 To watch a How to Solo video for this game, click here. What is this game about? Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game is an awkwardly-named board game with an awesome theme. It's part of a larger family of Legendary deck builders, but Legendary Encounters: Alien stands on its own as a game worthy of your consideration, whether you like the Alien movies or not. Legendary Encounters: Alien is a thematic deck builder that allows you to play through all four Alien movies, encountering characters and plot points that are true to their source material. As in most deck builders, players begin with a starting deck and acquire more powerful cards as the game goes on. To win, players need to progress through three different objectives, each of which has its own mini deck. Objective cards are stacked together to form one big, nasty enemy deck. Enemies in this game are formidable and occasionally scary—especially the face huggers. Yes, there are face huggers in this game, and they could pop out at just about any time. A player who can't get rid of a face hugger quickly enough is "impregnated" and has to shuffle a chest burster into his or her deck. This is basically a death sentence, so the face huggers add enormous tension to the game. Dealing with alien encounters (see what I did there?) is even more nerve-wracking because enemy cards approach you face down. To find out what they are, you either have to scan them (and potentially have something bad happen right away) or allow them to reach the combat area and give you a nasty surprise. On the player side of things, each player chooses a role that allows him or her to make unique contributions to the game and to add a role-specific card to his or her starting deck. This is an excellent addition to standard deck building, because you start out with a cool card in your deck instead of playing only generic starter cards for the first 2–3 turns. To improve their decks, players purchase cards from a "barracks" deck. The barracks are built from smaller decks of cards that are based on characters from the Alien films. For example, there are Warrant Officer Ripley cards, Bishop cards, etc. that really add to the flavor of the game. While the movie-based scenarios tell you which character cards to put in your barracks deck, you can also choose to mix and match. During the game, players can collect cards with matching symbols that allow them to chain abilities and also to "coordinate"—play a card on another player's turn to give someone else a boost. Trying to build a strong deck as quickly as possible, and to set yourself up for success, is what makes Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game so satisfying.  How does it play solo?
While it is technically possible to play Legendary Encounters: Alien with only one character, and some people do play that way, I strongly recommend that you control two. Playing two-handed allows you to take advantage of your cards' coordination abilities, as well as to get a better balance of character skills and card symbols to work with. Also, if you have only one deck, it can really limit you if you draw a bad hand—especially when you're trying to deal with a face hugger! Legendary Encounters: Alien is interesting in the sense that it doesn't scale perfectly, and actually gets more difficult when you add more players. Enemies multiply and move every single turn, and when there are more players, no one person has many turns to bulk out his or her deck before things get messy. If you start out playing two-handed but want to ramp up the difficulty, bump yourself up to three characters. Overall Thoughts I think this game is awesome. I am a big fan of the Alien franchise, and the thematic touches in Legendary Encounters are spot on. I particularly love seeing characters and scenarios I recognize, but with original art instead of screen captures from the films. It is true that the art can be a bit uneven, but I think it helps make the game its own special experience. I also enjoy trying to chain card effects and get the most out of coordination cards. I like deck builders in general, but I particularly love games that let me get clever with card effects. My biggest quibble with Legendary Encounters, however, emerges from that same desire to set up cool combos. It can be difficult to thin out your deck and get rid of weaker starter cards. That means that sometimes you will just have blah turns and there isn't anything you can do about it. The other possible issue you might have with this game is its replayability. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty in the main box—the first four movie-based scenarios are just starting points, and frankly, I have gotten and continue to get a lot of gameplay out of them, especially when trying out different role combos. If you don't want to stick to the original movie plots, you can also do crazy mix-and-match stuff. That means you could theoretically play a game using all four versions of Ripley, one from each of the movies. You can also mix and match locations and objectives to create a different game every time. But the game still "feels" contained somehow, at least to me. I think it's because the movie-centered scenarios are the ones that make the most thematic sense, and therefore the ones I prefer to play. Fortunately, Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game has a very good expansion that adds two new scenarios and several character cards to the game. It also introduces "hard mode" to breathe new life into all of the original scenarios. Additionally, you can do something I haven't tried yet. If you pick up Legendary Encounters: A Predator Deck Building Game, you can combine it with Alien. If you enjoyed the ridiculousness that was AvP, you might get a kick out of doing this. I am definitely curious. If you have tried this, please let us know about it in the comments! One more possible warning about Legendary Encounters: Alien: Initial card sorting for this game sucks. When you open up the box, the cards will be in no particular order. As in, almost deliberately in a crazy order just so you will have to sort it all out. You might want to read the rulebook first so you have a sense of which cards ought to go together. Also, you might want to sleeve the cards. I haven't had issues yet, but the cards don't quite feel premium to me. The game does, however, come with a neoprene mat that is awesome. Do I recommend it? Definitely. I believe that Legendary Encounters stands on its own as a quality deck building game, even if the Alien theme isn't your favorite. In my opinion, it is one of the most thematic and immersive deck building experiences on the market. It has minor imperfections, but this game grabs my attention and holds it every single time I play. 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.
