Now that cooperative games have become mainstream, it’s easier to make many more directed Top 10 lists! This Top 10 list is for Cooperative Dexterity Games! Dexterity Games usually involve a silly physical challenge. There’s 4 main flavors of dexterity games on this list:
Flicking (where you flick items using your finger and thumb)
Stacking/Building (where you build structures of interest)
Balance (where you balance things while you move them around)
Other (which is anything else)
Let’s take a look at our Top 10 Cooperative Dexterity Games! The order of the games here doesn’t matter as much as other Top 10 lists: you know right away if you like flicking, stacking, balance, or other. The order here is more influenced by the opinions of my normal game groups and the game groups from RIchieCon 2022.
This is a war game that’s a flicking game. You know what it is when you see it!
There’s a LOT of stuff in this box, but there’s also a lot of work to set things up for a simple flicking game. And there are a lot of rules for a flicking game.
Despite all the work for set-up and rules (which is why it is #10), the game was thematic (“be quiet or else all heck breaks loose!”) and fun! We had a lot of fun with the flicking side games as well!
9. Space Cadets
Ages: 8+ Players: 3-6 Time: 60-120 minutes Type: Other (mix of flicking and other stuff)
Space Cadets is an amalgam of a lot of different games: each player plays a position on a starship (like the Star Trek Enterprise). Each position has a different challenge, and some of them are physical challenges: There’s a flicking position, reaching into a bag to “feel components” position, make dominoes, and some other odd things. This is a fairly strategic game, despite all the silly challenges (and thus the 60-120 minutes playing time). We found this game to be love/hate in general: you either loved it or hated it (which is why it’s #9 on our list). But it was definitely fun to watch! You should definitely try it at least once to make sure you like it before you buy it.
Flick ‘Em Up: Dead of Winter is a pure flicking game: that’s both bone and bane for the game. If you are terrible at flicking (which we were for some of the game), you will lose pretty badly! Even playing cooperatively! But, this game has an amazing presence and looks great on table: you can’t go wrong! See below!
There were a lot of rules for the different types of things to flick (guns, knives, shotguns, etc), so again that was boon and bane: it was cool to have all the variety, but it added a lot of complexity to a pure flicking game … this is why this is a little lower (#8) on our list.
For Science is a box filled with lots and lots of wood building blocks! There is a game here about building molecules for science, but really the game is just about playing with blocks. My game groups loved the blocks, but didn’t like the real-time part of the game (which is why it’s only #7). There are probably just a few too many rules too, but it’s just so much fun to play with the blocks!
This was an Interesting game from the designer of Spirit Island (a cooperative game we love here).
So Dungeon Fighters has a name that SOUNDS LIKE it’s a generic Dungeon crawler. Nope! Well, there is some dungeon exploring, but at it’s core, it’s a “throw dice” (and I mean “throw dice”)!!! It’s a wacky “physically throw dice at a board” while doing all sorts of silly physical challenges. Throw dice beneath your legs, off-handed, under your arm, and laugh the whole time. This is NOT a serious game.
Our first play of this game is a huge ongoing joke: my air conditioner was on the fritz, so we choose to play this (probably the most physically active game on the list) without A/C! We were huffing and puffing and downing water afterwards! Learn from our mistake, don’t play this of your A/C was on the fritz. But the game was still such a hoot!
This game is interesting because the box itself is a component of the physical puzzle! Each player moves a lever on each side of the box (see picture above and below) to help move some markers through a maze landscape into a hole. It reminds me quite a bit of those old wooden maze labyrinths where you would try to manipulate a metal ball through a hole.
Ghost Adventures is a really odd duck: you have to cooperatively move a top around a bunch of boards! Each player (usually) takes one board, shepherds the top (physically adjusting the board) through his/her board, then passes the top to another board! Passing the top from your board to your compatriot’s board is probably the hardest part! It sort of reminds us of Slide Quest (#5), but Ghost Adventures uses tops instead of a little roller ball dude. It was fun and goofy and the component quality was very good!
This is a light silly game where you flip “firepower” at the space invaders who are slowly descending down upon you ! This is a very lightweight flicking game that you can get from Target (currently) for pretty cheap! It’s silly fun.
Even though this is essentially a cheaper Flipships (see the next entry) with generally worse components, the little flipper is pretty cool! See red/white/blue plastic flipper above.
This is a silly flicking game, but the special powers on the ships that you flick give the game some interesting twists. Even though we were terrible flickers in general, the game was fun and silly and we were laughing the entire time. The ambigram (words with symmetry) on the cover also enchanted us. We also liked saying Flipship. Flipships. Flipships.
Sam surprised us at RichieCon 2022 by saying it was favorite game that he learned in the past year! He then he proceeded to teach it to everyone he could at RIchieCon 2022! This is a surprise hit which is why it’s so high on the list at #2!!!
Menara was described very aptly as “reverse-Jenga” by my game groups! Players cooperatively build a structure together, using the patterns and rules described on cards as they come out. There’s a surprising amount of strategy in this cooperative dexterity game, as you have to choose when-and-where to build, and when-and-where NOT to build! This is probably the “thinkiest” of all the games on this list, and is probably why we put it at #1. It was fun! And it was hugely popular at RichieCon 2022!
Minecraft: Portal Dash is a cooperative game set in the Minecraft universe. Minecraft is a phenemonally popular video game for most platforms: PCs, Macs, and video game consoles. This game is obviously trying to capitalize on the Minecraft Intellectual Property (much like Star Wars: The Clone Wars did last week but for Star Wars).
In Minecraft: Portal Dash, 1-4 players cooperatively play as Minecraft miners running towards the portal trying to escape. All players must survive and escape together or everyone loses! It’s a cooperative game! Along the way, players mine, fight, move, upgrade, and uncover new areas. When players uncover the last room with the portal, they must fight the big boss! As soon as the big boss is dead, players win!
Mostly, this game is about fighting and mining, while trying to move to the portal at the end to fight the boss.
Unboxing , Components, and Gameplay
Minecraft: Portal Dash is pretty standard sized: see the game and components relative to the Coke Can.
