This week, we were all pretty keen to try the new Days of Wonder game, Shadows Over Camelot. Six of us set out as knights of the Round Table, intent on overcoming noble quests and securing the swords necessary to banish evil from the land: all of us that is except for the traitor in our midst.

Each player’s turn involves carrying out two actions: a dark one that helps the bad guys and a light one to help the good knights’ cause. Players can freely discuss what the active player should do, apart from disclosing what particular cards they have in their hand. What a player actually does and says gives clues as to whether he is true to the cause or plotting everyone’s downfall. The dark action involves a choice of either drawing and playing a dark card, adding a siege engine to the plains around Camelot or suffering the loss of a life point. As time goes on, the choices become more excruciating as evil’s progress threatens to overwhelm the knights. The bad guys win if all the good guys die, or if 12 siege engines surround Camelot or when 13 or more swords have been placed on the Round Table and white swords do not outnumber black swords. The light action involves moving to a quest or playing a card on that quest or playing cards to regain a life point or accusing someone of being the traitor. Completing quests successfully gives a number of advantages to those involved in the quest and wins white swords for the Round Table. The only way of winning is by having 12 or more swords at the Round Table and the majority of them being white.

Our game started with the knights trying to build up their card hands before embarking on the quests but, worryingly a number of players were acting suspiciously and the likelihood of there being a traitor among us appeared high. Lancelot’s Armour was soon lost to us. Mark K embarked on the quest for the Holy Grail and spent much of his game trying to complete that one quest. Just as he seemed to be close to completing it, something happened to pull it away from his grasp. Mark G was Sir Percival and his special ability was being able to look at the next dark card before deciding what dark action to take. Incessantly, he looked at cards and refused to play them, claiming them to be too horrendous to contemplate taking. This meant that the siege engines spread quickly and players preferred to lose life points. Eventually, we concluded that Sir Percival had to be a traitor and he was unmasked. This, however, added impetus to the build up of siege engines and it took three of us to battle against these while we searched for Excalibur. The dastardly Sir Percival nearly triumphed but not quite and the rest of us took great pleasure in bringing home the final white swords to secure the victory for good over evil.

We all enjoyed this a lot and can see it being played many times. It works both for gamers and non-gamers as everyone clubs together to play against the game system. The production quality is superb as we’ve come to expect from Days of Wonder and I’m sure this will be another winner for them. Excellent stuff.