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 This is a great looking game. To watch an overview of this game and see a few sample turns, click here. What is this game about? Escape the Dark Castle is the debut title from Themeborne, a publisher that apparently lives up to its name. It is a retro fantasy game in which players work together to... well... escape a dark castle. Along the way, you will be confronted with interesting choices, gruesome monsters (all illustrated in a really cool black-and-white style), and tons of very well done flavor text. Mechanically, Escape the Dark Castle is incredibly simple. To set up the game, players create a deck of castle cards that begins with the introductory card and ends with one of several boss cards. Each game will play differently, depending on which cards made it into the castle deck. Each turn, players flip over new cards, make any required decisions/resolve any surprise die rolls, and enter combat if they have encountered an enemy. Each character has a custom die with its own configuration of three traits: might, cunning, and wisdom. Players fight enemies by rolling their dice and taking damage until they have rolled the necessary symbols, after which an enemy is defeated and players draw helpful item cards. One warning, though: The player who first entered the room/turned over the card may have to deal with extra danger or damage, so it is important for players to be clear about who will turn over the next card. Players either all escape the castle together, or lose together if even one player dies. But really, the point of this game is to enjoy the adventure for however long you survive. How does it play solo? To play a solo game of Escape the Dark Castle, players need to control two characters to ensure more balanced odds when rolling dice. The game works as normal during solo play, except that the solo player needs to decide which of her two characters is the one overturning each card in order to correctly resolve any special effects.  Overall Thoughts
Escape the Dark Castle is really something special. The production values are top notch: When you open the box, you are treated to chunky custom dice and luxurious, oversized cards that are surely a sleever's nightmare (do they even make card sleeves this big?). The flavor text is excellent, and the art is distinctive and creepily appealing. It's clear that a lot of love went into this game. Another important contribution that Escape the Dark Castle makes to gaming is its accessibility. Pretty much anyone could learn to play this game in five minutes or less, and just about any group of friends could have a good time progressing through the variable "story" that the game creates. This is the kind of game that I want to show other people so that we can all have a good laugh and a great time. In addition to solo play, I really enjoyed playing it with my boyfriend, and he has asked to play it again soon—definitely a good sign. That said, Escape the Dark Castle loses a little something when I play it alone. Mechanically it works, but the gameplay is so simple that there aren't too many interesting choices to make. The dice rolling itself quickly becomes repetitive. So do the cards—eventually, you'll have seen them all. (Although fortunately there is an expansion to add variety.) And while I devour the text on each new castle card with gusto, Escape the Dark Castle also makes me want to find someone else to show it to. It's just not as much fun without friends to ask, "Hey, remember the time we were almost thrown into the evil cook's soup pot?" Do I recommend it? For solo play, maybe. If there is space in your life for a light filler game that takes you through a story without too much thought, then give this a try. For group play, however, I definitely recommend it. Overall Rating: 3 stars (3.5–4 stars if playing with others) 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? Dark Gothic is a deck builder set in the same world as Flying Frog's A Touch of Evil. The main version of Dark Gothic is semi-cooperative, and you are out to prove that you are the best monster slayer by defeating more monsters and collecting more victory points than your friends do. The game also, however, includes rules that make it fully cooperative—and therefore able to be played solo. To win the game, players must defeat three boss monsters of increasing difficulty. As with all deck builders, players begin with relatively weak starting decks. Each hero, however, has a different starter deck and special ability, which adds a bit of spice. To build up the strength they need to defeat monsters, each hero purchases better cards from a central market row. Most types of cards are outright beneficial. These include gear, allies, or locations that remain in play and offer persistent benefits. Other cards, however, are minions—lesser monsters who can offer benefits, but also have negative effects. Some cards have "strike" or "mystery" functions that harm other players or cause cards to be added to the Shadows—a separate discard pile that also acts as a timer for the game. If there are ever ten minion cards in the Shadows, then all players automatically lose. Other cards cause players to add "secret" cards to their decks. When secrets are drawn into a player's hand, they then force that player to draw a "shocking discovery." These discoveries are usually unpleasant—but not always. How does it play solo? The