Each player takes a token with a colored bottom and corresponding colored board and colored items.
I played my solo game with blue. Note that the character you choose has no special powers: there are no variable player powers here. (You only get better and different through the upgrades you get).
All players start with all of their items on the top row: they haven’t been used yet: See above. Once an item is used, it goes to the bottom row and has to be “repaired” to be used again. See below.
Every round of the game starts with rolling the Bad News dice (the white dice): there are two. (I personally call them the Bad News dice to note that they are advancing the chaos and badness in the game: Minecraft: Portal Dash just calls them the white dice, or the block die and MOB die).
The first Bad News die (left) strips a block from the Resource Cube. Which block? Whatever the die tells you! See below!
The bad news die force the players to remove one cube, their choice of color
This is Bad News because the game ends when The Resource Cube (above) run out of blocks … either completely out of blocks or blocks at the appropriate level. So, stripping blocks from the Resource Cube is slowly bringing the game to an end.
The other Bad News die (the MOB die) activates the MOBS (the Bad Guys) in the game. Above, we can see two of them are activated! The upper right corner of each MOB character has a number from 1 to 3: you activate all MOBS with that number, which causes them to move towards the characters.
If there are no matching MOBS, you spawn a new MOB at the closest spawn point to a character on the board. The MOB at the front of the queue (see queue above) is what gets spawned. You can always see what’s coming next in the queue!
After the MOB move, they may attack! If the MOB bad guys do reach you, they do damage: above, the magma cube is adjacent and hits me for 2 (-2 on bottom right of the MOB) damage. The ghast is not adjacent, but has range (2 square) and does 2 damage! Above was the very first turn of my game and I lost 4 hit points!!
Hit points are at the top of your character sheet: I only took 3 damage because I had armor that absorbed the first hit.
After the Bad News is done, the active player (who rolled the Bad News dice) gets two actions of their choice:
Use One Item: move item from active part to lower part, invoking its upgraded action
It doesn’t sounds like a lot, but the mine 1 block is quite interesting. First of all, you can only mine blocks that are exposed: A block is exposed only if its top is visible and at least two other sides are visible. And then you can do cool things with the block!!! Geometry is important here!
You can use the mined block to help complete the piglin task (see below):
Recall that you can’t open the final portal until the piglin board is complete! And you can’t win if you can’t fight the boss by the portal! So, it is necessary to mine as you play to fill the piglin board.
The other thing you can do with the blocks: use a special power! See above! These special powers can be game-changing! Repair all items! Heal full hit points! Of course, mining a cube has a cost: remember that the game ends when you run out of cubes.
Using an item usually gives you an upgraded basic action, but at the cost of “breaking” the item so you can’t use it until its repaired.
For example, using the pickaxe would allow you to mine TWO blocks (instead of one).
Note that the sword and the bow are the only way to engage in combat with the MOBS! To take out a MOB, you have to be in range (swords can attack adjacent only, bows have further range: upto 3 spaces away for the bow above). When you engage in combat, you roll the number of dice as per the weapon:
Every X is a hit: MOBS need to be taken out in one shot: damage does not persist.
When you defeat a MOB, you get two upgrades: you keep one and discard the other.
If you can move to the final board with the portal (after completing the piglin board), you fight the boss: if you can defeat the boss, you win! If you run out of blocks at any point, or if anyone dies, everyone loses!
Rulebook
This is both simultaneously a good rulebook and bad rulebook. It’s a good rulebook because it is complete (all rules are here) and it teaches the game. It’s a bad rulebook because of poor organization and some glaring deficiencies (the inclusion of a few things would really flatten the learning curve).
First off, the rulebook is very daunting: when you first open the box and grab the rulebook, it’s very heavy! It’s 48 pages long and very big! Internally, I thought “Oh No! What have I gotten myself into?? This looks big and complex!!”
Well, the rulebook is large because it holds three translations of the rules: English, French, and Dutch (see above). So, that drops the “relevant rules” to 16 pages. Not nearly as bad, but it does seem long for a game aimed at ages 10+.
So, the first major deficiency was the lack of a components page: the game basically just “jumps straight in” assuming you kind of know what everything is. I don’t! This was one of the things that contributed to me calling this a “bad rulebook”. There are a lot of components in this game, and I don’t know “what-is-what”.
If you look VERY CLOSELY at bottom of each translation column on the back of the box, you can see a list of components. It’s tiny, almost imperceptible, and it doesn’t help you figure out “what-is-what” in the component sphere. It is NOT a good components list.
My next problem was perhaps more of a preference thing: I strongly prefer set-up on two pages with a giant picture showing the board and some correlating numbers/letters. This rulebook prefers to add components to the set-up incrementally without ever showing the final picture.
I think this is an okay method for set-up (incrementally vs. seeing the whole picture), but I still wanted a final picture showing everything. Again, this may just be personal preference. Included below is my final picture for set-up for your enlightenment.
The rest of the rulebook has the rules, but the Icons and special rules for a lot of items (The Netherite items, the Enchantments) are scattered through out the text. It’s hard to find some of the rules/icons: they are there, and you can find them, but it feels harder to look up rules/cons than it should be.
The summary in Part IV was pretty good.
The rules showed helpful pictures and examples (see above). That makes this a good rulebook. All the rules were there: that also makes this a good rulebook.
The lack of an Icon summary, the lack of components page, the approach to set-up, the lack of some other exposition, and some of the organization really made me grumpy. However, at the end of the day, I learned the rules. I just wish the rules had been easier to learn (especially for younger audiences).
Solo Play
Solo Play set-up
So, the game box says that the game plays 1-4 players. Interestingly, there is no real discussion of solo rules anywhere in the rulebook. This is mostly because you don’t anything special for solo play, except for choosing which side of the piglin task board to use. One side is 1-2 players, the other side is 3-4 players: See below for the 1-2 player side.
Still, the lack of any discussion of solo rules seems weird. A single sentence would have gone far:
The solo game proceeds just like the base game except that you use the 1-2 Player side of the Piglin task board and the solo player only operates one character.
