Doomscrolling, but not like that
FALL OF MAGIC
Designer: Ross Cowman | Publisher: Heart of Deericorn
Games are magical objects by their nature. A pile of tokens, plastic bits and glorified wood chippings are going to transform your evening from one practicing bad posture around a dining table into one of adventure, commerce or war. Roleplaying games can send you places with little more than a dice and a few sentences from a poorly printed book you picked up at a convention.
There’s something completely transporting about all of these acts as you give up the world around you and commit, through the use of the objects in front of you, to being somewhere else as well as someone else.
Whether other games are planned out as magically teleporting as they are, or that’s just something transferred from the medium we’re working in, it’s very hard to argue that Fall of Magic is anything other than designed to be a magical item.
A long box contains a canvas scroll on which is, for the most part, the game. There’s a very slim book here explaining how the game should progress, but this canvas is very much where the action is. It is not ‘just a prop’. Players will pick a coin and a class or background and begin their journey. This journey is the crux of the game, players are leading the magus (a magician or sorcerer of sorts) back to their homeland. The world of magic is dying, and the only plan is to return to its source and discover whether it can be saved – or whether you’re just delivering someone to where they want to die.
The scroll is initially laid out so you can only see the very first location, as you travel along the lines to different locations, you’ll be asked to describe what your character does at each place they stop at. There’s a series of prompts, and occasionally a dice roll or two to discover your fate at a couple of locations. Later you’ll discover wonderful things about where you are and the materials you hold in your hands.
Fall of Magic can rightly be accused of being a ‘story game’ rather than a more ‘traditional’ roleplaying game. The reward for roleplaying here (rather than say, getting some gold and improving your character) is that sense of discovery. Rolling out this screen-printed (by hand) map and moving your metal coin to the next area is its own kind of storytelling. And you have to choose which path to follow, a worthy topic of discussion at our table. There’s also a later section which randomises the cards you lay on the board as you hop between islands – this offers the promise of a different story next time.
If you’re looking for a game that’s real.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗ Five and a half foot long double sided canvas scroll
◗ 5 Metal coin tokens
◗ Six sided dice
◗ 12 Lost island cards
WE SAY
A truly magical experience, if you’re willing to believe in it.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED ULTRAVIOLET GRASSLANDS AND THE BLACK CITY…
Want to go on an epic journey of absolute beauty? He’s another outing for you all.