rules included with Dark Gothic offer semi-cooperative and cooperative ways to play. Solo players will need to control decks for two or more characters, but that is not too difficult to manage. Dark Gothic's cooperative rules introduce two changes designed to allow players to work together without the game becoming too easy. The first is that all "strike" cards—cards that have harmful effects and allow players to attack each other in semi-cooperative play—must be played, and must affect all players. The second is that at the end of each round, after each player has taken a turn, the first player must roll a die for every minion visible on the market row. If the player rolls a zero on the custom die that comes with the game, then that minion is added to the Shadows. The increased risk of minions going into the shadows puts time pressure on the player(s), since they need to defeat all of the more major monsters before ten cards are banished to the Shadows.  This card is awesome and I love it. Overall Thoughts
I wanted to love Dark Gothic. I certainly love the theme, and I think that Flying Frog productions has fun games and great art. But Dark Gothic is... well... boring. The game has moments where it feels sluggish, especially if it takes you a while to acquire enough good cards to beat a boss monster. The fun, dramatic aspects of the game, such as the "secret" cards, don't show up consistently enough to add entertainment value. I found this to be true both in solo play and when playing semi-cooperatively with my boyfriend. In solo play, the cooperative rules do not work as well as they should. The strike cards feel like they are making the game difficult for difficulty's sake. And rolling dice to determine whether to put minions into the Shadows can be frustrating, either because there are too many minions on the row and you can't do anything about it, or because there are none and the game has no tension. It just doesn't quite land right. Do I recommend it? Sadly, no. The theme is awesome, the art is awesome, and when I heard about this game I really wanted to love it. I am sure there are plenty of people who do love it. But I'd rather play a different deck builder. Overall Rating: 2 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? Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative card game from Greater Than Games in which each player chooses a superhero (or one player chooses multiple heroes!). Then, you all throw down against an evil supervillian and his or her deck of minions. On top of that, you deal with an environment deck that presents new challenges every turn. Sentinels is not a deck building game, nor it is a deck construction game. Each hero and villain comes with a pre-made deck for players to become familiar with—and each deck works a little bit differently, giving plenty of variability as you experiment with different combinations of heroes, villains, and environments. Not only does the base game include plenty of gameplay, but there are several expansions, all of which come together to form an overarching storyline. The characters in Sentinels of the Multiverse are more than just faces on playing cards. There is an entire comic series devoted to their exploits, and it's awesome. So much thought has gone into the world of this game, and it's something that really shows when you play it. How does it play solo? Technically speaking, Sentinels of the Multiverse is supposed to be played with 3–5 heroes. That means that in solo play, a single person needs to track the cards, health, and damage bonuses of at least three different characters, as well as run the enemy and environment decks. And I will be real with you--Sentinels can definitely be fiddly, given that several cards offer damage bonuses or decreases. There are also several different types of damage to which various characters might have vulnerabilities or immunities. That said, I LOVE to play Sentinels of the Multiverse solo. I don't really mind the bookkeeping, and finding interesting combinations of heroes is a ton of fun. You really do feel like a team of superheroes going after a bad guy, and win or lose, it's a total blast. I wish that Marvel and DC superhero games could be this good.  This box contains decks from expansions as well as from the main game, but LOOK AT ALL THOSE CHOICES! Overall Thoughts Other than the fact that it's fiddly, Sentinels of the Multiverse is a fantastic game. The turn order and rules are super clear and simple, and after setup, you're good to go with just the reference on the back of the rulebook and the text on the cards. The gameplay is solid and so much fun. You can choose to play simpler characters who do straightforward damage, or you can go for more complicated characters who offer you new and interesting ways to fight. If you want to try Sentinels of the Multiverse but don't want to deal with the full amount of bookkeeping, you actually have two options. First, there is a truly excellent app for Sentinels, so gameplay is a breeze anywhere, anytime. Second, there is a companion app (Sentinels Sidekick) that helps you track damage for multiple heroes and minions while playing the tabletop version of the game. I personally love the companion app, and using it has made me feel a lot more open to app integration in tabletop games.  You can even acquire a very helpful playmat for this game. Harley always wants to take the environment's turn... Do I recommend it?
