 Image from BGG page. It's been a while since I have done one of these, and at the moment, Kickstarter is jam packed with potentially interesting solo games to back. Let's have a look at some! 1. Yedo Deluxe Master Set Yedo originally came out in 2012, but is now receiving the deluxe treatment with new art, updated rules, and fresh content to enjoy. It's a worker placement game set in 16th century Japan, and has several interesting elements. Each round, players will bid for various in-game benefits, then send their disciples into town while helping them to escape city watchmen. Different types of missions will push you to tweak your gameplay, and there are modules in the Deluxe Master Set to help you customize your games by adding in missions with particular goal types. The length of the game can also vary, and players are able to choose a fixed number of turns before the game begins. Overall, Yedo looks like a strategically interesting game to play. It's also going to be difficult to get ahold of outside of the Kickstarter campaign, so if it sounds like your sort of thing, take a look before September 20.  Image from BGG page. 2. Squire for Hire Squire for Hire is a microgame by independent designer Jon Merchant. In only 18 cards, it manages to be a tile laying game, but also a game about managing a knight's inventory. Your job is to get as much good loot into your bag as possible, while also sifting out as much junk as you can. The theme is quirky, the art is cute (you play as an adorable animal squire), and at $10 plus shipping, the price is right if you are interested in small, portable, soloable board games. You can also try out an earlier version of the game as a free PnP to see if it's for you. If you're interested, check out the campaign before it ends on September 30.  Image taken from KS. 3. Aeon Trespass: Odyssey
Aeon Trespass is a self-described "epic" game that is fully cooperative and that combines several elements taken from different video and board games. The game offers a long campaign, fancy miniatures, and a written narrative to go along with gameplay. I'm definitely curious—I love story-driven campaigns—but the core pledge is $129, and while the game promises a lot of story, I'm not seeing any really good story teasers. That said, if you are just on the market for another campaign game with miniatures, then Aeon Trespass may be worth a look.
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 Full Disclosure: Wehrlegig provided me with a review copy of Pax Pamir. What is this game about? Pax Pamir is a game about The Great Game. Britain and Russia spent a hefty chunk of the 1800s vying for political influence in Afghanistan. In Pax Pamir, you represent a powerful family in Afghanistan that is trying to make the best of a tough situation and whose loyalties may lie with Britain, Russia, or Afghanistan itself—or even all three at different points throughout the game. Pax Pamir is not an easy game, but its victory condition is very straightforward. All you have to do is win the most points, either by the end of the game, or sooner if you can open up a commanding lead of 4+ points. Points are only earned in two ways. The first is to be allied with the winning faction (Britain, Russia, or Afghanistan) in a dominance check. If multiple players have thrown their lots in with a dominant faction, then they dole out points according to how much influence each of them has with their empire of choice. The second way is to have the most personal power in the country. If there is a failed dominance check—i.e. no faction is dominant—then points are given out based on which player has the most influence on the map, as represented by tribes, spies, and gifts given to imperial patrons. Within those simple victory terms, however, there is a lot going on in a game of Pax Pamir. You only get two actions per turn, but deciding how to spend them is not easy. All of your actions are based on the cards that you purchase and place throughout the game. But which cards will you play? Which will you keep in your hand? Each card does something different, whether it is let you place roads and armies on the map for your chosen empire, collect taxes (money is tight in this game), place spies, use your spies to murder other people's cards, put your own tribal units out on the map, or move pieces that you've already placed. The result is an intense experience that is different every single time you play.  The production values for this game are off the charts. How does it play solo?
