The one game that eats a whole night and I let it

I backed this on Kickstarter back in 2019, waited over two years for it to land on my porch, and by the time it showed up I’d half forgotten why I wanted it so bad. Worth the wait, mostly. Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood is Jamie Jolly’s campaign boss-battler, Shadowborne Games, one to four players, and it is not a weeknight game, not even close. Every chapter splits into a story half and a fight half, and the story half is narrated through a companion app by an actual professional actor, James Cosmo, which sounds like a gimmick until you’re standing at your counter listening to it while you unpack minis. It isn’t a gimmick. The writing earns it.

Where it gets me is the fight half. The Battle Flow system, the cooldown mechanic that lets your cards come back online on a timer instead of a full reset, is genuinely clever, and for the first few rounds of a boss encounter I’m locked in. Somewhere around round six, though, it’s obvious you’re going to beat the boss, and you still have to trudge through four or five more rounds to finish it, no extra benefit for the time spent. That’s where my crew starts glancing at phones.

Setup alone eats into a night that doesn’t have room for it. Four full-size game boxes to get to the table for a one-shot is not really a one-shot, and my kitchen counter barely fits the spread once minis and cards and the boss board are all out, enormous footprint for a two-hour session. Small thing that shouldn’t bug me as much as it does: every mini sits on a round base on a hex board, so figuring out attack arcs and which way a boss is even facing turns into a chore, every single round. And more than once we’ve paused mid-fight to go hunting for a keyword or a targeting rule that isn’t where you’d expect it in the book, momentum gone while everyone stares at their phone waiting on whoever’s flipping pages.

I don’t regret the money. The story is the best I’ve gotten out of a board game, full stop, and the combat, when it’s clicking, will have you on the edge of your seat, not just watching the clock. But I only bring this out when I know we’ve got a real block of time and nobody’s got anywhere to be after. It rewards patience it also tests, and on a Tuesday after a double, I don’t have much patience left to give it.