SPOILER FREE REVIEW BUT READ THE WHOLE REVIEW!
Fighting Fantasy Adventures (Wallace Designs, 2025)
Box 0: The Orb of Lucis
[Random intro: My brother-in-law saw me messing about with
this deck of cards. His chosen vocation is online transvestite Hindu fortune-teller
and he thought it was an innovative new tarot system. That’s how cool the cards
look!]
Backed Tier Reward: Treasure Chest
Basics: Shipping was received early, probably due to
Bangkok’s proximity to the presumed China production origin, packaging was
excellent, very sturdy. Plastic corner protectors on the box, no damage whatsoever,
mint condition.
The big box contains 8 smaller boxes, 1 for counters,
markers and dice, 1 for Hero cards plus a signed card by Steve Jackson, Ian
Livingstone and Martin Wallace, (my backer bonafide card is #3346), 6 for the
various adventure boxes. There is a map printed on the inside of both upper and
lower boxes (both of which make very sturdy dice rolling containers). There is
also a 16-page rulebook and a hardback tactical board for combat and marching
order.
This review concerns Box 0: The Orb of Lucis. This
review will start in reverse with the ugly, the bad, the good, and my final thoughts,
on this box only. Each box contains a set of Dungeon Cards, which form the map,
and Encounter Cards, which form the meat of the adventure.
The Ugly
The elephant in the room is the AI-influenced art. To
be honest, I was expecting it, having seen some early pre-release art that was
obviously AI. I said nothing, hoping at the time others would, and maybe they
did, because the obvious AI art has been disguised to some extent. The kicker when
playing the game though, was encountering a monster card where one wing was
growing out of the rear of the monster’s eyeball, while the monster’s other
wing was sort-of on their back. The sort of lazy AI art we see because AI doesn’t
actually know what it’s doing. Unfortunately, once you’ve seen that example,
you can’t unsee it, and then you start seeing it everywhere. I could be wrong,
and all it takes for proof are the original artists’ PSD files or equivalent.
Unfortunately, while the artists are credited, who did what is not so clear, so
I don’t know who is responsible for what art. As far as I can see, the AI art
takes three major forms, most of which are creatures and monsters (note, some creatures’
art appears AI-free).
Firstly, such as wing-eyeball monster, there are
creatures where AI generated the image, which was then processed – slightly –
by a human, and the rest obscured with “Dungeon Smoke”, so all you see is the
head and maybe a few limbs at best, or cropped out as a ‘porthole’ effect,
again, with just the head. It’s actually a shame everything is so obscured with
“Dungeon Smoke” because there are two monsters in particular, I would love to
see the original AI images as they are well gnarly, insanely so even.
Secondly, there are humanoid monsters where an
original AI configuration, recognizable by the bland expression and strange design
choices, are traced over and masked by some first-class digital texture work. They
need to get the artist who did the texture work to draw the actual pictures
next time, the textures are that good. These cards are bearable, not too bad, clear
and refreshingly free from “Dungeon Smoke”.
Finally, there is a repeated legless dragon motif where
the belly scales become a weird rope pattern half-way down, which repeats until
the tail. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were just that (I believe the technical
term for such a creature is an Amphiptere), but the wings are attached to said
rope-belly and not the back of the dragon, making the problem more acutely
visible. Again, once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee the rope-belly-wing. This
is repeated on all boxes, and every card, encircling the encounter or dungeon
number. Ironically, the head is based on the original black dragon ‘Titan’ from
the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and in this form the dragon occurs on the tactical
board, happily free of rope-belly or rope-belly-wings. The whole thing could be
a weird design choice, but there’s also a monster card with a similar problem,
the belly scales invert to become an armoured carapace before reverting to
belly scales and finally, thankfully, being obscured by “Dungeon Smoke”.
[I could be wrong on all of this, all we need to see
are artist PSD files, timelapse videos or equivalent.]
The maps inside the box look great, but there are
mistakes, misspellings and mislabeling with place names. Briefly, these are as
follows: it should be Zengis not Xenghis, Kay-Pong not Kai-Pong,
Carnex not Carner, Skaar not Skaal, Kalong Marshes not Kalon, The Dragon
Reaches not Dragon Reach, Blood Island not Blood Isle, and Snake Island not
Snake Isle (thanks to Victor Cheng for the last one). This is not difficult to
get right.
