Talisman is a good game, but the UI in this port can be very frustrating, especially in networked mode.
Examples: It freezes with no explanation while other players do trivial things like viewing their cards. It tends to play out the consequences of die rolls and player actions with no indication of what happened, sometimes leaving players who don’t perfectly recall the game rules mystified. It makes examining board tiles needlessly difficult. It implements optional player actions with a countdown timer that is both short and easy to miss, often leaving players either wondering how to perform those actions or feeling cheated once they realize they lost their chance. It treats any temporary network problem as though the affected player has quit, and immediately takes over their character, so they’re left suffering the consequences of the AI’s decisions after they reconnect. It offers no way to go back and correct the problems it causes.
Most of these things can be worked around if you figure out the quirks and learn to predict them, but you shouldn’t have to, IMHO. If you plan to play with friends, bring good humour and a couple extra large bags of tolerance for bad software design.
Might want to re-tag this one as [Forever-free Friday] (I think it’s Friday in the far east by now!) as this looks to have gone free-to-play permanently!
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