However, this was consistent with our issues with the rulebook: The game doesn’t strictly need to tell us about solo rules, but a single sentence would have clarified that. So, Minecraft: Portal Dash does follow Saunders’ Law, but it’s just not 100% clear that it does.
How did Solo Play go? Very well! I was initially annoyed that the game used the white Bad News dice to mark your two actions, but I came to understand why. The game flows so quickly once you get into it, you forget sometimes if you are in the middle of your turn or the Bad News turn! “Wait, have I taken both of my actions?” So, even though the description in the rulebook is terrible about describing how to use the white dice for notating the actions, using the two white dice to notate your two actions per turn worked pretty well.
I kept the rulebook off to the side in a chair because I had to look up rules all the time … but the rulebook was just a little too big to keep on the table.
I won my first game, handily defeating the Wildfire (see above). My basic strategy was to get all the Piglin task board filled, then sprint to the end. It worked great!
I worry a little that all games will have this arc: solve the Piglin tasks then sprint to the final board. That strategy worked great for me and I am sure I would do that again.
One of the funner elements of the game is that you are always getting upgrades in the form of new items: every time you beat a bad guy (a MOB), you get two Items from the top of the Item deck: you choose one and discard the other. So, you are constantly moving new items onto your character board: See below.
I didn’t like one mechanism the game used at first: whenever you use an item, you “damage it”, moving it to the bottom row. See above. You have to “repair it” before you can use it again! I didn’t like this at first, but because there were so many ways to work with this, it became fun! You can:
Repair it with a basic action
Fix all broken items using a mine “grey” cube
Change out an item when you upgrade: the new item starts refreshed
Upgrade an item with an enchantment: that forces it repaired gain
There always seemed to be a lot of ways to do things: I felt like I had a lot of agency throughout my game. The solo game was good and absolutely essential to teaching me the game so I can teach my friends. Now that I have the rules internalized, I think the teach will go well: it just took a lot of work to get there.
Frustrations
This is a weird game. I am annoyed by the low quality of some components (the rulebook, the standees, some super thin boards), but fascinated by a lot of the mechanisms, especially the Resource Cube.
The rulebook is pretty off-putting, but it does teach the game. It’s possible that the three simultaneous translations (English, French, Dutch) contributed to that. If you put the effort into reading this rulebook, you can find all the rules you need, but it will require some work. That was frustrating.
Another major frustration was the lack of an icon reference. The game is pretty icon heavy, especially because it is for English, French, and Dutch players! So, the game leans pretty heavily into those icons, but the definition of those icons is spread throughout the rulebook: you have to go hunting. You can eventually find the definitions, but these searches can be cumbersome paging through the entire rulebook! A one-page icon summary would have gone a long way, especially since this rulebook has a lot of whitespace (and the back of the rulebook is so sparse).
Another frustration: I also don’t know who this game is for. The rules say 10+ on the box: I can’t imagine a 10-year old kid fighting through these rules unless he is really into Minecraft. To be fair, a lot of kids are really into Minecraft, but I feel both the rulebook and the complexity of the game will turn-off a lot of kids.
That’s not to say kids couldn’t learn the game: if you can get an older sibling or parent or relative to shepherd the kids through a game or two, then I think that kids could easily get into the game! Once you internalize the rules to this game, Minecraft: Portal Dash does flow pretty well: for kids or anyone! I just wonder how much work it will take to get to that point: this game may be too much for many people without having a shepherd.
My biggest concern for the Minecraft: Portal Dash is the game arc. I feel like most successful games will take a similar arc: fight a few combats, get the ABC pidlin task board done all at once, then sprint to the end. It makes the most sense to do the pidlin board done up front when there are fewer bad guys trying to get destroy you! It’s possible this strategy is a function of the boards that come out: perhaps different combinations of boards will help vary this game arc. We’ll have to see: my biggest worry is that the game arc will have no variety.
What I Really Liked
Once I got into the game, the game flowed pretty well. It was pretty simple: roll two dice for bad news, then take two actions. Repeat! There were a lot of little things to look-up (icons mostly), but the basic gameplay was straight-forward: I liked that.
What fascinated about the game was the dual-use blocks you mine from the Resource Cube! See above! One use of the blocks is as a resource to advance the Piglin tasks. In that case, you have to worry about having enough cubes available (in that color) because of the mining rules. See below for all three complete Piglin tasks and an almost depleted Resource Cube!
But you can also mine a block for a special power: see below.
The mining of a blocks is essential, because you have to mine to win the game (for piglin tasks). But every cube you mine brings you closer to the end of the game: if all 64 cubes are mined, you lose! Or if you can’t finish a Piglin task because you ran out of colors or cubes on a level, you lose!
And you will lose a cube (usually) every turn because of the bad news die! See below.
The bad news die force the players to remove one cube, their choice of color
So, the Resource Cube becomes a 3-D representation of the game’s state space! What choices are available? What choices can you reach? Which blocks do you want for Piglin tasks? What blocks do you want for special powers? What blocks can you afford to lose? What blocks can you not access because of the geometry?
This Resource Cube is fascinating and probably the best part of this game. It’s new and different and I haven’t seen it in any other game. I really want to explore this mechanism further: I find myself still thinking about it …
Conclusion
I know what Horizons of Spirit Island is and I know who should play it . Similarly, I know what Star Wars: The Clone Wars is even after just a few plays. I feel comfortable knowing what those games are: we may not need a Part II for those reviews because all my initial thoughts stand. But, I still don’t know what I think of MInecraft: Portal Dash.
Like Disney Sidekicks, I think Minecraft: Portal Dash might be too complex (especially the rulebook) for its suggested lower ages. Also like Disney Sidekicks, I think a shepherd could make this game much more accessible: if someone can just teach the game, I think younger kids can learn and play the game, but I think that shepherd is fairly essential. So, I can’t quite recommend it for lower ages.
But then the component quality is pretty substandard for a lot of pieces. See above. It’s hard to imagine hard core gamers wanting to play this: it looks like an old 80s board game.