YES. Enthusiastically. Sentinels of the Multiverse is great solo, with friends, or even with kids if they are comfortable reading. (And it's cooperative, so you can help them out if they need it.) Unless you either hate superheroes or truly loathe tracking damage for multiple characters, this is a game you ought to try. It will never leave my collection. Overall Rating: 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.  For a full playthrough of a one-spirit game of Spirit Island, click here. What is this game about? Spirit Island is a cooperative game in which you and up to three friends can play as island spirits battling against European colonizers. Your ultimate goal is to protect your native people, the Dahan, and get your uninvited guests to go away for good. You can achieve your goals by destroying enemy explorers, towns, and cities, as well as by terrorizing the invaders—fear weakens their hold on your island and makes it easier to attain victory. In fact, if you inspire enough terror, that can count as a victory condition. One of the more mechanically interesting aspects of Spirit Island is that spirits may be powerful and on their home turf, but it is the colonizers who have the advantage towards the beginning of the game. While your powers are still building, they will ravage your land and bring blight—which can ultimately cause you to lose. Over time, spirits can increase their presence, power card options, and energy levels (energy allows you to use your powers). But if you don't catch up quickly enough, your island is doomed. Each spirit in the game operates very differently. Some are faster and more aggressive, while others are slower and have more defensive powers. Spirits also operate within different ranges—some can affect several areas around the parts of the island where they have established their presence, while others must operate very close to "home." Spirits also interact with each other in interesting ways, which makes this game very rewarding if you play it cooperatively or two-handed.  There are many spirits to choose from, and they are all interesting. How does it play solo? Spirit Island is a true solo game, in that it is possible to play with only one spirit. Overall, however, I recommend playing with two—it gives you a bigger area to play with, and you can experiment with more interesting synergies and card interactions. Either way, you are going to have a great time—this game has become a go-to solo choice for me. Overall Thoughts It has been a long time since I enjoyed a game as much as I enjoy Spirit Island. I really wish that I had backed it on Kickstarter so that I could have everything for it. (This is the first time I have ever said or thought this, ever.) I will snap up the expansion the moment I get a notification that it's back in stock. After so many games that present European colonization as good thing, it is about time we had a game from the opposite perspective. I am so glad to see an anti-colonial game, especially one that is just so good. If you want to be even more overt about the historical realities that underpin Spirit Island's theme, you can play some of the extra scenarios from the box, in which you explicitly pit yourself against England, Prussia, or Sweden. (Not Spain, for some weird reason, but maybe in an expansion...?)  A four-player game in action. Spirit Island scales well. Spirit Island is also great as a multiplayer experience. Most of the people I have taught Spirit Island to have had a fantastic time and expressed interest either in buying it for themselves or in playing it again. This game won't be every single person's cup of tea, but it will appeal to gamers who like a challenge.
