Come along with me on my journey as I learn (from complete scratch) how to play Batman: Gotham City Chronicles in its newly released solo and cooperative modes! It’s a bit of a rough trip, but that experience has many moments along the way that will help inform whether this expansion is for you!

Batman: Gotham City Chronicles has been on Kickstarter multiple times.  Season 1 (see here) and Season 2 (see here) offered a ton of content and a ton of miniatures! The only problem for me was that the base game is a 1 vs. many game … neither cooperative nor solo.  Since this blog (CO-OP Gestalt) is all about  solo and cooperative games,  it didn’t make sense to pick it up!  As much as I love Batman and my Superheroes (see our Top 10 Cooperative Superhero Games), I had to pass on these first two Kickstarters…

The Season 3 Kickstarter (see here), however, offered an expansion for the game that makes it both solo and cooperative!  See the expansion box above!!  (It also offered an RPG, but that wasn’t what I was interested in).  I mean, that art also helps me like it! That’s a great cover!

This box (see back of box above) transforms Batman: Gotham City Chronicles from 1 vs. many into solo and cooperative! That’s something I might enjoy playing! 

So, this means I have to get quite a bit of stuff: the base game (see below) as well as the expansion! 

Wait … is this what I want to do this?

Trepidation

There was definitely some trepidation in getting this, because this meant that I had to get the base game … and it’s not cheap!

I also freely admit that some of my trepidation came from the Shut-Up & Sit-Down review of the original Gotham City Chronicles! (See link above) This is one of my favorite videos from those guys, but they pretty much trashed it. If you haven’t seen the video, there’s a link above! They do a good job of discussing gameplay and ideas … as well as destroying the game!

I love the Shut-up & Sit-Down videos, but over time, I realize that I am anti-correlated to their opinions! They loved Arkham Horror the Card game and hated Marvel Champions! I was completely the other way around! So, maybe I would love Batman: Gotham City Chronicles with the solo and co-operative expansion?

So, with some trepidation, I took the plunge and ordered the base game, some expansions … and the new solo/co-op expansion!

Day 0:  Ummm

I got two big boxes from Monolith in late June.  Ummm … I don’t have time to deal with this right now!  But I know exactly what this is!  I just don’t have time!

There’s a lot of stuff here.  I knew I’d have to “deal” with it.  Not now.  It’s very daunting … as excited as I was, I knew this would eat up a few days.  I wasn’t wrong.

Day 1: Unboxing 

I got a lot of stuff, but the first thing I opened was the solo/co-op box.

Two things stood out about the box: it’s surprisingly small and surprisingly sturdy! It’s a hefty box! See the picture above with a Coke can for perspective.

The solo/co-op box comes with both the English Directions/Cards and the French Directions/Cards.  There’s also a few language independent punch outs and a die.  Half of what I paid for was the French content, which I would never use.  That made me a bit grumpy.

The cards will be used to direct the AI in the solo/co-op games.  These are very readable: see above.

Unfortunately, there are production issues.   The rulebook contains the solo/co-op changes for the set-ups for the Scenarios from the game.  Although most of the English Scenarios are in English, both rule books had the last 10 or so Adventures in French!!  See above as I have the English rulebook and French rulebooks next to each other … and they are BOTH in French!!!  

If I ever want to play these Scenarios, I will have to use Google Translate to translate them to English.  That seems less than ideal.  I hope Monolith recognizes the problem and sends out another copy?  Or at least some kind of fix?  Monolith: please publish these scenarios in English on your web site so I can print them!!

Given how long I have been waiting for this, the solo/co-op box was a little disappointing: there’s not much here, it has a small but thick rulebook, it has some French content I will never use, and some scenarios are in French only.

Still Day 1: Rulebook

The solo/co-op rulebook basically gets an F on the Chair Test.   

The binding makes it so it can’t stay open on the chair next to me!  And the book is tiny.  And the font is tiny (because the book is small), so it’s harder to read.  I can’t put this on the chair next to me at all.  (There is an okay workaround, see below). 

Compare this to the original Rulebook and Scenario Book for the base Batman: Gotham City Chronicles!  These two (above) both get about an A- on the Chair Test, as they stay open, are large, and can sit on the seat next to me so I can consult them easily!  It’s very frustrating that the solo/co-op book is so hard to consult.

After playing around a little, I realized I could use the  solo/co-op expansion box to “hold open” the rulebook!  See above as I carefully set the rulebook in the box, and it “kinda” stays open.   This is a workaround for The Chair Test: it wasn’t perfect, but it’s a hack that might help you too. At least now I can “kinda” hold the book open and keep it flattish to consult it …

But then came the moment I was dreading, but I was pretty sure I’d have to deal with eventually.  In the first paragraph of the solo/co-op rulebook were these words:

“Therefore, you must know how to play the regular multiplayer game before learning the Solo/Coop mode”

At this point, it was time to stop reading here and start learning the base game.  That took the wind out of my sails, so I stopped for the day.

Day 2: Base Game and Essential Stuff/Printing

So, it’s day 2: time to learn the base game!  

I was hyper-aware that the rulebook for this game was supposedly problematic, so I was very nervous heading into Day 2.

Apparently, I have Rulebook version 2.0: see above!! Have they fixed a lot of stuff up?  I think so … this rulebook worked for me.

I was able to (start to) learn the rules straight from the rulebook.  I had read a LOT of rulebooks, and this wasn’t that bad.  I think Monolith has really fixed it up since the original version.  There’s a decent set-up,  table of Contents, no Index (booo!), but at least it has a Glossary (yaaay!).  It was actually pretty good. 

