Sunderfolk Review: Revolutionizing game night

Sunderfolk, the debut game from Dreamhaven studio Secret Door, is an incredible facilitator of fun. Sure, it has its flaws as a video game. But the mechanics and features it uses are so revolutionary that this could be the moment we all look back on and when game night with friends changed forever.

The concept of Sunderfolk is simple. Dungeons & Dragons meets Jackbox. Rather than sitting around a table with printed-out character sheets, what if everyone sat on the couch around the TV, with a digital character sheet in the palm of their hand? As a long-time game master for tabletop RPGs, when I learned about Sunderfolk, I was skeptical. Plenty of games have tried to capture the magic of games like Dungeons & Dragons to varying success. But nothing had come close to striking that perfect balance of in-depth RPG mechanics with cooperative storytelling among a group of friends, while still keeping it approachable and allowing for moments of serious, engaging tactics, and slapstick comedy within the same few minutes.

The review period for Sunderfolk was only a few weeks, and while scheduling a group of players was still a classic challenge, once people experienced it, they were hooked. Over those few weeks, I started three different campaigns: one with players experienced in TTRPGs and tactical video games, and another with relative newbies. No matter what, whenever we got together to play, the session lasted an hour longer than intended. Playing games with your friends is fun, and Sunderfolk brilliantly enhances that experience.

How Does It Work?

Typically, this isn’t a question I feel the need to answer. But Sunderfolk is different from most video games I’ve played, and in many ways, that’s great for accessibility. As a player, you don’t need a controller, just your phone. You don’t have to learn that you need to press Shift to sprint or what button R3 is on a controller. The Sunderfolk phone app is free. Simply scan the QR code to a game. Once the campaign starts, the tutorial will walk you through every step, showing you where to tap and what to do. The controls are highly intuitive, and once you get a sense of the tactics and combat abilities, it’s easy to get moving.

There are six characters to choose from, but only four are allowed in a campaign. If you have four players, everyone can pick one. If you have three, that’s fine too. One person can optionally control two characters, but that’s not necessary. If you only have two players, each of them can pick two. So don’t feel like you need to get a big group together. If you’re flying solo, you can control all four characters.

There are two main modes for Sunderfolk: combat and downtime. Combat is where the tactical grid is laid out. Players and enemies occupy spaces, move around, use skills and attacks, and work towards goals. The screen will show the entire map, zooming in and zooming out to accommodate what is essential. On each player’s phone is an array of tactical moves unique to their character. There are no designated turns. Instead, each player can choose to take their turn in any order. This adds extra layers of tactics that allow players to consider how to utilize each turn best, but it can also cause chaos if players are less than cooperative and serving their own goals. Sometimes that treasure chest in the corner is tempting.

When a player decides which move they want to use, they swipe up on the card. This sends it up to the full screen so everyone can see it. The player drags their finger across their phone, and in real time, their cursor moves on the screen. This was incredibly smooth, even when playing remotely. Choose how to move and who to attack, depending on the chosen skill, and end your turn. All the information you need to control your character is right there in front of you. It’s not cluttering or hijacking the screen from anyone else.

Downtime happens between each combat encounter, when the heroes return to the village. Here you can visit shops, build affinity with NPCs, and plenty more. During this time between battles, the screen will show a wide shot of the entire village. Icons will show which building each player is in, but the details will appear on each individual’s phone. If I decide to visit the market, my phone will show me an array of purchasable items. But my friend might be visiting the tavern at the same time, and our choices don’t get in the way of each other.

This downtime between adventuring and combat has always been difficult to manage in an actual tabletop game. As the game master is just one person, they can’t manage four players all wanting to spend time at different shops and interacting with various NPCs. Sunderfolk streamlines this so well that my friends and I easily lose track of how much time we spend in the village, each lost in our own worlds and conversations. Something that I’ve not only never seen happen in a game of Dungeons & Dragons, but something that would be impossible without the help of Sunderfolk.

Sunderfolk vs Tabletop

Sunderfolk does a lot of things right, but I would not go so far to say that it is a replacement for TTRPGs. There is no character customization outside of swapping out various skills and items, and there is only one campaign to play. Give me an hour, and I could come up with a dozen characters and several compelling TTRPG campaigns my friends and I can play through. But what Sunderfolk does do is present a compelling visual experience, and take the role of facilitator off the shoulders of one of the players. It’s easy to jump into, quick to learn, and has much of the same cooperative charm as any TTRPG.

