I ran a couple of testing games at the Birmingham tabletop soc yesterday.
Game 1
Artefact: The Extradimensional Mirror (essentially, alt-versions of the players race them to get 12 curiosities)
Players: The Spirit of Aethelflaed, Mr Pickles, Phlogisten Pickles, Mrs Mollish
Results: In the event, a comfortable win for the players, though only with a bit of luck on the way. The players had a well tooled up team for getting bonus curiosities (Phlogisten can exchange items for curiosities, Mr Pickles can duplicate them, Aethelflaed cannot use items and gains curiosities instead if she would gain any), which was a good start for this artefact. Team Mirror, on the other hand, had a very effective start, with Aethelflaed's two perfect stats meaning alt-Aethelflaed got them rapidly up to six curiosities when we still only had one or two. However, two fortunate things occurred; the alt-team are obliged to attempt all three of the top quests on the deck, and one required discarding three curiosities, thus radically reducing their lead whilst giving them a bunch of items (which they can't use). At this point, the game stalled; both teams were confounded by the fact that we were Out Of Milk, a quest that prevents any other quests being attempted until it is solved. All the players AND the mirror team failed to complete it running; fortunately on the second round of milk-hunting Mrs Mollish (played by myself) successfully obtained milk; the reward, a curiosity each, gave us a very significant leg up and put us close to winning. A bit of trickery from the wizards and a couple more quest completion sealed the victory.
We started game 2 with the Barometer of Aeolus, lost in 1 turn, and concluded that the Barometer may need work.
Game 2
Artefact: The Swirling Maze (Time Limited, get 8 curiosities then complete a "bonus quest" that increases in difficulty)
Players: The Adorable Eldritch Horror, The Attic Spiders' Autonomous Collective, Johnwise Cribbins The Even Shorter, The Meepasaur
Results: A very slow start for the players; many of the early quests required combinations of stats that were difficult, especially as the noisy baby next door quest was in the initial pile, which made dreams-related quests nigh impossible. The neighbours caused significant problems, with the "noisy baby next door" driving Johnwise to enquire about the possibility of baby-eating (the character gets bonuses on food related quests), and after it was solved by Johnwise the "noisy cat next door" showing up soon thereafter. Once the Adorable Eldritch Horror had calmed the cat down, things started to look up a little; but by this stage we were five turns through the game and hadn't even gained the curiosities we needed. Johnwise successfully inviting a deity to tea certainly helped matters, and finally we had the necessary curiosities - but time was running out. Fortunately, the Attic Spiders were ready to help out with ensuring someone had a good chance of succeeding, making a series of item swaps. Johnwise soon had a soul and a bottle of port; as turn eight drew to a close (now needing four rolls running of each stat to win, Johnwise took a deep swig of the port, and our last plan went into action. Firstly, discarding three precious curiosities (though still just holding eight between us, the Meepasaur had got us to eleven in total), Johnwise investigated symbiosis - during these investigation, he found the friendly, snuffly face of Harold the Buntopus, whose friendliness and strength neatly complimented Johnwise's port-addled, dream-infused state. Together, buntopus and halfling entered the maze; dice roll by dice roll, they passed through each twist and turn, finally completing it. Success!
Player feedback:
"That's adorable" - player, referring to the Meepasaur
"So we're adorable, adorable, adorable, nopenopenope?" - referring to the Meepasaur, Eldritch Horror, Johnwise, and the Spiders, in that order.
"This is even more fun than Chrononauts" - I was particularly chuffed at this feedback; we had played Chrononauts just before game 1, in a game that mostly consisted of people repeatedly murdering JFK and was eventually won by me via a total fluke involving John Lennon abolishing the Second Amendment.