However, I encountered my NEXT roadblock: “Where’s the Skills and Traits Booklet?” The Components page (above) references that, the Map Board References, and Skill Sheets. I did not have any of those????? It turns out, you had to order the Batcomputer Files expansion box (or get it from the Kickstarter). See this link on BoardGameGeek for the discussion. I happened to miss that you needed that when I ordered my stuff.

Hope is not completely lost: you can print many of the things yourself! The Monolith website has  most of the content listed so you can print it. 

So I couldn’t get the exact Skills and Traits rulebook, but I was able to print the two sheets above! They were good enough.

Unfortunately, much like the Scenarios in the solo/co-op rulebook, some of the content was still in French (even though the downloads were in the English section)! See below.

See above as the content is still in French (even though it’s in the English downloads area).

However, I printed most of what I needed.  The most important things seem to be:

• The Map Reference Sheets
• The Character Sheets
• The Skill Sheets (Villain and Hero)

The Map Reference Sheets:  The board above above looks super cool and thematic!  But you have no idea how to traverse it!  What’s on different levels?  Where are the walls?  Where does Line of Sight work?

The Map Reference Sheets have a much much more useful description of the topography!  See above.  Honestly, I can’t imagine playing without these!   I found it easier to print each map separately on its own sheet of paper (you can save some space by printing double-sided, but my printer isn’t great for double-sided).

The Character Sheets are just as important, as they take the icon-rich sheet like above …

… and condense it down to a readable sheet of abilities!  Again, I think having these is critical!  For my printer, it made sense to have each one on its own sheet (also, since you never know which heroes you will use, it makes sense to have each character sheet separate).

Finally, you should print the Villain Skills and Traits.  I wouldn’t go two-sided: you want both sides up.  You can’t play the Villains without this: period.  This information is in no rulebook that I have.

So, when I am playing the Heroes: the Hero sheet is right there! See above! So much easier to play!

And the Map Reference Sheet and Villain Traits are right there next to the Villain! So much easier to see and play!

I think Batman: Gotham City Chronicles is probably nigh unplayable without these extras. Make sure you get the Batcomputer Expansion Box (which has these sheets) or print them yourself from the Monolith website. These sheets DO NOT come with the base game.

To be clear: this game is unplayable without these.

Day 3: Set-Up and Reading 

After getting everything I needed, the next day was all about reading all the rules and setting-up the game.  These actually kind of went hand-in-hand, as I learned rules, I set-up the game and I set-up the game, I learned the rules.  See above as I get ready to play!

This rulebook is 60 pages. Yep, it’s longer than Gloomhaven’s rulebook (I remember that the original Gloomhaven rulebook is 56 pages)! And this is just the base game! I methodically went through all the rules to understand the base game. And before you say, “Why didn’t you just watch the video?” (which there is one), I find that videos don’t work for me: I like to be able to go back and look at rules in written form.

And don’t forget, I still have to read and synthesize the solo rules! So this was a full day.

There’s been a lot bad press about how bad the Gotham City Chronicles rulebook is: I didn’t think it was that bad, but I also had version 2.0.

Day 4: Solo and An Icy Welcome

In the Missions Book is a list of all the Scenarios (see above) and how many characters come into play!  I chose, for my first solo play, a true solo experience with one hero:  “An Icy Welcome!”  You can absolutely play solo with multiple characters, but especially after last month’s solo experience with Weirdwood Manor, I prefer true solo to learn the rules for complex games!

I finally got everything set-up to play Batman vs Mr. Freeze!  “An Icy Welcome!” See above!! The board is all set-up with cool minis, the Map Reference is next to it, Batman is below with his reference sheet, the co-op scenario changes are to my right, the Villain’s board and set-up are to my leftish, while the rulebook is on a chair next to me, and finally the Villain sheet is on the table … within reading distance if I need it!  Whew!  It’s a bit much to get everything set-up!

The full Scenario is described in the “Missions Booklet” that comes in the main game (see above).

The changes to the co-op/solo mode Scenario  are described in the solo/co-op book. See above.

In this Scenario, Batman has to collapse an abandoned subway line to stop Mr. Freeze from getting access to the Bank!  To do this, he has to traverse the map, fight Thugs and Brutes (and maybe Mr. Freeze), and prime 3 bombs to stop the plans of Mr. Freeze!

To prime the explosives, he has to roll 3 successes!  See above as Batman primes one of the three bombs with 3 successes!

And then, heartbreakingly, Batman fails to prime the last bomb on the last turn!  Batman loses!  This is an especially frustrating roll (no successes at all), because you need at least 2 rerolls to fix it!  Batman loses in the last turn!  Arguably, this was incredibly thematic and tense, but it still kinda sucked to lose.

Here’s the thing: I had fun playing this, but operating the solo/co-op AI is a lot of work.  I mean, a lot of work.

The AI is pretty straight forward to operate, (basically the AI does one of three things: attack, protect, or advance), but it still is a lot of work.  On Batman’s turn: I do a few things and I am done.  On the AI’s turn, I have to activate every mini of interest! For example: the AI above activates the Villain group in position 1 in the river; it happens to be the Thugs: so, we have to activate all three Thugs!  Each Thug mini activation requires thought: “Can I actually complete this operation?”  Basically, if you can’t “complete” the action (you can’t attack, you can’t move, or you can’t advance), you have to fall through the next action (which is why all three actions are listed on the card).  So, for every Thug on the board, you can have to make a determination of what to do!  Which is work.  And then, they may attack! Or advance! Which means further work … for each mini!  