That said, I would not, under any circumstances, teach Spirit Island to people who are not ready for more intense games. Once you get into the flow of things, it's not difficult to play (although it can be difficult to win). But the game is complex, and it takes time to appreciate just how delicious it really is. The first time I played it, I knew it had potential, but it took a couple of tries to really make the game sing. Do not try to make an unwitting casual gamer sit through this with you. Do I recommend it? Yes. If you are willing to put in a little bit of time and you enjoy difficult games with a puzzle-like feel to them, Spirit Island is going to rock your world. I think it's going to end up as one of my all-time favorite games. Overall Rating: 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.  What is this game about? Escape room games have been all the rage recently, and it's not hard to see why. There is something thrilling about being "trapped" and using your wits to escape. The Exit series offers you a number of small-box escape room adventures, each for about $15. I tried three of them for this review: The Pharaoh's Tomb, The Abandoned Cabin, and The Secret Lab. In each game, I found myself trapped in a different location. I had to solve several puzzles and open their related locks in order to emerge victorious. In each box, you will find a short instruction manual with a story scenario, a decoder wheel, a book of clues, and several piles of cards. Riddle cards provide you with further puzzle clues that allow you to make progress. Answer cards confirm whether you have solved a puzzle correctly and give you next steps. Help cards give you a bit of a boost when you are feeling stuck. To maintain a sense of tension in the game, there is a score card on the back of the instruction manual where you record how long it took you to "escape" and how many help cards you needed to do it. I should note here that each Exit game is meant to be played only once. As you solve puzzles, you will draw on, tear apart, and otherwise destroy game materials. Maybe you are the sort of person who would rather make photocopies than write on a card, but really, destruction is part of the adventure. I was impressed by how well everything ended up working together. The answer card deck had some clever ways to tell me whether I was right or not without accidentally revealing too much information, and when I did need a hint, the cards scaled nicely. (I only wanted a gentle push, so I would have been really mad if I had overturned a hint card that gave too much away too quickly.)  All set up to escape The Secret Lab. How does it play solo?
Although I have not played an Exit game with others, I suspect that they do not scale well. Each box has only one book of clues, one decoder wheel, and one set of cards. That means that if there are a lot of people working on the puzzles, there will always be someone with nothing to do but wait around for others to finish looking at something. I think I could definitely enjoy a game like this with my boyfriend, and could see Exit working for 2–3 people who don't mind sitting close together. But Exit is probably best for very low player counts. Overall Thoughts Overall, I found the three Exit games I played to be a fun and absorbing experience. Solving puzzles makes you feel smart, and you get a real sense of progress as the pile of riddle cards shrinks and you realize you are getting close to the end. Some of the puzzles in the Exit games were a little too "clever" for my tastes, but for the most part I had a great time with them. There is no feeling of satisfaction quite like the one you get when you solve a good puzzle—and appreciate the additional level of intelligence it took to design the puzzle in the first place. There were a few puzzles that annoyed me because I thought it was unclear what I should do next. In one puzzle that involved drawing on game materials, I am 100% sure I did the right thing, but an alignment issue forced me to flip over a hint card. But for the most part, the puzzles are both fun and fair, and I associate the Exit games with pleasure rather than with frustration. At $15 per experience (I paid a bit less for a 3-pack), I am not unhappy with the time I put into the Exit games or the joy I have gotten out of them. I'd say that it's no different from paying to go to a movie or buying a book of sudoku puzzles. Actually—and I say this as a puzzle lover—the Exit games feel much more like puzzle activities than like tabletop games. A lot of solo gaming has a puzzle-like feel to it, but the Exit games took that feeling a step further for me. If someone said, "Hey, want to go play a board game?" it would not occur to me to suggest Exit. As fun as the Exit games have been, I don't feel compelled to rush out and buy the next set. Maybe the mood will strike again down the line, but the games are just similar enough that they start to run together if you play a lot of them in quick succession. (My three plays were only days apart.) Do I recommend it? If you like puzzles and don't mind games that are both short and disposable, then I recommend Exit. Each scenario I played was good fun and a great way to while away 60–90 minutes on a quiet evening. Overall Rating: 3 stars Rating Scale: 5 — I love it! 4 — I really like it. 3 — I like it. 2 — It's okay. 1 — Meh.  