None Shall Pass! - First Play!

12th March 2023

It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for an evening of gaming.

'None shall pass.'

Don't worry, I was done with the Monty Python quotes years ago!

None Shall Pass is a cooperative, turn based battle game inspired by the 8bit JRPGs of old where the players take on the roles of 'guards' facing evil monsters 

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Caveat: We have only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• Tiles: None Shall Pass! uses numerous tiles, boards and cards to track both players and monsters.
  Monster board: This board is used to track the health or hit points (HP) and attack strength of whichever enemies appear.
  ​Finally, there's a breach track that goes from 5 to 0 and is used to track time - or lack of it specifically!

This monster has 18 health and 7 attack.

• Peril board: This vertical track is numbered 4 to 0. It is used to track how much 'aggro' each character produces and thus who will be attacked by the enemy monster this turn.​​

• Character cards: There are 9 characters (or Guards as they game calls them.) in the game. Each character will have 3 sets of 2 double-sided cards used in the landscape orientation.
  These cards represent the actions and abilities of the relevant character class.
  Each character has 3 stats; health (HP), defence and experience (XP)
  When put out, the cards are sorted by type and and level, then they're placed in a row.
  Each card has 2 panels of which each contains a differing ability or action, thus a player will have a total of 6 actions available to them at any one time from across the row.
  Firstly, the top of each card displays the name of the character class it applies to as well as the values it provides to HP or defence, it also lists the XP cost to level that card up. Finally, the current 'level' of the card's actions is is also displayed.
  Each of the 2 panels below the name will display the function their pertinent ability.
  In the bottom left of each panel is it's 'activation number' and in the bottom right is the action's 'peril number'.

Starting actions for the 'Lancer' class.

• Monster card: There's variety of monsters in None Shall Pass!
  Each monster has a name and a 'level' that ranges from 1 (Starter monster.) to 5 (Boss monster.).
  The top half of a card will show an illustration of the monster in question while the lower half will describe the monster's special action.
  In the bottom left is the monsters HP and in the bottom left will be listed it's 'attack' strength.

• Dice: The game comes with a set of dice in each player colour. There are 3 normal six-siders in each set.
• Tokens: Tokens are used to track enemy monster stats as well as player stats such as HP and XP.

None Shall Pass! draws its inspiration for art from the same source as it draws its inspiration for gameplay - which is turn-based 8bit JRPGs.

I'm sort of conflicted about this art style.
8 bit pixel art has been done to death on a wide range of video and computer games seeking to invoke nostalgia over the last few years and doesn't have much appeal to me anymore. Having said that, it's a fairly uncommon style in board games and gives 'None Shall Pass!' a unique appearance with at least a little charm.

There's very little iconography in None Shall Pass! and what there is of it, is easily recognised: A heart represents HP, a blue shield means defence and a sword means attack power and so on.
All remaining game information is relayed via text.

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How's it play?
Setup

• Players: Have each player choose one of the character classes (Called guards here.) and take their relevant character cards.
  These cards should be put into 3 stacks of 2 cards each and arranged so that the level 1 side is face-up at the top of each stack. The 3 stacks should then be arranged so that the activation numbers run sequentially from 1-6.
  Dice: Each player should take the 3 dice in their colour.
  XP: Each player takes 2XPs worth of XP tokens.
  4 Characters: If there are less than 4 player's, extra characters must be controlled by the players to bring the character count up to 4.
• Monster board: Put out the monster boards.
  Monster cards: Sort all enemy cards by level and shuffle them into face-down stacks. Take 1 card from each stack and create a deck of 5 face-down cards with the level 1 monster on the top, going down to the level 5 boss at the bottom.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
None Shall Pass! is a cooperative game where the players are trying to defeat all 5 monsters in the monster deck.
Each round is broken down into 2 phases.
During the first phase, the players will act in turn order and during the second phase, the enemy monster will counter attack.