And then you have to do that AGAIN for the next column on the card.

Every AI activation card is a lot of work.  You get used to it, but then you still have to consult the Scenario to see what the special rules are for the villain.  And remember, these rules for the AI are ON TOP of all the rules in the base game!  Remember that 60 pages of rules for the base game?

There’s a lot of work to set-up (it took me a few days to get there, but once you get it, it’s not quite as bad), there’s a lot of work to run the AI, and there’s a lot of work to tear down the game after you win/lose. The solo player has an inordinate amount of work to keep the game going.

And yet, in spite of all the maintenance needed to operate the solo mode, I still had fun. I was Batman, counter-attacking, using Parkour to move around the city, using Martial Arts, throwing Batarangs, and just being Batman! “I’m Batman!”

My biggest complaint was just everything is decided by dice. In the final round I lost, not because of something I did wrong, but because I rolled badly. There are lot of places where rerolls are built-in, and you can always choose to use your action cubes for rerolls, so it’s not pure chance. But it was still frustrating.

Day 5: Solo and Deadly Riddles

With one solo game under my belt, I wanted to try another solo game and see how things went. This time I have to save the civilians (the orange minis)!

This time, I chose “Deadly Riddles”! In this one, Batman has to save 4 Citizens and/or solve riddles that the Riddler has put forth!  

With some practice from the previous scenario, operating the AI was a little less work.

I still had to consult the solo/co-op book quite a bit, because each scenario has differences that need explaining!  See above!! What I really want is for the solo/co-op book to be two separate books! One for the Scenarios (which I can keep open with a decent binding), and one for the actual rules (which I can consult when I have questions)!   

Set-up was better, as I knew what I was doing.  See above!!! I moved the Missions Book to a chair next to the Rulebook chair (see my left), I kept the solo/co-op book in the box (see my right), but I moved the Villain Traits and Hero’s Traits to the table so they were easier to consult!  In general, the set-up was easier, as I knew where everything was.  The set-up doesn’t quite as daunting this time.

The maintenance on the AI turn was still a bit much.  I think I fudged it a few times.  It almost feels as is the AI needs a flowchart: there are a lot of rules to operating the AI that can get lost in the sea of rules of Batman: Gotham City Chronicles.

The second game actually was a loss as well!  On the last turn, Batman failed to roll 3 successes on three dice … just like the first game!

This was heartbreaking, as Batman moved through the Drones to solve the final riddle of the Riddler, spent most of his points, but could NOT roll three successes, even with a reroll!  It was very frustrating. Again.

Things went better for the second game: set-up was quicker, the AI was a little easier to run, and tear-down was quicker.  Still, the AI was a chore to run.

Cooperative Play: Two Weeks Later

Because of the nature of game groups, it took about 2 weeks (after my solo game plays) to get some cooperative play in.

I did forget some rules and had to look some stuff up in realtime, but my friends were patient with me.  Over about 2 hours, we were able to get the game set-up and played!

Now, we did miss a few rules as we played (mostly Villains traits), but the game moved fairly smoothly once we got going.

The solo burden I had setting up the game was now shared: Sara looked for the character sheets and displays, Sara helped set-up the board with Teresa, and I unpacked all the Villain cards.  It certainly helped that I set-up the game by myself a few times; I was able to direct my friends in shared set-up.  This “set-up burden shared” actually kind of made the game feel more cooperative!  That’s a crazy thing to say, but we were all so “invested” in the game because we all spent so much time setting up.  I guess you could call that the equivalent of “Stockholm Syndrome” for board games! Nevertheless, we all felt involved in the game because we were all invested in the game because we all set it up!

The game itself seemed to have its own cadence based on the Scenario we chose: Batman was the fighter, Catwoman took out the Bombs (the real goal of the scenario), and Orphan was there to “lure” the Villains away from Catwoman.  It’s not quite what we planned, or maybe even wanted, but based on our powers, that’s how we won.  

Just like there was the “shared burden” for setting up, there was the “shared burden” of maintenance per turn.  Teresa and Sara helped execute the maintenance (moving/attacking/protecting) while I tracked down rules.   I became the default rules-guy (since the game is so rules heavy), and Sara and Teresa helped keep the game moving.

One of things that we enjoyed was there was no turn order: players can spend energy however they want, in whatever order they want, to execute their actions!  I’ve said it many times: Player Selected Turn Order makes a game feel that much more cooperative! We can decide (as a group) the order in which we want to play, engaging the group in cooperative strategy.
      “Let me set-up Catwoman so she can get to the bomb: I’ll clear the way! “

So, I liked this cooperatively: me and my friends had a good experience.  The girls liked the game, but they just noticed “there are a lot of rules here“!  I had to explain to them that our enjoyable two-hour session was the evolution of many days and reading and printing and set-up!  I had gotten to the point where I could shepherd the cooperative experience fairly well.  And that made a potentially horrendous experience into something fun and palatable.  We had fun.

The game was better cooperatively, but I think it’s only better cooperatively if the solo player has gone though all the pain to get through a couple of games.  Said another way, this is good cooperatively, but only if there’s a good shepherd.  A good shepherd can help guide the players through the rules, help distribute the “shared burden” of set-up, help distribute the per-turn “shared burden” of maintenance, and keep the game flowing.   I think this can only happen if the shepherd is experienced enough in the solo game.

