I'm not going to talk about how it's a damned cool dungeon crawler, even though it is. I'm not going to talk about how the integrated iOS/Android app allows for truly cooperative and even solo play, even though it does. I'm not even going to talk about how the array of tiles lets you build endless variations and unique dungeons to explore. The one pictured below is tiny in comparison to some of the monstrosities I've seen. Mechanically, this game has a lot to like, but I'm not going to talk about any of that.
What I'm going to talk about is that my wife loves it. This is huge. It's something we can play together.
I've been a gamer for years. My gaming habit has taken many forms, but the most common have been role-playing video games and tabletop miniatures. Role-playing video games tend to be solo affairs. When my wife was still in college, she'd do her schoolwork while watching me play. I secretly understood this to mean that she wasn't really interested in the games, but really just wanted to hang out with me while doing her work. The video games were something she could sort of tune out. Tabletop miniature games like Warhammer 40k are definitely social... well, at least part of the time. Sure, there's the fun of going up against an opponent, but there are also literally hundreds of hours of prep work involved if you get into painting and reading the fluff. Tabletop miniatures games require mental, emotional and time commitments that aren't to be taken lightly. In my wife's words, she "made two commitments in [her] life... to [her] education and to [her] husband". Making a commitment to a tabletop game simply isn't in the cards.
So, what does all this mean? It means that I've found a game that she genuinely enjoys playing with me. I'll come home from wok and she asks if I want to run through a Descent mission. Yes. Yes I do.
I guess my advice here is that if you have someone in your life that you want to share your love of games with, keep trying different things. Eventually you'll find something you both enjoy. I'm happy that we found Descent and I'm sure that we'll be able to grow this into a love of other cooperative games.
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Ok, totally gonna talk about the game a little. FFG has gotten much better at making minis. The newest set looks amazing. I've sen these up close and the detail below is completely true to real life.
