 8 have not merely lifted a beautiful design aesthetic from a cultural phenomenon (unlike many who slap on sugar skull make up for Halloween, blissfully unaware of any deeper significance), but have done this game – properly. The design, the gameplay, the mechanics, and the components are all deeply inspired by the celebration and in an impressively respectful way.
Just taking the components as a starting point: The tokens – incense, candles, bread and marigolds are all significant gifts laid on the beautiful altars during the festival – the marigolds or cempasủchil especially are highly significant, their scent said to guide souls back to their family homes, an idea echoed in the mechanical use of the token. The 3D stepped altar (or ofrendas) – is highly suggestive of both the domestic and public stepped altars that are laid out with colourful gifts for the dead, again, echoed beautifully in the game. The player boards – these are holding sites for souls before their ascendency. The dice – are representations of the souls themselves and their movement around the board is highly thematic of the journeys that friends and relatives’ souls make over the festivities. The caskets – are both beautifully rendered solid boxes, but also functional as dice shakers / hidden resource boxes – each highly thematically and individually decorated.
It’s truly difficult to know where to start with this game as it has all been done so very well. The press pack for the forthcoming Kickstarter even cites the involvement of a cultural advisor and a Mexican artist, Rusembell on the project, and it shines through on everything to do with this game. It’s a lot of time, trouble and thoughtful effort that should be envied by many other designers. No opportunity to reflect the splendour of the festival has been wasted at all in the design of this game, and Radical 8 should be very proud.
GAMEPLAY But no game is really safe from scrutiny of its mechanics, no matter how beautiful it is, and happily, Die of the Dead does not disappoint here either. In Die of the Dead, the players are each trying to guide their supply of souls (dice) from their home player board, via the caskets, to their final destination on the 3D altar at the end of the play area, back to the land of the living. Players will prepare their souls, add them to caskets, undergo a number of ‘area control’ style comparisons and finally, ascend their souls onto the steps of the altar where they may be rewarded with gifts or abilities.
The 4 caskets are the real heart of the game. It is here that most of the player interaction takes place, and it uses a clever and unique little mechanism to transport souls from the first casket to their eventual goal on the altar steps. Players will be adding their dice (souls) to the open first casket and from there on, the caskets are in constant motion. A player will take one action on their turn, by selecting a casket and carrying out the action associated with it. Each casket location has a different action, and these are noted on cards numbered 1-4 underneath the caskets themselves. Each casket also has a secondary ‘consequence’ action at the bottom of the card. Casket position 1 – players can add 3 prepared souls or 1 ‘free’ (unprepared) soul. If there are 2 players’ souls in the casket, the casket is shaken, if there’s a 1 rolled – move the casket along.
Casket position 2 – players may prepare 2 souls. The casket is then shaken and the souls compared (a variant on area majority) and the winner prepares another soul. If a 1 is rolled, the casket moves along.
Casket position 3 – the casket is shaken straight away, any duplicate souls are removed leaving 1 soul per player min in the casket. The player then takes a token, allowing additional abilities.
Casket position 4 – the casket is shaken and the souls compared again. 2 of the winner’s souls are ‘ascended’ to the altar steps. The casket is then either: moved along, a power soul gained (more later) or 1 of your own souls ascended to the steps.
Once again – this shifting and constant play for majority also feels very thematic to me and reminiscent of the playfulness of the festival itself “Oh our Uncle was so argumentative, he could have a fight in his own coffin!” I only noticed going through the rulebook that this was actually reflected in the artwork on the action cards, but when I was playing the demo I recall thinking that each of the locations was a little like a different aspect of the soul’s journey. Arrival, sorting, a little tussle with your neighbours and finally ascendancy. Always nice when a game rewards you like that by confirming you got the idea right! The use of the dice is interesting and once you get your head round the travel of the caskets, can provoke some immensely strategic decision making. Only 3 dice can be held in preparation, so the timing of free slots for preparation or potential return of dice from losing roll comparisons in the caskets makes for some very complex chain decisions (which then, of course, can be overturned in a second by another player’s actions). Dice in your pool are considered ‘free souls’ and usually have to be prepared before the caskets, but Casket 1 allows a free soul a ‘bye’ which is useful if you have no prepared souls or have no empty slots. There are also ‘Power Souls’ which can be won on the altar or selected by the Casket 4 action. These have a skull in place of the 3 & 4 and are considered wild in comparison rolls. Ascending souls means bringing them into the family altar – the very cool 3D steps at the end of the table. The first ascended soul goes on an empty space on stair 1. A player may select which bonus space would be best for them. The more players land on stair 1, the less choice of bonus, until the final player in a 5 pl game, who has to use an empty space with no bonus. As soon as a soul is placed on the 9th step, the game ends and the player who owns that soul is the winner (ie not the person who placed it – who may well be different due to Casket 4’s secondary action) This feels like a game that warrants replay to improve your strategy each time, though you are still delightfully at the whim of player interaction. This sort of ‘out of my hands’ game really appeals to me, it prevents run-away leads, often levels play a little and makes for much more fun for less experienced players. I like that skill is rewarded, but that it is not the sole way to win. The tokens are won either from Casket 4 or again as an ascendancy bonus. The tokens boards are double sided: Side A being a generally simpler action; Side B for a more strategic game. Eg The Candle on side A allows the caskets to simply be moved along, however, Side B allows 2 adjacent caskets to be swapped. Again, this allows for some much deeper strategic gameplay – especially tokens which allow ‘peeking’ into the caskets. I have a notoriously terrible memory and lost track of what souls I had in what caskets very quickly so a mitigating token I could use at just the right moment was really useful.