Pax Pamir is a highly interactive game, but Ricky Royal has provided us with Wakhan—an aggressive AI opponent who will give you a serious run for your money. Wakhan represents not a rival family, but a political/religious movement that is spreading through Afghanistan independently of government powers—and that has "pragmatic loyalty" to all three empires in the region. Wakhan is controlled by a small but highly efficient deck of cards that will list possible actions for Wakhan, which the player will take for her according to Wakhan's abilities at the moment (she does have to pay for things) and according to her priorities, which are clearly spelled out. Although getting used to Wakhan can take a couple of plays, once you know how to play her turns, she is an efficient AI opponent to manage and a challenging one to defeat. Wakhan can also be added as a third player in two player games, if that is your sort of thing! Overall Thoughts Wakhan is a worthy and highly enjoyable opponent to spar with. It is no mean feat to take her down, and I love a relatively streamlined AI opponent who is also tough to beat. To play well against Wakhan, you will absolutely have to leverage everything you know about how to play the game, and you'll find that you are really pushing yourself to wring the most benefit out of every single action you take. That is everything I want in a solo mode. My only quibble with Wakhan is that while usually she is almost unnaturally good at making the most annoying move possible, there are moments where she behaves erratically and not entirely in her best interests. I should also say that Pax Pamir is a tremendous game both in and out of solo mode. The production values are absolutely stunning, to the point where Pax Pamir's aesthetic value actually gives a boost to your gameplay. But most importantly, the game is easy to learn, but very difficult to master. There is so much subtlety to the choices you make, and so much strategic depth, that I can see myself coming back to this one again and again in my attempts to truly get good at it. (And despite many plays, I don't feel like I am a "good" player.) In my opinion, Pax Pamir represents a notable achievement in gaming, in that it is highly replayable not just because of the variety of its cards, but because there are so many possible ways for a game to unfold. There just aren't many games out there that make me want to practice and improve my play. But Pax Pamir is one of them, and it's fabulous. Do I recommend it? Yes. Heck yes. Just know that you're getting into a surprisingly heavy experience, and plan for your first game to truly be a learning game. Overall Rating: 4.5 stars Rating Scale: 5 stars — I love it! 4 stars — I really like it. 3 stars — I like it. 2 stars — It's okay. 1 star — Meh.  What is this game about? Donning the Purple is set in the Roman Empire after the assassination of the emperor Commodus, at a time when the Empire was in turmoil. In a three-player game (the primary intended player count for Donning the Purple), players end up playing each of three roles at various points during play—senator, heir to the throne, and Emperor. The multiplayer game is semi-cooperative, as players are forced to deal with the challenges of maintaining an empire, and especially of keeping those pesky barbarians at bay. Meanwhile, the Roman people must be fed, buildings in the provinces must be constructed and protected, and plots must be carried out against your enemies. At the end, the player who has the most victory points will be the winner. Each turn, players will handle several bookkeeping tasks, including determining where enemies will spawn, collecting grain from the provinces, and managing event cards—all of which are negative. Players will also have to keep track of their stamina tokens, because when you run out, you die. (Don't worry, your role is just taken over by another member of your family—unless you're the emperor, in which case players will vie for the throne.) How does it play solo? In the solo game of Donning the Purple, one player takes on the role of Emperor and attempts to remain in charge of the Empire for the duration of the game. The senate will automatically score points against you and attempt to assassinate you every turn, while you deal with enemy invasions, natural disasters, and financial woes. You only win the game if you survive the entire time, plus end up with the most victory points. Don't worry though—as long as you have an heir in place, dying isn't so bad. Your family retains power in the Empire, and you get a fresh start at the cost of a single victory point. If you haven't secured an heir, however, it's game over, so watch out for that family line!  Don't bother to expect good news during the game's turn. Overall Thoughts
Donning the Purple is a mixed bag, and it isn't at its best in the solo mode. There are definitely a lot of things to like about it—the game is beautiful, and the actions you're able to take are interesting, especially when there is so much you could do but so little time to do it in. You have to decide what your priorities are, and there are a lot of potential options when you can fight enemies, build monuments, construct aqueducts to stave off famine, bribe senators, and make assassination attempts. Each action feels meaningful and is fun to perform, which makes those in-game choices enjoyable. I also very much like the combat system, in which victory is strictly determined by who has the bigger army. Combat also offers a chance to roll "glory dice," which is a crucial way to make money, especially in the early game. Plus, when you get the right Plot cards, which let you take