To watch a full playthrough of The Cards of Cthulhu, click here! What is this game about? The Cards of Cthulhu is a game in which you play an investigator bent on stopping evil minions from awakening an Old One and bringing about the end of the world. If you've ever played a board game based on the work of H. P. Lovecraft, this will sound very familiar. But Cards of Cthulhu is its own game. In Cards of Cthulhu, your job is to prevent four game boards, each of which represents an Old One, from being overrun by minions. If you outlast the entire draw deck, you win. If every minion space on one of your boards is filled, you lose. Each turn, you draw at least four cards and distribute them to the relevant Old One boards. It is possible for you to draw minions, horrors, gates (which cause you to draw more cards), and cursed objects. Alternatively, some cards are helpful—items and assistants enter the marketplace and can be purchased using experience points you have accumulated during gameplay. To manage all of the evil beings spewing out of the draw deck and onto your game boards, you need to roll dice. You start with only three, and you can lose dice by being injured. But you can also spend experience points to cast spells that add dice to your pool or allow you to attack multiple times. Given that experience points are needed both for spells and for items or assistants, you need to carefully manage a limited supply.  Sure, these boards look clear and manageable NOW... How does it play solo? Technically, Cards of Cthulhu can be played either solo or cooperatively. But I think it's one of those games that truly shines when you play it alone. Once you get into the flow of the game, it has an almost meditative feel that would be disturbed by the presence of another player. For me, Cards of Cthulhu is the kind of light, chilled-out game that you play when you want a step up in complexity from Onirim, but you still want an easy set up and quick gameplay. Also, there aren't enough dice or experience tokens to go around, which can be very irritating. The experience tokens are really awesome-looking metal coins, but there are too few of them. They sell accessory packs on the DVG website, but extra coins and dice are pricy.  These components are pretty, but in short supply. Overall Thoughts
If you don't mind that you can be utterly destroyed by some bad die rolls or unfortunate card draws, Cards of Cthulhu is a rewarding solo experience. I typically feel like I have just enough control over my gameplay through spells, assistants, etc. that I want to press on even when I am losing. Cards of Cthulhu is probably the most relaxing game I own that happens to be about the end of the world. It's the kind of game I pull out on a work night when I'm tired but still want to play a game, or that I lay out on a Sunday afternoon when I want to sit around in my robe and drink hot chocolate. Now that the weather's gotten cold, I find myself pulling Cards of Cthulhu off of the shelf and fending off the forces of evil while basking in the light of my Christmas tree. If you want a light, Ameritrashy game to play solo, this is a good one. Overall Rating: 4 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.  To see a full playthrough of Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy, click here. What is this game about? In Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy, you play a patriarch or matriarch who carefully tends to the growth and social development of a family across three generations. Throughout the game, you can use your limited action tokens to arrange marriages, produce children, purchase titles, make important friends, buy mansions, try out business ventures, and undertake secret missions. In the multiplayer version of the game, you will also work towards secret goals assigned to you by a famous patron—goals that will grant you even more honor points (i.e. victory points) at the end of the game. There are a many paths to take in this game, and you'll want to do everything. But there are only so many rounds, and there are only so many actions you can perform in a given round. The goal of your hard work is to accumulate prestige (and points!) for your family. How does it play solo? There are two ways to play Legacy solo. The first is simply to play the main game by yourself and try to beat your high score. Honestly, the game is sufficiently entertaining that you might want to do this a couple of times—especially if you are testing out strategies to use against other players in an upcoming multiplayer game. Certain cards have good synergy with each other, and regular practice will help you to figure that out. But the true gem in terms of solo play is Testament, a dedicated solitaire game that differs drastically from the main game. In Testament, you are not building a new family—you are trying to work backwards to reconstruct your family tree and lay claim to a fabulous inheritance. The friend cards that you use in the main game as marriage prospects for your children become your long-lost ancestors in Testament. For each generation, you receive three hint cards that give you clues to your relatives' identities. Was your grandfather a writer? Did your great-grandmother marry an Englishman? Throughout this solo variant, you also have to check for consistency between generations. For example, you lose points if a Russian and a Spaniard produce a French child. (After all, you can't claim that inheritance if you don't have a consistent story, right?) If you successfully create a family tree that fulfills the requirements on all of your hint cards, then you win the game—and the life-changing inheritance. If you lose, then, well, you go back to being one of the hoi polloi. No one will ever acknowledge your true, illustrious heritage.  In Testament, you have humble origins... or DO you? Overall Thoughts
