Charterstone

"The immortal Forever King has selected 6 citizens of Greengully to start a new village far from the Eternal City. Congratulations for being chosen! Your goal is to bring the greatest glory to the Forever King so you may rule the village in his name. After spending all day flying over the kingdom, the zeppelin sets down and the guards open the hatch for you and your companions." This then is how you start to play CHARTERSTONE. For those of you, like myself, who have never played a "Legacy" board game, you are probably asking what IS a Legacy Game? It is a game where your decisions on what to do permanently change the play of the game and the future of the outcome. This means that if you eventually start over (you will need to purchase a Recharge Pack for the game, it is advised you do so now if you are planning on buying this game) the play of the game will be entirely different. Even the rules of the game can and will change depending upon your choices. You will enter this fantasy scenario entirely blind without need for "learning" any "rules" whatsoever. Game play and directions are intuitive. Once you open the box you are guided through step by step and you and your fellow players take the steps and dive right in. You can play with up to 6 players and you can even assign some non-player players to the courses of action. I am trying to be vague purposefully because like a good movie, you don't want to be given any "spoilers" about what you are going to encounter. This game is fun and it has just given me incentive to try out some other "Legacy Games". There is a little touch of open ended RPG Fantasy Adventure video game, a smidge of Sid Meier's Civilization, an element of discovery akin to maybe Clue from the old world, a constantly evolving artificial intelligence that "guides" you and throws down obstacles in your path. There are twists and turns and with each outing (campaign) you will make key decisions towards your eventual ending. This game consists of 12 "campaigns" before it is entirely finished and you then you will need to use a Recharge pack to start all over. When you open the box for the first time, do not let the plain non-descript labelled inset boxes give you a false impression. This is one of the most artistic and beautiful games I've ever seen or experienced. Again, to avoid spoilers it is hard to describe without giving away secrets that add to the luxuriousness of this one of a kind experience. Unique is the best description of CHARTERSTONE, and from what professional reviewers have said of the game I don't believe that only applies to newcomers to these kind of games. It should also be noted that boomers and seniors are enjoying this game a lot as well as the younger gamers, CHARTERSTONE is an adventure for all ages, a joy to play, and again a work of art you build as you play. The most personal feeling of an unveiling as the game progresses is one of the hallmarks of enjoyment here, there are secrets revealed and unexpected turns to take, so if you like a sense of mystery and open-world exploration and sudden cliff-hangers with uncertain futures poised on a balance, then this will be your cup of tea, and see... no spoilers given away. The reviewers who have written reviews prior to the release date of December 14th and only said good-bad-or indifferent in a few words cannot have possibly played this game as it was only available to professional gamer/reviewers and invitees of Stonemaier Games prior to this date (there are some pro reviews out on the internet by good writer/reviewers, but be cautious not to ruin your experience with spoilers. A lot is made of the cleverness of the game design and I have to agree, this is an intellectual reward as well as a fun adventure that can and will appeal to the broadest of character types and ages from somewhat-mature teen to the old codger. In a word, a board game designed for Everybody.

We have been playing this with our daughters aged 18-12 After 8 of 12 Games completed we have been enjoying the gameplay and the fact that all of the players have been able to win. There is an interesting complexity to this game which develops as the game goes on, and as certain things happen in the game different strategies become viable. Certain strategies become more or less powerful based on the development of the board. I do feel that the rules have been a little difficult to implement, and there is a lot to keep track of, so it helps if everyone is paying attention the whole time. Rule book was well written and was easy to reference, so that made it better.

This was our first legacy game, having played many euro-style non-legacy games (like Catan) and others such as Camel Up, Dead Men Tell No Tales, Shogun, Ogre, etc. I was a little scared when looking at the game because I know that a lot of legacy games have very limited replayability without effectively buying the game again, but this game doesn't suffer those effects. After you've filled out the board, placed all of the rules and story, you can still play with your newly created board. To make things even more exciting, you can actually create a _new_ "board" by using the other side (just purchase any needed cards and start over) _if you want to_, but there is no requirement to do this and you can actually build over top existing buildings on your current board if you want. In other words, _if you want to_, you can build two boards -- one on each side -- but you don't have to and can play the game as you would any none legacy board game after you've built your board. I was also afraid that you might have "slingshotting" rules _or_ that someone could get so far behind over the course of several games that it's not fun for them, but we haven't had issues with either. Every game is different and we were amazed at how effective different strategies can really be. Something else that I really liked is that the pieces, board, stickers, and boxes are all extremely well done and solid. The coins are actual metal, nice and "hefty", and make that ever gratifying clinking sound when you show off how wealthy you are to your fellow players :-P The one warning I will give is that until you have the board built up, you probably want to use six people and they should probably be the same six until the board is built out. Also, each game will probably take around 2 hours (maybe 1.5) while you build up the board -- at least that was our experience -- but it really is worth it and a lot of fun. I purchased the game on sale (Black Friday), but knowing what I do now, I would gladly have paid full price -- this is one game that _actually_ is worth the price because of how well it is made, the quality of the pieces, and the replay value.

