Queen by Midnight – Quarter Past

Queen by Midnight – Quarter Past is a standalone expansion to Queen by Midnight, a well received deck building game from Darington Press. Queen by Midnight was a solid game, but piqued my interest when it was released because of the outstanding dice tower clock included in the box. While Quarter Past doesn’t have the same flashy table presence, subtle improvements and a much smaller box makes this attractive to returning players and new plates alike.

We generally always write a components overview and impressions articles before reviewing board games, but when the majority of what is in the box are cards, we lump it all together in the review. I have very little to complain about here in terms of the production quality. The cardboard used within the game is nice and thick, and punched VERY easily from the punch board. The card quality is also fantastic, with great artwork splashed across each and every card. As I said above, the table presence is not as impressive as the clock tower in the original game, but it still looks good none-the-less.

I have a bit of an issue with your player area, specifically the tracks you will be using. They are a bit fiddly because of their rounded nature, and the markings to show various values are not as clear and obvious as I would like. It’s not a game breaker in any way, but something that annoyed our gaming group, and could cause you some frustrations as well.

Queen by Midnight is a deck building game, and so it makes sense that the stand alone expansion would be as well. Each player will take on the role of a princess, attempting to be made queen by, well, midnight! Ideally, players will attempt to reduce their opponent’s health to zero before the game ends, although alternative rules kick in for who wins if more than one person makes it to midnight!

The game plays over a number of rounds, and each round players will be playing and adding cards to their decks, in typical deck building fashion. There are ways to remove cards as well, to help curate the deck and make it more viable in the later game – after all, a deck with too many early, useless cards won’t be much help the further you get into your adventure.

I never played the original game, but heard from many that the rulebook was a bit of a disaster, and that there were some errors on some of the cards. The rulebook is Quarter Past was perfectly fine in my opinion, which means the issues in the base game were a bit overblown, I’m a very tolerant person when it comes to rule books, or the design team made some calculated changes to make it more user friendly – I’m going with this last one. And while that might seem like a knock on the design team, it’s actually the biggest compliment I can give. So often, board game companies are tone deaf to the critical responses they receive from fans – that doesn’t seem to be an issue here.

Four new princesses are added to the Queen by Midnight franchise, each with their own unique powers and abilities. This bolsters the line-up of available playable characters for the base game, and those who have played that to death might enjoy some new options. This version also provides rules and required pieces for two-player duels, something not available in the base game. Not only does it expand the base game in terms of content, it also provides a fantastic two-player element, something that is becoming much more common in the industry.

Basic deck building functions are alive and well here, and if you’ve played a deck builder before, you probably have a good idea what to expect. There are bazaar cards available to everyone that can be purchased and added to your deck for future rounds, but there are also cards you can extract from your vault that are specific to you and provide unique benefits other players might not have access to.

Mixed into this expansion are two new card types – traps, which are specific to princess Kahurere, and event cards which are available to everyone and can change the way the game unfolds. Whenever you release an expansion with new mechanics, there is a concern it would unbalance the base game – as I have not played the base game I’m not sure I have the right to comment, but based on what I’ve heard from friends and media colleagues, it’s done well here. Either way, the deck building element, with the new card types, works well in my opinion.

Another good edition is the inclusion of neutral cards in the central marketplace. While cards in the centre of the table are available for all players to purchase, you can still only purchase cards that match your specific type. That means there are situations where nothing in the central play area can be purchased by you at specific times. Neutral cards are available to all, and should be 1) popular, so grab them while you can; and 2) help make sure all players can continue adding to their hands. Again, it’s the small tweaks from the base game to this expansion that really improve the overall experience.

What you have here is nothing overly unique, but that isn’t a problem. Deck building games have been so fine-tuned over the years that borrowing elements that work well in other games is never a bad thing. Unique player powers make each character feel different to play, and you will utilize different strategies based on which princess you are using.

While deck building games like Dominion seem to dominate the marketplace, I’ve come to enjoy Queen by Midnight so much more – one, it feels a bit fresher to me, after dozens upon dozens of games of Dominion; but it’s also got unique player powers and abilities that keep things interesting from one game to the next. I like getting different experiences each time I get a game to the table, and Queen by Midnight – Quarter Past does that.

Plus, I love the tick-tick of the clock in this one. It puts the game on a timer which not only keeps games from dragging on too long, but also adds an extra layer of strategy to consider!