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Dark Domains

By Laboratory H and Jeff Horger

Dark Domains is a competitive game for 2–5 players who vie to accumulate the most favor from the Necromancer. Players accumulate this favor through evil tokens. Evil tokens are accrued by playing buildings, monsters, spells, and henchmen. In order to gain these tokens players have to gain wealth and purchase resources. However, the Necromancer does not care for gold or trinkets, as the player with the highest number of evil tokens is deemed the winner.

BoardGameGeek Rating: — —
MSRP: $
Players: 2–5

Mechanics:

Worker Placement
Set Collection

Gameplay

In Dark Domains each player takes on the role of a city leader attempting to expand the frontier of Harrows into the hinterland. Unbeknownst to the powers in Harrows some of those leaders, namely the players, are secretly evil to the core and in the thrall of the Necromancer. Once away from the bustling city and the oversight of the courts, these overlords create domains that outwardly appear to be beacons of light and hope. Eventually however, their true colors will come through and those upstanding pillars of the community will retreat to their lairs as the masquerade ends and their lands begin to decay into wastelands overrun by foul monsters and nefarious henchmen.

But all is not peaches and cream in the lands of darkness. Harrows is home to the famous Torin Company and its never-ending supply of heroes and adventurers. Once the word reaches Harrows that darkness is afoot in the Domains, it is only a matter of time before these nosy adventurers begin to seek out the dens of horror to stop the evil.

Our Review

Our Rating: 7.5

Dark Domains reminds me of Champions of Midgard or Lords of Waterdeep but, deeper…. much deeper. I popped the lid off the game and had a slight panic. There were so many pieces and cards inside the box. Dark Domains is a worker placement with a little bit of set collection thrown in. The goal is to be the most evil, as the most evil player wins the game. The copy we received was a prototype copy…don’t count it out though. It was one of the best prototype copies we have received to date. The rulebook was neatly typed up and placed in a nice spiral bound type book. It was typed up with what seemed to be Microsoft Word which made the layout a little wonky. And, there seemed to be a lack of photos which would provide components and game play examples — but all things that can be corrected. I watched a gameplay video by EverythingBoardGames. This video was extremely beneficial when it came to sorting the various cards out for play. I can’t wait to see the upgrades they make to this game — check it out on Kickstarter.