March 29, 2024

#UnboxingDay! Upon The Wind from Dark City Games

Brant Guillory, 17 February 2022 ~ #UnboxingDay

Dark City Games have an entire line of digest-sized adventures that are designed to evoke memories of the old Fantasy Trip series games.  Some are historical, others are sci-fi.  But it’s the fantasy ones that really excel, and Upon The Wind is one I hadn’t read before.

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Nice fantasy cover that gives you an idea of what you’re getting into

 

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The cover art is actually a wrap-around piece that extends onto the back side, where the usual info is found.

click images to enlarge

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There’s not much in here.  The map is subdivided into specific ‘zones’ that you use depending on the action in the book.  The counters are a solid sheet of heavy cardstock that need to be cut apart with an exact-o knife and a metal ruler.

Counter detail artwork, which is good, but straight-outta-1981, yo.  One unfortunate choice that Dark City Games continued from the old SJG-era games is keeping the faux-Old-English font on the counters, which make some of the letters hard to read.

 

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Map detail, such that it is.  There is a download available on BGG with a wider area map of the sky islands.

 

The book interior is basic 2-column black-&-white text, that is legible, but small.  Headings are clearly ID’ed and there’s a section in the back that gives you the basic rules needed for the fantasy adventures in Dark City’s game engine.  Overall, it’s a cross between the UK Steve Jackson’s Fighting Fantasy games, and a programmed CYOA book.  That said, the game is lacking one very important tool: a character sheet.  There’s nothing at all for you to keep track of your characters with, nor even a hint of a template to guide on.  You can use index cards, but it’d still be nice to have the publisher tell you what you ought to be doing for keeping track of your dudes in-game.

This is not a fancy product, which is to be expected for under $15.  What it is, though, is exactly what it purports to be: a solo-focused programmed adventure with a light rules engine and some escapist fantasy fare.


Thanks for joining this month’s #UnboxingDay with the Armchair Dragoons and we hope you enjoyed our recon of our recent acquisitions.  You can always leave us your feedback in our #UnboxingDay thread, or in the comment area on this article, below.
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Brant G

Editor-in-chief at Armchair Dragoons

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4 thoughts on “#UnboxingDay! Upon The Wind from Dark City Games

  1. Thanks for the review of Upon the Wind. I’d love to hear more specific details about what you liked!

    1. this wasn’t a full review, just an unboxing (well, unbagging) and a look at the components, rather than an assessment of gameplay

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