Legacy is a worker placement game, but it's one of the most fun and thematically consistent ones I have ever played. While several scoring tracks and card types can initially seem intimidating, every action you take in the game makes so much sense that you won't find yourself constantly scouring the rules to help you understand the details. The game also lends itself to storytelling—you will find yourself creating bizarre and hilarious stories about "your family" as you go, which makes it a lot easier to invest as you play. I also want to praise this game for being inclusive. Without making a big deal out of it, Legacy allows you to play as a male or female head of a family. In addition, there is racial diversity among your friends (and potential members of your family through marriage). Most board games with European settings don't do a good job of acknowledging that not everyone in society at that time was white. It's refreshing to see diversity in any board game, but especially one with this sort of theme. Although I think I prefer to build up my family in the multiplayer game, I really enjoy Testament. The solo game can be puzzly and surprisingly difficult as you try to make the cards in your hand work with the information you've been given about your family history. I also truly appreciate any game that puts so much thought into a solitaire design—not only is it still rare to find games with official solo rules in the box, but it is rarer still to find a game that puts so much thought into solo play. That's something I would like to see more often. Do I recommend it? Yes. Legacy is an awesome game all around. If you want a more fun and thematic worker placement game, it's a fantastic choice. You will get your maximum value out of this game, however, if you occasionally enjoy it multiplayer. Overall Rating: 4 stars (3 if you are thinking about it strictly for solo) 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? Rune Age is a deck building game set in Terrinoth, the same fantasy world that provides a backdrop for Fantasy Flight games such as Descent and Runebound. Rune Age is not one single game. Instead, it has four different scenarios for players to choose from. Two of these allow for solitaire play, one focuses on player elimination, and another is competitive but with minimal player interaction. Each player takes on a different race, with options including elves, barbarians, generic fantasy humans, and the undead. Each player will be able to acquire some cards that are unique to his or her race and some neutral cards, which are available to all and specific to the scenario. Rune Age has several interesting mechanics that work together in the game—you can use combat, influence, or gold to make things go your way. The combat system has players set down military units from their current hand, then roll an attrition die to determine how many of them survive. How does it play solo? There are two solo-playable scenarios included in Rune Age. One, "Resurgence of the Dragonlords," is a race to build a good deck and gain enough strength to take out one very powerful enemy. In multiplayer, this scenario is a race against other players to accumulate enough firepower. When playing solitaire, you are racing against an event deck—when it runs out, game over. The other solo-playable scenario, "The Cataclysm," is a test of endurance. It is playable either solo or cooperatively, but either way the goal is to outlast the event deck. Bad things will keep happening, and it's your job to handle them all. Rune Age also has an expansion called Oath and Anvil, which adds some variability to the game. It includes two new races, as well as cooperative (rather than competitive) rules for "Resurgence of the Dragonlords."  The art is very pretty in this game, even when depicting the undead. Overall Thoughts
Rune Age is a beautifully-produced game with some very interesting concepts. I particularly like the added influence and combat mechanics. Deck builders can always use a little more spice. But speaking of spice, Rune Age is bland on the whole, particularly for solo play. Although you can get some variation by playing as different races and trying different strategies, the solo scenarios just aren't interesting enough to keep me coming back. "The Cataclysm" can be challenging, but I'm not interested in trying to survive without a more satisfying end goal. "Resurgence of the Dragonlords" doesn't offer enough variety to justify repeated play. If you want to pick up Rune Age to play with a gaming group, it might be a solid purchase. But for pure solo, I would recommend you pick up a different deck builder. (Or, if it's Terrinoth you're after, stick