This game would have been a disaster if we tried to learn everything “as a group”.  My friends would have bailed, and I would have been left with an expensive toy.   Learn the game solo: if you like it enough, keep playing a few more games until you become a good shepherd.  Only then should you bring this out cooperatively!  At that point, the shepherd will run the game smoothly with the “shared burdens” of set-up, maintenance, and tear-down making the game an enjoyable cooperative experience.

Reflections

Now that I have played enough, here’s some things to keep in mind.

Since this is solo/co-op: you can rewind the game if you want.  In my second game, I chose to pursue solving an “elaborate riddle”, so I started down that route … but after I got to the room of interest, I forgot about hindrance rules!  With the Riddler in the room when I tried to solve the riddle, I realized I needed one more success: WHICH I COULDN’T GET on the dice I had?? So, I backed everything up and took a different tact.   In the 1 vs. many game, you could never do that because that’s basically cheating! But, since the alternative is to start over, the solo/co-op mode can just “rewind time” and try again with minimal effort.   This “rewind” helps take some of the sting out of the incredibly long set-up and tear-down of the game.  In that way, the solo/co-op makes the game better.

I also think this is a lifestyle game: this is a game with so many rules, especially with the new solo/co-op rules, that unless you play this frequently, you are likely to forget the rules.   Case in point: See the previous section on Cooperative Play! After only 2 weeks, I started to forget some rules!  If this is only a game you pull out from time to time, I think it’s much harder to get back into it.  

I have a group of friends who play FrostHaven once a week: they all love Fantasy and don’t mind the complexity of that world.  I could see me and a group of friends playing Batman: Gotham City Chronicles once a week … but I don’t have any friends who love the Batman world as much as myself.

Counterpoint To Shut-Up & Sit-Down

I previously mentioned the Shut-up & Sit-Down video where they trashed the game. I want to reflect on a major point they made during their video, now that I have some experience with the game:

0) “We like hitting each other”.  One of SU&SD’s complaints is that the game requires players to be judicious about how they use their energy, rather than just beating each other up!  I actually like the thinky aspect of the game!  It makes it a puzzle!  And this thinky-ness is incredibly thematic, especially for a Batman game! Batman is all about being smart: knowing when to rest, knowing when to attack, and knowing when NOT to attack!  I think the way this works is quite clever, so I completely disagree with SU&SD‘s point on this.

Conclusion

I don’t think I can, in good conscience, recommend the solo/co-op expansion unless you adore Batman. The solo/co-op mode had so many production issues (French/English issues, rulebook form factor issues, needing separation of Scenarios and Rules issues, small book factor, binding issues), and there is so much maintenance per turn to operate the AI, I can’t objectively give this more than a 5.5/10. The solo/co-op mode works, but there are a lot of issues.

And then the randomness of the game with the dice can also be very frustrating, especially after spending so much time in set-up, AI operations, and tear-down.

Despite all these issues, I subjectively am going to give this expansion a 7.0/10.0. Why? Because I did really feel like Batman moving around, trying to be “smart” about how to use my energy, fighting only when I needed to (like Batman does), and trying to figure out the puzzle of trying to stop the bad guys! I can finally play Batman! I enjoyed the set-up with the minis, I enjoyed putting the board together, I enjoyed the experience, even as much work as it was. But, realize this is a me-rating: if this were a fantasy game, a space game, a Smurfs game, an Aliens game, I would probably hate this game. But the Batman theme makes me like this game: I like living in this world with these Heroes and Villains!

At the end of the day, can I recommend getting Batman: Gotham City Chronicles if you just want the solo/co-op mode? You’ve seen my journey: from knowing nothing, to set-up, to reading rules, to printing augments, to reading expansion rules to finally playing solo and co-op!! It was quite a rough road to get there! But, you know yourself better than me! Maybe all you needed was this solo/co-op expansion to finally dive into Batman: Gotham City Chronicles! Decide for yourself based on everything you’ve seen here!

If you do pick this up and want to play cooperatively, I think it’s imperative that someone plays the game solo to become a shepherd for the game. Without a good shepherd, I think the cooperative game will end in disaster. With a good shepherd, the cooperative game will be a fun experience! But it’s a very thin line!

Ultimatch is a light cooperative card game from Fireside Games.  This was NOT on Kickstarter: I ordered this directly from the Fireside Games web site.

This is a super light cooperative card game for 1-5 Players, taking 10 minutes to play, for ages 10+.   

Unboxing

This … is pretty small.  It’s a deck of 48 colorful cards, 5 Player Aids, and a pamphlet (sigh) of instructions.  See the box above and below (with a Can of Coke for perspective).

The cards are very colorfully labelled numbers 1-8 in six colors: 6 * 8 = 48 cards.  See above.

The pamphlet isn’t great, but it does teach the game.  See above and below.

Probably the most important part of the instructions are how to make a match … see the nice graphic on the back of the rule sheet.

This same match information is replicated on the Player Aid cards. Once you have the game down, it moves real quickly, but this Player Aid is quite nice to have.

There’s not much else to it!

Gameplay

Players make a pyramid of cards and try to make matches (on revealed cards) to slowly eat away those cards, until all the cards in the pyramid are gone!  If you matched ALL the cards in the pyramid, you win!  If you run out of cards (in your hand) on the way, you lose!  See above at the starting game!

As the game progresses, you remove cards from the pyramid: you can only match and remove the revealed cards. Once you match a card, you take it away.  If you ever take away both cards covering the level above, you flip the new card!   Think 7 Wonders Duel! See above as we have uncovered the leftmost card …we can now flip it so it can take part in matches!

