Weirdwood Manor - Review of the Game and Components

Initial Disclaimers

So this Friday is going to be a new experience for me as I'll be reviewing a game that is going to fairly new to the market, having only gone out to backers this last week or so: Weirdwood Manor. I'll be taking time to review not only the components of the game, but also providing photos of the game and providing an in-depth review of how I feel about it. I was not able to get a multiplayer game of this in before I finished this review, so take this with a grain of salt for anyone looking to play multiplayer as your experience might differ from my play of solo.

I will also note that I personally have not been provided a copy of this game and I backed the game back in April of 2023 because it seemed interesting to me and I loved the ideas that were posed by the game. A cooperative game that is built around the idea of managing time and upgrading your characters as you play the game was really interesting to me and I decided to go all-in with the game, purchasing the Deluxe Version of the game. There will be a retail version of the game that will be distributed by Flat River Group, but I have paid extra to get the extra bits and bobs that come with the deluxe version.

All my thoughts on the game are my own and do not reflect anything that I have been asked to say in this review.

General Overview

Box front

Game Name:Weirdwood Manor
Publisher:Greyridge Games
Release Year: 2024
Mechanics: Action Retrieval, Cooperative Game, Dice Rolling, Elapsed Real Time Ending, Events, Hand Management, Map Deformation, Modular Board, Role Playing, Solo / Solitaire Game, Variable Player Powers, Variable Set-up
Player Count: 1-5 Players

Components

Quest cards

Kickstarter Exclusives: The Kickstarter version of the game comes with a "Quests" mini expansion for the backers of the game on Kickstarter. While I'm not a huge fan of exclusivity of items to crowdfunding, this is small enough that I'm not certain if it'll be really a huge overall change from the base version of the game. Additionally, the Kickstarter box will have UV Spot on the front and sides of the box that will not be present in the retail version of the box. All backers of the Kickstarter will also have their names present in the "Acknowledgement" section of the rulebook for presentation to friends and family.

Acrylic standees

Deluxe Version Exclusives: The deluxe version is available through retailers who backed the campaign and while limited, are available for purchase, so check your local game store. The extra components will not be available in the retail version and are limited to the Deluxe version only. The Deluxe version of the game contains double-layered acrylic standees of player characters as well as boss monsters and Lady Weirdwood to give the game more "pop." The cardboard tokens for power, min (mana), and knowledge have been upgraded to silk-screened double-sided wooden tokens for a better feel, as well as the favor tokens, and the tracking tokens from the base game. Finally, the scarab tokens have been upgraded from a cardboard token to a pre-painted 3D resin token that is placed on the board.

Box with player/monster boards removed.

The box itself is beautifully designed with a UV Spot cover and embossing on the logo to really make the lettering pop. It looks amazing on my shelf and the name of the game is easily recognizable with the bright yellow lettering. When we open up the box, the player and monster boards sit on top of the main board, which is split into two interlocking pieces that nest well into the box itself. Everything fits flush with the lid and is easily packed away once the game is completed.

Box with cover for components shown.

The insert and packaging in the box is excellently designed and the cover gently snaps onto the insert to prevent the various components from floating around if the box is turned sideways or upside down. The trays for the rooms are designed for additional components to be added at a later time and while the box doesn't come with a repacking diagram, the general layout of the tray is easy to understand and figure out where everything sits. A simple set of labels would be beneficial for repacking, although there are not enough components to really make it too difficult to determine where everything sits in the box.

Additionally, I would like to note that the deluxe version of the game might have a slightly bigger component size than the base game due to the tokens and scarabs being wooden and resin (respectively) rather than the cardboard chits that are included in the base game. This doesn't affect putting things back in the box as there is ample room for everything, although the base game might be slightly easier to pack everything in.

The boards themselves are absolutely beautifully designed with incredible artwork on the front of the main board to not only show where the rings sit, but also produce a feeling of ethereal beauty and wonder when they are initially set on the table. There are three standard rooms that are built into the main board that are double layered, allowing for the additional rooms to be slotted in around each of the various rings that are included in the game to track the time. Additionally, the bigger ring is split into four pieces for easier storage, using simple puzzle-piece cutouts to ensure that they fit together well. Iconography on the main board is easy to read and understand and the back of the board includes a nice little tribute to those who backed the game on Kickstarter.