special actions in the game, they can be very fun to play. That said, while I enjoyed the time I spent taking actions in the game, I never felt like I had enough of them. And not in the "oh, too many choices!" kind of way. I felt like I didn't have enough actions because I spent a ton of time running various steps for the game, and nowhere near enough doing interesting things myself. Every turn, you draw five event cards, which can be devastating, but that also means that the game is taking far more actions than you are. It's a little tedious to spend most of my time each turn doing bookkeeping and giving myself a hard time, then finish my own actions in a snap. On top of that, while the solo mode definitely gives you the feeling of putting out fires throughout the Roman Empire (though I have many historical quibbles), it does not give you the delicious sensation of backstabbing and trying to avoid being backstabbed that is the heart of the multiplayer game. This is perhaps to be expected, but I also believe that the lack of knives in the dark makes the game less interesting, and therefore its bookkeeping more tedious. I think that solo mode loses some of the spirit of Donning the Purple, and while it can definitely be challenging, it's not entirely satisfying. Do I recommend it? As annoying as it is to say this... maybe. I personally will not be keeping my copy of Donning the Purple, but I did enjoy several aspects of the game. I can see some people looking past the upkeep imbalance and loving it. Definitely try it before you buy it, or at least watch several playthroughs. Overall Rating: 3 stars 5 stars —I love it! 4 stars — I really like it. 3 stars — I like it. 2 stars — It's okay. 1 star — Meh.  Full Disclosure: A demo copy of Orchard was provided to me by Sideroom Games, then sent on to another previewer. What is Orchard about? Orchard is a small box puzzle game designed by Mark Tuck. With only nine cards and some colorful dice, players will work to build the most bountiful orchard. Each turn, you will choose where to lay down a new card in the orchard, with the goal of overlapping several fruit trees of the same type. The more trees you overlap, the better your harvest. But be careful: You can't just go piling up trees of different types. In fact, you can only do this twice, using one of the two "rotten fruit" cubes—and it will lose you three points each time you do. Orchard is a lightning fast game that is finished in under ten minutes. It's designed for solo play, and seems like it would be best that way. Technically, it's possible to play multiplayer if you have multiple sets. Things I like about Orchard Orchard is exactly the sort of game I like to have on the go. It's easy to set up, plays super quickly, and is a snap to reset and play again. The rules are very simple, but you'll get a lot of play out of it, and you have just enough interesting choices to make you want to play a few times in a row every time you pull it out. This is exactly the sort of light, charming solo game I'm looking for when I'm on the go and don't want to burn my brain out on something like Sprawlopolis. Possible Concerns about Orchard I have only one complaint about Orchard: It's a little difficult to deal with the dice. When you are tracking your score, you put dice on top of overlapped trees and change their values. This means that if you make a big play with multiple overlapping trees, you have to remove multiple dice, then put them back. The game is so small—only nine cards are involved—that it's possible to work around this. But it is definitely a possible annoyance. Should I back it? I'm personally very charmed by Orchard and want a copy of my own. It's worth looking into if you want a super quick solo puzzle that is easy to transport. Playthrough:  What is this game about? A4 Quest is a PnP, and now print, game that lives up to its name—it's a quick, dice-driven dungeon crawl that can be printed on a couple of A4 sheets of paper. As with most dungeon crawls, you will get to choose a character with their own specialized stats, and the options are what you'd expect from a game with a fantasy/medieval theme: a knight, an archer, a paladin, and a mage. You can also get fun companions with special abilities, such as a dog or a hawk. (Or... you know... a chicken.) While each adventure in A4 Quest is printed on its own sheet and has its own little rule tweaks, the essence of the game remains the same from play to play. Each quest will have several panels that you progress through in a fixed order, from left to right. (If you PnP the game, you can also cut up the panels and deal them in a random order.) You will then choose a character, put down markers for your starting stats, and roll a pool of four dice. These dice will allow you to take one action in each room/panel, such as hunting or gathering treasure. Sometimes you'll have to choose between multiple actions, but whatever you do, your actions will succeed or fail depending on the value of the die you choose to complete it. You'll also need dice to pay movement costs at certain points in the game, as well as to fight against monsters (you can't avoid conflict, so save those high-value dice when a fight is coming up!). To refresh your dice pool, you'll need to take rest actions, which cost you food. This means you'll also need to keep an eye on your resources. Throughout the game you can gain experience that will allow you to level up and improve your attack or defense stats, so you get stronger as you progress down the page. While sometimes your luck is against you and you don't make it all the way through an adventure, other times you can finish the game with a much-improved character, and some treasure to boot! How does it play solo? The box says 1–2 players, but A4 Quest is definitely a solo game—just pick a character, grab an adventure page, and go to town.  There is no disputing that the companion beagle is adorable. (Image from the PnP files on BGG) Overall Thoughts
