Here's a clue.....
And how does this game look on my table right now.....
Any guesses.....
Well how about this.....
Okay, so it was my own fault. I get curious about some games! This was one I had been following along for a while, thinking I'll give it a go one day, after all it's got an 8.2 rating on BGG and evryone raves about it!
So as luck would have it, a cheap copy popped up on ebay and I thought might as well find out what the fuss is about. So I watched a couple of rules videos and playthroughs, read through the rules and then dived into the deep end!
So you know that feeling you get sometimes when you are doing something and you're not sure whether or not you are enjoying yourself so you have to carry on a little bit longer to find out, well that's how I felt playing this. I'd done 2 longish sessions and when I was about to start again I found myself thinking do I really want to put myself through any more of this, alright I've got the time, now I'm getting deeper into the story and moving through the chapters I'm sure all the things that have not quite been up to the mark so far will get better as my character improves!......
The issues I'd been having were really about the basic mechanics of the game. The most glaring was the fact that it's just very difficult to get things done as you keep running out of food, health etc so you keep having to run around the same locations. The menhirs, well that timer thing doesn't last long does it! Fight a big tough animal and you get one food, hang on didn't it just cost me 2 food just to get here. The way you level up your characters is slow and tedious, the rewards are next to useless and then there is the choose your own adventure campaign book. You are just going backwards and forwards over the same pages over and over again, it just becomes tedious and the it happened.......
Drum roll.....
A character entered a location, on full health, with quite a bit of swag etc. So went exploring, I checked the location in the book and my character died, then and there on the spot with nothing I could do about it......
There is something I have discovered that will quiet the rage that an event like this can cause....
You sell the damn thing for £30 more than you paid for it!!!!!!
Has anybody else experienced the delights of Tainted Grail or am I just weird?
The only game like that I've played is Near and Far. I liked it a lot. Much simpler than your game, though.
Image Source: BGG
I think the consensus at Solitaire Times is that the story is way better than the gameplay (which, as you've eloquently described above, isn't a real accomplishment), and (possible spoiler here) in the end the story sucks.
MoS, is this book part of the game? Yikes!
Image Source: BGG