To get rid of cards out of the pyramid, you must make matches.  You can match in one card: either the color or the number.  In the example above, the player hand is at the bottom: the green 6 can either match the Green 2 (color) at the bottom or the red 6 (number)!  Sometimes, you need two cards to match: in which case you can do math and add/subtract!

For example, Yellow 7 – Blue 5 is Green 2 … so that’s a match!

It turns out you can also combine colors (additively) to match! So the match above: BLUE + YELLOW = GREEN would also match!

Ultimatch

The reason this game is called Ultimatch: if you match BOTH color AND Number, then you get a special match called The Ultimatch!  You strive for The Ultimatches!  Why?  Because you start the game with a limited number of cards, and the Ultimatch is the ONLY WAY to get more cards!  When you make the Ultimatch, you discard both cards (and the card from the pyramid), but you get 2 cards back!  

Your life is about to change.  All you do is look for is the Ultimatches once you start playing this game.

Solo Play

Kudos to Ultimatch for having a solo mode (and following Saunders’ Law)! 

The solo player is given 13 cards (see the bottom) and told to get going!  The only new cards the solo player can ever get is from making Ultimatches, so the solo player tries to find all the Ultimatches he can!

I played 5-6 solo games in a row: it was so easy! Ultimatch really is about 10 minutes long per game.  But, I made mistakes, I forgot rules, but after about 5 games, I was starting to see some of the strategies: primary colors tend to be more valuable than composite colors because you can combine primaries to make composites, but not the other way around!   And it’s better to match with 1 card if possible!  And there’s all sorts of little things you learn.

Part of the fun of Ultimatch is playing a bunch of games quickly to discover some of the strategies.

I could easily see playing this solo while waiting for some friends to come over … it’s just so quick!

Cooperative Play

But I think this game shines in cooperative mode.  It’s also a little harder:

• There’s a trade phase you have to think carefully about
• You can’t share information about what’s in your hand
• You CAN share the Alta-hand and talk about how you might use the Alta-hand

The Alta-hand is a shared group of 3-5 cards (see photo above, the Alta-Hand is below the pyramid).  The players share the cards in the Alta-Hand: they can use those cards (as well as the unshared cards in their hands) to make matches.  Managing this resource (Alta-Hand) is key to winning.

We found, after losing quite a bit, that the trade action (action 1, “Trade A Card“: see above) is quite important! It allows people, who may not have an Ultimatch, to offer cards that may help.  It does double duty: a trade may give you an Ultimatch, but it may just be sharing information about the cards available.

Just like the solo game, we had to play multiple times to start figuring out a winning strategy.  But since the game is SO QUICK, it’s easy to try a bunch of hands and start developing strategies.  One strategy that worked for us was trying to get primary colors in the Alta-Hand!

Bandersnatch, Cumberpatch, Smoochy-Pants

The funniest thing happened: my friend, while looking at the scene above asked me:

“What’s the big matchee thingee called again? Ulti-smash?”
“Um, it says on the back of the cards. It’s the name of the game.”

From that moment on, the name of the game changed and morphed into Bandersnatch, Cumberpatch, Smoochy-Pants and many other variants!

The game is so light and fluffy that it’s easy to have some conversation going while you are playing! So, the name of the game devolved into the funniest variants of  the word Ultimatch we could think of!  We joked as we played.

I think this is a real feature of the game: it’s offers a challenge, but it’s still light enough you can have fun conversation going around the table.  And it’s cooperative, so you don’t hate each other like you do after a game of Uno.

Reactions

Generally, everyone liked the game!  But not everyone.

CC: “It was elegant, simple, easy to learn, challenging but not impossible to win, quick to set up and put away. Solid nine. Only thing missing is a theme or some kind and a way to vary play for some more replayability. I plan to pick it up.”

Joe: “Game 8/10, Name 10/10”

Kurt: “It was cute but not something I’d gravitate to. Maybe a 6? I’d play it but I wasn’t wowed by it.”

Rich: “Good times.  Solo game was pretty good: 7/10.  The cooperation really shone through in the multiplayer game: 8.5/10”

Conclusion

If you want to replace Uno with a light card game that’s cooperative, Ultimatch might be what you are looking for.  It’s easy to learn, easy to teach, and is quick to play.  We found ourselves wanting to play over and over to hone our strategies in the game.  

Ultimatch is light enough to have fun conversation going on while you play: we ended up trying to come up with funny variations of the name: Bandersnatch, Cumberpatch, Smoochy-Pants!  That was suprisingly fun.   Ultimatch is fun: you’ll find yourself playing multiple times to try to win!

Good times.

We’ve been sitting on this review for a few weeks, but since the new Skytear Horde Campaigns is currently crowdfunding, we thought it would make sense to put this out now instead of later!

Skytear Horde: Monoliths is a standalone expansion for the Skytear Horde game system: this is the first expansion.  This is a tower defense game!  This game system is an odd duck for player counts: it is a solo game (1-Player), cooperative (2-Player), or competitive (2 or 3-Player) tower defense game.  The game type is closely tied to the player count!  We will only be discussing only the solo and cooperative gameplay today.  

Skytear Horde: Monoliths was on Gamefound back in May 2023 and delivered to my house in May 2024. They said it would take a year to deliver and they weren’t wrong!

We reviewed the original Skytear Horde back in March 2023: See our review here.  We liked the original Skytear Horde enough to make our Top 10 Solo Board and Card Games of 2024, which is why we picked up the expansion! 

