Flamecraft review

Flamecraft has you play as flamekeepers to the most adorable dragons and help them find a place in this little town by delighting the townspeople with their craft. Gather and manage resources, enchant the shops using artifacts, and earn your reputation to becoming the best Flamekeeper there was!

Our Couple’s Review on Flamecraft

Anjali (9.5/10)

Flamecraft is my current all-time favourite board game that I would suggest to everyone. The mechanics are simple enough to explain once you’ve got the hang of it, and the game is great for strategy lovers and non-lovers alike. The art is super cute, as are the dragons’ names. The box comes with some basic inserts and we got the rollout mat version which we believe is far superior to the flat board version as the mat looks more durable and will likely last longer.

The only reason I stopped suggesting Flamecraft, is so we could play other games. Overall, the mechanics and system are relatively easy to follow, but even if you’re not invested in being on the top, the overall gameplay is really satisfying, watching more shops come up and filling out the board to make a thriving eco-system!

Flamecraft comes with a player action card as well that details what happens on a regular turn vs an enchantment.

Joshua (8.5/10)

It has dragons! Enough said.

Recommended table size

Flamecraft does take up a bit more space than you’d expect and while you can adjust for space, having a relatively large table does work to your benefit. We’d highly suggest a rectangular table that everyone can sit around as the game involves moving your character token, reputation markers and dragon / enchantment cards.

We’ve successfully set-up and played the game on our 90 x 150 cm table with some adjusting and keeping the extra bits and bobs by the side.

Rulebook vs Video Tutorial

The Flamecraft rulebook is pretty big, but covers and clarifies almost any questions that come up. You can follow it step-by-step and start the game pretty easily.

Anjali does admit it can get to be a lot of information when just reading the rules, so it is good to assign a person to start with, so that as you’re reading, everyone can follow along.

How it actually played out

We were pretty unsuccessful Flamekeepers one might say… we saw the dragons, thought they were super cute, and put the whole game away. The first time round our friends invited us over to play Flamecraft, the rules were in French. While Joshua is fluent in French, the usual rule reader (Anjali) is not. It was a real struggle because we didn’t want to look up a video tutorial and spoil the game for us either. So we decided to get the game ourselves, in English this time… because it was so cute!

First-time set-up and playtime

The first time we played Flamecraft was by ourselves (we’re not counting the goof-up), a couple days after getting the game. Set-up took us maybe 15-20 minutes, which is pretty quick for the first time, and we had a pretty good game!

Anjali: Aw, look, its Creme Brulee dragon!
Joshua: Its cooking the sugar! Noice.

Joshua: Okay, I’m gonna use Mulch to help me out and I’m going to give you one meats and gain 2 reputation.
Anjali: I’m surprised you’re not getting more points for that
Joshua: Oh yeah. What do the rules say?
Anjali: Let’s see… that’s correct, but there’s a shop allows you to gift more players though for reputation or coins.
Joshua: Ooooh, that would be pretty good!

Further into the game…

Anjali: Okay, I’m gonna use Lavender to help me out and swap her with Hot Dog to place Anvil from my hand and gain the reward, annnnnd 2 resources. I’ve completed the shop so I’ll place another shop on the board. Then I’m going to fire Loaf to add a dragon to my hand…
Joshua: Sweating How… what… well then, oof.

Possibly the first and last Joshua will fear Anjali in a board game.

Our preferred strategies

Anjali often likes to try and use the purple potion dragons especially while enchanting shops to swap out and cause cascading effects - we’re talking adding new dragons into town, receiving more dragon cards, gaining rewards from shops and almost everything you could think of in a turn. While it doesn’t happen often, Anjali is considered a formidable Flamekeeper, having lost first place once in all the times we’ve played Flamecraft.

Joshua’s strategy has been far more stable in comparison, with him often focusing on making use of extra resources to gain points using the green plant dragons. By making use of this strategy, Joshua often gains a good amount of reputation, causing others round the table to visibly shift their focus on gaining more reputation themselves.

When do you feel like a Flamekeeper?

For veterans, we’d say 1-2 games should be enough before it starts to feel good. As for newcomers to the strategy genre, we’d say 2-3 games should make you feel like a true Flamekeeper.

Flamecraft’s game board populates while you’re playing, giving you lots of visual cues on what you can do, with reminders that serve as your player card per action. We’d highly recommend Famecraft for those willing to give slightly more complex board-games a go!

Publisher and their other games

Flamecraft, published by Cardboard Alchemy started its journey as a Kickstarter campaign that unfortunately Anjali and Joshua missed the chance to pledge for. We’ve seen some of the rewards for the Kickstarter campaign and were disappointed we wouldn’t get a chance to have that… oh well. Regardless, we have our little box of happiness in Flamecraft that Anjali believes we’ve yet to play often enough.

As you can imagine, Cardboard Alchemy has published other games as well, including Critter Kitchen which looks adorable, how could it not be, when it was illustrated by the talented Sandara Tang. Anjali’s got her eye on Critter Kitchen currently - it has food, adorable critters and competition to come out on top as the best restaurant.

They’ve also published Adromeda’s Edge, and Mission Catastrophe.

Flamekeepers assemble!

It does take a little getting used to initially, and we’d recommend it for a relaxed evening in, with hot chocolate and snick-snacks. Soo… all the time!

Flamecraft is an adorable worker placement board game, and if you’d like to know more about worker placement mechanics, we’ve written an article that you can read, right here, where we explain the mechanic, provide suggestions and talk about other games we’ve set our eyes on as well!