If you’re a fan of the Norse-mythology inspired survival-crafting videogame Valheim, or even if you’re merely Norse-curious, you’re in luck – design studio MOOD Publishing is creating a Valheim board game. A crowdfunding campaign is already underway for the project, which adapts Valheim’s iron-smelting, fort-building, troll-bashing gameplay to the tabletop.
The Valheim board game aims to capture all the core activities that make the digital version of Valheim so compelling. It’s a cooperative boardgame, with each player controlling a unique hero who will explore mysterious new lands, battle monsters, gather resources, craft items, and enter arena battles against dreaded Forsaken boss monsters.
The loop of gathering resources, crafting equipment, and then fighting bigger monsters with your new gear is the core of the co-op survival game genre. but it’s interesting to see it implemented in an RPG board game like this. This video demonstration of the gameplay shows the core adventure loop – though note that the demonstrators are playing with one of the snazzier versions of the game:
The Gamefound campaign to fund the first print run is already fully funded, and runs until October 22. While a standard copy of the game will cost approximately $73 plus shipping, like all the best board games crowd-funding campaigns there are some pricier versions for players who want to bling out their boxset.
The Deluxe edition adds in chunky miniatures for the four Forsaken and their minions, plus wooden resource tokens, though you’ll pay $128 for the privilege. The $172 Collector’s Edition adds in even more cosmetic upgrades, including metal coins, and two exclusive variant gear cards.
The game was designed by Ole Steiness, who also created the Deep Rock Galactic board game, and is being published by Mood Publishing. It’s the studio’s third major crowdfunding campaign. The team states “we only work with trusted manufacturing and logistics partners, to always be able to work towards our goal of delivering no later than 12 months after pledging”.
Board game adaptations of videogames are a mixed bag these days. We’ve reported on the many controversies surrounding Mythic Games and its difficulties fulfilling various board game projects – and also gave a solid verdict to one of its premium dungeon crawler games in our Darkest Dungeon board game review. And our Mass Effect board game review was complementary, with some caveats.
Source: Wargamer