Having said all that, the Resource Cube concept is so fascinating and deep, I think this one mechanism might make Minecraft: Portal Dash one of my favorite games of the year!? Or maybe it’s not nearly as deep as I think and I will become disillusioned with the Resource Cube? I don’t know, but I find myself wanting to play again and again to try out the Resource Cube! It fascinates me!!
As you can see, I am all over the place. I got the game for $39.99 at Target, so it wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t expensive. It feels like the components should be better for the price (especially after seeing Horizons of Spirit Island for $29.99), but that Resource Cube stands out as one of the better components.
I can say that, right now, I like Minecraft: Portal Dash, despite the rulebook and poor components, but I feel like I need some more time with this game before I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Currently, I would cautiously optimistically recommend it.
Never has one of my reviews been in such dire need of a Part II.
Didn’t we just go to Target last week to get Horizons of Spirit Island? Yes, we did: see here! While we were at Target picking up Horizons of Spirit Island, we asked about Star Wars: The Clone Wars. They said they had it in back, but it was under some palettes so I needed to come back. That was fine with me: I was too busy playing Horizons of Spirit Island! … see last week.
Well, a week went by and they still hadn’t put out the Star Wars: The Clone Wars game, so I had to hunt around Tucson and I found it at another Target across town: see above!
Horizons of Spirit Island was a cheap game from Target ($29.99), whereas Star Wars: The Clone Wars was significantly more expensive at $59.99! Target “usually” has some kind of sale for board games: in this case, I got it for $10 off (any Toy purchase over $50 was $10 cheaper). And then the Target card gets you another 5% off, so it ended up being about $47.99 of so: that price is significant, because GameNerdz and other discount online game shops have the game listed for $47.99 as well!
So, if you do a little bit of work (waiting for sale or looking online), you can probably pick this up for about $48. Interestingly, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is obviously NOT a Target exclusive, because I can order it now from online shops. GameNerdz has it on pre-order as coming out on October 7th, so you can either order it there or go to your local Target (as opposed to Horizons of Spirit Island, which is absolutely a Target exclusive).
What is Star Wars: The Clone Wars?
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a cooperative game for 1-5 players in the Pandemic System (see the little Pandemic logo in the lower left corner?). This means that Star Wars: The Clone Wars shares a lot of DNA with the original Pandemic. In this case, though, I think a better comparison would be to compare this to World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, another game in the Pandemic System: see our full review here.
I originally thought that the Star Wars: The Clone WarsPandemic game would just be a “slight re-skin” on the World of Warcraft Pandemic game. Although these two are probably the “closest” relatives of all the games in Pandemic world, there are still enough changes to differentiate the two.
Unboxing and Components
The box is an odd shape: it feels thick and thin at the same time.
But in general, the components look really nice, especially since this is a mass market game! The miniatures are especially nice!
Each Villain has its own special deck!
Gameplay
To play, each player takes the role of the one of the main Heroes from Star Wars: see below.
Note that each player has a special power that’s unique to their Star Wars hero!
To win, the Heroes have to take down of one four Villains:
Players choose a Villain at the start of the game, and each Villain comes with their own Villain deck!
Each Villain has its own special deck!
That means each Villain has a unique play style!! The game recommends starting with Asajj Ventress:
Like Pandemic, “bad things” come out on the board as the game progresses. In this case, it’s Droids! Droids are invading the system!
Like Pandemic, they slowly accrete on the planets, as a few Droids get added to the board at the end of each player’s turn:
Droids are like Pandemic disease cubes. In this case, there are actually multiple different models!! Very cool!
If a fourth Droid would hit a planet, you get a Blockade there: There’s no spill out to adjacent planets. (The Blockades are more like the Abominations in Wrath of the Lich King than disease cubes from base Pandemic).
A Blockade on a Location means you must fight the Blockages before you fight anything else on the space!
To get rid of enemies on a planet (Droids, Villain, or Blockades), you have to roll the big 12-sided die! Every circle/star is a success and does 1 damage to the enemies. Blockades need two damage to take them out, Droids need one damage to take them out, and Villains vary. The explosions are how many hits the Hero takes!
About a week ago, we reviewed and discussed The Return To Monkey Island, a point-and-click adventure video game for Steam and the Switch. During our discussions, we lamented the lack of point-and-click adventure type games in board/card game form! There are, however, some out there … like The Grand Hotel Abaddon, which we review this week.
The Grand Hotel Abaddon is the fourth in the Adventure Games series from Kosmos Games: Yes, that’s right! There are at least 3 more adventure point-and-click card adventures!!! This particular adventure is for 1-4 players and plays over 3 sessions of 90 minutes each. To be clear, this is a “one-and-done” game: once you’ve played it, you’ve seen all the puzzles and solved them. You can still easily pass this box on to some friends to play (you can still reuse the game, as you don’t destroy any components). You can also come back to it in a year or two when you’ve forgotten all the puzzles. I frequently replay my old point-and-click adventure video games (The Monkey Island games, Thimbleweek Park, to name a few), so I am in the category of re-enjoying and re-playing games.
So, Is The Grand Hotel Abaddon good enough to replay in a few years?
Components and Gameplay
The game is mostly cards and an Adventure Book: see above. The Adventure Book (above right) has the story and and interactions all baked in … and lots and lots and lots of text!! The big cards (labelled A) are Locations you travel to in the game, the numbered cards are objects to interact with, and the tokens are for noting things. Below, you can see all the objects the character Yu Heng Zhu holds (a bunch of cards).
The Big Cards sit out and form the map you explore:
Each player takes the roll of one of four adventurers in the game.
I ended up playing the Dr. Susan Pendergast. Throughout the game, each character has a minor subplot that unfolds within the main plot. You actually get pretty invested in your character as you play! We ended up playing 3 different sessions over about 2 months. We always enjoyed coming back to the character we previously played.
