Masters of the Night Coming to Retail
Solo and cooperative vampire boardgame from Ares Games.
The fate of your family will be decided in a few days. Will you turn this city into your domain—or lose it to lesser mortals?
Play as members of a vampire clan slowly regaining their former power. With the help of your minions, you will fight against the agents of the Inquisition, cast fear into the hearts of the people with your hunts, and shape dread sigils in different city districts, all in preparation for the grand Blood Moon ritual that will confirm your grasp on the city and its fate. But beware, the longer you prepare for the ritual, the harder it will be to complete it. Your enemies are searching for you constantly and when they find you, even vampire magic may not stop them.
In Masters of the Night you will find:
- Solo and Cooperative gameplay: True to the theme, all players win or lose together. And you can play solo as well!
- Interesting decisions: Find a compromise between using powerful blood-magic and keeping the Veil of Secrecy which protects you. Decide how to best use the dice in your pool - you only get new dice if you use them all!
- Area control mechanics: To get control of key city locations with unique powers, you need to recruit minions, and at the same do your best to stop the actions of dangerous Inquisitors.
- Strong thematic elements: Vampiric blood and abilities, powerful ancient Relics, the Veil of secrecy, the rising power of your enemies. All thematic elements are interconnected and need to be considered to win.
- High replayability: 6 Vampires with unique abilities to choose from, 9 city districts (and countless city configurations), 13 relics and 54 different event cards, variable difficulty levels - each game will be different.
- Challenging: There are multiple paths to defeat, and only one to victory. Time plays against you. Your days are counted. Agents are infesting the city. Will you be able to establish your dominion in time?
The Design Team:
- The designer of the game is Nikolay Aslamov,PhD, a Russian professor of History. Masters of the Night is his first design published internationally. Historian, PhD. He is an expert of folklore and mythology about "evil spirits": werewolves, witchcraft, vampires. He lectures on mythology, literature, historical evidence and biological explanations of such phenomena. For the characters and backstory of Masters of the Night, Nikolay took inspiration from Eastern European lore - Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian - the regions most of the stories about vampires come from. "The idea of the game came, oddly enough, in a train," Nikolay wrote. " I had a few hours of free time and a notebook, and I began to write down everything that came to my mind on the topic “board game about vampires”: day and night, the cathedral, minions, rivers of blood, mountains of corpses ... So the main game concept was born."
- The graphic design of the game has been developed by a New Zealand studio - Peter Gifford's Universal Head. The graphic design, from the typeface chosen to the colors, is full of visual references to create the dark setting of a city in mid-century America. From the typeface, to the fake newspaper clips, to the color tones, all was carefully built for a visual journey into the past.
- Last, miniatures were designed by Italian studio Ludus Magnus, creators of many beautiful games such as "Black Rose Wars" and "Dungeonoloy", and again on Kickstarter this month with their "D.E.I.- Divide et Impera" game.
Reviews and Articles About Masters of the Night Coming to Retail
Also, I think it is interesting that it was designed by someone with a Phd in History who is an expert in folklore.
I’ve wanted to try Last Friday — should I skip it?
Last Friday is a good game but the rulebook has more than a few rules buried in it.
As far as bad games go...they don’t have many, but Marvel Heroes is definitely one. Age of Conan is debatable, and even though I like it, I’ll admit this it’s kind of terrible. Battle For Five Armies is okay but pointless. Master of the Galaxy is mediocre and has a vague rulebook. I’m not too fond of Galaxy Defenders, and that rulebook sucks.
Shellhead wrote: There is a rulebook pdf that you can download from the kickstarter page. It doesn't look bad, but I haven't taken the time to read through it carefully.
I don’t want to sound like I’m looking for any excuse to not play this game, but it also just does not interest me. As much as I’m into horror, the goth-kid sympathetic vampire scene is not my thing. If it was more Near Dark, might be a different story. But it’s co-op. It’s just not for me.
the_jake_1973 wrote: I was rather hoping that the involvement of Universal Head to the project would improve any rulebook give what that person has brought to many games on BGG. Assuming it's the same person.
Yes it the same person. I don't know if he worked on the rule book or not. We should ask him.
Josh Look wrote: To clarify, they occasionally make good to great games. I still find them to be clunky (War of the Ring, Sword & Sorcery, Galaxy Defenders) with subpar rulebooks (all the games you mentioned and then some). I just got Hunt For the Ring, which I know I like, but going to that rulebook was hard.
Last Friday is a good game but the rulebook has more than a few rules buried in it.
As far as bad games go...they don’t have many, but Marvel Heroes is definitely one. Age of Conan is debatable, and even though I like it, I’ll admit this it’s kind of terrible. Battle For Five Armies is okay but pointless. Master of the Galaxy is mediocre and has a vague rulebook. I’m not too fond of Galaxy Defenders, and that rulebook sucks.
I haven't played Galaxy Defenders, but I don't think of War of the Ring as clunky (especially given that it was released in 2004) even though it lacks the more modern streamlining. That being said, I agree that their recent offerings indicate that they haven't "grown" with the rest of the hobby (see Battle of Five Armies being basically the same thing as War of the Ring). I thought that War of the Ring's rulebook is better than Hunt for the Ring -- but both were fine; a poor rulebook doesn't make a good game bad like a good rule book doesn't make a bad game good.
For me, Marvel Heroes falls in the bad rulebook decent game category.
Josh Look wrote:
Shellhead wrote: There is a rulebook pdf that you can download from the kickstarter page. It doesn't look bad, but I haven't taken the time to read through it carefully.
I don’t want to sound like I’m looking for any excuse to not play this game, but it also just does not interest me. As much as I’m into horror, the goth-kid sympathetic vampire scene is not my thing. If it was more Near Dark, might be a different story. But it’s co-op. It’s just not for me.
Fair enough. I'm not usually into that type of vampire either; however, the designer being an expert in folklore has me intrigued.
But, it's like Sanctum in the other thread, if a game isn't for you it isn't for me. But, thanks to your podcast, I might be convinced otherwise....it's happened before as our tastes seem to line up fairly well.
Ares has about $1000 of my dollars, so I'll also hold off on knifing the company.
Actually sounds pretty intriguing. Worth a look at the rule book.
Josh Look wrote: What they’re carefully dodging in the headline-level text is that it’s essentially a card game. That’s why it’s only $39.
I threw in for $39, not seeing much so far to justify the extra $10.
I'm really surprised. I was just going to wait until it came around to retail to take a look at it.
This gives me even more pause than Ares doing the publishing. Master of the Galaxy was really disappointing, underdeveloped and a confusing mess. Needless to say, I’m out.
For the record, I didn't write the Masters of the Night rulebook, but I did the graphic design. Ares had an existing design they weren't happy with, and I came in to redo the whole thing and bring it all together, giving it the 40s film noir look. The rules look clear and staightforward to me. I'm looking forward to playing it.