This is one in a series of posts regarding the board game Betrayal Legacy. You can access all my other Betrayal posts HERE. This post is a review of the Prologue Game, which is designed to give you a feel for the game, whilst containing no spoilers.
The Excitement of Discovery
I had a look through the Box before our first game, as per the Unboxing and Prologue Game Hints & Tips posts, and examined the components of the game, being careful not to look at the text on any of the cards, and without punching any of the boards. Which really just means, I sorted the Starting Deck into Items and Events, and I read the Rule Book. The other 3 players and I had split the cost of the game 4 ways, so it seemed right to let them share in the excitement of opening the box and examining everything as it arrived, and having the fun of punching the components. Blue, Purple and Green (me) kept the same colour boards as we had during Seafall, but as Grey was not an option, our 4th player migrated to Red.
I have mentioned elsewhere, that this game has a quick set up time, so I knew it would not be too much of a drama to go from “first look in the box” to starting play, and it took literally 10 minutes to punch everything, choose player boards, create our first “characters”, and turn over the first card of Legacy Deck 1 to get the Prologue game underway. And it took literally 60 seconds after that for me to mess things up.
Card 1 of the Legacy deck gives some back story, some extra instructions for set up, and then I took the first turn. I turned over a Room with the Icon of a Bulls head on it. People familiar with the game will recognise that as the cue to get an Item card. People who have read the rule book will also be aware of that. People who can see, will notice that the Bulls Head symbol actually appears on the back of Item cards, to make it pretty clear that’s what you are supposed to grab when you see that symbol. I, however, missed all of those blatant signs, and thought it was the symbol for an Omen Card. So we immediately followed the instructions to set up for the Haunt.
A Hidden Haunt
Luckily; although most probably it is not luck, but a deliberate choice on the part of the designer to mitigate the damage done by player error; the first Haunt is a Hidden Haunt. This is another cool addition to the game, mentioned in the Rulebook, in which the identity of the Traitor is not public knowledge. As such, there is only an entry in the Secrets of Survival book, which has all the information that the Heroes and Traitor needs, and no corresponding entry in the Traitor’s Tome. What this meant for us, was that no-one had been given secret Traitor information, and thus when I realised my mistake, and we reset, we hadn’t messed things up irreparably. We had been randomly assigned roles, Hero or Traitor, and we just kept them hidden until the Haunt was triggered correctly.
Exploring the House …
… continued after the reset, and the 2 first time players got to see how discovering Rooms, and drawing Item and Event cards worked. It took us 20 minutes of exploring our little country cottage to get to the Haunt proper, and since we were all set up, we went straight into it.
The First Haunt
There is not too much to say here, whilst keeping it Spoiler Free. As I said, it was a Hidden Haunt, with a secret Traitor, which added something fresh to the game. The win conditions for Heroes and Traitor were clearly spelled out, and a “clock” was in play, counting down to the end of the game. I was a Hero, but I didn’t know who the Traitor was, and just as importantly, I didn’t know who the other Heroes were. Were the other players working with me, or against me? And the other Heroes were just as unsure of me. I said I wasn’t the Traitor. But that’s exactly what the Traitor would say. The paranoia added an extra element to the game play, that I hadn’t experienced in regular Betrayal. The truth was only known for sure, if a character died … which was obviously too late … especially for the deceased.
Wrap Up
The Haunt ran for a little over 20 minutes, in our 4 Player game, so 45 minutes all up for the Prologue. It felt much quicker than that (and we continued straight into Game 1), but it gave a great overview of the games mechanics, including the workings of the Legacy and Purgatory Decks. I was fortunate enough to win the Prologue, with my character, Beth, surviving to return in Game 1. The last thing we had to do was choose a Family name to adorn our Crest. Something memorable or significant, to represent our family line throughout the ages of the game.
I chose, Griswold.
The Fates of our Players
I am going to include these under Spoiler Tags. It is the information we recorded on the back of our Player Boards, and will be in the format “Colour, Character Name, Age, Died?, Fate. There really isn’t too much given away, but for those that want to be totally Spoiler Free, they will be under Spoiler Tags.
Pingback: Betrayal Legacy – Index