The Adventure Book is the most important piece in the game. If you want to explore, put two objects together, try something in a Location, or generally “do anything”, the adventure book tells you “what happens”. Generally, the game works by combining two numbers: objects have a 2 digit number and Locations have a 3 digit number. You quine the numbers together (the smaller number first then the bigger) and lookup that number in the Adventure Book. If an entry with that number is there, you read it and “something happens!’ If there is no entry, that means that interaction doesn’t do anything.
Each place you can explore in a Location has a 3 digit number in it.
Players basically work together to explore the map and try to figure out what’s going on! The story is quite interesting! Play proceeds clockwise, as each character “tries something” (explore, combine, other) to see what happens.
Why a Mini-Review?
Why are we doing a mini-review and not a full review?
We didn’t get a chance to play this solo: the game gives you rules to play it solo by operating two characters (yay, thanks for following Saunders’ Law), but we didn’t play this way. We played the game with a full complement of 4 people. And we think this is the best way to play: each player then gets to play their own character and feel ownership/kinship with that character and the backstory. You also get to see all the arcs of the game that way.
It’s difficult to avoid spoilers. It’s hard to talk too much of the game without giving away too many spoilers. This particular game also has a lot of spoilers: it’s much more fun to see what happens as you play.
App vs. Text
So, you can play this game with an app or without an app. We played the original Adventure Game: The Dungeon without an app because it didn’t exist yet when we played! In that play, the Adventure Book was passed around a lot as each player would read out of the book on their turn. We had a lot of fun reading out loud and talking in silly voices when we played the first one!
You can also play The Grand Hotel Abaddon without an app as well. That’s very satisfying: if the company ever goes belly-up and stop supporting the app, you know you can still play this.
In the end, though, we ended up using the app to read the text. Partly because it was less work, and partly because it was less tiring: we could all concentrate on what was being said and just solve the puzzles.
We preferred using the app to read. But we would have had just about as much fun reading from the Adventure Book ourselves.
Discussion
We has a grand old time playing this (no pun intended). We played the three different sessions over three different nights: the game seemed to be just the right length each time: not too long, not too short. We were able to explore, tease further plot points, do interesting things, and generally have fun.
I think we also enjoyed the game that much more because we each played a different character with different goals and backstories: we bonded with our characters. I feel like we didn’t get this as much in the previous Adventure games.
Overall, the Dungeon is still our favorite, but The Grand Hotel Abaddon is a very close second. The other two are still good, but arguably not as good. Some people didn’t like The Volcanic Island very much (it does have some weird things happening), but we did.
Conclusion
The current 4 Adventure Games
If you want a point-and-click adventure board game like the video game Return To Monkey Island, then The Grand Hotel Abaddon is a great choice: it gives you that exploration and puzzle-solving experience like The Monkey Island games, but in board game form.
And yes, this game is good enough to replay: I suspect we will replay this again in a few years.
Horizons of Spirit Island is a cooperative board game from Greater Than Games for 1-3 Players. It just came out today (October 1st, 2022).
I had to ask my Target associate to find the game in back because it wasn’t on the shelves yet.
Horizons of Spirit Island is one of those Target exclusive games: I believe it is “exclusive” to Target for a time (1-6 months?) and then can be found elsewhere.
Horizons of Spirit Island is a lighter stand-alone version of the original heavier game Spirit Island (see below). Spirit Island is a very complicated game of spirits cooperating to keeping explorers off your island: many people call this game a “cooperative euro” game because of its complexity. Despite the heaviness of this game, it has become very popular due to its unique gameplay and highly asymmetric powers. See the original version below.
Original version of Spirit Island from the Kickstarter: signed by R.E. Reuss!
Horizons of Spirit Island is an attempt to make a more “friendly” version of Spirit Island to widen its audience. It is only $29.99 at Target, as opposed to $62.99 for the original from Amazon. It’s cheaper for a variety of reason: it’s smaller (see below), supports fewer players (1-3 instead of 1-4), has crummier components (punchouts instead of wood or plastic), and the board is a more traditional static board than the weird shaped island boards of the original. See below.
Even though this is a cheaper version, you can use the spirits in this game as an expansion for the original: it just requires you have the original game.
Let’s take a look at this cheaper version of Spirit Island and see what we are getting!
Comparison of Components
You can skip this section if you don’t care about the original Spirit Island game.
Let’s compare the new game to the old game: they are essentially the same game! The newer Horizons is cheaper and has lesser components (the newer box is smaller, see above).
But the newer game has a Quick Start guide that will help newer players get into sooner: the original does not have anything like that.
The rulebooks are fairly equivalent: the Horizons rulebook is a few pages shorter, but the original rulebook is longer because it has some extra rules for some in-game expansions.
The newer Horizons has only 5 spirits you can play, whereas the original has 8 spirits …
… and the newer Horizons uses much thinner cardboard (left), whereas the original has thick, sturdy spirit cards (right).
The maps are very interesting: the newer Horizons (left) has a two-sided map: one side is for 1-2 players, and the other side is for a 3-player game. The original game has one sturdy but weird-shaped map for each player. It’s easy to scale from 1-4 players in the original game because that’s how many map pieces you take: it’s more modular. However, the dual-sided board of horizons has the advantage that it gives hints to layout and card placement, etc.
The newer Horizons does NOT need an extra board for fear and blight because it’s on the main board . The original needs an extra side board for those same fear and blight tokens.
Interestingly, the Horizons game makes the tokens compatible with the tokens from the original game by having different colors. See above: Horizons has three sets of different colors (orange, cyan, dark purple than the original player colors (yellow, blue, red, light purple). One of the goals of Horizons of Spirit Island is that it is compatible with the original game: if you find you like the simpler Horizons of Spirit Island, you can pick up the original game and use the spirits from Horizons with the higher quality components of the original Spirit Island!
The blight tokens are just cardboard punchouts in Horizons (left) and weirdly thematic plastic goops in the original (right).
The Dahan and the Settlers are all cardboard punchouts in the newer Horizons (left). The original (right) has the Dahan being wood tokens to represent a “natural” token, whereas the settlers and plastic to represent a more “unnatural” or “foreign” token. Furthermore, there is a system with the plastic tokens for notating hit points that I thought worked pretty well.