There are a lot of good things to appreciate about A4 Quest. It's quick, easy to set up, easy to learn, and visually appealing. If you don't want to get the print version, it's a PnP, so if you're looking for a free game to while away an afternoon, then you will probably have a good time. A lot of work went into the arst for this game, even in its PnP form, and it's clear that it's been produced with a lot of love. Also, while A4 Quest is a dice game, there is some degree of choice involved. While you can't control the die values you will roll, you do get to decide how best to deploy your dice as you go, and some decisions are better than others. I enjoyed playing A4 Quest. That said, I don't think that A4 Quest is great. It's fine, but ultimately forgettable. The decisions you make in the game aren't particularly challenging ones, especially once you know what you're doing. If you're good at counting ahead, then it doesn't hold its mystery for long. On top of that, too many bad rolls can totally tank you, with little opportunity to mitigate. That said, I'd be interested to see how this game would feel if it had a campaign, or higher stakes than just making it to the bottom of a page. There is no story to speak of in A4 Quest, so you don't get particularly attached to any of the characters or scenarios. Would it be a more intense game when played with a character I cared about? Do I recommend it? Maybe. A4 Quest isn't one of the greats, but it's pleasant—and if you PnP it, then it's free. If you're looking into PnP games and you want one that you can truly just print and play (no cutting involved), then you might enjoy trying this one. Overall Rating: 3 stars Rating Scale: 5 stars — I love it! 4 stars — I really like it. 3 stars — I like it. 2 stars — It's okay. 1 star — Meh.  Cover image from BGG. What is this game about? After the Virus, designed by Jacob Fryxelius and published by FryxGames, is a cooperative deck building game about surviving wave after wave of zombies. There are several different missions to complete within the game, starting with some easier ones (haha) and ending with brutally difficult challenges. You can either play each mission as a one-off or enjoy them in order as an overarching storyline. Although the game comes with four characters, only up to three players can play at a time. In most deck builders, you look to cull your deck and repeatedly draw the most powerful cards. In After the Virus, however, you want your deck to be as big as possible. This is because every element of the game is contained in that deck—including the zombies who attack you in increasingly large numbers. Each time you have to reshuffle your deck, you have to shuffle a new and larger horde of zombies into it. In fact, if you don't shuffle well and draw a whole bunch of zombies at once, you can lose the game immediately. While you can afford to take two zombie wounds and still survive, if you take a third, it's game over for you. Even though you want your discard pile to stay full of exciting zombie-killing equipment (or at least some survivor cards), you'll also want to thin your deck and put cards in your tableau, then pay even more cards to prepare them. The weapons, equipment, and other goodies that you set aside this way are necessary to help you deal with the challenges ahead. Whatever you do, you'll need to prevent too many zombies from clogging up each individual hand, then spewing into your tableau and overwhelming whatever defenses you've managed to put up. How does it play solo? After the Virus is a game for one to three players, and it plays very well solo. In fact, I have only ever played it single-handed and have had no problems whatsoever. When cooperating with others, the main difference is that you end up taking on more zombies, because players can help each other with zombie problems and will have to keep an eye on threats to each other as well as to themselves.  There are a lot of zombies in After the Virus, and they are ugly! Overall Thoughts
I did not expect to enjoy After the Virus as much as I do. Frankly, I hate the art style—those bobble heads are not doing it for me. But I'm glad I didn't judge this game by its cover. After the Virus is endlessly tense, riveting, and a good bit of fun. The fact that you can use cards in multiple ways—as themselves, as currency to acquire or prepare other cards, as discards that allow you to scout for even more cards—leads to some very interesting decisions, every single hand. It also means that no card ever truly goes to waste, because if you don't want a card for its action and don't have enough cards to pay for something, you can still scout. I love deck builders that never have wasted cards because there is always something you can do. The intensity of the waves of zombies flooding your deck is also something I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to. It is true that you can sometimes get an absolutely terrible draw, even to the point where you can instantly lose the game on an early turn through no "fault" of your own. While this can feel unfair, the game is so fun and snappy that it really doesn't bother me, and actually just adds to the tension of it all as I draw up each round. Even if you get good draws, After the Virus is a brutally difficult game, especially in later missions, and you should expect to