Thunderworks Games is one of my favorite publishers. Besides running great crowdfunding campaigns that are efficient and deliver on time, they make games that are simple to learn, have fun decisions, and have decent to excellent replay value. They are most known for their shared universe, the World of Ulos, currently consisting of eight games across different genres, including Cartographer, Roll Player, and Roll Player Adventures.
Due to my love of the three Ulos games mentioned above, I was excited to get the opportunity to review Stonespine Architects. Not only is it set in the World of Ulos, but it was also created by Jordy Adan, designer of Cartographers. The cherry on top is that it is a drafting game, one of my favorite game mechanics.
Does Stonespine Architects live up to its Ulos heritage, or is it the Upside-Down House of dungeon architecture?
Gameplay Overview:
Stonespine Architects is a competitive card drafting and dungeon construction game for one to five players. Each player is trying to build the best dungeon (score the most points) during play, with games lasting between 45 and 60 minutes.
Games last four years (rounds). Each year is made up of three phases:
- Construction Phase
- Players draft a card from their hand, place the card in the appropriate dungeon row (1st row in year one, 2nd row in year two, etc.), and then pass the remaining cards to their left or right, depending on the year. Note: by the end of the game, all dungeons will consist of 16 cards, four for each of the four years
- Improvement Phase
- Players count their gold for the year, made up of all gold earned from that year’s dungeon cards plus all treasure chests in their dungeon
- Players visit the market, starting with the player with the most gold, and decide whether they want to:
- purchase a market token, adding an element to their dungeon
- pass and select one of the available challenge (end game scoring) cards
- Cleanup Phase (except year four)
After the fourth year, points are tallied and the player with the most points wins and earns the title of Master Architect!
Game Experience:
What made me feel like a dungeon building champion:
The main draw for this game is the chamber card drafting and building your dungeon. This also happens to be my favorite part of the game. The decisions can be tough. You get a good chunk of points by connecting cards to the entrance and/or exit (double if connected to both) by aligning doors on the shared edges of adjacent cards. Trying to balance creating these paths for end-game points versus drafting a card that generates gold in this phase so you get the first crack at buying an item from the market can be difficult. Of course, there is always the loved/detested choice to “hate” draft as well, although given the short length of the rounds, hate drafting usually occurs when it helps you AND hurts your opponents, not just hurts them.
Combined with the fun of drafting your dungeon is balancing the variety of ways you can score points in Stonespine Architects. You can score points from your chamber cards in the following ways:
- Chamber cards placed in your dungeon that have points on them
- Goal card points, a public goal that everyone tries scoring
- Challenge card points, earned from the challenge cards selected after passing in years one, two, and three
- Note: I LOVED that there was no challenge card available in the fourth round – it let you focus on shoring up your existing goals in the last round versus trying to poach a challenge card that happened to match your dungeon elements
- Blueprint points (you start with a blueprint that indicates where eight of your sixteen cards will require a specific chamber type, monster, or trap in certain locations in your dungeon)
Trying to balance building the paths to your entrance and exit while maximizing the scoring opportunities above is what made me love this game.
Another great aspect of Stonespine Architects is the simultaneous play. Yes, this is common in all drafting games, but due to the short length of the game (sixteen drafts total), the simultaneous play keeps the gametime down, regardless of player count. Only the market phase is not simultaneous; however, even that tends to play quickly because either you will really want an element that is available on your turn, or you will want to pass to grab the challenge card you want. I really like the decisions made to time ratio that this game provides.
Finally, I LOVE that the two-player game plays slightly differently than the three- to five-player game. With three to five players, you draft your card and then pass the remaining cards to your opponent. In the two-player game, after drafting your card, you also discard one of the cards from your hand before passing the remaining cards to your opponent. You both then draw a card before your next draft. This mechanism accomplishes two things at once:
• Provides the opportunity to hinder your opponent
• Adds new cards to your hand, simulating getting cards in higher player counts
I really appreciate this change to the two-player game. In fact, I like playing two players as much as three to five players, when usually a two-player drafting game can be stale compared to the same game at higher player counts.
What made me run from the damp, spider-infested corridors of my labyrinth:
I only have two minor criticisms of the game.
First, the secret passage that can be purchased during the improvement phase seem to be overpowered. They can connect two adjacent chambers that previously did not have doors on a shared edge. This can create a huge scoring opportunity as it could connect several cards to both the entrance and exit. The cost of a secret passage is well worth the points it can generate; however, it is also worth buying if your opponent needs the passageway, if only to prevent them from scoring. In almost every game I played, players would try to have the most gold in rounds in which the secret passage appeared in the market. No other market element had this much universal demand.
My second, and less significant, criticism is the ease with which you can complete your blueprint. You can recover from missing monsters or traps by purchasing them in the market (monsters purchased in year three can still be placed in the first row, for example). Only the chamber type cannot be recovered from; however, there are only two chamber types in the game. Perhaps three types would make it too difficult to match chamber types, given the randomness of the draw and the potential of multiple players having the same chamber type requirements. I just wish there was something that made completing the blueprint a little more difficult.
Final Thoughts:
I really enjoyed Stonespine Architects. I love games that play in less than an hour, have fun decisions, and have good replay value. Stonespine checks all three of these boxes. The drafting is fun, as is planning out your dungeon. On a personal note, perhaps the best indicator of the game’s appeal is my daughter. She will play board games, but only if asked/prodded/bribed; however, when she comes home from college, she ASKS to play this game. It’s a great family game. It’s a great drafting game. It’s simply a great game.
Final Score: 4 Stars – An excellent drafting game that will remain in my collection
Hits:
• Drafting/building your dungeon
• Variety of scoring opportunities
• Simultaneous play
• Two-player rules
Misses:
• Secret doors seem overpowered
• Completing your blueprint is too easy