• Round start: The following occurs at the start of each round.
  • Reveal monster: At the start of the game reveal the level 1 monster. Additionally, if at the start of any round where there is no monster available (Because the previous one was defeated.), reveal a new monster.
    Monster stats: When a monster is revealed, set the HP and damage tokens  on the monster board to the values as shown on it's card.
    Breach: Set the token on the breach board to '4'.
  • Roll dice: Each player rolls their 3 dice and places each one above the character card with the matching activation number.
  • Defeated character: If a character had taken more damage than their health from the monster in the previous, they are incapacitated. Incapacitated characters are not dead but do not roll dice and instead spend their turn healing.
• Player phase: During this phase, each player performs 1 or possibly 2 actions in turn order.
  • Activate action: The active player can activate an action that corresponds the result of one of their dice.
    Thus if they rolled 1, 2, & 5, they can perform one of the actions on their character cards that respond to those numbers.
    Rolled a 6: If active player has a 6 on one of their dice, they can activate the action for the 6 in addition to the action from another die.
    Triples: If the active player rolled triples, they can activate any 2 actions of their choice or a single action twice!
    Resolve action: Typically, actions will harm the monster in some way by decreasing HP or attack strength, actions will also commonly assist characters. A few actions affect the breach number or gift characters with bonus XP.
    Peril: Once the active player's action(s) have been resolved, they must move the die that used to active the action to the peril board. The die goes on the space indicated by the peril number on the activated skill.
    If a action that was activated has a peril number of '3', the die must go on to space 3 on the peril board.
    Spend XP: Players may spend XP to flip one of their character cards. to the next level at any time, giving them access to improved abilities.
    Each character card can increased to level 4.
    Next player: Once the active player has completed their turn, play progresses to the player on their left.
• Monster phase: Once all players have taken their turns, play then progresses to the monster.
  • Monster action: The monster now activates its action. There are a variety of actions that can occur but usually it involves attacking and damaging characters.
    Target: The monster will always attack the character the furthest up the peril board, if more than 1 character is furthest up, it will target all of them or split damage between them.
    Decrease breach: Move the token on the breach board down a space.
    If the breach token reaches '0', the monster has managed to escape the players. It is removed from the game, a new round begins by revealing a new monster.
    Players do not get XP for monsters that escaped.
    Defeated monster: If the players managed to reduce the monster HP to 0 during the player phase, then the monster phase is skipped entirely. A new round begins by revealing a new monster.
• Next round: Once the monster has had it's action, play progresses to the next round, either by continuing to fight the current monster or revealing a new one.

Endgame
If the players reach the 5th level boss monster and it's breach score is reduced to '0', the player immediately lose.

If however, they manage to reduce the monsters HPs to '0', then the players collectively win!

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Overall
With its pixel art style and turn based combat, None Shall Pass! does a good job of invoking its JRPG theme of having the party stand in a row and attacking enemies! None Shall Pass! also manages to seem a little bit like a 'boss-rush' game.
The game also feels a little different to many cooperative games. There's no firefighting in None Shall Pass!, no need to halt the spread of something malignant here, or need to prevent something from being destroyed.

Mechanically, None Shall Pass! is mostly easy to understand.
The game has a good selection of character classes to choose from, all of whom genuinely feel quite different and offer a variety of actions.
The Death Strider who does more damage, the more hurt they become and the Stargazer with their solar and lunar aspects were stand out classes for me.

During their turn, a player will be presented with a choice of 1 or 2 of up to 3 actions from a total of 6 actions and the dice will to a certain extent dictate player choices.
Broadly speaking players will looking to hinder monsters or buff characters in some way or another with maximum efficiency.

Monsters need to be defeated as quickly as possible and every round a monster isn't defeated, it goes to slipping away and loosing XP for the heroes.
While this might not seem so bad, being underpowered when fighting the boss will make ultimate loss more likely.

Players will also need to be mindful of the peril number of their chosen action. Players will need to coordinate who goes to the top of the peril track and make sure they can deal with the incoming monster attack if possible. While getting incapacitated isn't the end of the world, it will mean the character will miss at least 1 following turn.
In fact, players will need to coordinate all of the time to work effectively and play off each others' strengths, strategies for this can radically change according to the mix of characters.

Players will also need to think about how they spend their XP. The power of abilities will be altered by level ups and even the ability to gain XP can be levelled up! This will effect how battles are approached
None Shall Pass! is quite rightfully harsh in this regard, I never felt like I had enough XP and it was always a difficulty, meaningful decision deciding what to upgrade.

However, while playing None Shall Pass! was fun, there was something a little lacking.
​It's a RPG-like game without the storytelling, adventuring, exploration and finding treasure - things I strongly associate with fantasy RPGS. Some kind of quest or story mode would have been a welcome addition. I just wish were was a little more 'meat on the bones'.
Additionally, despite the variety in classes and randomness the dice bring, I'm not too sure how much replayability the game has.
I think there's about 5 monsters each in every level and while that means there will be a lot of combinations that can appear, once you've seen a monster - you've seen it.

We still play the game occasionally and personally I'm happy to do so on those occasions, avoid overplaying None Shall Pass! in my opinion and it'll be an enjoyable experience.