Let’s take a look at this standalone expansion!

Unboxing

This is a smallish box: see the Coke can above for scale.

The original game (which had the deluxe box) is a little bit bigger.

This is mostly a card game: although there are some punchouts and a rulebook, this is an expansion with 250 new cards.

There are 3 new Alliance Decks: Green, Red, and Blue (see above).  Recall that the solo and 2-Player games have each player take an Alliance deck: they are 40 cards of goodness per deck (for 120 cards of Alliance decks).

The good guys are protecting their Castle: they choose one of 6 new Castles at the start of the game (see above).

Of course, there has to be a big bad for the players to fight: the expansion comes with 3 new Epic Monsters! See some above.

There are three new Horde decks (87 cards total): see above.  Recall that the Horde decks are the “Bad News” decks that summon bad guys monsters that you have to fight!!  The type is notated in the upper right, with the difficulty marked on the very bottom: each deck can be configured to be harder or easier based on the difficulty icon on the bottom.

There are a set of portals that control the summoning rate of the Horde: see above.  There are a different set of Portals for solo, co-op, and competitive modes.

There’s some new cards (Roots and Troops) …

Altogether, the new cards are gorgeous with art consistent from the original game.  

There are also some tokens, of which you will need some! 

I have the original deluxe version of the original game, which comes with the playmat AND some plastic tokens.  Even if you have the plastic tokens from the original game, you still want some of the tokens from the expansion to play!

Basically, the temporary tokens (with the white middle) are really necessary to track temporary statuses. I found this out the hard way (during my first game) that you really do need these temporary status tokens.

Overall, the expansion looks good.

Rulebook

This new rulebook is 24 pages.  This is important because the original rulebook was only 16 pages: we’ll see why this is important in a second.

There is mention of a video for learning the game on the cover: we prefer learning from the rulebook (so we can lookup things easier later).  But, it’s good to know there is an official video.

Skytear Horde: Monoliths gets an A on the The Chair Test: I can see the rulebook on the chair next to me, the rulebook stays open, and the font is pretty readable.  Weirdly, there seems to be a lot of white space: I would have preferred a bigger font and less white space?  The white space choice bothered me. Otherwise, it does very well on The Chair Test.

The Components page is very good at listing all the cards and pointing out features of each set of cards.  See above.  I spent a decent amount of time on this page correlating the cards to the Components page: I feel it’s important to touch and see all the components as a step towards understanding the game. 

It’s a good Components page.  The token discussion was quite nice (on the opposite page) as well.  

The set-up is quite good too: See above. Interspersed in the text, there’s even suggestions for monsters and characters and bad guys for your first game!  Thanks Skytear Horde: Monoliths!  My first game(s) were easy to set-up!

The rest of the rulebook is pretty good too.  

I ended up keeping pages 12-16 open and active as I played: it just seemed easier to help me keep track of where I was in the game.

This was a pretty good rulebook, but not great.  Recall, from our review of the original Skytear Horde that we felt the rulebook could have been a little better.  They have definitely evolved the rulebook: it’s better, more readable (especially for the first-timer or virtual first-timer), but it still doesn’t have lots of examples or FAQs or edge case discriminators.

In both one and two-player game, a bunch of questions came up as we played, and we struggled to find some edge cases (Can we attach an item to a compatriot or only ourselves?  If we “kill” a minion, but something heals it, does it reactivate to Pillage? How does a Castle get minions if it can’t engage?).   I am sure there is something online (the designer seems very active in the BGG forums), but I wish there had been a little more in the rulebook.

There’s a table of Contents (yay … see above), no Index (boo), but there is a Glossary (yay … see below)!

This was a pretty good rulebook.  I want more edge case rulings or a FAQ, and the white space bugs me (but I am pretty sure that is a me thing).  In general, the rulebook has evolved for the better and I was able to jump in pretty quickly.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Skytear Horde: Monoliths is pretty much the same as the original game, but with new ideas peppered in (Troops, temporary armor/attack, new Hordes, new Alliances, etc).  If you liked the base game and just want more, this is a perfect expansion.

I ended up playing with the plastic tokens and game mat from the original game, but I didn’t need them: they just made the game spiffier.  You can play the whole thing by itself without needing the original game.

That’s pretty much what I did: I wanted to see all the new content, so I only played with new stuff!! Monoliths!

The rulebook (by being a very nice guide) has made the gameplay “seem” smoother in the new game, even if it’s just a by-product of my imagination.  

Nothing in the expansion is ground-breaking, mind-altering, or life-changing.  It fits in the basic flow of the game easily and just adds more stuff.

Solo Mode

So, Skytear Horde: Monliths follows Saunders’ Law and there is a viable solo mode.  In fact, I almost feel like this is a solo game first, and then the cooperative and competitive modes are afterthoughts … well-developed afterthoughts, but not the primary way to play.

As proof, the cooperative mode is listed as an afterthought AFTER the solo play is explained ..

… and the competitive mode is listed after the co-op and competitive modes. See pages from the rulebook above.

I really do like that the solo mode is a pure solo mode, where the solo player takes control of just one Alliance deck!  Solo is so easy to jump into; I picked the blue Alliance deck (above) and was able to start playing pretty quickly!

My first solo game went really well, but I realized I was cheating a lot!  Not on purpose, but I just kept missing a lot of nuances and edge cases (like I said, I wish the rules were a little better on edge cases!)

