Here's a Real High-class Bout! Now Go! (Townsfolk Tussle)
October 24, 2020 | ≈ 1857 words | Townsfolk Tussle
Thoughts on Townsfolk Tussle
Ok so basically this is probably the best game of 2020. And it’s not even fucking close.
Let’s just get this out of the way: this is not Cuphead: The Board Game. This is not the Cuphead art style. The genre is not Cuphead. This artstyle existed before Cuphead. Studio MDR themselves attributed inspiration from old style rubber-hose cartoons the point is we are not talking about Cuphead today. We are talking about one of the best simplified streamlined tabletop tactical grid-based combat gauntlet video-game-style board games you can play literally right now. And once again, it is not even close (actually idk maybe not but it’s p good).
So actually it’s funny because I saw this on the featured workshop mods for TTS and I thought what everybody else thought which is there is absolutely no way this game is actually going to be good based on how much effort they are putting into the art and marketing.
But you know I’m glad to have been put in my place and been 100% wrong. Even if I end up getting an empty box with air that can be shaped into imaginary air-components, I’ll still be happy with playing the game on TTS, which on that note I would pay for a scripted version of the game, or just a digital version which actually would just be Fire Emblem or FFTactics with just boss battles. Because this is FFTactics(Advanced) with just boss battles. And it’s fucking gooooooood.
Remember Duelyst? Remember having a grid and movement mattering by making you think where how you’re going to corner your opponent’s units and moving your units so that you make a battle line so that your General can’t get hit and your units can hit their generals and also figuring out how diagonals work so that you can position so that your far away enough that their units can’t hit you? Yeah so that’s in this game. Welcome to Townsfolk Tussle.
The first thing you have to know about this game is that it’s made for babies. Everything is simplified. Well like not so simple that a non-gamer could grok by directly reading the rules, but also it’s for babies. I know this because I’m pretty sure the creators designed this based on the enormous mangy fiddly beast that is Kingdom Death: Monster. Townsfolk Tussle takes the core mechanics from KD:M and simplifies it down so that it’s playable for mere mortals like me. Take for example the combat in the game.
So the combat is roll to resolve. The combat in KD:M is also roll to resolve but that game also has Strength and Touchness and Speed and monsters have a whole ass table for when they crit. Also I don’t know if you’ve ever played an rpg but almost every tactics game has roll to resolve, except in digital games you don’t see the dice so you just expect it to hit. But also knowing that this is a tactics game, positioning is more important than attacking. To rephrase: Positioning is more important than attacking. Having a consistant guaranteed advantage over time is better than randomly getting lucky. That is the core of tactics games. Not that I’ve ever enjoyed dice-chucking tactics games, but Townsfolk Tussle is really meant to be a lighter gateway game for those heavier tactics games. And that’s kinda the whole deal with why I like this game so much. This game reminds me of another gateway-y game that introduced a lot of people to the mechanics of RPGs.
Paper Mario.
This is the Paper Mario of Monster-Showdown-Campaign-Board-Games.
The sole reason why I connect the two is because of how tiny the numbers are in this game. I only played the 2p game, but Bosses only have like 10 health. Most players have only like 4 health. The numbers are honestly as cute as a button. The tiny tiny numbers make it really really easy to start making strategies in the “long-term”. And by “long-term” I mean “2 turns from now when I’m going to die”. And die you will.
In my past 3 plays of this game, I have died on literally every boss fight I had. And it says a lot that I still think this is one of the best games I’ve played this year. It’s like actually the Dark-Souls of board games but being able to die so easily teaches you how to actually not be dumb in the game. It’s like if Paper Mario was actually hard and was called Paper Mario: Master Quest.
Ok so the numbers are tiny. But that doesn’t really mean the game is good. Really where the game is at is the actual way Fights happen in the game.
Each turn you move around the grid based on your MVMT value which is usually 4, and you spend action points to attack and use features on the terrain.
Oh right the terrain.
