Solo Review — Valley of the Kings: Afterlife and Last Rites

 What are these games about? 

Valley of the Kings: Afterlife and Valley of the Kings: Last Rites are standalone expansions to Valley of the Kings, a small-box deck builder that I have reviewed previously. Valley of the Kings is a deck builder with a catch. You use cards to purchase other cards or to perform actions, as is typical of any other game in the genre. However, you can only score off of cards that you have "entombed," or removed from your deck to your personal stash before the end of the game. You get more points for having multiple cards from the same set. 

Afterlife and Last Rites follow the same basic formula, but offer new cards that perform different actions. The sets can all be played as standalone games, or cards can be mixed and matched to create new variations on the original theme. 

How do they play solo? 

Valley of the Kings: Afterlife and Valley of the Kings: Last Rites both have solitaire rules printed in their rulebooks. Rather than score points based on how many of each set you can collect, the solo version of the game requires the player to achieve a perfect score—one copy of each card in the game must be entombed before the end. Duplicate cards count against the final score, so you have to thin your deck in other ways. 

Once you become accustomed to the cards in each set, you can play the "master" level solo game. While in the normal game you receive one free entombment action each turn, when playing the master version you can only entomb cards via the actions on other cards. This definitely adds a level of challenge and forces you to really learn how to wring every drop of usefulness out of your cards. 

Overall Thoughts for Afterlife

Valley of the Kings: Afterlife is a decent sequel/expansion that adds new variation to the original game if you have already come to know it well. There are definitely more cards that allow you to manipulate the boneyard (a place for cards that have been "sacrificed," or removed from the game). There are also more cards that impact other players, but sadly that is not a selling point for the solo variant.

That said, I think I prefer the original Valley of the Kings. Afterlife offers the same starter cards, and it doesn't have too much of a different feel overall. It's still fun, and I enjoy it, but it's best understood as a purchase for people who already love Valley of the Kings and who need to freshen it up. It's also a good purchase for groups of players who enjoyed the first Valley of the Kings, but who wanted more player interaction. 

Overall Rating for Afterlife: 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. 

Overall Thoughts for Last Rites

Last Rites feels like a different game from the moment you open the box. This is partially because it offers different cards to use in your starting deck, which completely changes how you play. The starting card actions added some spice back into the game for me, and I'd like to mix and match a bit with previous sets, just to see what happens. The cards in this expansion also allow more interaction with both the boneyard and the stock, which is definitely interesting. 

There is a lot of player interaction in this one, though, that does not quite carry over into the solo game. It's also a bit weird thematically. While in previous Valley of the Kings games you stashed various inanimate objects in your tomb, the sets that you collect in Last Rites are made up of people. It's a little disturbing if you think about it for too long... 

Overall, I would say that Last Rites is a better game than Afterlife, but the mechanics that it adds don't do as much for the solo player as they do for groups of players who want to interact with each other. For solo play, I still prefer the original Valley of the Kings. If you want to play with a group, Last Rites might be a better choice, although I can't say for sure.

As a future project, I would definitely be interested in trying to find the best combination of cards for solo play! 

Overall Rating for Last Rites: 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.  

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