Games

Queen By Midnight: Quarter Past Expands Critical Roles Popular Board Game

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23 seconds ago

November 16, 2024

queen by midnight quarter past review game rant feature

Nearly 10 years ago, a group of personable voice actors gathered around a little table and started playing their ongoing D&D game live. Since then, Critical Role has grown to gargantuan proportions, hosting multiple live games per week, doing live events, airing an animated series, and developing new tabletop games for their fans to enjoy.

Publishing under the brand Darrington Press, named after (one of) Sam Riegel’s Vox Machina character, Critical Role has already released 10 tabletop games and settings, with plans for more in 2025. Queen By Midnight: Quarter Past was just released, but with an advanced copy in-hand, the verdict is already in on whether you should pick up this expansion.

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Table of Contents

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Design

Critical Role is known for having beautiful designs with their games. Just as with their other titles, Queen By Midnight: Quarter Past is well-made and features myriad details in the artwork of every element. The game is an expansion for Queen By Midnight, but works just as well as a standalone game. This version of the game comes in a much smaller box, making it easier to bring along on trips, too.

Tactile Pieces Make a Big Difference

Thick cardboard is used for all of the board pieces of Quarter Past, and punching them out to get started is quite satisfying. Even after the initial setup, every game’s setup utilizes multiple parts and boards, so it’s a very tactile experience from the get-go.

The princess boards are almost identical to the original set, though there are a few differences. Firstly, three of the four have an extra space on them related to their abilities. Secondly, all of them have three vault card slots, rather than two.

The game comes with a stiff clock spinner, skipping out on the impressive clocktower dice tower included in the main game. The same counter for clout and health comes with the boards, though this was an opportunity for improvement that Critical Role did not take. The counter is awkward, as only every other point value is listed and each section is partially attached to the last, so you’re constantly wondering where exactly your counter is, while you’re placing it. This is really difficult to deal with if you have dyslexia, and it’s unclear why they wouldn’t just make each point value slot a bit more distinctive.

Four New Princesses

One of the biggest draws of this expansion are the new princesses being included. These princesses are great for quicker games, but even in full-party games they present unique opportunities to gain an advantage over your opponents. Along with this, their designs bring fresh takes to the game, although their overall quality is questionable.

Three of the new princesses are very much in-line with expectations based on the game’s aesthetic, tone, and initial character roster. However, Azil-With-A-Z is one of the most annoying character additions I’ve seen in a long time. While the overarching tone of each princess is subtly powerful or confidently domineering, paired with a thematic backstory rich with information that paints a clear picture of the princess, Azil is little more than a mish-mash of tropes. Even her card’s art style is dissimilar from all of the other princesses, which may have been intentional, but just ends up making the character look further out of place within the game.

Additionally, her characterization is completely lost to her manic-pixie-dream-girl background, which essentially boils down to the fey taking a 10-year old and making her weird. Her powers are almost entirely unrelated to her function in the game, and there’s nothing special about her other than her traumatic childhood. The most notable thing about her is her annoying name. As the game itself states, what other letter would Azil be spelled with? But if they didn’t add the ‘with-a-z’ part, would you know just how quirky and independent she is? No, because there’s nothing in her bio about her personality beyond a smattering of indie-film adjectives.

In general, the princess descriptions are not as thorough as the base game, but most of them offer enough backstory to set the mood of a new game.

Gameplay

As with most deck-builders, the character’s special abilities make the game interesting, despite many cards being very similar. With Quarter Past, none of the new characters’ abilities overlaps with the old characters’ powers, adding four unique strategies to the table.

Azil With A Z’s power allows players to lash out with big hits, since many cards add damage to her shrink and grow action. At the same time, Elise LeKracken takes advantage of other player’s discards, while Kahurere Skyfisher can place traps in another deck. The last princess, Qasima Al-Basar doesn’t have an on-board ability, but leverages her clout and health late in the game.

It’s easy to setup the game and get started, though it really will take about an hour to play, regardless of party size or skill. Despite this timeframe, the game feels like it’s very quick, and every turn goes by lightning fast, so it’s easy to imagine playing multiple rounds on game night. Just as with the base game, there are numerous strategies that you can use to win. Unlike the base game, the princess boards are a bit pared down and the gameplay is a bit smoother, both because of a reduced complexity and special abilities that allow for flexible gameplay.

Two-Player Gaming

Queen By Midnight: Quarter Past offers gameplay for 2-4 players, and two-player games are certainly playable. However, many of the cards and the princess abilities work far better with multiple targets available. In one round during a two player game, I received 12 points of damage, just over a third of my total health, because there were no other targets for the cards my opponent drew. Normally, that player would have spread out the damage according to who was the biggest and most urgent threat. In a two-player game, there’s only one choice though.

Even with just two players, the game took us an hour to get through, and we frequently forgot to move the clock hand because the turns went by so quickly. Paradoxically, the game runs faster with more players, as each princess is taken down faster and more pragmatic, yet risky decisions are made.

(Left) Dominion box and cards (Right) Jaipur box and components

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Free Revisions

One very nice touch to the expansion was the inclusion of re-printed cards for the base game. The rules got an update after the game’s initial release, and while you can view these online, if you buy Quarter Past, you can simply replace those outdated cards instead of constantly reminding yourself of the change in rules.

Overall Impression

Queen by Midnight: Quarter Past

Queen by Midnight: Quarter Past is new standalone expansion to the deck-building board game Queen by Midnight. An immersive battle royale, this deck-building game pits 2-4 players against each other in a gauntlet of wit, strategy, and guile for the coveted Midnight Court crown. Bringing tons of great new features to use alongside the base game, players will get new two-player rules, four new Princesses with unique playstyles, and lots of new Bazaar cards, all in a lighter, travel friendly box!

Deck-builders are infamously divisive among the tabletop gaming community. Most die-hard fans want more complex titles every year, while some board gamers won’t touch a deck-builder because of their reputation for being overly complicated. Queen By Midnight struck a happy medium, creating a deck-builder with a somewhat lighter tone than many other titles, as well as varied gameplay strategies.

Queen By Midnight: Quarter Past continues this trend, making it easier than ever to get into deck-builders, while also offering a title that can bridge the gap between friends who disagree on the genre. This slightly pared down version doesn’t really cut down on the time to play, but does make it a bit more approachable, and it seems this was the expansion’s goal.

One indication that the game sought to be more open to newer players is the fact that two of the new princesses can adjust which damage they deal, making it easier to strategize on the fly. Another, much less successful attempt at grabbing newbies is the inclusion of Azil With A Z, who ended up being annoyingly superficial.

In the end, the game accomplishes what it set out to do, and should be fun for most board game fans, including some of those who detest deck-builders. If you haven’t already picked up a copy of Queen By Midnight, consider grabbing the combo set from Critical Role, as this expansion is well worth picking up if you enjoy Critical Role and medium-difficulty deck-builder games.