I received Formidable Foes on a game order and had to play it. It is the third in a series of Friedemann Friese games (Fische Fluppen Frikadellen and Fearsome Floors being the first two). You have bartered with Prince Fieso and have escaped his monster, Furunkulus. Now you must fight in a dungeon!
There are 46 monsters, Prince Fieso, Furunkulus, and two treasure chests. Fighting is really simple, just roll two dice (one for the monster (2,3,3,4,4,4) and one for the player (1,1,1,2,2,3)) and subtract the player from the monster. You pay the difference in power chips and with a -1 difference you instead get one gold. Both you and the monsters have wisdom. You cannot fight wiser monsters than you. For less wise monsters that you can fight, you advance to the wisdom of the monsters level + a constant modifier (different based on the number of players). If the monster is too dumb (where you cannot get any wiser), then the monster dies of fright.
Most of the dungeon is hidden and is only revealed when you beat a monster in front of you and you can now see past it. Intersections in this dungeon are randomly determined when you can see them. So there is a little bit of variability in this game.
Because you can sometimes loose up to three power chips when you fight monsters and usually loose at least one, you must sometimes choose not to fight and rather grab some more power chips. This has the effect of stalling your progress in the game. You do not keep pace in the wisdom department. And other people are killing the monsters that you are able to kill. So there is another way to gain wisdom. And that way is to follow people and learn from them. The problem with this approach is that you only gain one wisdom point per turn.
Another equalizing mechanic is the dumbest player. Whoever has the least wisdom is the dumbest player. This mechanic is enabled after the 23rd monster enters the dungeon. The dumbest player is not in contention for winning the game. And therefore can control the dumbest monster to possibly hose other players. At the start of your turn, you can move the dumbest monster up to three chambers. As the monster walks to the new location, it can pick up a player. If the carried player passes another monster, that person is dropped off.
The game ends when both the prince and Furunkulus are killed. Your victory points are the total of the gold coins on the monsters that you have killed. This game had a lack luster first impression. It was definitely not as fun as Fearsome Floors. I will have to play it another time to see if it is worth keeping.
John brought Himalaya to the house and suggested it. I definitely wanted to try it out. Adam countered with Zepter. Himalaya is a simultaneous path traversal game. You program six moves during a round and then reveal it. Everyone then executes their moves in turn order. This mechanic creates a lot of conflict in this game. The two main types of conflict are in picking up resources and fulfilling resource demands. There are five resources that are ordered by priority. You always pick up one of the goods in priority order. So, if someone arrived at a spot and picked up the only good before you could, you are hosed. If they picked up a good of a color that you wanted, you are hosed. Each location on the map might possibly demand goods. The demand can be from one to three goods. The first person to arrive at the spot and drop the goods off get some choices. Other people are screwed. The choices can be to place the only statue at the spot (giving from 1 to 3 points), place men in a region (for an majority win in influence), or take some number of herds that were represented on the chit.
Three times during the game, you score for majorities in goods collected (gaining 3 victory points for each majority). And at the end of the game you compete in three contests: most points in statues, most number of herds, and most influence in the regions. The winner of the game is the person that does the best in these contests.
Unfortunately for me, this is a guessing game. And Doug was able to get to spots that I was planning on going to before me and hose me. A lot. This is essentially a guessing game where, if you guess differently than other people, you will win. Not the type of game that appeals to me.