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'World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game' at Ten Years

Another Walk Around Azeroth

By Wade A. StewartPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Age hasn't set in.

Pop Quiz: The Lord of the Rings books are to The Hobbit as World of Warcraft: The Board Game is to ________. OK, pencils down because we already know the answer from the title—World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game. The first one is a heavy trek filled with lots of details, where the latter is a light adventure enjoyed with beer and pretzels.

These types of casual games can be quick fun, usually have simple rules and are meant for kicking back without much thought needed. It’s another way to gather with friends and socialize. An Oktoberfest of games, if you will, for the more pints you consume, the better it might seem. You don't need an adult beverage to enjoy.

Cheers to its 10th birthday!

Azeroth reloaded.

The goal is a race through a distorted map of Azeroth to acquire eight valor points by fulfilling quests and acquiring trophy cards. It never feels like there is a major arch your hero goes through, but you can level up to open new areas to kill tougher things and take their loot. You’re not participating in an epic five army battle, but you can slay an eternal blood god on a single hit and take its heart for valor.

The dice has magic eyes... and swords.

It’s a quick system. Roll, move up to the die number, discover what’s in your space, and draw an encounter. The movement dice also shows the energy you have generated that turn. Energy allows you to play abilities and spells and helps you become more powerful in combat.

Your hero's true colors shinning through.

That’s great because encounters involve combat. Use your powers and/or weapon and roll a die and it triggers in the appropriate combat step. First, range combat happens. If no one is killed, melee combat happens. If no one is killed, the creature stays in the space found. It just takes a single blow to kill any monster. Just one die versus one die, mono a mono, plus bonuses to get to/or above your opponent’s defense value.

Two-sided challenge cards and discovery tokens help roll out the barrel of fun.

The color of adventure.

Challenge cards are drawn from the bottom of the deck and have a creature to attack or an event with benefits. When you defeat a monster, you flip the card to receive loot like a weapon or armor. If you can’t use the shiny object, put in your backpack and use the potion printed on the card instead. The events occur either on a location or global scale and can gain you or your faction advantages by compiling them.

Discovery tokens have prizes and penalties for those who land on them. They are first drawn and looked at when you land on an appropriate space, then placed on another space somewhere on the board. These tokens are great for bluffing or detouring players from landing somewhere. Ideally, you’d places the friendlier ones near you and the dangerous ones near one of your opponents.

Discover these!

Leveling is more colorful than your lederhosen. The strength of your character starts small and grey, before you can ripen into green, then yellow, and red being the highest. Your color is the ticket to what encounters can do, and the paths you can take. If you’re grey, you’re stuck on grey paths, but you’re green, you’re allowed you into grey and green caravel of encounters. Depending on your quests, you could win staying green versus someone who worked hard to get to the red level. I was that green—small, but mighty.

It’s sad the game only came with four characters to choose from for a four-player game. They then released eight character packs—each with a figure, their power cards, more quests, encounters, and more discovery tokens. This made the game feel meatier like a sausage and sauerkraut gift basket. These characters were the ones you knew and loved from the World of Warcraft: The Board Game, but not all of them. Blizzard and Fantasy Flight Games soon departed ways just after this release and neither one could claim this game at the lost and found.

"Ready for combat?"

The fun of this game is the randomness it has to offer. It’s an adventure game where you can make up stories on why a certain creature spawned where it shouldn’t have. Why are you fighting a murloc in Brill? Why you have a backpack full of swords, when you can only use a staff?

At ten years, the flavor of World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game still holds up alongside other adventure games like Talisman or Runebound. It celebrates the video game material through the art with a style boiling the experience to its essence. Quickly you’ll dance around this board slaying creatures giving your friends the downtime of a stein gulp. So, eat up the whitefish on a stick, have pride wearing a heart shaped gingerbread necklace, and enjoy this beer and pretzel journey though Azeroth.

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About the Creator

Wade A. Stewart

I'm a writer of many unpublished works, movie watcher, lover of art, and board game player.

Twitter: @allenkwest

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