Darrington Press is the TTRPG and board game company formed by people behind Critical Role, who, at the time of writing, are the only folk to play Dungeons & Dragons so entertainingly well that they were able to fill the Wembley OVO Arena with fans.
That level of popularity brings resources, and this has meant that Darrington Press has taken its time when it comes to producing games. They’ve focused on new, interesting, and novel (for the most part). Queen By Midnight is their most recent ‘big box’ game, by which we mean everything you need to play comes in a very nicely presented purple box, heavily illustrated and stylised. It’s the sort of thing that looks pretty on the shelf and promises to look pretty on the table.
The story behind the game is that the Midnight Queen has died. Various time-themed princesses have to compete to figure out who gets to be the next queen. Honestly, as succession processes go, this one is far superior to most.
At its heart, this is a deck-building/resource management game in which you’re picking up spells, traps, and so on to take out your opponents. (Though you can always just attack your enemies if you have the right cards.) Each princess is unique, sporting a different power. We get dream magic, wild alchemy, a thug and so on. It feels very She-Ra Princess of Power in places, though maybe that’s just because this is a game about princesses using magic to beat each other up.
Each character has two main resources: health and clout. The latter is essentially your ‘score’; the higher it is, the more likely you are to win. Some cards are unique to each character, so strategies shift from game to game.
Set-up is quite fun; its central gimmick is a clock tower that doubles as a dice tower and turn tracker. We have eleven turns, and we track each turn with the clock. The art is very strong, and the design is rather pretty. This is a lovely-looking game with some solid ideas behind it.
Much like Til The Last Gasp, this is a game that leads with theme, is crammed with atmospheric art and has solid ideas behind the mechanics that help tell a story whilst also being fun to play.
It’s worth noting that this game does have an errata, which makes the game-play smoother – if you’re planning on picking this up (maybe as a gift or for something to do during the cold winter months), then you might want to grab the errata from the website. It’s not a massive shift in gameplay, but it does make it a bit more fun. It’s also a game that has an adequate rulebook, but you’re better off with the online tutorial. It’s a game that isn’t that complex if you play board games, but you might struggle to convince your grandmother to play it.
This is a fun, well-thought-out, theme-rich game that is going to appeal very strongly to gamers, geeks and fantasy fans. One to put on the wish list.
