E3 '07: Culdcept SAGA hands-on

We know what you're wondering. What is a Culdcept? And how on Earth do you pronounce it? The first question is easy: The Culdcept is an all-powerful book that can either save the world or ruin it. In good hands it's a benediction, but in the spiky mitts of evil it's the story that ends the world. So how do you pronounce it? It's not Cul-duh-cept, it's Culd-cept, or Cul-dcept. Trust us, in spite of that terrifying trio of consonants, Culdcept SAGA (you have to say "SAGA" loudly) sounds and looks cool.

In it, you play a customizable peasant who unwittingly possesses incredible magical power. A princess recognizes your potential, and enlists your aid in the quest for the Culdcept. And so the SAGA begins. In our previous hands-on preview, Ricardo Torres covered most of the known details about this game, including the fact that it blends both board game and collectible-card-game elements into one deep yet accessible package. It should be available at retail sometime in early 2008.

It's like Monopoly meets Magic the Gathering. Not only must you travel around a game board collecting cash each time you pass the fantasy equivalent of "Go," you also establish properties by placing monsters on squares. If an enemy lands on one of yours, they'll probably try to evict your monster landlord with a beastie of their own. Battle ensues, and if you win, your enemy will pay...rent. And possibly even utilities, though that was not featured in the build we saw.

Instead, we experienced an accessible but deep battle against a plucky she-pirate. Like Monopoly, we both started the game on the same square. Unlike Monopoly, we each began with five cards. She went first, and after a dice roll, moved a few squares, before immediately installing a big green troll in his fiery new home. We say fiery, because she was on a red square, and red means fire in Culdcept. Other squares on the board were green, blue, and yellow for other elements. Now, if your monster tenant is of the same element as his abode, he will increase in power. If he's a fire monster living on a blue square, he'll be very unhappy, and fight poorly.

At any rate, the troll was a green creature, so he was mostly indifferent to his hot, red house. On our turn, we immediately landed on our enemy's square! In our hand we had a soldier, spell strike, armor, a mace, and a rock wall. Both the soldier and the wall are types of monsters, but the wall can only defend property, not attack it, so we had to go with the soldier. Spell strike, as you might imagine, is a spell, but those can only be used outside of rental disputes. Both armor and the mace are items, though, and one can be equipped to a monster in a fight. Since we needed to kill the ogre in a hurry (his counterattack would be worse than Shrek 3), we equipped the mace, increasing our damage. Unfortunately, when the battle began, it was revealed that the pirate had decked out her champion in armor, so our assault failed to fell the beast. His response felled our soldier, and humbled, we paid rent to our enemy. Oh, the indignity. She didn't just get our money, though, she also got spell points. And the first one to a certain number of points merely has to get back to the starting square to win the game.

It's an easy concept with plenty of chance involved, but there's also a lot of strategy in how and when you use your cards, not to mention how you spend your rent money. We suspect you'll be anything but bored when this quirky board game hits stores in 2008.