Family Game Night – Descent: Journeys in the Dark
As my kids have gotten older, they’ve always wanted to try out some of the board games that I’ve picked up over the years. One in particular, Descent: Journeys in the Dark 2nd Edition, has always sparked their imagination as well as being a game that I have long wished to play. The big box full of tiles, miniatures, and cards has always had an allure that even I couldn’t pass up.
A few months ago, my wife and I decided the minions were old enough for us to give it a go. And boy has it been a ride.
We decided to start with the campaign from the core set, “The Shadow Rune”. My wife and the two minions would each pick a hero to run while I played the role of the Overlord. This worked out great as I was able to focus on setup and running each quest while my wife was able to help the minions with their characters when necessary.
Playing through the campaign with one quest each week was a fun activity everyone could look forward to. The minions got to practice their counting, reading, math, teamwork, and critical thinking skills while beating monsters and upgrading their characters. Over the course of the game we tinkered with some of the expanded rules from the expansions such as adding secret areas to the search deck and side quests, but eventually we opted to stick to the core rules for this first campaign.
We wrapped up the final quest this past week with the heroes triumphantly defeating the Overlord’s forces in a final confrontation. It took us just a little over three months to play through the campaign, including one side mission from an expansion. Not too bad for our first run through. Even though there were moments of frustration when the dice or the gameplay didn’t go as planned, it was an enjoyable experience and great fun to have family game night. It’s something that I have long hoped for, and now my minions are getting old enough for it to become a reality.
Now that the Descent campaign has wrapped, the family has decided to switch gears and try a different campaign style game. With that, we will be starting Star Wars: Imperial Assault later this week and I’m thrilled. I will be trying something a little different with this game in that I will be painting all of the models as we go along. Look forward to some work in progress pictures soon.
- Cypher System RPG Part 1 – Setup - September 5, 2021
- Star Wars RPG Part 4 – Campaign Wrap-up - August 8, 2021
- Dark City Games New Official YouTube Channel - August 6, 2021
