Let’s kick Dracula’s ass! – review of the board game “Jakub Wędrowycz: Wild Moonshine”

Moonshiners versus bullies

In the card game Jakub Wędrowycz: Wild Moonshine , players assume the role of characters known from Andrzej Pilipiuk’s books. In addition to the title character, Semen Korczaszko, Józef Paczenko, Tomasz Cieśluk and priest Markowski are fighting with the village vermin! Unusual items will be used in the fight. For example, a rowan rosary is a good thing for a ghost haunting a bus stop, and a flock of rotfiends is best thrown with a box of pearls, and Father Markowski can throw stained glass fragments at the corpses!

How is it actually played? On our turn, we play one of the five cards to deal damage, lower armor, or stun enemies. We can also strengthen ourselves or our companions by healing wounds, driving moonshine or drawing cards. The last available action is exorcisms, thanks to them we will reduce the likelihood of joining our village fun with a strong monster. To win, you need to reduce the boss’s health bar to zero. The role of the whipping boy is played by the Devil and Dracula. Of course, it is known that Jakub and his companions will not lose to a bunch of zombies! However, for the sake of clarity, it is worth adding that in the event of the death of one character, we lose. If one of the heroes has no cards in hand at the start of his turn, the game is also over. Ultimately we race against time too

As befits a cooperative game, we can help each other in various ways. The most interesting option is to throw in your card to increase the value of our companion’s actions. Then, however, enemies that are engaged with the supporter activate. Nevertheless, it is impossible to refuse Jacob a helping hand!

Let’s recharge with moonshine with a snack!

I will not hide that this is probably one of the most difficult reviews I have ever written. Despite having played a dozen or so games, I do not know what to think about this position. I see quite an interesting project, albeit with a lot of features. So let’s start with the positives.

It cannot be denied that the gameplay is extremely enjoyable. Killing monsters gives you satisfaction, especially when you manage to perform a powerful AoE attack or to charge the boss with a single hit with twenty points of damage. The latter option is possible with flasks of wild moonshine. This is what gave me the most fun. During the battles with the boss’s minions, we run the moonshine and then perform one devastating attack. The operation of the flasks is very simple, because each drunk strengthens any action by one point. It is enough to choose a good team of moonshine makers, and preparing more than ten bottles is not a problem, then it is enough for one of the heroes to drink all of them at once (Jakub and the company have a very strong body, so you can easily convert the percentage into percentages!) And it literally becomes One- Punch Man!

It’s also a lot of fun to figure out which cards to play and which monster to kill first. The dilemma of supporting our companions and thus activating the monsters is also interesting! Some of the mascara effects can hurt a lot, while others are funny in their own way (for example, when Jakub helps Markowski, then the skeleton archer, who is in close combat with the Wanderer, additionally charges an arrow in the priest’s eye). I also like the variety of characters; each deck offers slightly different possibilities, because not every hero rushes moonshine. Joanna Kijanka had some really great ideas, thanks to which Wild Moonshine can be drawn in for a long time.

Flask after flask

My greatest regret is the difficulty level. I read the instructions twice just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Typing Dracula or the Devil, surprisingly, does not pose any major difficulties. Overall, the uneven battle is pleasant to play, but there is little satisfaction in the end. At times, it can also be boring and not very exciting, due to the mechanics of exorcisms. Haunting markers land on our heroes. At the end of the turn, new monsters appear after the boss attack. If their armor is equal to or lower than our haunted level, we engage him. Otherwise, this creature is discarded and that is where the fun of selecting enemies is over. Thanks to exorcisms, we can remove these markers, so it’s not unusual to have a round in which only one out of four players is fighting a creature.

As for interesting facts, the boss, apart from the considerable health bar, also has a dark armor, which we break down by killing his helpers. For this reason, exorcism presents us with an interesting dilemma. Should you lower the haunting level to make it easier for us, or not do it in order to be able to weaken the boss indirectly? Although it has its charm, when there is only one monster left, it does not feel threatened. We hardly have to worry about our lives, it only remains to beat the bad boss before the time runs out.

Another wasted potential is the heroes’ special abilities. In my opinion, they are just weak. They require three flasks to activate and, to be honest, it is much more profitable to turn them into damage. Bosses are not too dangerous, especially Dracula turned out to be unremarkable at the first contact. Two of the five cards only apply to heroes who have lost life! And imagine that with my brother I am waiting for the pits that the vampire has to give off, and here for two rounds in a row it does no harm, because we have all the health points! It is worth adding that each boss adds his own unique helpers to the deck of regular monsters. Dracula adds vampires to heal him. The problem is that the boss’s dark armor collapses first and then charges direct damage. In my opinion, the Devil has more interesting minions (for example, they increase the dark armor of the boss). The manual states that during a two-player game, it is recommended to play with the place cards on side A, I recommend that you choose the more difficult side B immediately, then the game is more interesting!

Who doesn’t drink, gets it!

It’s time to move on to crafting and throwing lightning at Portal Games. This time it’s not about the quality of the instructions, but about the number of chips. In a four-player game, markers are missing at the time of setup! Since we have to spread two haunting tokens for each character card and for each location, and there are only eight tokens with a face value of one, we have a problem. We can use, for example, a bottle as a substitute or slightly increase the difficulty level and give someone a cardboard worth three. The situation is similar with health points. Many monsters have eight or nine HP, while the chips are only in two denominations, namely Fridays and 1s. The latter are running short very quickly! The same problem occurs after performing a strong AoE stun attack (by the way, I love this action!).

Now let’s move on to the positives. All the cards look lovely. You can feel the atmosphere and “charms” of the Polish countryside. In my opinion, the price is also very tempting: for less than seventy zlotys we get a full box, although it’s a pity that no string bags were added for tokens. Undoubtedly, you can expect additions to this item, if it is well received on our market. The replayability of the base is average, there are no other location and shelter cards, for example. Nevertheless, it is very easy to increase. If the add-on introduces a larger number of bosses, adds new places, as well as some modes that diversify and make the gameplay difficult, sooner or later I will be tempted!

Is it worth kicking monsters with Jakub?

It cannot be denied that I wrote a lot, and interestingly, I could write even more about Wild moonshinebut I’d rather not delay an already lengthy review. So what conclusions come to my mind after playing over a dozen games? First of all, I think that it was still possible to work on the game a bit, polish this and that so that the real gem would come out. Yes, it’s a great product, albeit flawed in some respects. The review is subjective, so despite the few notable flaws I have noticed, I have to admit that I really like the game. I have a lot of fun killing the boss’s henchmen and then charging him over twenty damage in one go. I am especially glad that the randomness is not annoying. You can see what our possibilities are, so all we have to do is pour and see if it swells evenly! What can I say, despite so many lots of Wild MoonshineI still don’t get bored, although I already know that it will not surprise me with anything new.

For the price, it is a must-see for Pilipiuk’s art lover. Who would not want to play the role of Jakub Wędrowycz? I just hope that the potential addition will introduce some interesting changes. The option to beat the Bardak clan would be especially tempting!

PS: I have good news for the lone wolves, because contrary to the cover information, you can also play the solo game in Wild Moonshine , leading two characters.