This game is a lot of fun and has a really great story going. We just end up so engrossed in it we play two games back to back, even though it's an hour and a half per game (campaign is 12 games long). I bought this because my games collection is very small and I can't afford much, and I really wanted to play a legacy game so this was a great choice because it becomes our own unique worker management game after the campaign is over! So you're not throwing it in the bin after you're done like with some other legacy games. Just be aware that this game is not intuitive for beginners to the hobby, they may miss rules here and there that affect their experience and end result, and they may not appreciate the sheer quality and beauty of this game. Only with more experience with a lot of different boardgames will they appreciate this beauty for what it is. Great art, great story, fantastic production quality, and a great joy to play. I highly recommend it as long as you have an experienced and committed boardgaming group that reliably gets together often enough to finish 12 sessions of this ~1hr 30min game. Note: If you don't unlock some things during the campaign, you'll still have the opportunity to unlock them post-campaign, there just won't be any more story to go through.

Charterstone is a cute, fun legacy game that is a very good introduction to legacy games if you are interested in those. For me it was the perfect introduction to this style of game as I had been reading all kinds of great things about other legacy games such as Pandemic Legacy and Gloomhaven. The initial thought was, “good lord play a game once and be done with it?!” That’s crazy talk…..or so I thought. Got Charterstone and played through it with my wife and we both were instantly drawn in. The legacy aspect is sooooooo much fun. The game plays like a basic worker placement game where you place down a little guy on a particular spot on the game board to collect resources with which to pay for other things in the game. I love worker placement games as well so that was a nice base for the game. Well as the game progresses you will draw cards that have stickers on them of new places to visit on the game board. Pay the required amount of resources and you can stick the sticker on the game board that really opens up the area of play of new ways to place your character. There are 12 games that can be played until the game ends completely and each game takes progressively longer as you are adding more and more to the board. For a 2 player game it took about an hour for the first game and each game after that took a little over an hour but never longer than 2 hours. At the onset of each individual game there is a card that details a certain objective, the person that achieves said objective gets the honor of scratching off the card to reveal what reward is underneath (like a lottery scratchers ticket). This will then lead into the next game and how the overall story progresses. As far as the story goes it’s not bad, not the best story in the world but interesting and kid friendly. Not going to spoil anything though. So you are thinking, “well what do I do with this after we finish the 12 games?” One really cool thing about this particular legacy game is that once you complete the legacy portion of the game there are rules to where you can keep playing the game without the legacy aspect! No 2 peoples games will be the same as the end product once you are done will be shaped by your choices throughout the game. If you really want to play through the legacy portion of the game again, they sell a recharge pack that has all the stickers and components to do just that. Also the reverse side of the board is the exact same so you can just flip the board and do it all over which is cool. Here’s the thing, I think the game would play WAYYYY better with more than 2 people playing. With only 2 people there is so much board to play on and we never did fill it up which lead to missed chances as far as story sequences and things go. At the end of our 2 player campaign there were a TON of cards left in the box that we never touched. You can get up to 6 players around the board and personally I think that would make a more fulfilling game. In any case if you are wanting a nice light legacy game to see if you would like that style, this is it. Since playing this game I have went on and bought Gloomhaven which I love even more. Charterstone is a very simple to learn, kid friendly, legacy style board game.

We have played most of the games from this publisher (Stonemaier Games) and have come to expect a truly great gaming experience. Luckily, designer Jamey has done it again! My husband and I finished the campaign within a week, and are interested in trying it again with more people. Pros: -Cute art and layout - very attention grabbing. -Simple mechanics, but lots of strategic depth. -Customization that led to a feeling of ownership and pride. -A few unique events/perks that set it apart from other games. -They are several ways that you can determine the length of a game. Cons: -A bit of a learning curve - we did not watch the recommended tutorial video beforehand, which we would now suggest for new players. However after your first game things are pretty much clear. -There can be a lot to keep track of. Many times we caught ourselves saying, "oh, we should have gotten this bonus 2 turns ago." -Being a Legacy game (revealing cards and unpacking boxes is always exciting...but now that we've finished the campaign, replays will be a little less exciting). All in all, it was a great way to spend the holiday. Probably in our top ten games list!

I have loved this game and have believed it to be the best game I have ever played for years now I finally got another copy to finish the story I could never continue however my copy came damaged so I asked for a new one and they gave me a new one no problem super thrilled and can’t wait to play again! DO NOT NOT BUY THIS GAME YOU WILL LOVE THE ADVENTURE the concept of a choose your own adventure kind of book with so many great aspects of what makes games great this one is a MUST HAVE!!!

The quality of the game is nice but looked like grease was splattered all over inside the box and the papers were stuck together. Not sure how it got inside since it was still shrink wrapped.