The player boards and monster boards are absolutely beautifully designed and like the main board, are double layered, which allows players to slot in the various cubes for tracking and ensures that the components don't shuffle around too much if the boards are jostled. Each player board is well designed and has the character complexity level, starting resources, dice upgrade materials, health tracker, powers, and XP tracker to make it easy to keep everything tracked very easily by just looking at the board. Iconography on the boards are easily understood and although there are quite a few icons, I never found myself looking more than once at the player aide included to determine what it meant as they were fairly easy to understand.

The monster boards are also extremely well done with beautiful artwork, interesting layouts, excellent iconography, and double layered boards to ensure that the components placed on them are kept safe when the board is inevitably jostled. With so much to keep track of in the game, it's nice that the monster boards also offer a few reminders for players on how to play as well as have clear to read iconography that is simple to decipher.

The cards are also well designed, with each one having a linen finish, giving the game a bit more of a "premium" feel to it. Character cards have both the character name and design on the back as well as a small character name and card number to replace the cards to their respective decks if needed. The front of the card contains the effect of the card and secondary effects when paired with other cards (top left and right of the card) and I only had to reference the rules once or twice regarding cards as they well explain effects on the cards themselves. Companion cards are large tarot sized cards and easy to read as well as featuring beautiful artwork for each of the numerous companions that can be obtained by the players. The player aides are also tarot size as well and feature quite a bit of information packed on the card itself. Warden tactic and monster cards are the smallest of the three card sizes, but each features a prominent monster displayed on the back of the card (or "Warden Tactic") to allow for easy sorting and return to the box.

The remaining components of the game are also very well designed. The resin clockwork scarabs are the true star of the show as far as components go for the deluxe version, with each one being meticulously painted and crafted for the game. While each one is light in and of itself, when holding several, they have a nice weight to them that makes them look incredible on the board. Each of the tracking cubes is wooden and is color coded to what it helps to track, making it easy to slot on the various boards. Destruction tokens are also beautifully designed double sided cardboard that features various fire effects and room destruction visuals on either side. Dice are extremely well made and feature rounded edges to make rolling them nicer and each features easy to understand iconography on them. The wooden tokens are also well done and feature double-sided screen printing on the tokens to make them even more beautiful.

The rooms themselves are also extremely well designed and feature fantastic artwork as well as simple to understand iconography that is featured across many of the various components of the game. As the game features dozens of rooms that can be slotted into one of three rings on the board, there are significant changes that can be made with the setup during the game, resulting in an ever-changing board that may feature one room next to another that wasn't present in previous games. Due to the rooms needing to be flipped occasionally due to "blighting" that might occur, they feature a great little notch on the side of the room to allow easy pickup.

The rulebook, while longer, does have quite a few photos and examples to go with each rule and helps to explain different situations that might arise both visually and with text. Additionally, there is a simple FAQ at the back of the rulebook that helps explain a few questions that could arise during the game. Each boss has it's own set of pages in the rulebook both with setup instructions as well as rules on what to do on the boss's turn. Rooms also are contained in a glossary, providing a more detailed explanation of the room's abilities than the simple iconography on the rooms themselves to reduce overall visual chaos.

Gameplay

Gameplay setup for two players.

The game has an absolutely incredible table presence when setup and it's extremely easy to place all the necessary rooms on the board itself. With variable setup, each game will feel slightly different from one another and various combinations of bosses and player characters will further alter how the game feels as well.

Once players are finished choosing each of their respective characters, a boss is chosen as well and players place all the clockwork scarabs, the boss standee, player standees, and Lady Weirdwood in their respective locations on the board. Each boss board has setup instructions and the rules also explain setup for the boss if players have already slotted cubes and/or other items onto the boss board should it be needed. Players draw an initial hand of 3 cards with a set card for the first card and two more cards to add to give a hand size based on the player's current health total.

As gameplay proceeds, it starts with the starting player slotting a card (or multiple cards) into the top of the player board above one of the time of day slots. Players can slot them in any timeslot, but have to be aware that depending on the time of day that the card is slotted in, that will result in time during the game moving more or less. Depending on the time of day shown on the inner ring, time could move more or less (resulting in the day potentially changing and the monster becoming angrier) and result in a change of the rooms available to the player. Once the time cost has been paid, players then take the actions associated with the card (or cards), be it obtaining resources, moving through rooms, or battling the many clockwork scarabs or boss that is attempting to destroy the manor.

