Review of Path of the Serpent

Blurb from the publisher: 'Welcome to the jungle...

The Path of the Serpent expansion sends investigators into the unexplored wilderness of the Amazon jungle. Investigators must disprove ancient secrets of lost civilizations, stop a serpent's curse, and explore vine-covered, crumbling ruins. In three new scenarios, battle horrifying serpent creatures, face stone monstrosities that come to life, and beat the ever-present danger of being lost to the jungle forever. The investigators will need to fight tooth and claw to survive their expedition into the forgotten reaches of this world.'

What you get: Your USD 59,95 or equivalent will buy you Path of the Serpent, the fifth expansion (seventh if you also count the bridge products from the line's first edition) for the Mansions Of Madness (Second Edition) game line, the reimagining of the internationally acclaimed collaborative horror board game for one to five players that lasts up to three hours, and which is currently in BGG's top 30.

As with the basic game, the expansion is made up by a physical and a virtual component. The virtual component, inside the game's indispensable companion app, is free of charge and requires a single click to activate. At the time of writing this review, the app was available for Macs, PCs, iOS and Android and supported twelve languages.

In addition to the 4-page rulebook that can also be downloaded from the publisher's website free of charge, the game contains the following: 17 Map tiles, 4 Investigator cards and plastic figures, 8 Monster tokens and plastic figures, 16 Common Item cards, 5 Unique Item cards, 12 Spell cards, 12 Condition cards, 3 Damage cards, 3 Horror cards, 5 Person tokens, 27 Overgrowth /Rubble tokens, 8 Door tokens, and 8 Wall tokens.

Gameplay: Path of the Serpent unlocks three new digital scenarios and Mythos events on your app. The Jungle Awakens is a map exploration adventure where an otherwise normal Arkham Mansion becomes overgrown within minutes. Into the Dark is a combat-oriented scenario. It is also the expansions longest, with a length of around three hours. Lost Temple of Yig is the expansion's hardest scenario, and takes place in the middle of the jungle. It contains a number of puzzles and dangerous enemies.

Rules-wise the expansion introduces three novelties. Overgrowth is a feature that represents thick, tangled foliage that works against the investigators. One needs to test observation in order to leave such an area, and if he fails he drops one random item. Investigators with bladed weapons can cut one overgrowth token when entering an area, or even devote an action and cut all overgrowth in the area. Fire destroys overgrowth equally well.

Ruble is a feature that represents large amounts of crumbling stone. Obviously enough, that also hinders the investigators. Search, Explore, and Interact actions are not allowed in rubble areas. One rubble token is eliminated, every time an investigator with a heavy weapon enters such an area. Alternatively, an investigator can attempt to move rubble following a strength test. Each success eliminates one rubble. As a third option, an investigator with a heavy weapon can eliminate all rubble as an action.

In Ring Puzzles investigators try to align matching symbols across four concentric rings. Each ring contains the exact same symbols in the same order, yet many of the symbols are hidden. Deduction is thus required. Each of the rings can be moved any number of times towards any direction, with the exception of the central one which remains unmovable.

The new Investigators are the expedition leader, the explorer, the mechanic and the astronomer. The leader allows an investigator to move one space every time he performs an action. Once every turn the explorer may move one space before or after performing an explore action or resolving the effects of a sight token. The mechanic gains two Clues or discards one Horror every time a puzzle is solved by any character, while once per round the astronomer gains two Clues or discards one Horror if he is in an outdoor space.

When it comes to tiles, additions include two-, three-, and even four-area tiles. They are all linked to the expansion's theme, with many outdoor areas relating to the least trodden path, rivers, poorly kept bridges, ruins, as well as all kinds of chambers full of weird symbols and hieroglyphs. The monsters on the other hand include Serpent Persons, Temple Guardians, Feathered Serpents and the Ancient Basilisk. The last one is a three-piece mini that requires assembly, quite some pressure, and a fair bit of superglue in order for it to stay in one piece.

The rulebook also includes a four-question FAQ.

The strong points: The line's last expansion took the action outdoors. With this in mind Path of the Serpent takes it to the darkest reaches of the world... except when things happen in Arkham. I didn't expect that; I found it quite thematic and original. I liked the astronomer and his extremely practical outdoors ability. He is a very strong character for the scenarios where you are roaming with the sky above your head namely those of the present expansion and of Horrific Journeys, the previous one. Put him inside mansions however, and you will be left with a dud.

