Family Game Night: Descent - Journeys into the Dark

Picture by Bob Huff

My Family and I sat down to play a game, and out of some of the many boxes I have on my game shelf we chose to play Descent: Journeys in the Dark.

Descent is a Dungeons and Dragons-esq type of game from Fantasy Flight Games in the vein of Heroquest and Warhammer Quest. One player is chosen to be the Overlord who controls all of the monsters and nasty traps in the dungeon the players are delving into. All of the other players choose heroes which range from Bold Fighters to Undead Liche's with powerful spells.

Our intrepid party of adventurers. Photo by Bob Huff.

From the start the game looks daunting to new players, as with any Fantasy Flight Game there's just so much stuff! From the cards, to the counters, to the special dice, and statistics for the heroes its just a lot of stuff. And my fiance and eight year old had some shock when they came to sit down and play the game. They were the heroes, and I was the Evil Overlord!

The game comes with a book of scenarios which show how the dungeon is to be set up and where the monsters go on the board when adventurers enter rooms. This makes set up super easy, although you can create your own scenarios as well.

I began to read the description for the dungeon as they randomly chose two heroes each. They got their heroes, and bought some starting equipment. They were now prepared for the monsters that lurked in my dungeon. The game really is about the Heroes versus the Overlord player, as the Overlord gets tokens every turn and these nasty Overlord cards which let you spring nasty things on the heroes.

One of the heroes gets jumped by a Beastman Patrol from the Overlord. Photo by Bob Huff.

After the first room was cleared we had almost all of the basic rules down. Which dice to roll when, and how all of the equipment functioned. We were off on our adventure, that ended four hours later with the Evil Giant of the Dungeon defeated, and our heroes with riches and magic items!

Room 2 went a little crazy. Photo by Bob Huff.

Overall, I love the game in the fact that it was very easy for new players to sit down and play. The quality of all of the pieces were what you expect from Fantasy Flight Games, and also comes at a typical Fantasy Flight price of $89.95. But with all of the quality in this game, i dont mind the sticker shock of the price at all. The game played really smooth and my family had a blast trying to defeat my dungeon.

Overall: 8/10 Rating. Fun and offers a dungeon dive experience. The Overlord makes things really challenging with all of the random monsters you can spawn on players and traps. For a faster game, try playing without the Overlord deck, as with all of my moster spawns really slowed the game down to a crawl.

I recommend this game to anyone who loves a Sword and Sorcery type of game and wants to get into the action fast.

-Bob