Once I got a few more games under my belt, the solo game became a much more interesting puzzle!  See above as I just barely win with 1 Alliance card (just 1!) after defeating the Epic Bad Guy!  I just barely won and it was glorious!

It took me about 3 games to feel like I got all the nuances.  The first few learning games were fun, but I think you need a few games under your belt before the game starts firing on all cylinders.

Playing Skytear Horde: Monloiths solo reminds me why Skytear Horde originally made my Top 10 Solo Board and Card Games of 2023! This is a fun puzzle! And Monoliths is more of the same!

Cooperative Game

This time around, I was able to get the 2-Player cooperative mode played … you might recall in our review of the original Skytear Horde, I never was able to get my friends interested in playing!  Luckily, I have been doing a lot more 2-Player co-ops lately, so I was able to get both Sam and Teresa interested in playing!

Unfortunately, these games didn’t go quite as smoothly.

Although it seems a natural extension of the solo mode, as each co-op player takes an Alliance deck, the game didn’t seem to play as smoothly.

It seemed like we were playing a little more multi-player solo than really cooperating.  Sure, we needed to discuss what monsters to engage, but there didn’t seem to be as much cooperation as I had hoped.  

One thing that seemed to really keep us down was that the Mana allocation was lesser (it’s only +3 per round) for two players.  It felt like it was harder to get things going in a 2-Player game because of the Mana restriction … and that was more frustrating.

We also had some bad luck, even with the Mulligan in set-up rules.

I feel like it would have been nice to have a few more cooperative mechanisms:

• share Mana?  The small portions of Mana might have felt less debilitating if we could apportion the Mana?  Say “the team” gets 7 Mana per turn to apportion as they wish, instead of 3 each?  This can help mitigate bad card draws.
• share Attachment? At the time we played, it was unclear whether Attachments could go to the other player. I think, after some hunting through some rules, that Attachments can go to either player.  This needs to be stated much more explicitly!
• share cards?  Not necessarily “pool cards”, but it might have been nice to have a mechanism to share cards better?   Maybe each turn players could swap one card?

I wanted more cooperation in my cooperative game.  Don’t get me wrong, the cooperative game works, but it felt more like multi-player solo.  That maybe a good thing for some people: a lot of people don’t like it when the Alpha Player (see our discussion of Alpha Player Syndrome here) tells them what to do!  The cooperative mode definitely avoids some of the Alpha Player pitfalls, but at the cost of some cooperation. Caveat Emptor: this may be the perfect cooperative mode for you and your friend! I just wanted more cooperation.

The cooperative mode just wasn’t quite as smooth as the solo mode.

What I Liked

I like Skytear Horde!  The Monoliths expansion gives me more of the same … in a good way!

The card art is pretty phenomenal.  Even when we were having a bad cooperative game, my friend Teresa said “I really enjoyed the cards and art“.

Speaking of the cards, they are well-notated, easy to read, and usually very clear. 

I really love the solo mode.

What I Didn’t Like

Even with the Mulligans during set-up, sometimes you can get completely screwed by a bad card draw.  We had to take a Pillage of 11 cards (like more than 1/4 of our deck) during the first turn because we could get nothing going!  I am pretty sure that’s why we had such a bad first cooperative game, but there’s not much you can do to mitigate the randomness of some card draws …

It would be nice, for example, to have a choice of two cards when you draw (when you kill a monster, you get to draw a card).  Currently, there is no mitigation of the luck-of-the-draw: you just get the card you get.   It might be nice if we got to choose the card we got?

The rulebook needs a FAQ or some more edge cases description.

Conclusion

I like Skytear Horde and I like Skytear Horde: Monoliths.  It’s great that Monoliths is a standalone expansion (so I can just play the new stuff) or an addition (so I combine old stuff and new stuff).   There’s nothing ground-breaking here: just more of the same, in a good way! If you like Skytear Horde, you’ll like Skytear Horde: Monoliths!

I think I prefer Skytear Hordes: Monoliths as a solo game.  The cooperative mode is pretty good, and maybe perfect for you if you want to avoid the Alpha Player in your games (at the cost of some cooperation).

This is a good game with a good production: we recommend it wholeheartedly for the solo player, and a little cautiously to the cooperative players.  Hopefully our review will help you figure out if this is something you would like.

As we look back at 2023, we’ve played quite a number of solo and cooperative games and expansions! There were a number of surprises in this list: some of the surprises were bad, some were good, and some were mixed! I want to highlight some of the games that we played that we might not discussed elsewhere: these are all different games than our Top 10 Solo Games of 2023, Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2023 and our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2023! These are ordered in how much of a surprise it was!

10. The Stuff of Legend

This is at the bottom of the list because it’s the least surprising in one way, but still very surprising in another! The Stuff of Legend is by famed designed Kevin Wilson (of Arkham Horror 2nd Edition fame), so that makes it likely for me to enjoy it (no surprise there)! What’s surprising is that I like I liked it despite it being a hidden traitor game: I usually hate hidden traitor games, but this one has some surprising mechanics that make it it fun! 

There’s exploration, dynamic loyalty, “tainted” support, and interesting art/components! So, if you want to play a hidden traitor game with me, this is probably the only one I’d play: that’s the surprise! See our review here for The Stuff of Legend to see if you think you might be interested!

9. Bedlam in Neverwinter

This was a surprise because it was better than I expected!  It’s seems a dubious proposition: “Let’s mix Dungeons and Dragons with an Escape Room Mystery!” … um … this feels a little like a cash grab, just cashing in on the Dungeons and Dragons name.