I think the fear tokens are EXACTLY the same in both: see above and below.
There are fewer cards in Horizons (partly because there are fewer spirits), but they are essentially compatible with the original. You might notice the fear cards are a slightly different color of purple (just different enough to be noticeable), but the power cards seem very compatible.
If you look closely (above), the Horizon’s cards (left) are ever so slightly lighter and have an ever slightly lesser sheen. I don’t think that’s noticeable. They look like they will work together very well.
Can you tell the difference on the other side? Not really, and that’s a good thing! But you can always separate the Horizons cards from the original cards by noticing the little Horizon’s emblem on the lower right corner: see picture below for a closer look.
The card on the left is from the original game (no emblem), and the card on the right is from Horizons (note the little white emblem on bottom right).
The components of Horizons of Spirit Island are definitely of lesser quality and quantity than the original Spirit Island, but they are still pretty nice! And for the price point of $29.99 from Target, it makes it much easier to jump in and try the game out! I mean $62.99 from Amazon is more than twice as much!
Solo Play
So, Horizons of Spirit Island supports solo play (thank you for following Saunders’ Law)! Unfortunately, the Quick Start Guide only discusses quick start for a 3-Player game, NOT a solo game! See more discussion in theQuick Start Guide section below.
Playing solo is relatively easy: you use the 2-Player side of the board and use the Fear markers to cordon off one side of the island: see above and below.
Unused part
There’s some scaling for Fear and Blight tokens just for set-up (only 4 Fear and 6 blight), and some powers can’t be used in solo mode, but in general, the base rules for solo are exactly like the base game. This is great, because there are almost no exceptional things to keep track as you learn the game: all the rules you learn for the solo game apply to the multiplayer game.
I’ll be honest, the original Spirit Island is one of my favorite solo games. It is such a fun puzzle to solve solo! And each spirit in the game plays so differently! In my first solo game (above), I played the Eyes from the Trees, which are a creepy spirit!! Their main strategy is to scare the pants off the Settlers!! I almost felt like I was playing a horror movie as I played! I generated so much fear that I scared all the settlers back to the main city!
And then on my last turn, I played the Jungle Hungers (see above) and pretty much decimated the main city location. It was so cool and thematic as I scared the settlers back to the coast and then reached out from the Jungle to completely trounce them!
To be fair, it was a very close game: I almost ran out of blight. Had I not complete devastated the coastal town, the Settlers would have polluted my island and I would have lost! It was a close, fun, thematic game. And SO MUCH FUN!!!
Let me be very clear: it took me two hours to get through this game. This is a very thinky game and prone to Analysis Paralysis … even this newer “simpler” version .. because this game is still Spirit Island. I took my time and thought long and hard about my decisions. I like playing solo games like this, and I don’t mind doing this by myself. But if I were with a group, I would make sure I moved much faster.
In the end, this was everything I loved in the original solo game (and that still applies to the multiplayer game as well). Horizons of Spirit Island gameplay is still Spirit Island gameplay: it was fun but thinky.
Quick Start Guide
The Quick Start Guide is .. okay. We were expecting something more like the onboarding experience we saw in Gloomhaven:Jaws of the Lion: Gloomhaven (see our review here). Jaws of the Lion was another very similar product to Horizons of Spirit Island. The original Gloomhaven is a giant, complicated, expensive game and Jaws of the Lion was an attempt by Target to bring the Gloomhaven experience to the mass market. Similarly, Spirit Island is a giant, complicated, expensive game and Horizons of Sprit Island was an attempt to bring the Spirit Island experience to the mass market.
Although the Quick Start Guide does a great job guiding a 3-Player game through the first few turns, it’s not really an extensive onboarding guide: it just discusses set-up and play over a few turns. Jaws of the Lion was a lot of more extensive: it would start simple and slowly introduce more and more rules (over the first few games), to slowly onboard players into the game.
For example, my first play of Horizons of Spirit Island was a solo game (see previous section), not a 3-Player game. I know how to play Spirit Island, but it’s been a while since I played, so it was nice to go through the rules from the Quick Start Guide. The problem was that I had to scale everything for a solo game. In the end, the Quick Start Guide was an okay help, but not nearly as helpful as the equivalent Quick Start Guide in Jaws of the Lion.
I always recommend learning a game solo, especially a big complicated one like Horizons of Spirit Island, so you can you can teach your friends and facilitate their plays. I would have preferred a solo Quick Start Guide rather than a 3-Player guide (or at least one that covered both).
Discussion
Horizons of Spirit Island is still the same game as Spirit Island, but it has a cheaper entry price, cheaper components, and fewer components (fewer spirits, fewer cards). Horizons of Spirit Island also doesn’t have some of the in-game expansions that Spirit Island has: I assume they were elided to keep the price down. The Quick Start Guide in Horizons is useful to help new players, but it’s not as helpful as I was expecting or hoping; it works okay.
In the end, even though Horizons of Spirit Island is pretty much the same game as Spirit Island, it does feel easier to get to the table! The original Spirit Island has a pretty big box chock full of components and is rather daunting.
The smaller Horizons of Spirit Island just “feels” smaller (and strictly speaking, it is) and that seems to make it easier to get to the table.
Conclusion
If you ever wanted to try Spirit Island, but were afraid of the price or the daunting box or the complex rules, Horizons of Spirit Island is a good entry point. Horizons is pretty cheap at $29.99 at Target, but even with the lesser components, the game still looks really good: see above.
The Quick Start Guide (see above), although not great, is still pretty good and it will help you get into this fairly complicated game.
If you decide you like Horizons of Spirit Island, you can still purchase the original Spirit Island (with the exceptional components) and use the Horizons of Spirit Island game as an expansion! All of the spirits and cards from Horizons of Spirit Island can be used in the original game as extra content! More spirits!
Horizons of Spirit Island makes it easy to tryout Spirit Island. Horizons is pretty cheap, and you can decide if you like it before spending money on the bigger Spirit Island and it’s myriad of expansions.
I like it. I will keep Horizons of Spirit Island to introduce new players to the Spirit Island experience! And also for the extra spirits!
