So, we got our grubby mitts on a board game that is also a double album.  The premise behind the whole thing is to celebrate some obscure fantasy/D&D-themed bands from the 1970s.  The album cover feels like an old school textbook and it has the logos of the bands scrawled on it, like you would have defaced your textbook back in the olden days.  The booklet inside looks like DM notes on graph paper and there are rad little maps and drawings of dragons and whatnot.

The music is AMAZING.  A lot of it is Sabbath-y but there is also some sprinklings of punk rock and one song that is basically WEEN 20 years before WEEN existed.  The pamphlet and album art is also freaking badass.

Now to the game.  On the plus side, the flavor text on the cards (and there are TONS of cards) is hilarious and you can tell they put a lot of time into it.  The board is cool and the city names feel like something your DM would belch out with a big exhale of some shitty weed.  The mechanics of the game leave a lot to be desired.  The movement is basically the broken movement from Trivial Pursuit, with players just milking the shit out of their turn hoping to land on a city.  The battles are just a roll of the 20-sided die with a little bit of card playing (a la Munchkin) to try and improve your chances.  We played for about 3 hours and none of our players even had 8 of the 16 banners required to attempt to legitimately win the game.

Will we play it again?  Yes… but only after we modify the shit outta the mechanics with some house rules.  Frankly, though, the game is worth it just for the album, art work and flavor text.  Here’s a tiny taste of it:

https://shaneorjerry.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cities-of-darkscorch-board-game-1.jpghttps://shaneorjerry.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cities-of-darkscorch-board-game-1-150x150.jpgShaneBoard GamesVideocities of darkscorch,D&D,heavy metalSo, we got our grubby mitts on a board game that is also a double album.  The premise behind the whole thing is to celebrate some obscure fantasy/D&D-themed bands from the 1970s.  The album cover feels like an old school textbook and it has the logos of the bands...Mostly Shane, Very Little Of That Other Guy...