Adventure is a wonderful word. It's a sensation we're constantly chasing and thus a concept that is prevalent in gaming. It's about mystery and conquest. It's about that little three letter word "fun".
Gloom of Kilforth enters the fray drawing from a long lineage of predecessors. It's not an altogether new or innovative endeavor, rather it seeks to tweak and improve on the pathfinders. You can draw immediate similarities to genre greats Talisman and Arkham Horror. There's even direct overlap in personality with some of the lesser known entries such as the excellent Shadows of Malice. All of this is to say that Kilforth is a muddled pool of DNA whose primordial evolution springs from a comfortable and familiar set of traits.
Yet not all things are equal. The enormous challenge of conveying a narrative adventure with a minimal amount of moving parts requires shortcuts. You need a small amount of flavor text to lay the foundation and provide context. You need simple and direct mechanisms to elevate drama. You need conquerable turf to display your world beating prowess. And you need artwork. Tons and tons of gorgeous artwork. Gloom of Kilforth addresses each of these principles with a certain degree of success.
This design's personality will punch you in the ocular cavity as soon as you catch a glimpse of its beautiful appearance. "It's what's on the inside that counts" is a lie your mom cozied up with because she didn't want to hurt your feelings and she didn't know about Gloom of Kilforth. Don't get me wrong, the nuts and bolts of the design are solid and thoroughly tested, but the illustrations on these cards are second to none. This is <PERSON> of cardboard.
It's easy to gloss over representative images and cut straight to text when playing a thematic game. With Gloom of Kilforth you'll constantly find your eye drawn to the imagery. Each encounter paints a story. The harrowed wraith is invading as a vanguard to the encroaching darkness. The formidable knight illuminated by the sun is enacting repentance for being a dead beat dad. 558
That seedy villager with a twisted grin is hiding a child in their brick oven. You know, powerful crunchy stuff.
Paired with this exceptional visual treat is the stellar character generation system. Continuing that trend of accomplishing a great deal with very little, you simply pair a random race with a random class. You're given plot and direction by another group of cards titled Sagas. This hones focus and provides short and long term goals. When you smash these elements of character and story together you get the fuel for player agency. The surprises kick in early as you're dealt a dwarf priest who is intent on saving refugees on the outskirts of the region. Or perhaps fate decides you're a half-demon warrior sent to assassinate a twisted lord. A few riffle shuffles and you've catapulted past rolling for Constitution and Willpower and straight to bashing in the evil goat-dude's face.
These Sagas are the meat of the game. You'll be travelling across a grid of those attractive landscape cards finding adventure and seeking keywords. Each of these personal quests requires you gather treasure, allies, and rumors containing a set of thematically appropriate descriptors. So maybe you need a Stranger and Martial keyword to accomplish your goal of defending a village of innocents from marauding Orcs. This requires you move to different types of terrain cards and engage in encounters drawn from paired decks. You'll be looking to defeat challenges possessing those same keywords in order to advance your arc. That quality of piecing together narrative with fragmented attributes is the heart of the game and a major qualifier of enjoyment.
It's a scavenger hunt of italicized adjectives at its root. If you can take "Stranger" and "Quest" and connect the dots to fill out the flavor text on the Sagas, then you will harness the large amount of enjoyment at the bottom of the well. If you get frustrated in your search and feel as though you're wandering aimless on an abstract set of errands, well, then the Gloom will fully set in. This utilization of keywords has its cost, but it's absolutely a clever way to provide story flexibility. It requires narrative contortion but it allows for a very lean approach to player direction as you're given editorial control.
One thorn certain to prod virgins of Kilforth is the segregation of those keywords. A degree of meta-knowledge is required to know that strangers are more likely to pop up in the plains and enemies in the badlands. If you don't look through the encounter decks prior to play you will need to do a lot of learning on the job. This can be frustrating and it can also stretch the game into an uncomfortable time commitment. The fact that this game will regularly clock in around 3+ hours with a full complement of four players makes the learning process especially harsh.
This process does give the game a longer arc of discovery. 237