About a week ago, on September 19th 2022, the final game in the Monkey Island series (Return to Monkey Island) was published on Nintendo Switch and Steam. The Monkey Island series is a a bunch of point-and-click adventure video games starting with The Secret of Monkey Island. To my mind, the original game, The Secret of Monkey Island, is one of the greatest video games ever made, and the other five in the series are just as good (well, mostly). The games are funny, they have interesting puzzles, they are well-crafted, and they are well-written.
To be clear: these are not lot a lot of games like these in the current marketplace: there’s no “shoot-em-up”, there’s no “online multiplayer”, there’s no “do stuff in realtime” (mostly). These are adventures where you go explore your own pace solving puzzles in the islands of the carribbean. There’s a story.
I make the bold claim that the original Secret of Monkey Island (see above) is so thoughtful and tightly crafted, I would say it approaches the status of literature, telling an amazing acompelling story regardless of what Steve Jobs thinks: See Ron Gilbert’s post on meeting Steve Jobs here.
We have frequently discussed Monkey Island here: it was exciting when Monkey Island I and II were ported to iOS (that’s good), but depressing when Disney let the app lapse on new releases of the operating system (that’s bad). We did find that GOG (Good Old Games) had made the first 4 games available. That’s good! Ron GIlbert had even famously texted Disney to sell him the rights to Monkey Island so he could make a new game. They didn’t “seem” to respond (that’s bad), but after his initial contact, we see that Ron Gilbert and Dave Grosssman have teamed up once again and “somehow” gotten the rights to make the final chapter of the Monkey Island saga. That’s good! That’s where we finally find … the secret of Monkey Island in Return To Monkey Island.
Quick Review
If you liked any of the Monkey Island games, you will like this one. It has all the qualities of the original games: funny, well-crafted puzzles, and a sense of exploration. I wish they had stayed with the art style from Monkey Island 3 (with the animated style), but I mostly like the new art style here: see below.
My only complaint was that the right stick (I played on Switch) was always supposed to move around to “hot spots” on the screen, but if you sat for even a second, it would just disappear. I had to move the left stick then the right stick just to jump around. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was annoying.
I don’t really want to share too much more, because this is a game about discovery (in so many ways). One major joke throughout the series (and indeed, Ron Gilbert’s other games) is that even though the original game in the series was called The Secret of Monkey Island, you never find out what the secret is in the game itself! In Deathspank (another Ron Gilbert game), one character even proclaims to know the secret, but declines to follow up on it.
In this game, we do find the secret.
There’s a moment of silence in the very last frame of the game where Guybrush Threepwood just sits there, reflecting. For a few moments. And you find yourself reflecting too, almost as if you were sitting there with Guybrush as well. It was one of the most poignant moments in a video game I have ever played.
This is a great game and a great representation of the series: by all means pick up The Return to Monkey Island if you like the series. To be clear: this is a go-at-your-own pace adventure, with lots of puzzles to solve as you explore: This is not a shoot-em-up or MMORPG. This is a solitaire adventure.
Solo Games
“Hey! Wait a minute! Isn’t this a cooperative board and card games blog? Why are you yammering so much about a video game?”
Yes, yes, you are right! Why are we talking so much about Monkey Island? In many ways, my expectations of a solo game come from my experiences with adventure games, text and graphical. The text-only adventure games of the late 1970s and the point-and-click adventure games of LucasArts (like Monkey Island) of the 1980s were my first solo gaming experiences. They set the bar pretty high for what I wanted in solo game:
Not too much maintenance. By having the video game engine keeping track of a lot of stuff, you just get to play the “fun parts”. You stay engaged. If you are doing too much maintenance per turn to keep a solo board game going, it takes you out of the world. I think the solo game of Deep Space D6: Armada suffered from too much maintenance per turn: see our review here. A better example would be Legends of Sleepy Hollow: it’s great as a cooperative game, but it has way too much context switching and maintenance to be a fun solo game. See our review here.
A sense of humor. It’s hard to expect a sense of humor in a lot of solo/cooperative board and card games, because typically you are trying to save the world! “Save the world or we all die!! AhHHH!” The Monkey Island series showed that you can still have fun and laugh even when trying complicated puzzles. It’s rare that solo games have sense of humor. Maybe that’s why I liked the Cantaloop series so much! See reviews here and here. The Cantaloop solo board game adventures have a sense of humor, but still present a real interesting game. See out Top 10 Cooperative Games with a Sense of Humor.
Well-crafted text and puzzles. I find myself drawn to “one-and-done” games (like Exit, Unlock, Detective: City of Angels) because they have well-crafted puzzles and mysteries. Solo games where some puzzle is just “randomly combined to make a puzzle” are less fun to me. I like the narrative to keep me involved, and I like to feel like the puzzles make sense in a context. See our Top 10 Cooperative Detective Gamesand Top 10 Cooperative Spooky Games.
Exploration/ Engaging Environment. Even if a game fails the first three criteria, as long as a game embraces a theme and won’t let go, I can still love it as a solo game. The Robinson Crusoe solo game breaks all three of the previous criteria, but I still like it because it really does feel like I am stuck on an Island trying to get off: I think the exploration aspect keeps me engaged.
Play At My Own Pace. I am generally not a fan of real-time games. In the Monkey Island series, there are very few true realtime puzzles: most of the time, you can solve a puzzle at your own pace. I find that I prefer solo games where I DO NOT have a realtime clock or timer.
I hate to say this, but solo games have a hard time competing against video games sometimes. I think there are a lot of great solo board and card games out there (see Cantaloop above), but it seems to be harder for me to find solo games I really like because of the bar that the Monkey Island games set.
Conclusion
If you like ponderous exploration games with a sense-of-humor, and you’ve never tried any of the Monkey Island games, check out the very first one to see if you might like this series! Basically, if you like the Unlock games and Exit games or Cantaloop, (or frankly any Escape Room board games), you might really enjoy the Monkey Island series. I play the original The Secret of Monkey Islandon my PS3 (I bought the actual physical disk), but you can still get The Secret of Monkey Island from Good Old Games (http://www.gog.com). I promise this isn’t an ad … I just don’t know where to get it otherwise. I have the Amiga 3000 version, but I don’t think the disks even work anymore. EDIT: You can also get the Monkey Island games on Steam.
