Way back in mid 2016 I was in this precarious position of really falling deep into the hobby. My awareness of Kickstarter was ramping up dramatically, and the game that was generating a ton of buzz at that moment was Massive Darkness, designed by Raphaël Guiton, Jean-Baptiste Lullien, and Nicolas Raoult, and published by CMON.
Something in my brain latched onto this project. I’ve always wanted to get into miniature painting (no I haven’t), I’ve been looking for a great dungeon crawl adventure game (No I wasn’t), It’s solo-able, I’ve been searching for a good solo game (No I hadn’t), and surely after many successful Kickstarters, CMON would deliver a quality product, right?
Logically, there were plenty of things I didn’t like about Massive Darkness. From the fairly flat art style to the sign-off at the bottom of every update: “For the Darkness is Massive and full of terrors!”, a cheap and blatant rip-off of the mantra of the Red Priestess in Game of Thrones “For the night is dark and full of terrors.”
Photo Credit: Gabor Z (@zgabor) via BGG
Emotionally, on the other hand, I wanted it. I put my money down and then began to pour over the updates and excitedly squeal at the unlocked stretch goals. Once the campaign ended, the waiting began. I stopped fervently hunting for the latest updates, and just let it sit in the back of my mind that one day, the game would arrive at my doorstep.
One day I got an attempted delivery slip in my mailbox, so I biked down to my local post office and handed them the slip. The box I got in return was about half the size of my fridge. I precariously balanced the box on my bike and walked it home. I excitedly and terrifyingly pulled box after box out of that package, not realizing how Kickstarter Stretch Goals really worked. Never before had I seen a game that took up more than one box, and now half a dozen boxes were cluttering up my dining room table.
Massive Darkness is fairly straightforward to play, despite the 30-page rule book. On your turn you have 3 actions, which you can Move, Attack or Interact. There are certain restrictions depending on if you’re in a tile with enemies, or if you’re changes to your abilities if you’re standing in a lighted tile or not, but the core of the game isn’t that complex.
Photo Credit: Gabor Z (@zgabor) via BGG
Each adventure in Massive Darkness starts with a dozen decks of cards and a series of rooms laid out as dictated by the scenario you’re playing. Each adventure starts at level one, and as you progress through the dungeon, you’ll reach checkpoints that advance the game up to level 5, making the loot better, and the enemies stronger.
Enemies spawn at the end of each round (usually), or when doors are opened. Whenever a monster is spawned, it’s spawned with a ‘boss’ and their ‘mob’. The whole group acts as one, but it’s an excuse to place 4 or 5 of the goblin minis onto the table at once, and they’re not much other than glorified health markers for the mob. One interesting aspect of the game is that each enemy is spawned with a loot card, and if that loot card matches the type of attack that the enemy does, it’s added to their dice pool when combat happens, making them slightly more unique than just a standard opponent. A downside to this mechanic is when an early game monster spawns in with a relatively decent defense loot, they can become quite difficult for your early game gear to handle.
Combat is managed entirely with dice, and the die that come with Massive Darkness are quite satisfying. They’re large, have well-rounded corners and are brightly coloured. My only nitpick is the limitation of 3 die per colour, giving an attacker a maximum of 6 dice. I just like rolling buckets of dice, okay?? In combat, the attacking player gathers all the attack die (red and yellow) that they generate via their skills and equipment, and all the defence die (blue and green) that their enemy generates (including loot cards) and rolls them all together. The swords and the shields cancel each other out, and the BAM and diamond symbols may trigger any additional effects, depending on the abilities and equipment of the attacking hero and their equipment.
That’s really the crux of the game. Variety comes in the numerous heroes, who all have their own innate abilities, and the ability to mix and match classes with each hero, giving them further unique abilities. Some make sense, like having the warrior character play the barbarian class, but sometimes it’s fun to mix them up, like having the rogue character take on the blood mage class.
A component I really like is the plastic character tray, with indented slots for weapons and armour. The tray also has a pegboard for tracking health and EXP that you’ll spend on skills. If you’re playing the campaign version of the game, there’s another track to mark your “Micro-XP”, but the campaign rules are trash, and you really shouldn’t bother with them.
Photo Credit: Gabor Z (@zgabor) via BGG
The real draw of Massive Darkness is all the big boss monsters. These minis stand head and shoulders above the rest and are usually quite a bit harder to take down. They can either be the core of a scenario (like having to chase down a giant spider before it gets out of the cave), or, they can just spawn in randomly. Usually, they can be defeated, and the sense of accomplishment upon doing so is really quite wonderful.
Each individual scenario usually has a goal for all the players to achieve together, either get through the tunnel, or search a specific space to find an item, then make it to the exit. As the game wears on, the event deck throws numerous baddies your way, but the only ‘timer’ in the game (unless a scenario specifically puts one on you) is the heroes’ health bars. Getting stronger gear and tweaking your character with new abilities based on their class is a fun experience, and the power and strength you feel when you wipe out an entire mob in a single blow is the kind of experience you remember and cheer for.
Massive Darkness isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. It accomplishes what it promised and delivers a ‘Dungeon Master-free dungeon crawl’ experience. It has exciting dice rolls and makes you and your friends feel like big damn heroes when you emerge victorious! The real problem with Massive Darkness is that shoehorned campaign element I mentioned earlier. The idea of slowing down your character growth by a factor of 5 just so you can try to emulate a sense of epic progression over multiple plays makes the ‘campaign’ element feel cheap and tacked on. Massive Darkness is so utterly satisfying when you play the scenarios as one-offs experiences. This also allows you to play with all the different characters and classes, as the combinations are nearly endless! Locking yourself into one hero and one class for half a dozen games isn’t fun, and I can almost guarantee that at the beginning of the campaign you’ll be looking at the advanced abilities with utter excitement, but by the time you’ve unlocked them, you really just won’t care anymore.
Photo Credit: Gabor Z (@zgabor) via BGG
I think Massive Darkness is great when played as a power fantasy, ‘beer and pretzels’ game, if you will. If you come into this expecting some all new mechanics and a deep, rich lore, you’re really better off playing a video game. Massive Darkness does have the ability to craft an emergent narrative as you storm your way through the nests of goblins and slay the massive creatures that want nothing more than to rend your flesh from your bones. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a lot of experiences with games of this ilk, so I can’t speak to how it holds up against some others in the genre. All I can say is that I have a ton of fun when Massive Darkness hits my table, although the set-up ensures that my games are few and far between.
Personally, my favourite experience in Massive Darkness was when I was playing as the ranger and I stood at the end of a long hallway. A massive boss monster spawned behind us and was charging up. I sidled to the end of the hallway, and spent all my actions attacking it. I knocked off less than half it’s health, and it moved two steps forward. I was almost within it’s striking distance, I attacked twice more, the first attack did some decent damage, but the second roll missed entirely. I had one action remaining, and my escape was blocked. On the next enemy phase, that monster would surely grab me by the ankles and smash me into the ground like the Hulk and Loki. I took a deep breath and rolled a massive amount of hits and absolutely no defence for the boss. It came crashing down, dead at my feet. My friend looked over at me and said, “That still only counts as one!”