One card typo that leapt out was a creature being described
as ‘hagged’. While I quite like the idea of the word ‘hagged’ as a possible contemporary
expression to ‘fragged’, I think it should be haggard.
I realize none of these things affect gameplay in any
way, but given how much money the campaign raised, and how good the product
looks otherwise, they all combine to detract from one’s overall enjoyment of
said product.
The Bad
My counters aren’t great as the counter material has interfered
with the print quality. They are legible but weirdly distorted, reminiscent of
bit-mapped images to some extent. Hard to tell if it’s a poor-quality print job
or a low-resolution image file usage or both.
There’s not much lore in the initial quest. We don’t know
who or what Lucis is, why they have an Orb worth stealing, and who or why there
needs to be a guardian for the Orb. Nothing here ties it to Fighting Fantasy or
the Allansia map, other than the fact your Heroes are measured by SKILL,
STAMINA and LUCK.
Some of the Encounter Cards have this weird ambient
background text on them, but it has no tangible effects. It makes for nice
atmosphere, but you’re never told when you should read it.
I understand it’s a bonus introductory quest, but the
ending to this quest is remarkably anticlimactic. It’s very satisfying to play,
so it’s quite strange you get no tangible benefit for completing it.
Some of the creatures, despite, or possibly because
they are/were AI inspired, are remarkably bland in name and absence of lore.
They look wicked! I want to know who they are and what they’re doing in this
god-forsaken dungeon.
There’s a lot of “Dungeon-Smoke” on the cards. This is
not a game for playing dark dive bars or for those of poor eyesight. Some of
the counters are tiny and fiddly. The dungeon sprawls, and not in a regular
grid either. Prepare to spill beer or coffee or pizza or chips all over it.
It’s a total one-shot. Once you’ve solved the secret
of the Orb of Lucis, that is it. I might dig it out when my daughter gets back
from college or my wife finally consents to playing a fantasy board/card game
instead of root canal surgery, but there is no replay value once you’ve rumbled
the mysteries here.
The Good
Gameplay! It’s fun, fast, exciting, terrifying even!
Stuff happens, and like the gamebooks, once something’s happened there’s no comebacks,
no five finger bookmarks even. It’s balanced, intuitive even. Despite all my
tedious bitching and moaning above about the aesthetics, I was having fun. I
felt I was playing a board/card game version of a previously obscure,
unreleased Fighting Fantasy gamebook. The general atmosphere of 80s dungeon
bashing is alive and well.
The Heroes were all fun in this initial adventure. I
played solo with all four, which is a bit book-keeper-ish, but nothing too
extravagant. Their abilities are all cool and complement each other well. One
even has a “Smoke Bomb” ability to match all that “Dungeon Smoke”. Marching order
is important. Tactics are important, but not tedious. Monsters are scary. Resources
have to be managed carefully, items are gratefully found and acquired. This is
all good gameplay and certainly adds to the fun value. The central puzzle is
very, very satisfying to solve. Rules are easy to understand, writing is
generally clear although it could be slightly more descriptive.
The art that is not AI is excellent. This includes the
map, of which I would happily buy a print if the names were corrected. The Hero
Card illustrations are epic and atmospheric. The Dungeon Card room pictures are
fantastic, particularly once you clear a room by flipping the card over, which
shows the bloody mess of a slain monster carcass everywhere. You could make an
entirely separate random dungeon-bash game with the dungeon cards drawn from a
stack, a lone Hero, and the Encounter Cards randomized on a table. There’s some
hidden art on the outside of the bottom box that looks insanely brilliant but
is sadly “brownscaled” out. I’d like to know which artists drew what pictures, because
there is some outstanding artistic talent on show here.
Final Thoughts
It’s a fun, exciting one-shot card-box dungeon
adventure, marred by some sloppy AI art. I’m looking forward to playing Box 1:
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain next week (have to pace these one-shots out) and
see how it tackles recreating an actual published gamebook. I liked it so much
I’ve started re-engineering THE ORB OF LUCIS as a short non-linear amateur Fighting
Fantasy gamebook, which, once typed up, I will repost here for interested
parties to play. Would I back it again? Only if they ditch the AI art, use 100%
human art, and run the whole thing by a Fighting Fantasy fan who knows their
Zengis from their Kay-Pong. Flawed but intriguing.
