Heldentaufe Kickstarter Review

You may not believe it but reviewing Kickstarter games can often be a stressful affair. Getting sent the game a few days before the Kickstarter begins, trying to schedule in a few games and then furiously typing up a review while there's still plenty of time left on the project.  Heldentaufe is a little different, as instead of a playing a physical version of the game around a table, this Kickstarter review is based on an online implementation that you can play right now.

Heldentaufe is a colourful game of fantasy adventure. The aim is to collect 18 teeth, rewards gained for completing quests and killing the bad guys of the Netherworld. Mostly the game is a pick up and deliver affair, as you'll explore the upper world completing quests by dropping off items and potions at various spaces.

Every so often you may wish to venture into the Netherworld, a separate dungeon board complete with traps, monsters and treasure. The potential rewards are great, but when you venture into the Netherworld, the other players get to move the monsters in an attempt to halt your subterranean exploration and death is not just a minor inconvenience.

Heldentaufe reminded me a lot of the Witcher adventure game and the video game Armello. All three games involve moving round a world, completing quests by grabbing items from one area and moving it to another. It must be said that Heldentaufe is a much simpler game than the Armello and the Witcher, but that’s not saying it’s a shallow game.

Heldentaufe's main drawback is the same as that of the Witcher, although in no way a bad game it does suffer from a 'rinse and repeat' aspect. Once you have got your head around the basic concepts and various locations the game becomes a race. This isn’t so much an issue with the game per say, but more an issue with the genre. Without a means of ramping up the pressure you are relying on the competition between players to create that pressure.

There’s a simple yet rewarding crafting system within Heldentaufe that allows you to build up your character via the items he or she carries and brew potions from foraged ingredients. What is more, not all the quests reward you with teeth; many reward you with items that can then be used to bolster your character or are the requirements for other quests. Heldentaufe is all about choice and at every point in the game there are a great many choices available to you.

Due to the levelling up there is a tipping point that occurs when you have a nice big sword equipped where the monsters in the Netherworld no longer offer much of a threat but are instead simply speedbumps. Again it feeds into the race aspect of the game but I felt the game might work better if the monsters in the Netherworld also levelled up as the game progressed, making the rewards even riskier.

I may have only played the online Beta version but I must say it’s very addictive, in a relaxing ‘one more click’ kind of way. This unfortunately means that I haven’t played Heldentaufe versus real people.

From what I've seen so far, Heldentaufe is a light fun family friendly pick up and deliver game. It may be lacking in complexity but that does not mean it's shallow. The game is full of choices and comes with a variety of different player characters with different skills and a massive selection of quests. Oh and everything looks amazing.

The full board game for Heldentaufe is looking for funding on Kickstarter now.

This Kickstarter preview is based on an online version of the game provided by the publisher; the final product may look, play or smell different to that used in this preview.