Ok so the terrain is where the game is actually at. Instead of just like having a 5x5 grid and the boss is infront if you, you have like a 16x16 grid where there’s shit all over the board that you have to kite around and spend action points to Interact with. A lot of terrain is just like “hey man slow down. this is a ditch you can’t just like, walk through here” but there’s some that’s like “hey man, I’m a bee hive. Anybody next to me is gonna get fucked” or actually there’s one that like “I’m literally just a car”. This is all actual shit in the game and it’s all tied to rolls. Most of them you have to roll an 8+ to get the benefit so like most of the time you’re gonna miss the roll and you’re gonna blame the game for being shit because game is shit but like here’s the deal:
If you think rolling like shit and not being able to interact with the thing you wanted to do is lame, then I guarantee you that your tactics are shit.
These are things you do when you have opportunities to do them. If you take a turn to search a mushroom patch for a Super Mushroom and you had something better to do, then you’re literally throwing. Sure it might be more fun (and actually it is fun) but don’t act like the game is shit if you miss a roll when you had other better options (but also game shit).
Ah, right. The thing that is better than interacting with terrain. Actually attacking.
So your townies has 2 hands, and “The Ruffian” is very capable of receiving said hands, so being able to efficiently deliver those hands is a major part of this thing we call “fighting”. And fighting, fighting is where the game is at.
Honestly the way combat works is that you choose an equipped weapon, spend it’s action point cost (called Moxie and also you can only swing a weapon once per turn. No infinite swinging.), and roll to see if you hit based on your accuracy stat; but the thing is the game just gives you so much random garbage for weapons and tells you “hey man, like just use this handkerchief to slap’em. good luck bud”. Like literally before every boss you shop for stuff to equip your townies and you get so much shit and garbage for options. Eventually you get kitted with random stuff and half the time is sucks, but half the fun of the game is accumulating that random stuff until you start making The Build.
Like a build where you just heal. Or a build where you just have range. Or a build where you don’t have range and want to get hit over and over again to boost your stats with your Berserker’s Hat. Or a build where you just try to stand next to people and play music while doing nothing (it goes exactly how you expect it too). Builds are completely random, and can be completely shitty because of boss mechanics. You never know what you’re gonna get and eventually you learn how to play despite RNG being bad and game being bad. It’s the roguelike way.
So now you have a weightless kerchief that takes no effort to swing around and a bunch of garbage for gear. But since we have tiny numbers and we have tactical movement, you can literally just look and see if it’s better to hit the boss with the hanky or do something else. You can use your brain and tell which choice is better based on that gear you’ve been piling up. If hitting it’s your best option you do it, but if you literally cannot hit the boss your other option is to see if you can use terrain (this is when you garbage tactics players should take the 20% chance to do flips on the terrain, when you have a literal 0% chance to hit the boss. You’re welcome) And usually, hitting them very hard is usually the best option. And hitting them very hard causes the Ruffian to hit their Kingdom Hearts Revenge Value and hit you back once interrupting the hanky pummel party. And they usually hit back pretty hard.
The thing about having a boss that’s 4 times bigger than the players is that they can usually hit you all the time. When the Ruffian gets to go they draw a card the nicely describes the stuff they get to do, and I like stuff. Usually it’s stuff like “Move to the closest guy. Hit’em”. But sometimes it’s like “Rotate to player if they’re adjacent. Shoot a beam of water and push them all the way back to the edge of the board. They take 3 damage” (these are not the actual wording do not worry). Basically, the bosses get to do cool shit, and they do a thing that most board games dream to do: they evoke the feeling of the actual thing they’re doing. They move, they turn, they leap, they spit at stuff and the spit explodes.
And they do it all with those tiny numbers.
I feel like I wrote a lot of nothing but if you want to read more of nothing feel free to read this shit blog where they shit on the game while contradicting themselves for 2500 words then say they love the game, and they spent 200 dollars Kickstarting it.
Honestly I rambled a lot but my thoughts are it’s the most fun I’ve had doing flippies off the terrain and killing bosses and it’s the most religious I’ve ever been praying every time I throw dice and I can’t remember the last time I thought about the dice in a game and wondered whether it mattered to me.
And if it wasn’t clear, no, I don’t care about the random dice rolling in this game. Because you can always just ask your teammates if you can cheat.
Oh right, did I mention this game was co-op? O-ops.
10/10.