Article written by Ashleigh Lowry.
I am a geek – particularly about board games – and with both Brisbane Comic Con and Go Play Brisbane X this month, I thought it would be a great time to shine a light on some really special board games.
Novel Based Board Games!
It will probably come to the surprise of many that there are hundreds of boards games that are themed on both novels and literary characters. These range from casual card games to intricate strategy-based games, and all encourage a great opportunity to sit down with friends and play.
Marrying Mr Darcey – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
For those that love Jane Austin, this is such a great game to play with all your favourite characters and muck around with alternative versions of the final couples. Elizabeth could end up with Mr Bingley instead of Mr Darcey, or Lidia could deny a proposal from Mr Fitzwilliam and end up with Mr Collins. Anything is possible!
The concept of this card game is simple. The players take on the role of the women of the famed Austin novel and try to score husbands with the men of the novel. Gameplay is divided into two stages: the initial Courtship Stage and the concluding Proposal Stage. In the Courtship Stage, players take turns improving their characters and ruining their opponent’s chances of getting a suitor. In the Proposal stage, players will roll to see which suitor proposes to them, decide if they will marry them, and calculate their final score. Highest score wins.
Unspeakable Words – Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft
I will admit, choosing just one Lovecraft themed game was near on impossible. There are a dozen or more that I love to play, but since I want to provide some great jumping off points into the world of board gaming, I chose Unspeakable Words, a word building card game.
This game is quite simple. You are all cultists trying to say the forbidden words of your god, and in doing so are going more and more insane. To play, each player is dealt a hand of letters cards with which they must create words. They are then scored according to how many points are on the letters in the words are made up of (example being O = no points, H = 4). Players must then roll a dice and try to roll over the number of points they just received or risk losing one of their 5 sanity points. Now, here comes the best part! Once a player is on 1 sanity point, the rules of language do not apply to them any longer. They can create any word of any spelling they so choose, but still run the risk of losing their last point of sanity and being out of the game. Last player still with their sanity or first to 100 points wins.
Council of Verona – Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Everybody knows this story. You’ve more than likely read (or watched) it at least once. It would be impossible to assume there isn’t a board game based on this play. Which, I now present to you!
Council of Verona is a card game where players are influential citizens of Verona, using their power to add and exile people from the prince’s court. Each character on the card has a personal goal they wish to achieve, and players can help attain these goals or deny them from happening depending on where they place their influence tokens. Through clever tactics, players win victory points based on the agendas of the characters placements at the end of the game. Again, most victory points win!
Fury of Dracula – Dracula by Bram Stoker
Vampire and hunters fighting in an ever-struggling battle of good versus evil. Now you can find out who comes out on top and who sulks back into the shadows. This game is a little more involved then the others on this list, with quite a long set of rules, so I want to do a quick explanation of the game to show the fun that can be had.
So, this game is 3 against 1. The 1st player is Dracula trying to infect the world with vampirism, and the other three are hunters trying to stop that from happening by killing Dracula. The hunters adventure around the map collecting resources and battling monsters, looking for hints of where Dracula could be hiding. At the same time, Dracula is working to disguise his location through rumours and tricks, trying to invoke his evil will undetected. The players battle against each other until either Dracula’s influence is on 13 or the hunters find and kill Dracula. This game is so much fun and involves communication and clever thinking from both Dracula and the hunters. I cannot recommend it enough.
Paperback – Writers and the Writing Process
This one is a lot of fun, but it doesn’t really have a book or character that it is based on, it is more about the process of writing. The concept of the game is that the players are a group of writers trying to finish their manuscripts for their editors and make enough to eat for the month.
This game is deck-building meets word-building. Players start with a select hand of letter cards and use them to make word and score points, which can be used to purchase more powerful letters and letter combination cards, some of which also come with special powers when played. Once again, the player with the most points at the end of the game wins!
These were just a few of the literal hundreds of board games that can link their creation to novels and famous literary characters. I feel I wouldn’t be doing this article justice if I didn’t encourage everyone that read this article to try and play any of the board games on this list. If are looking for a place to try these games without the commitment of buying them, I recommend both Vault Games on Charlotte Street CBD or Conexio Games Café in Albany which have fantastically extensive board game libraries to choose from.
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