Last night we played Thunderstone for the first time. It has been a game that has been sitting on our shelves for many years and surprisingly enough last night was the first time we had played it. We initially got it as a gift for a daughter. She indicated interest on it based off playing it with a friend of ours.

It was kind of funny the reason it got to the table last night was because I was getting ready to play a game of it online with my friend Aron on Yucata. My wife heard me listening to the directions and she said to me “oh you want to play Thunderstone tonight?” So, as a result, I decided to pull out our copy and play that as well. Inadvertently knocking a game off our shelf of shame.

About Thunderstone

For those who are not familiar Thunderstone it is a deck builder type game. For those not familiar with the concept of what a deck builder is, a deck builder is when you start with a small deck of cards and using those cards and abilities that those cards have, you purchase other cards and as you proceed to the game building your deck. The goal of Thunderstone is to defeat as many monsters and get as many victory points as possible before the Thunderstone appears in the dungeon and moves to the first rank.

The version of Thunderstone we have was originally published in 2009 by Alderac Entertainment Group and I can imagine when it came out it was quite something, however looking at it from a 2021 perspective there are a lot of established concepts and there are probably things there done better in other games more recently published.

Essentially in the game there are three things that you can do:

Visit the village where you can do things to improve your deck such as leveling up your character using experience points or purchasing cards to improve your deck.

Visit the dungeon where you can fight a monster to gain experience (you can use that experience to upgrade your characters in the village). Additionally, those monsters will be able to give you victory points, but you need to win the game and sometimes they will give you extra abilities that you can use to make your deck more effective.

Lastly you have a rest action where you can just trash card, so it is no longer in your deck.

All in all, Thunderstone is a tight little deck builder. Would be interested in trying it with some of the other options that you have in the base game and we also have to have an expansion for that version as well. I think it does have some replayability.

Comparison to Similar Games

Inevitably there is always a comparison of deck builders to the granddaddy of all tech builders: Dominion. I will make that same comparison as well there is a lot a similarity between this and Dominion. Both games have a common upgrade purchasing pool that is randomized per game. The purchasing mechanism is similar. How you buy your victory points is where there is a difference. In Dominion is just a straight-out purchase and for the most part those victory points essentially become fat in your hand that is useless in Thunderstone those cards provide additional bonuses such as giving you experience points which you could use to upgrade your heroes and some effects that can come out when you pull the cards while you are in the dungeon. I would say that there is just a minor bit more complexity to Thunderstone than Dominion in the base games.

Another deck builder that I play frequently as Star Realms. And like Thunderstone it is a combat-based deck builder where you are building up your deck to combat. The big difference between Thunderstone and Star Realms is that Star Realms is a PvP game as opposed to Thunderstone were you and other players or fighting a common dungeon. And there is little interaction between players.

Comparing this to Marvel Legendary I think it is important to discuss. I see a lot in Thunderstone that looks like it could have inspired Legendary. Having the line of foes to attack and vanquish to win is something that the two have in common and the Legendary systems takes It up a level and instills an air of urgency to dealing with these villains as quickly as possible. From what I have seen Thunderstone so far you can fail to defeating a monster and there is not a huge number of repercussions. In Legendary you do not really have the option failing an attack you either must have the strength to do it or you do not do it. But with Legendary there can be some real consequences when you fight one of the villains and that is something that is sharing common with Thunderstone. The marketplaces the same in that you have a randomized set of things that you can buy based on the game that you are playing but the difference is that it comes out as a randomized set of things that you can buy at any given time.

Looking at Thunderstone overall and comparing it to other deck builders I can easily see where the progression is from Dominion two Thunderstone and then to Legendary. A case can also be made that games like Toy Story Obstacles and Adventures and Harry Potter can also trace their lineages back through this line.

Conclusion

So overall what did I think of it? I liked it and I thought that taken in context of the time it was created it was a good game. It has a lot of replayability. I can see where someone just starting out playing Dominion would pick this up and be enamored with it particularly if somebody were more of a combat defeat foes sort of person as opposed to a build a kingdom sort of person. This is not a game that really replaces anything else or would be replaced by anything that have my collection right now. I think it is a good introductory type of game for deck builders.

There are a couple things that I think seriously detract from the game particularly to new players. the symbols on the cards can be incredibly confusing particularly if you are used to playing other deck builders one example is your experience points that you get for defeating a monster is in a red circle and the hit points are in a dark blue circle being that the experience points cards are dark blue and usually hit points are in red, I would think that that would be something that would need to be switched around. The other thing that is kind of wonky is how the light in the dungeon works. it is an interesting concept but the thing I found is the way the rules are written can be a little confusing. Once you get it down it is not that big of a deal but still it is a small barrier to understanding how the game works and I can see how it can be very frustrating to new players.

I would use it for people that I know would be not so enthusiastic about the Dominion concept. I think we will give it a few more plays around our house and I am playing it online right now too versus a couple of friends. At some point in the future, I would like to look at Thunderstone advanced and see what is different between this and that.