My October trip to International Spiel Tage 2022, known also as Speiltag 2022 or simply Essen, was a very fruitful event. Not only I managed to familiarize myself with multitude of new heavy and mid-complexity EURO games, spotted couple of interesting Wargames, but also had a chance to grab few children-friendly titles. Believe me, the variety and choices was enormous; still, I am really glad I was lucky to acquire CoraQuest!

The game

So let me tell you what CoraQuest is. It is a truly exciting and accessible co-operative dungeon crawling game for one to four people, aged six and up. In this title the players work together to guide four adventurers (you can choose from much larger number of potential characters) exploring a dungeon, avoiding traps, finding treasure, fighting monsters, and sometimes rescuing a gnome called Kevin (not once, poor fella, problems tend to find him pretty often).

What is important, CoraQuest is definitely a game that kids and grown-ups can play together and get equal amounts of fun from. It is also a game that sparks creativity – providing encouragement and guidance on how to create heroes, monsters and adventures to make the game your own.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact, that, all the artwork in CoraQuest is based on kids’ drawings, much of it sent in to publisher from all over the world by the CoraQuest community. The art has been brought together to make a unique and charming-looking game. Personally, I really like the final result.

The gameplay

So far, we played the game seven times, covering the first five scenarios. That means that we unfortunately lost twice – well, usual thing when you are a bit ambitious, using the hard mode to “see how it will go” 🙂 It took us around 1 hour to set-up, play and put the game back to the box. Instead of my regular session reports, I would like now to focus on various game elements & mechanics and present them with the moments form our plays.

PS. You can click on each of the images to enlarge to full screen in new window.

The beginning of each scenario is similar – all your adventurers start on one tile, with possibility to move in three different directions.
Each of the scenarios has a very intriguing (and funny!) introduction and conclusion. Through the game, when we discover new tiles, some interesting twists and turns to the story will happen – and then you read special chapters (almost like Frosthaven!)
I told you this is game for the whole family! And only united we can prevail against the hordes of Gremlins & Goblins.
Speaking of the monsters – each of them has a detailed card, specifying its characteristics: like range, health, movement allowance and attack strength. Above the normal version, if you flip them, you can toggle to “hard difficulty”.
The attacks (and sometimes defenses) are resolved by red (50% of success) and white (33% of success) dice. If you inflict the number of hits equal to the remaining monster health, it is being neutralized. Above, one of the more lucky rolls 🙂
At the end of scenario there is always a climax – usually a nasty Boss like Troll above or some other special event, which will really push the team to the edges of its capabilities. But united we shall prevail!
And of course, once you finished the scenario, you can always start a new one, with completely new team composition. Wait, WHAT? Is this a girl on a wheelchair? Of course, who said that this is any obstacle to be part of the adventure? (really, really love that part of the game – there are really no boundaries for children imagination)
You are also motivated by the game to move forward; if you do not, the clock starts to tick and suddenly, spiders appear everywhere! So move on and do not stop!
You really do not know exactly when the special tile will be drawn – they are shuffled with 3 regular ones and there is like 4 of them. So the end-game can happen quite suddenly for you.. Like the great snake above!
One more look at the whole table – you see 4 adventures in the corners, map in the center and monster track to the right.

The impressions

Let me now share my experiences, observations and simply – impressions:

  • One for all, all for one – that cooperative game promotes teamwork and communication. We either win together or we lose together; there is also a way to help / heal / assist each other which makes it even better experience and of course, gives the right examples to kids.
  • The game is pretty accessible to all ages – which makes this a great entry for young adepts of boardgames hobby. At the same time, it provides great fun for the whole family. Simply, great position for the first dungeon crawler!
  • Replayability – I like the modular way of creating the maps from semi-random tiles – making each adventure a unique experience. If you add to this that we have two difficulty levels, multiple characters, 10 base scenario, 3 more to download from publisher page and enormous number created by community – there are tens of hours of enjoyment in front of you!
  • A game for children created by children – I could not stress enough how great that feels and plays. And do not be mislead – the adults will find here a lot of fun too!
  • Last but not least – components quality. I love the graphics, colors and the materials used for production – they are so elegant and beautiful.

Summary

That was one of the best experiences I had with the games for children. Not surprisingly, as children were fundamental part of the design process! I love the stories, graphics, possibility to create further adventures – but most of all, I am really grateful for all the time I could spend with my kids in this wonderful world of Cora!

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