Posted in: Board Games, Games, Tabletop | Tagged: Heroes of Barcadia, Rollacrit

How Drunk Can Adventurers Get? We Tried Out Heroes Of Barcadia

What happens when you take a bunch of adventurers and put alcohol on the line, literally? We tried out Heroes of Barcadia.

Sometimes, you get a game that you can turn into a drinking game, and sometimes, you get a game like Heroes Of Barcadia, where the goal is to have a drinking game. Rollacrit has created a game that marries two of the most favorite things for adventurers to do: raid dungeons and get drunk. In that spirit, they have made a dungeon crawler title for two to six players and incorporated a few drinking mechanics that make the game interesting as things go along. We sat down with some of our favorite spirits and tried the game out with a couple of friends to see if this was actually a fun game or just an excuse to drink.

The crux of the game focuses on your particular character's health and how they manage to stay healthy, making it through the dungeon. You can choose from six different characters with different names and abilities, but really, you're choosing the class. And while they all have fancy names, you're basically choosing from Barbarian, Knight, Rogue, Wizard, Sorcerer, and Ranger. You'll fill your cup up to the Full line with your favorite drink, and yes, it can be non-alcoholic in case you don't want to get wasted or you choose to play with underaged players. Getting wasted is not a requirement here.

You'll set up a table of hexagon tiles all face down to see only the stone path ahead, as this will be the dungeon you explore in search of enemies and treasures. The main goal of this is to collect three Power-Up cards, and ultimately find and defeat the main boss of the dungeon, The Drink Hoard. If you manage to do that, you win the game!

As you enter the dungeon, you'll step on the tiles to make your way around by selecting what tiles you want to step on when it's your turn. Sometimes, you'll come across a square that just has some loot on it or a Power-Up, which you'll collect and add to your pile of treasures and aids. However, when you encounter a monster or a boss, you'll be given three quick facts about them: their level, their damage, and what you'll gain if you defeat them. When this happens, you'll roll a D20 to try and get a number above their level. (Or if it's a boss, you'll choose another player to roll for the boss.) If you do so, you collect the treasures for beating them. Losing means you take a hit in your life, meaning you drink your health depending on how much damage you take.

Heroes Of Barcadia also has a few pitfalls, as there are Portal cards that you can use to get around the dungeon to other portal cards one movement at a time. It makes for a convenient way to get out of danger or try a new path if you can find one. Players also have the ability to lay down orange bottle caps, which act as traps. They have also included House Rule cards that you can write your own rules for the game and keep on display. There's no real guidelines to them, they're just here to add some challenge to the game if you are all familiar with it and want to spice things up.

One of the lovely benefits of the game is that everything was made of plastic. Not glass and wood/cardboard. This was done on purpose to make sure if you have a spill, which we nearly did, nothing is truly ruined or broken. You can clean up, wash stuff off, dry it with a towel, and you're back to playing the game.

That's pretty much the whole game! Heroes Of Barcadia was not designed to be difficult or challenging; it was made for one simple purpose: have fun and have some drinks. It accomplishes both pretty well and makes for a great party game if you have the right people. Or, depending on what you're putting in the cups, it's an interesting time watching your slowly inebriated friends attempt to fight off monsters. The game is currently for sale for $60 on the publisher's website if you're looking to snag a copy.

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