lose. Brutally. Repeatedly. After the Virus is also a surprisingly small game, but trust me, there is a lot of game in there. You can get a copy for less than $20 on Amazon, and the box is maybe 8 x 8 inches—small enough to slide into a backpack or messenger bag. Setup is incredibly quick, and you can be playing in moments. And the game plays quickly—especially if you lose. Again. While After the Virus' small footprint is mostly a blessing, however, it is also a bit of a curse. Expect to see the same cards over and over again, because each player has the same deck to work with (although each character has different starting cards) and that deck isn't overly large. Do I recommend it? Yes! If you like zombies, deck builders, and games that are fast-playing and intense, then After the Virus is a great choice. At its price point, you will definitely get your money's worth out of it. Overall Rating: 4 stars 5 stars — I love it! 4 stars — I really like it. 3 stars — I like it. 2 stars — It's okay. 1 star — Meh. Enjoy this review? Want to support my site? Buy me a coffee here!  What is this game about? Renegade, designed by Richard Wilkins and published by Victory Point Games, is a cooperative, deck-building area control game in which you (and other players, if you want them) are hackers who are fighting against an evil, matrix-like computer that controls humankind. Your main objective is to survive until the end of the game—the AI will consistently throw "countermeasures" at you that erase the work you're doing and flood the network with hostile Sparks and Guardians. You must manage these threats: If at any time you need to put another Spark or Guardian on the board, but find that the supply is empty, you'll lose the game. At the same time, you'll be improving your own deck (new cards go directly into your hand!) while using your cards to destroy enemy countermeasures, move, turn the AI's Sparks into your own allied pieces, and even create "uplinks" that let you influence activities all across the board, regardless of your avatar's location within the network. A game of Renegade takes place in three-turn rounds. During each round, you'll work through your entire 15-card deck (your deck is always 15 cards—you get rid of an old card every time you purchase an upgrade), and you will pursue increasingly difficult goals each round. The objectives are divided into three categories: Copper (easier), Silver (medium), and Gold (difficult). The number of challenges you'll face at each difficulty level is determined by which AI boss you intend to fight. Renegade comes with several of them, from the relatively tame Alpha-Moby to the brutal and decidedly-not-nurturing "Mother." While technically you do not have to succeed at all or even any of your objectives—you only have to still be standing at the end—you are punished with in-game consequences for failing them. You'll also get fewer points when you calculate your score to see how well you did. You may "win" the game by surviving to the end, but you triumph by getting a high score. How does it play solo? Renegade feels more like a solo game that was expanded to accommodate more players than a multiplayer game with a solo mode. This is not at all surprising. Its designer, Richard Wilkins, is better known as Ricky Royal, a mainstay of the solo gaming community! Renegade is a cooperative game, but it scales down well—your objectives change depending on how many players are in the game, and you get bonuses to compensate for a lack of allies to help you cover the entire network. It feels completely natural to play either true solo or two-handed, and I enjoy it both ways.  Set up for a battle against Alpha-Moby! Overall Thoughts
Renegade is a fantastic game. I have played it a lot, I want to keep playing it, and I can't wait to see the expansions in store for it. If you enjoy puzzly games with multiple solutions to a given problem, then Renegade is a great match for you. I love figuring out the smartest ways to upgrade and deploy my cards, and it's so satisfying to pull off good combos. You are subject to the whims of fortune in some ways—you might not always draw the cards you need, or you might get objectives that are difficult in combination with each other, or you could have a bad die roll that results in a badly-placed Spark or the destruction of one of your viruses. But Renegade is overall one of those games where skill really pays off, and where intimate knowledge of what the game can do truly feels rewarding. The deck-building aspect of Renegade is immediate and exciting. Each turn, you can purchase cards from a market row that go directly into your hand, while culling the weaker cards you used to pay for them. I personally love getting to use my newer, better cards right away, and I like that choosing which ones to buy and how to deploy them can have an immediate effect on the game. I'd actually like to see more options in upcoming expansions to the game—there are only 36 advanced cards in the base game, and I am hungry for more variety! (In fairness, there are a couple of expansion packs available already.) I also love the various ways that in-game actions combine with each other. Some of your contaminants, like viruses, have more obvious in-game uses. But figuring out how to use uplinks—contaminants that allow you to push game pieces around from the other side of the board, or in some cases to project yourself to another location and act as if you were actually there—really takes Renegade to the next level for me. That said, Renegade has its flaws. While I haven't played it at higher player counts, I think it might be best for one or two players. There is a lot going