The new monsters, Conditions (Fearless, Poisoned), Horrors (Minor Shock, Delusion of Power, Visceral Reaction) and Insanities (Ophidiophobia, Treasure Hunter) are entertaining. I want some more time to pass in order for me to revisit some of the older adventures and see how the game inserts them there. Some are situational, others are more of the same, and others still alter the game's winning conditions (that would be the Treasure Hunter for you). Beware of crazy people who win alone in unforeseen ways; I enjoy the premise of asymmetry in a game where going insane is not the end of things.

I liked what the designers tried to achieve with the ruble and the overgrown vegetation, even though it is not subtle whatsoever. They create paths and obstacles that the investigators will try to circumvent, or in any event try to eliminate with the smallest loss of actions possible. They are thematic, and they do aggravate the feeling of how fast the group progresses inside the humid jungles. On the other hand, there are situations where they look forced and simply forestall the inevitable. The balance is good, but it could have been better.

The scenarios are solid, and follow the patterns of plot-writing that we have seen in the past. The theme is strong; in The Jungle Awakens adventure finds you when the Arkham mansion you are invited in transforms into a thick Amazonian forest. In Lost Temple of Yig on the other hand your group has definitive proof of the existence of serpent-humans and of a plan to summon their god, Yig. The expansion's new elements take center stage. That's what the jungle is about: delays and many issues to plague your planning.

Just like most expansions of the line, the rules will take the better part of twenty seconds to explain. All you need to do to use this expansion is buy it, read the rulebook while the others set up the game, and play immediately. That is something I really like about Mansions of Madness; purchase is a mere minute away from usage.

Just like in the basic game, the art and components are of very high standards. Even though the miniatures cannot reach Cthulhu Wars standards, they still are of a very high quality. Besides, I have this weird feeling that their quality has been improving the more the line progresses, even though it started from quite a high standard. They can obviously be ported elsewhere; any Conan boardgame or RPG would be a great place to use them.

The new adventures and game elements do not make the app more difficult to use. Everything you are accustomed to is where it used to be. All the new and fancy stuff are pretty much self-explanatory.

If you don't like what you read about the present expansion and you are not heavily into the line, Fantasy Flight Games has published another six which might be more to your liking. On the other hand, no further expansions have been announced for the future. Could this be the end of the line?

The weak points: I have said it before and I will say it again: the price is a recurring issue with this line and it doesn't get any better with this expansion. The box is bigger than it needs to be (I will never understand this practice), yet I don't mind that. When at catalogue price an expansion costs as much as a big game, the line's lovers are bound to be discouraged or even outright displeased no matter what its contents are. As usual, activating the free part on the app without owning the physical product is not going to really work. You may be able to proxy a few things here and there, ultimately however you will be lacking a lot of information that can be only obtained through the physical game.

The publisher has not found a cohesive way to keep an inventory of the game's tiles. The tile collection has grown to a very high number by now, and no matter how you store them, the whole process of finding them and placing them when needed is fiddly, if not an outright pain. This aggravates the disassociation between app and board; things flow a lot slower than they should have.

The expansion's components are unlikely to fit in the basic game's box if you have three or more of the expansions. I already suffer from this, and there is nothing I can do about it.

The app misbehaved the first time I declared ownership of Path of the Serpent. Texts didn't appear properly, the titles were substituted by string IDs etc. I simply turned the app off and on again, and everything worked properly. I would have been quite surprised if that weren't the case. The game is out now for almost three months or so.

This doesn't relate directly to the present expansion, yet it influences its desirability. Unless I am mistaken this is the first time since the basic game's publication that no other expansion is in sight. This can mean a handful of thinks like the line's full conclusion, the line's physical conclusion, or just a pause in order for Fantasy Flight to reassess its approach to the line; it has three active Arkham Horror lines going on at the same time after all. I don't enjoy conjecture, yet mere days before this review was submitted it was announced that Fantasy Flight Interactive was shutting down. This causes concern about the kind of support the app might receive in the future. If this is indeed the line's last physical product, will there be original DLC adventures combining elements from the previous scenarios? This is a very important question; sinking into a sinking ship is a bad idea. If these tiles and components are not to be reused elsewhere, or recombined into new adventures, the expansion's attractiveness would be substantially reduced.

Conclusion: I like the tiles, I like the new rules, I like the new monsters and investigators that Path of the Serpent offers. I start wondering however whether the scenarios have explored what needed to be said in the line. They are entertaining and diverse, I am not at all convinced however that I will remember them all in a few years' time, no matter how strongly the theme came out. Having said that, if this is the line's last physical product and no additional digital content is to be published, I would be very disappointed.

For more info on Path of the Serpent visit Fantasy Flight Games at https://www.fantasyflightgames.com.

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