My first experience with the Dark Souls video game was short lived. I’d heard a lot about it and it was free on the PlayStation Network. “Why not?” I thought. I didn’t last long. I didn’t understand how it worked and it wasn’t calming me down like I’d hoped playing some video games would. I promptly moved on and didn’t play it again. “Git gud” was beyond me.

When the Dark Souls boardgame campaign launched, I was intrigued but not necessarily hyped. The IP held no particular appeal and there wasn’t much in the way of gameplay to look at. On the other hand, I had no particular qualms about dice or cards or any other such concerns -I figured that, like most games, I’d follow the development and check it out as I could. After playing Guild Ball I became way more interested; Steamforged makes a great miniatures game in GB. At GenCon I got to sit down for about an hour with David Carl, lead designer, to discuss the game, the direction it was going, and fight the Dancer of the Boreal Valley. I walked away impressed; so impressed I bought Dark Souls III to see what it was about.

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My demo of Dark Souls ended up being essentially a private meeting between me and DC. The demo Steamforged brought was a single boss battle, though the final game will include much more. A lot of the discussion online has been centered around “Will the board game feel like the video game”. I knew going into the demo it would be hard for me to say; in a way…I didn’t really care if it did or not. I like the minis and I like tactical combat games. I wanted to know if it would be a good boardgame that would stand alone.

DC has years of industry experience. He’s worked quite a bit on various miniatures games and boardgames during his time at Privateer Press, and was recently made the lead designer on Dark Souls. Following the success of the game’s Kickstarter he and a number of Steamforged employees took a retreat to a cabin to discuss the direction of the game. The campaign had proved the interest in a boardgame and given them quite a bit of feedback. Among the employees were Matt and Rich, senior designers at Steamforged, and Alex, a Dark Souls super fan.

One of the big issues in converting anything from one form of media to another is what can stay the same and what has to change. There are parts of the video game that the team can attempt to simulate in a boardgame; other parts have to be abstracted. Part of Alex’s role is to ensure that the feel remained true to the video game as much as possible. The other designers are there to make sure it’s a good boardgame. One of the first things that DC talked about was the need to introduce a failure state in the boardgame. The video game can go on forever, looping repeatedly as you master it; a boardgame can’t do that.

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About 1.5 hours and 19 attempts against the tutorial boss in Dark Souls III I almost quit again. Many of my initial frustrations had returned, and I hated feeling like I didn’t even know all the rules to the game let alone how to be effective. Finally, FINALLY, I beat that stupid…thing…and both me and my buddies who’d been watching whooped with joy. That didn’t last long as the Lothic High Wall continued to tear me apart and make me frustrated again.

Eventually though, things started to click. I made it deep into that first level on a great run and started to feel like I knew what I was doing. By the time I found the first real boss, I was dodging, attacking, and fireballing my way through the high walls with a moderate level of competency and I began to find what people like so much about this series. It only took me 4 tries to beat the Vordst of the Boreal Valley and I played for over an hour straight after that fight without dying. In fact, I still haven’t died following that battle.

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The first part of the game that DC explained to me was my character sheet. I was to play a Knight in this battle and he was to take control of the Herald. This part of the game is meant to be as close to a simulation as reasonable, and looking back I now get that feeling. My stats are different than those of the Herald, which means the weapons and items I equip are going to be different. Rather than raising stats individually, you’ll be able to spend souls to move up “Tiers” which are grouped sets of stats. Tier 2 is higher than Tier 1 and so on. Eventually you can use almost any piece of equipment but my knight will have earlier access to giant Axes than the Herald.

Items seem to be where characters will differentiate themselves. Other than stats, the only difference between the Knight and the Herald is a one-time use Skill in flavor with their roles. In the final game, souls found while exploring can be spent on item pulls. The generic item deck is full of stuff for you to find and to that deck you’ll add a unique set of items for your class, ensuring that eventually you can find some class appropriate weapons and armor. For the demo, DC equipped me with an axe, a shield, some armor, and a Talisman that could be swapped into a hand mid-battle to use its ability.

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I’ve read a lot about being able to “master” the Dark Souls video game. At some point during my recent plays of Dark Souls 3 I made a new character, a knight this time, to see how quickly I could beat the tutorial area boss. I did it on my first try. Moving through the dead skeleton monsters was no problem, they were little more than an annoyance. I certainly took damage and used some heals against the boss, but I knew his pattern and was able to parry and dodge through the first half of the fight. The second half was tougher, but I used some Firebombs to whittle it down and defeat it on my first attempt. It felt good… but not as good as the first time I beat it. I had certainly gotten better at the game, but I didn’t feel any grand satisfaction. I was having more fun exploring the new area with my Pyromancer. The sense of discovery and surprise coupled with adapting old strategies to new enemies was where I was finding enjoyment.

There’s a nervous energy the first time I open a door or turn down a corridor that is gone on subsequent loops. “That chest is a mimic” I think, or “Get your shield up something is about to drop from the ceiling”. The game shifts from tense discovery to tense pattern recognition. Not less fun…just different. I’m enjoying Dark Souls 3, but I don’t think I’m ever going to attempt a naked run or even try to beat it with a different character class.

***

The first thing the Dancer did in our fight against it was move one node to the left and pivot, facing away. It was odd, but DC explained that sometimes that just happens. The bosses are controlled by a deck of cards that dictate their actions. They’re easy to understand once you know what all the symbols mean, but they provide a rather complex set of options. Bosses will move in and around you, targeting different priorities based on what the card says. They’ll attack - sometimes a player and sometimes an area of effect. Each card will also reveal a weak point; attack there and you gain a bonus die. These cards are the beating black heart of the boss fights. Each time you open the box to fight the Dancer the pattern will be different, but within each fight those cards will execute in the same order.

Well… almost. Each boss will, at some point, “heat up”. In the video game, the Vordt eventually goes crazy and charges faster with a frost breath. The Tutorial Boss morphs into a horrid demonspawn with extended reach and faster attacks. In the boardgame, the Dancer adds a 6th card to its tactic deck and shuffles them once. The actions are the same, the pattern is now different. This was super important to our demo.

We did a fairly good job of taking on the Dancer at first. Through tactical movement and a little luck, we managed to always position each other to attack on the weak side of the boss. Unwilling to leave damage to chance, I always did a maximum stamina attack that allowed me to roll blue dice. Blue dice have no blank faces. Because of this, we got the Dancer to heat up rather quickly. We hadn’t even cycled the order of the cards before it was being reshuffled. We did however, have knowledge of what cards were in the deck. About halfway through the deck I warned DC that we hadn’t seen that “step left, area of attack” card. He moved accordingly, and we both avoided the strong AOE that came up on the very next turn.

Eventually, DC would sacrifice his herald to set me up for a weak-point attack to kill the Dancer. Twice we almost died, saved by judicious use of the block and dodge abilities. At one point I was forced to use my sole Estus Flask for a heal. In the end, it felt that life or death came down to a particular action where the dancer pushed me through 3 or 4 nodes. I didn’t necessarily do it on purpose, but I was able to move it away from the Herald and absorb the hit. It left the weak spot open and prevented us both from getting creamed.

In the end, I left impressed. As I mentioned, so impressed I bought Dark Souls 3 to try out. I loved the tense discovery, the feeling of knowing there is something around the corner and a way to beat it but not knowing exactly what it would be. I hated the video game’s grind, the repeated runs through areas I figured out. The demo I played captured the former, which makes me pretty excited about its future.

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For more information, you can listen to my discussion on our Gen Con round up podcast.

Raf Takes a Look at Dark Souls

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