to Descent or Runebound.) I love deck builders. If it's a deck builder, I am going to want to try it, guaranteed. But I think that Rune Age lost something when it tried to be all things to all people. It's like a rock and roll supergroup—it just doesn't add up to the sum of its parts. Overall Rating: 2 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? Godforsaken Scavengers, the first release from Drawblack Games, is a brutal, insect-themed game in which you try to cross harsh terrain and scavenge for the resources you need to survive. Each round, you divide the scavenge deck into three draw piles, pick one, and push your luck. Will you pull another card in hopes of finding something useful? Or will you stop and stick with what you have? If you draw a "peril" card, you lose the good stuff that you've scavenged. Not only that, but you are likely to gain an affliction—a physical or mental injury that hampers you further as you continue your journey. Pick up three afflictions, and you lose the game. The cards you already have in your hand play an important role in the scavenging process. Your cards have numerical values that allow you to feed at the end of the round, so you need to keep an eye on your food supply. But they can also be used to perform actions, such as healing afflictions, canceling out peril cards, and allowing you to scavenge more efficiently. You can have bad luck in Godforsaken Scavengers, and you definitely won't win every time. But learning how to play your cards well can help you last a bit longer. For added strategy and complexity, it is also possible to play with characters who have different special abilities. There is also an optional "caravan" that can provide extra cards at important moments, but it requires upkeep when resources are already scarce. How does it play solo? One of Godforsaken Scavengers' scenarios is specifically designed for solo play. If you're willing to play two-handed, you can also play one of the two co-op scenarios that are included in the game. The other, "Last Hunt," is cooperative but also time sensitive. I didn't try that one. In the solo scenarios, your starting equipment (and sometimes afflictions) are geared towards solo play. All scenarios are clearly marked with a difficulty level and and rough indicator of time to completion. In addition to the solo and co-op scenarios, Godforsaken Scavengers also includes a solo campaign mode. The campaign is made up of multiple sessions, each with a set of random areas to populate it. Different areas trigger different events, and each campaign session also allows players to make story-related choices that impact future goals and rewards.  Mad Prophet is the main solo scenario in the game. Overall Thoughts
Godforsaken Scavengers has a lot of good points. The art is thematic and eye-catching. There are several cool card interactions that you can trigger, and you will feel smart if you pull off a particularly clever combo. There is a lot of potential there. However, I have several issues with the game that impacted my enjoyment. Most importantly, the rulebook is confusing. I found myself looking up Ricky Royal's demo video for clarification because there were important things left unsaid—for example, whether you still got to progress through an area even though you didn't collect enough food. (The answer is apparently yes, you still move on. Where the rules specify this, however, I still do not know.) The campaign rules were also unclear. I eventually pieced it all together, but it took me multiple read-throughs. Additionally, the campaign ends up being pretty shallow—the story is simplistic, choices do not affect the story long-term, and the goals and rewards that go with your story choices are based heavily on card draw. For example, your goal might be to "have Hunt and Rush in hand," but there is no guarantee whatsoever that those cards will turn up during play. My main issue with the campaign, however, is that it involves collecting escaped slaves—something I strongly dislike in any game, regardless of theme. Not only was slavery unnecessarily inserted into the campaign plot line, with you as a participant in the enslavement process, but the theme itself doesn't hold together overall. You're an insect in a brutal world, but sometimes that world involves weird blasphemous rituals, while other times you are just avoiding predators. It's all dramatic and sometimes interesting, but it doesn't all hang together. Also, if you choose to acquire this game, be warned—the cards should be sleeved. They are not particularly durable. Do I recommend it? No, not really. If you find yourself tremendously attracted to this game, I'm not going to tell you you're making a mistake--Godforsaken Scavengers has its good points, and I would be willing to consider the next game designed by Drawblack based on the potential I see in this one. But it is thematically incoherent, its rules are not clearly written, and solo play of this game is going to wear thin very quickly. I would personally recommend that you spend your money elsewhere. Overall Rating: 2 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. |
AuthorMy name is Liz Davidson, and I play solo board games. A lot of solo board games... Archives
August 2021
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