10 Board Games That Would Make For Great Video Games

Dungeon crawls are ubiquitous in the board gaming scene, so much so that if the game has a fantasy theme chances are good you will be up to your ears in goblins and cave mould in not time at all. Shadows of Brimstone goes for the cave diving bit, but mixes things up by blending a western setting with Lovercraftian Eldritch horror.

The premise itself is nothing new: prevent the evil from escaping the mines and destroying the world. Add in a fairly standard mix of classes, weapons and skills, and the game is a shoe-in for an action-RPG like Torchlight.

But where Shadows sets itself apart is in offering players a jaunt into different planes of existence, turning a crumbling old mine into an Eldritch swamp filled with all manner of unspeakable monstrosities. And fear is important, as the game also implements a sanity system where characters can be permanently affected: become too corrupted for instance, and your gunslinger will find themselves growing some shiny new tentacles.

The game also offers a novel take on the hub world. Normally this is where weapons are bought, sold and a few quests are given. Shadows of Brimstone offers better distractions: your Saloon Girl character can pickpocket bar patrons while her comrades get cross-eyed drunk, are then thrown in jail, and another gets his new appendages removed.

Having a laugh before descending into the depths of madness to shoot Cthulhu in the face is a novel idea and well deserves a video game jaunt.