Day 12 - Massive Darkness Hellscape

Massive Darkness was the first BIG game I introduced to my partner. Up til then we had played mostly card games such as Sky Team, Ohanami and Trekkin' Through History... Or Roll and Writes like Cartographers and Welcome To. So a jump to a big box dungeon crawl which was stored in not one, but three huge boxes was quite the shift... And it has become their favourite game!

So I knew then I wanted to end the Christmas period by playing Massive Darkness. However, we have played through most of the content, all the base game, every campaign and even a few one offs. However there are a few boss fights that have been awaiting their minis getting painted that we haven't done.

Massive Darkness is a dungeon crawl that is fully cooperative, meaning you don't need a dungeon master to control the game, it is handled through the AI on the cards for each enemy. Unlike other dungeon crawlers, the enemies form mobs, these act like large enemies which get weaker as you kill off individual monsters in the mob. The other thing that makes Massive Darkness unique is the class system. Each hero class works slightly differently with their own mini game that changes how they play.

For example the Berserker class becomes more powerful as they take damage, turning damage into rage which they can spend on abilities depending on their stance. While the Paladin creates areas of effect that can boost combat, or healing. While the ranger has a push your luck mechanic attempting to achieve a perfect bullseye without overcooking their shot.

We set up to fight the Scorpion King. I took Mist, an air elemental Rogue, while my partner played Victor, a human paladin that could benefit from my rogue tokens. Our mission was to hunt down and kill several poisoned mobs, to unlock the door to the Scorpion King's desert lair, then take the fight to him.

We quickly found some epic weapons in an early chest and after that we were unstoppable. My rogue went from stealthy killer with a dagger to a nigh unstoppable killing machine with a golden axe. We tore through the mobs and rushed into the boss fight. The Scorpion King lost half his health to my first attack, retreating through the quicksand, perhaps hoping Victor would go easier on him. But he had no such luck.

With the help of an additional attack from my rogue tokens Victor made short work of the arachnid. And the whole fight took less time that it took me to paint the Scorpion King. Still we had a great time and it was nice to feel powerful and crush our enemies with teamwork, the perfect end to the Christmas holidays.