Thunderstone (card game)

Thunderstone

Box cover of Thunderstone Base Set
Designer(s) Mike Elliott
Publisher(s) Alderac Entertainment Group
Players 1 to 5 players
Age range 12 & up
Setup time ~30 minutes
Playing time ~60 minutes
Random chance Medium
Skill(s) required Resource Management
Turn Decision

Thunderstone is a fantasy deck-building card game series designed by Mike Elliott, with artwork by Jason Engle. It was first published by Alderac Entertainment Group in 2009. Each card has dimensions of 6.3 cm x 8.8 cm. It has been translated in several languages.[1]

Gameplay

Gameplay involves building a deck of adventurers and equipment to defeat monsters. Each turn players must decide whether to visit the Village (to purchase cards, upgrade heroes and other actions), or if they will face a monster in the current dungeon (using the heroes and equipment in their hand). Defeated monsters are added to a player's deck as well, where they may contribute money and/or other bonuses when in hand.

Thunderstone Advance

Many game elements including the card layout have undergone a major redesign in 2012.[2] This has caused the game series to continue under the new name Thunderstone Advance. Cards from the original series and the Advance series are compatible as they share the same back cover artwork. In the Thunderstone Advance series, each set comes with a handful of Thunderstone Bearers that act as monster bosses in the game.

Releases

The games denoted as B contain Base cards (Militia/Regulars, Daggers/Longspears, Torches, etc) and experience cards (tokens in Advance) and can therefore be played standalone.[3][4][5][6][7]

Original series

Thunderstone Advance series

The Worlds Collide and Into the Abyss sets are selection of cards from the original series (Thunderstone and its 5 expansions), redesigned to match with the Advance series. Also many cards have been tweaked for more balance.[8][9]

Reception

BoardGameGeek recently rated Thunderstone a 7.34 out of 10, garnering it a thematic rank of 33 out of over 500 "thematic" board games.[10]

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "Thunderstone 2009". Boardgamegeek. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  2. ↑ Quick, Jeff. "Get Down To Basics". Alderac website. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  3. ↑ "Thunderstone". Amazon. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  4. ↑ "Towers of Ruin". Amazon. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  5. ↑ "Starter Set". Amazon. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  6. ↑ "Numenera". Amazon. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  7. ↑ "Worlds Collide". Boardgamegeek. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  8. ↑ http://store.alderac.com/thunderstone-worlds-collide-p-1533.html
  9. ↑ http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/158727/thunderstone-advance-abyss
  10. ↑ "Thunderstone". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2014-01-06.

External links