CONCLUSION York-based Radical 8 don’t have a huge back catalogue as yet, but Die of the Dead deserves to do really well as it’s an absolute belter and hopefully the start of great things to come. I’m not going to lie, there were a few times during the shortened demo, where the game was a lot to take in, but that’s as much about the way I learn games as the game itself. I learn best from going step-by-step thru the rules whilst shuffling pieces around and there just isn’t time for that in the scope of a convention demo (though the guys were amazingly patient and very clear with their explanation) – I did keep running to the casket ability cards during the demo though, so I have to hope they might put a small set of player aids in the box for 53 yr olds who are sat at the end of a 5pl table (hint). The game packs a satisfying amount of gameplay into its relatively small box, and the quality of the components is insanely good. I would happily play the handmade version from Airecon, but I’m guessing the final production will be even better.
It scratches a lot of gaming itches for me: variations in play each turn; lots of decision making; huge numbers of routes to winning; a nice bit of player interaction; and a decent chunk of screw-over and luck that means you can always blame someone else for your bad gameplay. I like the attempts to make for a simpler initial game, especially as there is a lot to keep track of in your first game. The player boards are actually doubled sided allowing an asymmetric start bonus for each player, and of course, the Token cards are double sided also. I appreciate efforts such as these as I think it helps newer gamers, slow learners (like me) and more casual gamers alike. I also appreciate the Open Casket variant which allows potentially for some much more devious play. However – there’s always a dark side, and it wouldn’t be fair to let this go in a balanced overview. Yes, the game has a fairly steep learning curve and a lot of concepts to take in from the get-go, but any game with a lot of strategic depth can have that same issue and so long as you don’t mind that, this game is no different from many others. But, my big issue is the one that has dogged mine and ‘Ers gaming life for years – 2 player variants. Die of the Dead does class itself as 2-5 player, and honestly, without going too much under the hood, I can’t really see a reason why it shouldn’t work normally at 2 players, but that’s for the designers to tell me as I’ve doubtless missed something. But…. The solution suggested in the box is one of my least favourite ways of solving the 2pl issue – effectively a dummy hand. My feeling on this solution has always been – if a game needs a dummy hand, then it doesn’t actually play at that player count. Especially here, as there is actually little stopping the dummy hand from winning. Nothing says you played a crap game more than the dummy hand actually winning. I’m genuinely hoping Radical 8 can come up with a much better solution for this between the KS campaign, and the final release. It’s worth it as it strikes me as an ideal 2pl game. It also feels to me like a great ‘strategic beer & pretzels’ game – of which I guarantee there are very few. It’s not far off as far as I can see, which is why the current rulebook 2pl solution feels so clamped on with my sort of standard of welding. It seems particularly odd especially when so much variation in the game has been offered for higher/lower strategy. I only have a preview copy of the rulebook at the moment, and I had to read it thoroughly to make sure I’d recalled the game correctly - and I know there’s a lot of time between now and delivery, but it’s already a pretty decent rulebook and one that I’d feel confident learning the game from scratch from. It’s very clear and describes some quite complex ideas very clearly. I sincerely wish Radical 8 well with this on Kickstarter when it launches on August 25th 2020. The price looks to be about £27 + shipping, which feels like an absolute bargain for a game that’s been this well presented. It’s a lot of game for your money both design-wise and strategically and I would heartily recommend at least paying the page a visit. Happy gaming y’all!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/radical8games/die-of-the-dead
Photo attributions: Beautiful game pics - Ross Connell (moregamesplease) @moregamespls Catrina image - By Paolaricaurte - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 Altar image - By AmbarCCPM - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 Artwork: Rusembell @Rusembell rusembell.deviantart.com Other images – official rulebook and our own.