Stonespine Architects preview — draft some cards, craft a dungeon

In the board game landscape there are games that have varying difficulties of accessibility. With Stonespine Architects by Thunderworks Games we see a game that is easily accessible, endlessly fun and exciting. First and foremost, it seems as though the next game in the series of Roll Player games by Thunderworks Games is ready to take the board game world by storm. Second, if the copy we received is any indication of the game and its potential, then the Roll Player series has a bright future.

Having played many of the games Thunderworks Games has to offer, I did have some expectations going into playing Stonespine Architects, and I’ll even go as far to admit I wasn’t really sold on the name. I’m happy to have been wrong about all of that. What I got met and somewhat exceeded my expectations for a game that is about card drafting.

What makes Stonespine Architects exceptional is that there is more to it than being a tableau building game, or more than just a card drafting game. What I mean by that is throughout the game players will wind up drafting cards and using those cards to build out a dungeon consisting of 16 cards. Over four rounds, players draft four cards each round and build up a dungeon row by row. These cards are drafted with some parameters, such as blueprint cards and connecting chamber rooms in your dungeon to gain extra points. There is also gold on the bottom of the chamber cards and this gold is how players will play the second phase of the round, going to the market and gaining challenge cards.

The second phase dictates what market tokens players might need to make their dungeon even better and score even more reputation (points), and once players have finished buying their tokens , each player will pass and gain a challenge card. These challenge cards are end game scoring for players that can contribute quite a bit of points towards scores at the end. Once all players have passed and gained a challenge card, then play continues on to the next round.

After players go through four rounds of this, with a minor change at the end of the third round, final scores are added. One important part of final scoring is the pathing of your dungeon that you have made. Initially players get points via connected chambers to the entrance and exit of a players dungeon. If players connect both entrance and exit to each other via chamber rooms, then points are doubled and can offer a substantial amount of points.

This overall might be an oversimplification of the depth that Stonespine Architects offers. With decks of chamber cards, blueprint cards, challenge cards, market cards, and goal cards, there is a great deal of variation offered. This variation keeps the game fresh and enhances the game’s overall replayability and experience. Additionally, there is a deck that is for solo mode that offers a good challenge for anyone that is a solo gamer. In my experience with that, I won, but it wasn’t a walk in the park, and it required some hard decisions that making other choices could have significantly altered the outcome of the game and resulted in a potential loss.

That being said, the components for a prototype are solid, almost as solid as they can be for a prototype. The wood components for player pieces, the card quality (while not the highest is still exceptional for a prototype), the market tokens, and overall the game board offers a fantastic experience that players should be excited for.

As for myself, I lost track of how many games I played of Stonespine Architects because I could not stop playing it, and I kept wanting to show it to more and more people. That being said, I’m sure with the Kickstarter launching on July 11th, the rulebook in the final version will be solid and a little less confusing, looking at you solo rules. With a final version of the game, I have no doubt Thunderworks Games have a solid hit on their hands.

I’ll say this much; if the prototype is any indication of what the final game is going to be, Stonespine Architects will prove to be a fun, unique, and overall new experience that will find players getting the game to the table more often than not. I for one can hardly wait for the final product.

Check out Stonespine Architects when it goes live on Kickstarter July 11th!

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