Shadows Over Camelot – Another Customer Submission

We had a second customer take advantage of our Best Dang Points program. This is a customer we met at Half-Off Books, in Altamonte Springs, FL. They have since become a great friend of www.bestdanggames.com and we appreciate their support. They are Gary Bacchus and his wife Grazielle. They stopped in about a month ago now and hung out for a while. They came back, and picked up this game from us for a game night they were hosting and then pulled up some chairs and we got in a full game of Eketorp.

So, Gary and his wife have sent some photos in and wrote up an article for you about this game, as well as thier experience with Eketorp – which they also ended up buying.

Here are thier photos from their personal game night. Some of the photos got cut off – click them to see the full images.

Here is their write-up of their experience with this Shadows Over Camelot:

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In Shadows of Camelot you become one of the Knights of the Round Table. Together with the other knights you’ll stand to defend Camelot from its enemies. As a knight you’ll have to help Camelot by completing many different quests. Some of the quests can only be completed by a single knight, but most of them can be completed with the help of the whole party. This effort can be complicated both by the automatic advancement of evil during the game and a possibility of a traitor in your midst. This is a cooperative game for 7 players and it takes about an hour and a half to play.

The last time we played this, we played this game with 5 players. They didn’t have much board gaming experience prior to this save for commercial games.

The Concept of a Co-Operative Game

The first conceptual hurdle came right away. They had never played a game that was cooperative in nature before. The part that took a little extra bit of explanation in this part was the acquisition of relics. In the game, certain quests, such as the Quest for the Holy Grail, awards one of the players with the grail itself. This caused a bit of confusion right away as this quest is one of the quests that the entire party can help to complete.

It’s important to explain that the acquisition of the relics really does help the whole group even though only one knight actually possesses each of the items. Also, make sure the players understand their special abilities (each knight has a special ability which could make quests a lot easier).

Teaching the Game

A walk-through with the board and pieces seemed to suffice to get people through the learning part. Avoid teaching this game by reading from the rulebook. This game is easier to play than it is to explain. In particular, relating the card combinations needed in the quests to poker hands seemed to help in explaining the mechanics. The person teaching this game should probably look through the rulebook and the book of quests beforehand so they can figure out how best to distill this down for the rest of the players. The rulebook is a bit verbose in places and it would help to be able to summarize for the rest of the party.

Final Conclusions

I found that the game experience really deepened as the game progressed. Our non-gamers settled right into their roles once they understood their special abilities. I could suggest this game for new gamers, but I would suggest taking some time beforehand to summarize the rule set a bit. This game is a great way for new gamers to experience a dynamic that they may have not experienced before. Our non-gamer crowd requested this game in future game nights and I have a feeling it will have a good long stay on our table for many sessions to come.

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Well, there you have it. A positive review for Shadows Over Camelot. Gary and his wife are active players at The Daily Grind – and they were the ones that suggested we speak with Infusion Tea – with whom we now have a partnership.