90 Second Nerd Board Game Review: Court of the Dead - Dark Harvest.

By your powers combined, we are 90 Second Nerd Hey, I'm Dallas with 90 Second Nerd. Today I'm taking a look at Court of the Dead: Dark Harvest Skybound Tabletop.
My 90 seconds start now. Court of the Dead: Dark Harvest is a bidding game for three to six players that takes about thirty minutes to play.

In it, players will use their power and their influence to attempt to save souls from destruction in the celestial war. In the end, the player who can shepherd the most souls safely through the Stygian depths will be the winner. The concepts of the game are simple, in fact there's really just three steps.

There's an income phase and two different bidding phases. In the court phase, players bid influence by secretly selecting which faction they want to attempt to influence. Winning a court card will grant you an immediate effect and give you that factions ability temporarily.

The harvest phase is a different kind of bidding and you must secretly select how many of your souls you're willing to add to the group's collective that must be paid in the celestial war. Having to spend your personal resources towards the group's greater good and and perhaps at the risk of you being able to win the game is a really interesting dilemma and I like that part a lot.

Now having a high stack of souls gives you a little bit of control of the pot just like in poker, however this game balances that pretty easily through the powers of the court. The art and components in this game are phenomenal. Now any game that's about harvesting souls is obviously going to be a little bit take-that and this game is actually a lot of it take that, but it doesn't feel spiteful.

It's actually done to make the whole balance of the game work. Well, my 90 seconds are up. If you're already into this dark fantasy world that Sideshow Collectibles has created you're probably going to pick this game up anyway. But if you like bidding games and bluffing games you're gonna want to check this one out because it's a really unique entry into the genre.