on, and I personally love to agonize over my game turns. The box says 90 minutes, and I'd say it takes me 60–90 minutes to play a full game by myself, depending on the difficulty level. Most importantly, however, Renegade hurts itself a little by having a high cost of entry. The rulebook is not an easy read, and it is made more difficult by the inclusion of a lot of thematic jargon that is difficult to keep track of, especially when you are new to the game. Once you've gotten the hang of things, Renegade flows well and is tremendously absorbing. But I still refer to "Faith" as the "Purple Server" and to the "Infect" action as "Attack." Do I recommend it? YES. I absolutely recommend Renegade. If you like intense, brain-burning games that present you with interesting decisions, but don't take an eternity to set up and play solo, you will love this one. Overall Rating: 4.5 stars 5 stars — I love it! 4 stars — I really like it. 3 stars — I like it. 2 stars — It's okay. 1 star — Meh. Enjoy this review? Want to support my site? Buy me a coffee here!  Cover image from BGG What is this game about? Agricola, Master of Britain, designed by Tom Russell and published by Hollandspiele, is a game in which you control the Roman legions under Agricola as they attempt to subdue ancient Britain and bring about Romanization and stability. Agricola was an interesting guy living in interesting times—the Emperor Domitian was incompetent but obsessed with staging military victories, and was notably jealous of men like Agricola who had actual capabilities in the field. We also have a notably biased but still interesting biography of Agricola, written by his son-in-law, the Roman historian Tacitus. (Tacitus is a damned good read, especially if you enjoy learning about those wicked, wicked Roman emperors!) Anyway, in Agricola, Master of Britain, you begin in a really tough situation—you are surrounded by hostile tribes, and your armies really could be better and more experienced. The game lasts for eight turns, and can end in your defeat for a number of reasons. If you fail to meet each turn's VP threshold, you lose. Empty treasury? Lose. Lose a battle? Definitely lose. Rome must always win battles! If you fail to deal with the leader Calgacus at the battle of Mons Graupius, and he's still on the board at the end of the game, you will also, you guessed it, lose. To win a game of Agricola, Master of Britain, you need to generate increasingly large amounts of victory points. After turn 1, you only need 3 VP to continue. But by the end of turn 8, you need to have generated 75 or more of them—and in this game, VP are very hard to come by. Each turn, you get 1 point for regions that are empty of hostile tribe markers (good luck), 1 point for each Roman legionary who has been promoted to the highest level (if they don't die in battle), 1 point for each fully-developed settlement (which takes two turns and a lot of money to create), and 1 point for each dead tribal leader in the dead pool (nice if you can kill one early). You can also spend money—of which there isn't much—to purchase VP as you go, and if you can afford to sacrifice actions, you can choose to pass and earn 1 VP for every one foregone. But you'll have a lot of fires to put out! If things go well, you'll end up with several sources of VP that help you out over several turns. But you will feel choked out at the beginning of the game, with no guarantee that things will get better for you. As you're trying to build a viable VP engine out of essentially nothing, you will find yourself challenged by angry British tribes no matter what you do. Shifting loyalties are represented in Agricola, Master of Britain by an interesting chit-pull system, where enemies can be in the "friendly," "unfriendly," or "hostile" cups. While you can occasionally bribe some people into the friendly cup, most things you do make the local population more hostile, moving chits from friendly to unfriendly, and from unfriendly to hostile. You will also end up provoking hostile tribe reactions, which means that you pull chits from the hostile cup and place them on the map. Depending on what you do and how you handle it, it's easy to get overwhelmed. If three chits end up on the same spot, they may engage in internecine warfare—but they're also in open rebellion against you. If you pull a tribal leader from the chit cup, he will unite the people in his region in ways that seriously hamper your own activities. How does it play solo? Agricola, Master of Britain is specifically a solitaire game, so I'd say it solos pretty well!  This game starts with you hemmed in on all sides. Overall Thoughts
Agricola, Master of Britain is a very interesting solo experience, not quite like any others I've had to date. The chit pull system, with tribes shifting between different cups, is fascinating and a fun challenge to manage. And the pressure you feel in the first turns of the game, when you are hoping desperately to create sustainable sources of VP that will see you through eight turns, is intense. I lost early a lot when I was first learning the game, and it can still happen if I get extremely unlucky. Thematically, I'd say that makes sense. The Roman army was powerful, but Julius Caesar himself had a really hard time during his attempted invasion of Britain, and he barely left with his dignity intact. (And he probably only managed that because he wrote the reports himself...) By the time Agricola was governor of Britain, it had been under Roman rule since the emperor Claudius "conquered" it, but we should probably leave that word in quotation marks. The tension in those early turns of Agricola, Master of Britain