In board games, language games actually occupy a special position, these more social attributes of the game is often simpler in the rules, but in fact, it leaves more room for players to play.
Players can skillfully weave a set of their own stories with language, and even some skilled players will add some custom rules to the game to make the game ecology thrive.
Language games with a wide domestic audience are often bound to identity reasoning games, from the initial killing games to werewolf killing and Avalon, which have been recognized by a large number of players within a certain range, in a sense, it also represents the evolution of such game concepts. While the rules of simplicity remain the same, a lot of tweaks have been made in the details to accommodate new trends.
Ten years later, the so-called "upgraded version of werewolf killing" "Avalon" finally ushered in the real upgraded sequel - "Avalon II: Arthur Legend", which developed into a completely different game from the previous game, to what extent was it upgraded and subverted?
In fact, the core gameplay of "Arthur's Legend" still inherits the essence of the previous game. Players are divided into two factions, either the good guys – they are both arthur's loyal minions, or the evil faction – they are Mordred's evil minions.
The goal of the Good Guy faction is to successfully complete three missions, or to correctly identify the evil side player in the final chance to turn the tide and win the game; the main goal of the Evil Faction is to fail these three missions and avoid being identified at the end, or by identifying special characters in the Good Guy faction during the hunting phase.
But The Legend of Arthur is set later in time than the previous game. Mordred's large and evil army had now forced Arthur's army into a desperate situation, and the future of the kingdom was in jeopardy, and arthur in the desperate situation hastily issued a series of missions to balance the forces of the two sides to obtain a turnaround.
And this time-pressed setting is also reflected in the gameplay. In Arthur's Legends, players don't have as much time to discuss and vote, so the participants in each mission are directly decided by the leader, and there is no voting session. The current leader will also step down immediately after the end of a mission, and the next leader will be designated, and no player in the same game can lead the mission more than once.
This setting greatly speeds up the progress of the game, enhances the flexibility of the number of people, and it is crucial to gain the trust of the leader of each mission, and the leader's team strategy largely determines the success or failure of the mission.
Of course, Arthur's Division of Justice is not entirely desperate, and they can find Mordred's minions hidden in the middle of the party with the help of powerful magic and amulets.
After the leader has selected a team to perform the mission, he must choose another player to place the magic marker, and he can also place the magic mark on himself. Players with magic markers cannot hit defeat cards in this mission unless their character has a special note. This is useful for preventing players from the evil side from causing trouble, but it also depends on whether your leader is as wise as a torch.
Amulets appear in the 6-player and more game mode, and after the results of a mission are revealed, if there is an amulet mark in the position just completed after the mission has been completed, the current leader must select a player who has not taken the amulet or been a leader (nor the next leader) to take the amulet at the same time as selecting the next leader.
Before the next task begins, the holder of the amulet performs the action. He can view the factions of any player who has not received an amulet or been checked. Players who have already been examined by the amulet can take a faded amulet marker. The range of verifiability is small, and the identity of the amulet holder cannot be determined. This limited access to information makes the game process suspicious and gives players an excellent reasoning experience.
In addition, in the good guy camp in the "priest" role, he can know the first mission leader belongs to the camp, get this role will undoubtedly become the key figure of the game, very helpful for subsequent identity inference, but the mode below 6 people is not recommended, otherwise the game progress will be too fast.
When the three missions were successful, there was no doubt that the good guy camp helped Arthur recover from a desperate situation.
When three missions fail (twice in a four-player game), the final mission phase is advanced, and all players have five minutes to discuss who Mordred's minions might be. Then it comes the "last chance" for both camps.
There is a special optional character in the evil faction, the Blind Eye Killer, who does not know who the other evil side players on the field are. He can choose when the leader asks if to carry out the hunt, and if he remains silent, it means that the hunt is not carried out, which is the last chance to enter the good side.
If he decides to perform a hunt, then he has to open his identity card and assign two characters, if they are both good people, the evil side wins immediately, and vice versa, the good side wins. It is important to note that when the "priest" character is present, the blind killer must accurately identify him.
The "last chance" of the good guy side is this: each player present raises two hands and accuses the two evil side players, and when the number is three, the real evil side player must let go, if all the players on the good side at this time are pointing to the evil side players, the good guy side wins, otherwise the evil side wins - unless the leader of each mission is from the evil side, then the good guy side wins.
In "Arthur's Legend", the "last chance" game point is more, the addition of blind killers has increased the variables, and if the good guy fang wants to win at this stage, everyone needs to carefully deduce and maintain tacit understanding, which is still quite difficult.
In addition to the aforementioned priests and blind killers, Arthur's Legend has added more optional characters, allowing players to change their game experience in each game, and they can also more freely adjust the ratio of strength between the two camps.
For example, "Arthur", a character in the good guy camp, can know who the evil party "Morgan Leffy" is at the beginning of the game, and when hunting, as long as Arthur is identified first, the evil side will immediately win and there is no need to identify the second good person. It is generally recommended that more than 7 people join this role.
Another example is the character of the evil camp of "Madmen", who must fail in every mission he undertakes, unless he has a magic mark placed on him by the leader.
In addition, The Legend of Arthur has also added unknown character variation rules, adding random elements, and blind killer variation rules, making the hunt even more thrilling!
Overall, Avalon II: The Legend of Arthur, as a sequel to a good game, is also of excellent quality in itself. Under the premise of perfectly inheriting the spirit of the original work, the new style of drawing, the change of winning methods, the addition of 27 new characters, the new variation rules, etc., all make the game process more novel and interesting, which is undoubtedly a work that cannot be missed for fans of the series.
Chinese version of Avalon II: Arthur's Legend is now available for pre-order, so if you're a genius in identity reasoning games and language games, be sure to try this ten-year-old sword-sharpening masterpiece!