As far as I know, I haven’t heard of any plans for Sunderfolk to introduce new campaigns or new characters or anything like that. Though if this game does turn out to be a success, it’s not hard to imagine new stories and characters within the world of Sunderfolk. I would also love to see this developer, or anyone for that matter, take the same mechanics and apply them to other worlds and stories, too. This really could be the start of a whole new genre of games.

The story in Sunderfolk is bare bones. But this helps keep it flexible, and means that a group of friends can be caught up talking or laughing and not feel like they missed anything important. The campaign ends up focused on defending the village’s Brightstone, while the enemy ogres use Shadowstone. So that’s about the level of nuance to expect from this story.

But that does not stop the world from being filled with a wide cast of colorful animal characters. During each downtime, players can only have so many conversations with the NPCs populating the village. There are so many people worth talking to that this actually becomes an exciting part of the experience. This adds much-needed variety to each individual’s experience and gives an easy opportunity for roleplaying.

One last thing I’ll mention on this topic is the random ability to rename things. On some missions and in the village, a random player will be given the opportunity to change the name of something. For example, when asked about an NPC’s business plan, my friend decided to name it Wu Tang Financial. Another friend named a rabbit NPC Judy Hopps after the Zootopia character. While this is definitely great for jokes, it’s also an excellent way for the players to feel they have an impact on the world. This campaign, at least on some level, is unique to this group.

The Tactics of It All

I could probably go on about this game for hours. The finer details are many, and they all add up to make the game more charming. But I would be remiss if I didn’t at least take some time to write more in-depth about the actual turn-based tactical battles. Throughout the campaign, you’ll be presented with story missions broken up with a choice of a few side missions. These battles take place on hexagonal tiles in generally close quarters. You won’t come across too many vast, sprawling maps here. Most of your skills will let you move four spaces. You can use one of those moves to interact with an object, such as open a chest, touch a healing shrine, or push an enemy one space backwards.

A few of the characters, like the Bard and the Arcanist, have great ing abilities, such as providing buffs for the team or teleporting players around. The Ranger and the Berserker are great at dealing decent damage and either tanking hits or setting their teammates up for more powerful strikes. Then there is the Rogue and the Pyromancer, who both seem to deal the most damage. The Rogue deals best with single targets, while the Pyromancer can strike multiple enemies at once for high damage. They all excel at various abilities, but there is also enough overlap that no one feels left out, and any combination of heroes can provide the important roles. I was able to at least try out every character, and they are each fun in their own ways. They made it hard to go wrong in the character select screen.

The actual encounters all provide fun and engaging challenges. It could have easily just been various missions with various enemies, with the goal being “kill everyone.” But that goal is actually a rarity. One of my favorite missions was a sort of tower defense where we had to protect the village gates from an attack and utilize several stationary bug allies who could deal damage. Another great mission was a sudden ambush in the tavern. We had to make sure all the villagers made it to the exit safely, but some of them had extra goals, such as be the last one to leave or grab their valuables before they leave. These more complex missions kept every combat fresh, and since we couldn’t play every side mission, that meant there was more to experience on a second playthrough.

Final Thoughts

I had to postpone plans to play more of this game so that I could work on this review. My friends and I have been talking about it practically nonstop for the last week. For anyone, Sunderfolk will make for a great game night, but for the right group, it can become a new obsession.

One of the best parts of Sunderfolk is that only one of the four players needs to own the game. I was glad to get the chance to try playing both locally and remotely, which both worked flawlessly. For one session, I even had two players locally and one remotely, and it still worked great. As long as someone can see the screen the whole time, and has their phone, they can play Sunderfolk.

There were a few other things I really enjoyed. Whenever a character attacks, they draw a fate card from a deck of ten. These are balanced between effects like +1 damage, -1 damage, or special effects like inflicting status conditions or providing buffs. These cards provide just the right amount of randomness, much like rolling dice in a TTRPG. I couldn’t help but notice that many of the early game enemies have seven health, and most of the players' attacks deal a base damage of three. So pulling a +1 fate card often does make a difference between taking out an enemy in two hits or leaving them standing, which adds to the tension of every attack. Pulling a +1 at a key moment can sometimes have the same effect as rolling a natural twenty.

Also, as if to prove how dedicated this team was to replicating a TTRPG game night, it sounds like the game’s narrator does the voices for all the other NPCs. It’s not something they needed to do, some might even prefer they didn’t, but it’s a charming touch that makes the whole experience feel more like a group of friends getting together to play. Sunderfolk has quickly become one of my favorite games of the year. I sincerely look forward to what else the team has planned for the future.