is almost unbearable, but in a fun way. Once you figure out how to build up VP and keep 'em coming, you get a little more breathing room... but never enough, especially when you have a tight timeline and so much to do! Chit pulls also stay very tense, because you'll constantly have to deal with the threat of bad pulls that can sometimes lead to raids. In most games, Calgacus will appear and you'll have to deal with him in a massive battle from which it can be difficult to recover. In other games, he never emerges at all... but you're still waiting and wondering if he will. Overall, I'd say this is a very good game. But Agricola, Master of Britain has a few issues, for me at least. The main one is the battle system. After all of that careful planning and building, you can still get absolutely screwed by some bad die rolls, especially at the massive battle of Mons Graupius, Luck in games doesn't normally bug me too much, but I get tetchy about it when I've been putting so much effort into planning and puzzle-solving, only to have it all go up in smoke. (In fairness, many Roman generals probably had this feeling, too, but with actual weapons involved.) What makes this more difficult is that the battle system does not allow for the same level of planning as the rest of the game—you essentially line up the soldiers on both sides, then roll a die repeatedly for each of your units' attack and defense turns until one side is entirely defeated. In larger battles, that is a lot of die rolling, and while the attack and defense values of your units can help to mitigate your rolls, there is nothing else you can do to influence the outcome. In my opinion, this is the clunkiest aspect of an otherwise tight design. The other feature of gameplay that I personally find frustrating is that there are serious limitations on movement. You can't move more than one adjacent space at a time, and you can't even do that without pairing your movement with an action. This means that if you suddenly end up out on your own, without an enemy right next to you to fight and without any more settlements to build, you can end up kind of stuck. The only solution is to spam peacekeeping actions—which can lead to a general decrease in hostility, but which can't be carried out in regions with a tribal leader present—to get your legion where it needs to go. For this reason, I highly recommend you always leave a legion near the camps and able to summon reinforcements, because otherwise it's going to be a royal pain to move back there to do it. I know Tom Russell had his reasons for building the game this way (he is very active on BGG!), but this aspect of the gameplay drove me crazy in a bad way. What is a Roman legion without its famed double-time movement? Obviously, I find Agricola, Master of Britain very engaging and have spent a lot of time thinking about it. Why else would I be writing so much? But I will say that I think it has a limited lifespan. The frustration of your initial plays and the satisfaction of learning how to puzzle your way most efficiently through game turns is the most powerful when you are still new to the game and figuring it out. Now, after multiple plays, I've gotten to the point where I am trying to do generally the same things every time I play, albeit with a slightly different board state. Once you've figured out roughly what you need to achieve, and on what timeline, Agricola, Master of Britain isn't as replayable as it was during that initial rush of discovery. That said, I definitely got my money's worth—this game was only $30.00, and I have gotten more play out of it than out of many games at much higher price points. I will probably leave it on my shelf for a while, then discover it anew once I've cooled off for a bit. Either that, or I'll pick up Charlemagne, Master of Europe, which is based on this system but apparently more refined. Do I recommend it? If you're looking for a challenging solitaire game with an interesting historical theme, then yes. Agricola, Master of Britain is a great buy and a fascinating solo gaming experience. Overall Rating: 3.5 stars 5 stars — I love it! 4 stars — I really like it. 3 stars — I like it. 2 stars — It's okay. 1 star — Meh. Enjoy this review? Want to support my site? Buy me a coffee here!  What is this game about? Railroad Ink is a roll and write game about building a network of roads and railroads. During each of seven turns, you'll roll a set of dice with various configurations of roads, railroad tracks, and stations, and you'll draw all of the ones you roll. A few times during the game, you'll also be able to add one of a set of helpful "extra" stops and intersections to your board. At the end of the game, you'll score points based on several different variables—how many exits on the board you connected to each other, your longest road and railroad, and how many central spaces you built in. You'll also lose points for every dead end left on your player board at the end. In addition to these base scoring conditions, Railroad Ink allows you to add some variety. In the Blazing Red edition of the game, there are Lava and Meteor expansions that both complicate your in-game life and give you additional chances to score. Lava creates a mess that you'll need to try to contain, while Meteors leave craters in your grid that mess up your route plans... but also might allow you to gain points by mining them. There is also a blue edition of the game with river and lake expansions. The sets can be combined to accommodate more players, in addition to adding a little flavor through the expansions.  A game of Railroad Ink will look like this partway through. How does it play solo?
