Maiden’s Quest is a 1 to 2 person (per box) deck building game themed around a Maiden and a Captor. The Maiden (the player), fed up with waiting for rescue, is trying to escape their captor and to do so the player encounters a variety of enemies and obstacles. Along the way items and health get up and down graded. Defeating enemies and obstacles creates a more powerful deck, and as you progress, you need these more powerful items to tackle progressively harder obstacles.
Someone who is looking for a game to play that is portable and runs quickly would appreciate this game, once you get the rules. The designers have hopes (both in the rule book and in their instructional video) that people will see others playing this game out and about. There are rules for cooperative, competitive, and Serendipity play where players will encounter each other and effect one another’s decks. I like this idea, but find the chances are fairly slim of a truly Serendipitous game. As an aside, I like the idea of pulling the deck out rather than spending time on my phone, especially as someone who wants to cut down on the amount of time I spend with electronics.
As far as a handheld card game goes, it’s complex enough I found watching the creator’s instructional video very useful. While the rule book doesn’t read like a novel, it was difficult to tell from the insert what order the cards were returned to the deck (or Cellar). Once I got the flow of it I liked the game more. The quick start guide gives a good introduction, but I want an example of what happens when you lose an encounter in that quick start guide. The video does cover this topic. I would not recommend trying to learn this game on the run. Sit down at home or where you have some space at a table to separate the cards into their respective piles and build your deck according to the Maiden and Captor cards.
A big plus for this game is portability. This is emphasized both in the size of the box and in the demo video. I’ve played with a couple different decks now. I worked through one Maiden and a Captor the first night, then made another deck to travel with me the next day. A hand can be played in a few minutes and easily ‘paused’. Since the Rest Card acts as a bookmark, so long as you remember what’s in your hand (or Fan) you can pause before resolving the encounter, or afterwards.
I found I lost quite a bit my first few hands. Luckily, the game is fairly easy to reset. If you don’t want to change out the decks, then flip the cards to their original orientation. Shuffle the Cellar, put the Rest Cards at the back, and go again.
What I’m most impressed by with this game is the amount of information that the creators have managed to store on the card. There are four sided and two sided cards in the game. By rotating cards 180 degrees, or flipping them over, cards change (WizKids calls this Turn & Flip). Since the orientation of the deck matters and stays the same, flipped and/or rotated cards get shuffled back in with their new orientation, coming back around in later rounds as better items.
All in all, I’d recommend this game for someone who is looking for a largely solo or two player game, something to do with their hands, and turning a trope on its head.
Maiden’s Quest is currently available from WizKids and other retailers.
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