Movement cards allow players to proceed through any number of rooms, stopping only if they reach their preferred destination (if possible) or are stopped by an enemy. When players enter a room, if the room isn't blighted or has an enemy, they can take the action associated with the room. If they enter a room with a clockwork scarab and defeat it in battle (using dice), they can also take the action associated with the room once the scarab is defeated. Battling is done with dice and there is a neat push/pull system with the tracker used around the edge of the board to keep track of how much damage and defense players have. While player health does determine hand limit, players cannot ever drop below 1 HP, which is a nice feature to prevent any player from being completely removed from the game. Players can also choose to lose HP, Power Tokens, or their most expensive attack dice, making there multiple ways to resolve an attack from the boss. Additionally, players do have powers that can be used once per turn if players have the resources to pay for them. These are unique to each character and often have beneficial and powerful capabilities to help fight the fae incursion in the mansion, but do require a power token and other resources to utilize, so players need to plan accordingly.

Players earn XP through the game by defeating scarabs, repairing blighted rooms, and through activation of some rooms as well. The Kickstarter edition of the game also has a "Quests" mini expansion included that allows players to complete quests to earn XP, favor tokens from Lady Weirdwood, and additional rewards when finished, but these quests take up a slot above the player board, making it a risk/reward situation. XP earned is used on the tracks at the bottom of the player board and each XP moves the cube forward one tick, sometimes resulting in additional power, defense, attack, or warden cards. At the end of the track, there is a one-time bonus benefit for completing it that is triggered once reached. Players start with a single dice for attacking, but can forge new dice by going to a room and paying the necessary cost of the dice as shown on the player board. Players also choose the color of the dice, either taking black defense, red attack, or blue balance dice to then add to their pool when attacking. While dice can be lost, it's always the most expensive dice that is lost and players cannot lose their starting blue balanced dice.

Players can obtain several companions and tactic cards that assist them as they are battling the fae forces that assault the manor. Each companion has a cost associated with it, but in turn allows players to play additional cards at any time of day as well as adding in an extra action that can be taken. Once the action is taken, the card is flipped to show that the companion is exhausted and will be flipped back over at a later time once refreshed. Additional companions can be obtained, but each has a higher cost associated with it when purchased. Warden Tactic cards are obtained from various locations but can be played over cards to add additional effects when playing a card and increase the chance of adding a secondary card effect during a player's turn, including extra damage, defense or reducing the cost of an upgrade, be it dice or companion.

After players have finished their turn, the boss takes it's turn, moving time according to the symbols shown on the card back, then flipping over and completing the action that is associated with the card. It may result in movement, attack, or advancement of the boss's plot, but most of the actions are easy to understand and follow, although there were a few references to the rules that were needed when I took the boss' turn a few times.

Once the boss has completed it's turn, a check is made to determine if a player has filled all time slots on their character board. If the board is full, a clockwork scarab turn is taken with additional scarabs spawning and moving into rooms as noted in the rulebook. Should more than one scarab enter a room, that room becomes blighted and flips over, showing that the room is unusable. Players can unblight the room by defeating the scarabs that are in the room (if any) and paying the resource cost to flip the room over (immediately taking the action associated with the room if preferred), earning experience for their character. Additionally, if the player has any companions that have been obtained through the game, they are then refreshed (if flipped over to show that they had used their action) and can be used again on that players next turn.

Once the final step has been taken, play moves to the next player clockwise around the table and play proceeds onward using the same steps as described above. Players have to work together to coordinate defense of Lady Weirdwood and her manor as each boss has different win/loss scenarios that players must keep track of. As time progresses and the boss gets angrier and more dangerous, players need to balance out their abilities with one another to best meet the fearsome foe that seeks to enter this world.

Positives

I love the resin scarabs and I'm glad to have upgraded to the deluxe version.

The game is absolutely incredibly designed and I can tell that there has been a ton of time and effort made to ensure that the components included in the game are the absolute best. With some games, I have wondered about the quality of components used, but everything about Weirdwood Manor shows that time, energy, and expense has been made to make an excellently produced game. The artwork of the game is likewise oozing with both theme and beauty as each piece of the board, card, and characters all reflect the excellently designed work of the artists: Anna Earley, Steve Palmer, Sean Richardson. Pieces also fit nicely in the game box with the included insert and as someone who regularly has to adjust and readjust inserts, I appreciate the well-thought out insert for the game.

Gameplay is also very well thought out and the time-mechanic with the spinning rings is fantastic and presents an ever-changing board that players will have to adjust to. There is some depth to the game, but nothing that I don't think would be too terribly difficult to learn as the rules are fairly well explained with pictures and examples included in the game. Additionally, the iconography included on the pieces, cards, and board are easy to understand and the included player aide for more assistance. The rulebook is well laid out and has easy reference guides on the front to show where each section starts for ease of use.