Railroad Ink has no player interaction, and is all about getting the highest score you can. That makes it very suitable for solitaire play as long as you don't mind a beat-your-own-score setup. Overall Thoughts I adored my first few plays of Railroad Ink. The initial rush of trying to find the best way to draw the die faces was exhilarating, and trying to make everything work together seemed frustrating in all the right ways. While I still think it is a fine roll and write game, I also feel that Railroad Ink lacks staying power. Even with the expansions, the game feels repetitive after multiple plays, as you stare at endless configurations of roads and railroads. While attempting to solve the puzzle of designing the most effective transportation system can be interesting, I don't find it particularly exciting in the long run. Railroad Ink doesn't provide the positive feedback loop of other roll and writes that I feel more passionate about playing (e.g. Fleet Dice). Nor does it give you as many opportunities to plan ahead and set in-game goals (e.g. Welcome To... and Cartographers). I also think seven rounds might be a bit too long—by the end of the game, I've had a good enough time and I want to know how I did. But I'm also very ready to move on instead of reset and play again. There are people who adore this game, and I think it probably comes down to a matter of taste. But for me, Railroad Ink is a decent roll and write that I'll willingly play on game night... but not one that I'll ask to play myself. I like it just fine, but I like other roll and writes a lot better. Do I recommend it? If you're a roll and write enthusiast, then go ahead and give Railroad Ink a try. It's fine. But I'd try it before buying it. Overall Rating: 3 stars 5 stars — I love it! 4 stars — I really like it. 3 stars — I like it. 2 stars — It's okay. 1 star — Meh. Enjoy this review? Want to support my site? Buy me a coffee here!  Image from BGG page. What is this game about? Sprawlopolis is a microgame from Button Shy that is about building a city according to various challenging scoring conditions. It fits in a wallet-sized case and consists of only eighteen cards, but don't be fooled. There is a lot of game in there. Each card has a scoring condition on one side and part of a city map on the other. At the beginning of each game of Sprawlopolis, you draw three random cards and place them text-side-up. These three cards dictate your scoring conditions for the game, and the remaining fifteen cards are placed with those conditions in mind. Scoring conditions have different levels of challenge and, as a result, different point values. That means that you'll have a different target score for each game, depending on your goals. Placing each city card is a seriously brain burning experience. You'll have three cards in your hand at a time, and you'll have to choose one of those to place in your city. All cards must be placed horizontally, but you can turn cards 180 degrees, overlap one or more quadrants, or place them next to each other in any way you like as long as the cards are partially adjacent. (I.e. you can place a card with only one quadrant adjacent to another, but not with just the corners touching.) In addition to the scoring goals for the game, you'll need to keep two scoring mechanisms in mind that are consistent for every single game. Each game, you score for your largest groupings of the same type of city block (for example, four parks connected to each other will score four points). You will also be penalized one point for each road that is present in your city—a serious incentive to connect your roads and not just have little road fragments all over the place. How does it play solo? Sprawlopolis is a cooperative game and can easily be played as a solo puzzle. I don't usually get analysis paralysis, but I actually prefer to play this game by myself in part so I can agonize over all of my choices.  A completed game of Sprawopolis. Some games will be far more spread out, others more compressed. Overall Thoughts Sprawlopolis is excellent. While its "gimmick" is its small size, its main selling point in my opinion is simply that it is such a great game. It's easy to learn Sprawlopolis, and you could really teach it to anyone. But it's so hard to be good at it. You have to decide what your priorities are with each card you place. Should you prolong a road? Or do you need to focus on putting multiple industrial areas together? Should you overlap part of a card that is worth points in order to set yourself up for a better play later? Do you make a move that you know will cost you points because you think you can make up for them in the long run? Your choices are difficult, and you'll always be wondering how you could have done better. Also, the different scoring conditions ensure that even with only eighteen cards, every game will feel different. The incredible variation among the cities you create will surprise you. And its small size basically guarantees that Sprawlopolis will never leave my bag again. This game is an instant classic.  HALP. That said, no game is perfect. Because this is a pocket game, the rulebook is short—so short that there are occasional rules ambiguities. (Can an internal edge count as the "edge" of a city? Does the Outskirts card, which allows you to score a point for every road that ends inside of the city, cancel out the -1 penalty per road that you normally score at the end of the game?) There is also one more serious problem: Sometimes, the scoring conditions in a game of Sprawlopolis can seem completely antithetical to each other. And it's more than just a matter of managing conflicting goals—I mean that to pursue one goal is to actively lose points because of another one. For example, "Concrete Jungle" rewards you a point for every industrial block that shares a corner with another industrial block, while "Go Green" causes you to lose 3 points for every industrial block in your city at the end of the game. Once you've played enough games of Sprawlopolis to spot a bad combination of scoring conditions, it's simple to just put a card back and draw a different one. But it's a frustrating blemish on what is otherwise a fabulous game.
Do I recommend it? Yes. I think this game is fantastic. Also, frankly, Sprawlopolis is so inexpensive that even if it ultimately isn't for you, buying it is still worth the risk. If you get it straight from the Button Shy website, it will cost about $15, including shipping. If you get it as a PnP, it's a whopping $3. Overall Rating: 4.5 stars Rating Scale: 5 stars — I love it! 4 stars — I really like it. 3 stars — I like it. 2 stars — It's okay. 1 star — Meh. Enjoy this review? Want to support my site? Buy a coffee here! |
AuthorMy name is Liz Davidson, and I play solo board games. A lot of solo board games... Archives
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