Created by: Scott Almes
Published by: Gamelyn Games
Players: 1-4
I enter just about every random board game contest I see, on the off chance I can win stuff. As luck would have it, I won Tiny Epic Quest (Deluxe) from one of these such contests! I didn’t know much about the game before getting it, but soon looked up some reviews and videos to help me learn how to play.
In this game, each player takes on the role of a party of 3 adventurers, trying to become the greatest in the kingdom. Apparently, you only need to achieve a certain number of victory points in order to save the kingdom. As you travel through the land fighting goblins, finding treasure, gaining mastery over magic spells, and unlocking the use of Legendary Items, you gain the aforementioned victory points. The board is modular, created by randomly placing location cards in a specific formation.
The standout feature of this game are the meeples. Or rather, ITEMeeples. These meeples are equippable with the various items you find along your journey. Some of the items unlock abilities for your entire party, and some just grant new skills to the equipped meeple.
The game takes place over 5 days and nights. During the day you’ll travel around the map, and during night is when you’ll “do” whatever it is you need to do at the various locations. Since you have 3 adventurers, you can try to complete 3 different objectives each night. The nighttime phase has a real push-your-luck aspect, continuing on your missions as you potentially take damage. Once you decide to stop pushing your luck and call it a night, your adventurers will rest, and you’ll reap the benefits from all completed quests. After the 5th night is completed, everyone adds up their victory points according to the score tracker.
In a 1 player game, very little is changed, except you determine a point value to be the win/loss threshold before starting. The rule book has suggested point values for various difficulties.
There are more features, for instance; how you decide how your meeples move around the map through the movement cards; or how adventuring at night becomes more dangerous as spirit increases. But I’m not going to dive in to every nuance in this review.
What this game does well:
The theme is represented perfectly. Anyone that has played video games such as Legend of Zelda or Elder Scrolls will instantly pick up on the similarities. “I need to get the Boomerang from the Water Temple” or “Looks like the Shadow Temple has the Bow and Arrows”.
The replayability is great. Yes, you have some of the same map locations that you’ll want to be able to hit every time you play, but because they can be placed in different areas of the map every time, it works.
Those ITEMeeples! Such a great feature. No, they’re not needed. You could just as easily have cards that represent each item to keep track of. But that’s not nearly as cool as seeing your meeples run around with swords, shields, and staffs. It really makes the game unique. Having certain meeples equipped with different items takes your 3 identical adventurers, and starts to give them some amount of character and individuality by the game’s end. That sort of progression is fun.
It’s easy to teach. I was able to play with the 1 player rules, and since each player controls 3 meeples, I had my two oldest kids play with me, each of us moving our own meeple. I was able to help them read the board and see what quests were available and figure out where they wanted to go. My daughter kept wanting to learn spells, while my son just wanted to fight goblins. Regardless, we all took turns rolling the dice, enjoying the victories and defeats.
Set up time is very important to me. For whatever reason, I will judge a game with long set up much more harshly. This game was daunting the first time I opened the box. So many wooden tokens and plastic items and cards that need to be laid out in a specific formation. Then there were Quest cards that needed shuffled and laid out. But after playing it once, I realized the set up was not nearly as complicated as I originally feared. This can be opened up and ready to play in just a few moments, and that’s a huge plus for me.
What the game does not do well:
I feel like there is just a bit too much randomization from the die rolls. I wish there was a way to mitigate the bad rolls. For instance, if the Magic is raised up a few levels on your first roll, then there’s no way to gain Strength for the rest of the Night. Also, I’ve found I have terrible luck fighting the goblins. My dice just don’t want to help me defeat them. There are items that can help with some of these things, but there’s no guarantee that you see every item every game. It’s a quick and lighthearted game, so random bouts of bad luck don’t ruin hours’ worth of gameplay, but it can be a bit frustrating.
I wish there was a little more balance between ways to gain victory points. I get that the Spells are easier to learn than fighting goblins, so they shouldn’t be worth the same. But I feel like the gap is too big where the top reward for Spells learned tops out at 16 victory points and defeating goblins tops out at 32 points. The increase in max Strength is a nice perk for having learned Spells, but I feel like it’s just not enough incentive to prioritize learning Spells.
The game ends after the 5th night. In multiple games I’ve played, I’ve acquired some fun item or even one of the Legendary Items during that 5th night, simply to gain the victory points and never actually use it. I wish there was a way to use the final items I gained. My suggestion: some kind of boss battle. I would love to see a 6th day where a boss is revealed, where all players must battle the boss together. The number of items you’ve acquired or current Spell level could impact this final battle. It would serve as a nice final chapter and give you a sense of building towards something throughout the game. Plus, it would further parallel the great games that it draws obvious inspiration from.
Final thoughts:
Tiny Epic Quest does a lot of things right. It’s not a perfect game, but the good heavily outweighs the bad, and has been fun every time, even when I lose. That’s the sign of a well-made game. It is easy enough to have children play along with, just make sure you keep the items out of reach. My two that played with me were 7 and 5 years old, and they both had enough fun to want to play again right away after finishing our first play through. I would absolutely love to see some kind of boss expansion that changes up the endgame after the 5th night. I think that could push this game over the hump of truly feeling epic.
Short set up time, fun with the kids, high replayability, and a great theme. Tiny Epic Quest checks a lot of boxes that I look for in a great family game. Now to try out some other Tiny Epic games…