When I previously written about the game, the designer of the game, Mike Cassie, noted that he was attempting to design the game with elements that were not usually contained within cooperative games to draw in those who don't typically like cooperative games. After a play of the game, I would definitely say that there's quite a bit in this game that is not usually included in cooperative games, including the option to play a "family version" of the game with shared XP for younger children playing with their parents. Additionally, the lack of a permanent character removal in the game is a refreshing twist, as players can never see their character's HP reduced to below 1. While that does limit hand size, it is a nice change to not have an elimination factor in a cooperative game.

That isn't to say that the game isn't challenging as there is significant challenge when facing against the fae monster and it's clockwork scarab army. With the passages of the game constantly changing, there is a level of strategy that is needed to not only defeat the monster, but also ensure that your character isn't trapped in one of the rooms without a way to get out. Clever manipulation of the time rings will be a mainstay of this game and I'm absolutely floored with how good it feels to manipulate the ring to open up two rooms that were previously unavailable to me with some clever card play.

Negatives

The Oliver standee has a bit of plastic to keep it in it's base.

There is one minor flaw with the acrylic standees that I would like to point out and unfortunately, it's a frustrating one: the Oliver acrylic standee doesn't fit well into it's base and falls right through the opening for the standee. I've managed to resolve the issue with a temporary fix of using some of the plastic that the figurines had covering them to keep them safe in transport to wedge the figurine into it's base, but the too-wide opening is a bit of a frustration, especially since the other figures fit well in their bases.

There were also some additional questions that I had with the initial play of the game. I did play solo, so there was quite a bit of upkeep that I was attempting to maintain while playing the game and that resulted in me missing an important rule once or twice that I hadn't read in the rulebook. Several times I had questions about the boss movement that weren't expressly noted in the rulebook and required me looking through the various rules multiple times to attempt to figure out what I had missed. While the rulebook is well-written, there are a few times where I missed a rule due to so much text being on the page. I suspect that I'll be able to explain the rules much better and follow along much easier on my second play of the game, but initial play resulted in me being slightly confused with a few rules.

For those who like to sleeve cards, I will note that the included tray does have a very specific way that it's fitted in the box and may result in sleeved cards not fitting as well depending on the thickness of the sleeves. While everything fits nicely in the base box, sleeved cards might result in there being a bit of lid-lift for the box. I haven't experienced it myself, but that is something to look out for.

I would also like to mention that videos and media from the games kickstarter have small clear, plastic cubes on the xp tracker and the game that was shipped comes with wooden cubes. While not a huge deal, it is a bit disappointing that the clear cubes weren’t included as they help show icons beneath the cubes on the xp tracker. It’s not a “make or break” situation, but it was frustrating to expect one thing and get another.

Overall Thoughts

While I am a bit frustrated that the game is coming to backers about two months late, there were several factors to take into account, including this being the creator's first Kickstarter campaign that they made. Additionally, there were some errors with production that occurred right at the Chinese New Year, resulting in a one month delay of fixing the errors due to the factories being shut down at that time. Each delay and update was provided promptly by Greyridge Games on the Kickstarter page and they provided more than enough follow through to help ensure that backers were aware of the situation that was going on, which was great to experience from a first-time creator on Kickstarter. I know that there are quite a few projects that go years without any updates, so it was very refreshing to have so much follow through from the creators to keep backers informed of what was going on with production and shipping.

They have announced that they are working on some expansion content for Weirdwood Manor, including a new monster, new companions, and potentially a new player character(?) but things have been mainly focused on getting the game out to backers and the staff at Greyridge Games will follow up on complaints or concerns after the game has finished shipping to backers. I'll definitely be interested in seeing what is on offer as I suspect I'll probably pick up the expansion for it since it's such a fun game to play.

While I've only played the game once and solo at that, I do think that this will be a regular game that I have in my rotation due to not only the clever gameplay, but also because it plays extremely well. I'll be introducing it to my regular play group later this month and we'll see how it plays with more than one person, but I suspect that it will adjust nicely to a larger play count as the monster phase occurs after each player finishes their turn. Time will tell, but for now, I'm really excited about this game and having a new, beautifully designed and well thought out cooperative game to add to my table.

While I'm hesitant to give the game a score after only one play, I will have to initially award it a 9/10, with the caveat that I may update my score after a few more plays.

Give me your thoughts:With this writeup, what are your thoughts on the game and does it pique your interest? Were you an initial backer of the game and are excited to play it yourself? What games have you backed in the last few years that are finally making it to your doorstep, and how do you feel about the overall Kickstarter/GameFound/etc. program to crowdfund games?

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*Originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 14/6/2024*