The game is very simple, (with an element of randomness that I thought would be too much), and the mystery is pretty simple. But, I had a great time playing through all 3 Acts with my friends Charlie and Allison!  It’s better than you think! If you are expecting a deep hard-core mystery with lots of hard-core Dungeons and Dragons elements, you should look elsewhere.  If you like Dungeons and Dragons and escape rooms, go in with an open mind: this might surprise you.    See our review of Bedlam in Neverwinter to see if this is something you might enjoy!

8. Express Route

So, I picked this up for my friend Robert so we could play a cooperative map game when he came to town.  It’s a cooperative game about delivering packages.

The production is better than I expected, and the cooperative gameplay was very pronounced!  We had to cooperate well to win!  Even though the theme for this game does absolutely nothing for me, I was surprised at how engaging this was for a cooperative game.  See our review here to see if Express Route might be a game you like!

7. 14 Frantic Minutes!

This was a cooperative real-time game that kinda came out of nowhere: It was from a very small Kickstarter.  And yet, I liked it!  It presented a very unique and interesting cooperative puzzle for 1-4 players!

Kimberly from Tabletop Tolson is one of the few people I know who liked it as much as I did! See her Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2023!  After all is said and done, I think I prefer this is a solo puzzle game, but this is a really unique game: it’s surprising how much I liked it, given that I usually eschew real-time games!

See our review here of 14 Frantic Minutes! to see you might like it!

6. Clue: Treachery at Tudor Manor

Okay, what?  They’ve made a new mystery solving game in the Clue universe?  The surprise is how much fun it actually was! 

This is a lighter Escape Room game that I got at Target (so it’s fairly easily available), and it was surprisingly good!  It’s a play-once mystery, but it’s fairly inexpensive, and the mystery was very interesting!  We were shocked at how good this was, considering how inexpensive and “Hasbro” it was.  See our review of Clue: Treachery at Tudor Manor here!

5. The Big Pig Game

What a light and silly game this is!  And yet, it enchanted my game groups!  It made the RichieCon 2023 discussions because it was just so fun and surprisingly good!  The Big Pig Game is a great  gateway game or end-of-the-night game when you want a light and simple, but surprisingly engaging, cooperative game!

This adorably cute game came out of nowhere to become one of my groups favorite lightweight cooperative games of 2023!  See our review of the The Big Pig to see of this is something you might like!

4. Tamashii: Chronicle Of The Ascend

I love the production of Awaken Realms games, but I have bounced pretty hard off most of their games after I got into them.  The surprise here is that Tamashii is probably my favorite Awaken Realms (technically, Awaken Realms Light) game! We still talk about how much we disliked the grind in Tainted Grail to this very day … (see Part I and Part II of our Tainted Grail review here).

Tamashii didn’t quite make any of my Top 10 lists of 2023 (Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2023, Top 10 Solo Games of 2023), but it almost did.  The programming mechanism is very interesting and unique: I liked it!  The only thing that holds this game  back for me is that the trace rolls are just a little too random and game-changing.  I still like it, I will keep it, and I suspect I will play it solo more than cooperatively.  See our review of Tamashii: Chronicle of The Ascend here to see if this is something you might like!

3. Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom

What a bizarre combination: roll-and-move in a cooperative game  … in the world of Lord of the Rings!  I had trouble getting my group to play it because of that weird combination, but it was pretty good.  It played quickly, it was easy to learn, easy to teach, and still a decent little cooperative game.

The surprise here was that it was much better than I expected.  Although I probably won’t play it very much,  I am still keeping it as a decent gateway cooperative game, especially for new gamers who love Lord of the Rings!  See our review here to see if this is something you might like!

2. Daybreak

I love the games of Matt Leacock: he’s one of my favorite designers.  Pandemic (and all its ilk) and the Forbidden series (Forbidden Desert, Forbidden Island, etc) are some of my favorite cooperative games of all time!  And yet, Daybreak didn’t work for me.  The surprise was how much I disliked Daybreak. 

The game was on the Kickstarter (pardon me, BackerKit) and Daybreak even made our Top 10 Anticipated Games of 2023!  Yet, when I got it, I found it just waaaay too random.   There are four independent sources of randomness (dice, card draws from different decks), and hidden “bad news” you simply can’t mitigate because you don’t know what’s coming!  I gave it a number of plays and I just bounced off it hard! Everyone else seems to like it, so this is obviously just me.  I found Daybreak to be way too random to be fun.  (To be clear: I don’t have a problem with the theme! It’s an exploration into making energy more sustainable … very interesting!  Some people who have spoken out against this game are because of the theme … that’s not me).

I love Matt Leacock: this is a huge surprise how much I bounced off Daybreak, especially when everyone else seems to like it.

1. Artisans of Spendant Vale

I am surprised this game hasn’t done better! I haven’t seen it on any Top 10 lists for 2023, and I haven’t really heard anyone talk about it! It’s basically a cross of Jaws of The Lion (with the storybook and combat) and Crusoe Crew (with its shared books) and some Forgotten Waters (with its upgrade system)! It’s a gorgeous game with amazing production! See our review here to see if this might be something you enjoy.

I personally had a problem with the dice mechanism because the dice kind of tell you what to do: I’ve never liked that mechanism … (see our review of Batman: Shadow of The Bat for more discussion), but otherwise I should have loved this game. I think the reason we haven’t heard more about this game was that its theme can be very divisive: it’s all about playing characters who are gay or non-binary … that may have turned off some people.

It’s a big surprise to me that this didn’t do better: there’s a lot to like here.