If you find that you love the first Monkey Island game, you need to play Money Island II and Monkey Island III!! Only play the final installment, The Return to Monkey Island (on Steam and Switch) after you’ve absorbed (at least) the first three. Monkey Island IV and V are still good games, but not as essential as the first three.
You want a new solo game series to keep you busy and laughing for a while? Try the Monkey Island series. They are my favorite solo games of all time.
Platypus is a cooperative word game meant for larger groups of 3-8 people: it’s a party game!
I picked this up from GameNerdz during one of my online orders. It came out probably about mid 2022.
Unboxing
Um, this is a party word game. There’s not much to unbox here: there is a little board to put word cards on, and a bunch of word cards.
There are some numbered cards which describe the 8 positions on the board.
Mostly, there are word cards. There are two types of word cards: adjective cards (see above) and noun cards (see below).
If you are starting to get a Apples to Apples vibe from the game, don’t ignore that vibe! I really think this is striving to be the cooperative Apples to Apples in many ways.
Overall, the game has a cute cartoony platypus vibe. The cards are easy to read and the orange blue color palette is very distinctive without being too annoying.
Solo Play
“Solo play?What are you talking about? This is a party game!”
Oh yes, Platypus definitely needs at least 3 people to play! But, I always try to play every game solo at first, so I can teach my friends how to play. This game does not follow Saunders’ Law: it doesn’t have any solo mode, and it really can’t have such a mode. Even with something like the Changing Perspectives idea, you can’t really play this solo! Too much of the hidden information can only be gleaned from contextual implications: you can’t really just look at the board to make pure logical deductions.
Without a lot of work, you really can’t play this solo. But that doesn’t mean you can’t set it up to teach it to yourself! That’s what I did!
Gameplay
The players divide into two groups: Guides and Explorers: basically, the Explorers (1 or 2 people, depending on the number of players) are trying to guess which of the eight noun cards is “the Platypus” (the hidden word) and the Guides (which are everybody else) are trying to help the Explorers find “the Platypus” using only the adjective cards they have.
For example, one Guide might have the 7 adjective cards above as clues. After the Guide shows an adjective, the Explorers will need to eliminate one or two Nouns on the board: you can see the board below where the Explorers have been able to whittle down the board to only 3 Nouns!! Which is the final answer? What noun is “the Platypus”?
There is a little strategy in being a Guide because you are always discarding cards, and you only draw back up when you get below 4 cards. So, you may want to reserve some better adjectives to when the noun is almost chosen.
Again, it feels a little like cooperative Apples to Apples:Guides play adjective cards to help Explorers guess noun cards.
Discussion
Apples to Apples is a very apt comparison to Platypus. In Apples to Apples, a single Judge (like the Explorer) tries to choose the best match for the noun from the adjectives he gets (from many Guides): it’s a very subjective silly assessment! But, in Apples to Apples, if you have crappy words, you can just say “these suck” and just throw out a crappy card to the judge: sometimes complaining about how bad your cards are was the funnest part of the game! Or you can go for the funniest implications with the crappy cards you have! In Apples to Apples, you can still have fun with crappy cards!
And that’s the problem with Platypus: you can’t have fun with crappy cards! You are too constrained! Platypus is fun as long as The Guides have relevant adjectives to use. I remember being shocked that Guides started with eight adjective cards (“Wow, that’s a lot!”), but then I saw why: frequently, Guides get adjectives that are not really apropos! And Guides don’t get to draw back up to eight adjectives: they have to shrink down to three adjectives before they can draw more! Basically, if you get crappy cards, you are stuck with crappy cards! And then Platypus is NOT fun! It’s frustrating!
Compare this to Codenames or So Clover or Just One where the players gets to choose words as clues! Any word they want!! Even when players get to choose any word in the English language, sometimes those games are still hard! But at least you feel like you have agency and choice. Now imagine you only have 4-8 words and they all suck! No fun. In a word, it was … Frustrating.
House Rules
I think some House Rules could help fix this game up a little.
A very simple rule to help: allow the Guides to always draw back up to 8 adjectives after they play an adjective card!! That way, the Guides always have 8 adjective cards! I feel like the game was the least fun when I had fewer adjective cards.
An addition of a some resettokens would be useful: a Guide could discard one of the reset tokens to draw a brand new hand of adjectives!! You could make an “egg” be the one-time reset token, and turning it over would be a cracked egg! It would fit with the theme of the game! I guess each player would have one “egg” token which would allow them a one-time “redraw all my adjectives”. Heck, even Mysterium allows up to 3 clue redraws for the ghost … why can’t Platypus?
Conclusion
Platypus is an okay cooperative party game: it’s not bad, but it’s not good. I’d recommend any of the Top 10 Cooperative Party Games on this list before Platypus. It just doesn’t feel like players have enough choice or agency for this to be fun.
I can’t recommend Platypus as it stands, because there’s so many other great cooperative party games which are better! BUT, having said that, I think with just a few tweaks (using some House Rules like we described previously), Platypus can be a lot more fun! Give the game a try with our House Rules: you may love Platypus with those changes applied!
Flamecraft is a competitive, worker placement game where players compete to get the most victory points. Players each play as a dragon helping out a local village.
You might be wondering “Why are you reviewing a competitive game on your cooperative games blog?” For two reasons:
Solo Mode: Flamecraft does have a solo mode, and we take a look at a lot of solo games here at Co-op Gestalt: we have looked at Batman: The Dark Knight Returns here and Nemo’s Warhere, just to name a few.
Implied Cooperative Mode: If a game does have a solo mode, we can frequently derive a cooperative mode for it. We did this for Canvas (the Converse of Saunders’ Law, see here) and something similar happened for Elia and Something Shiny (see here). We’ll talk about this more in the Cooperative Mode section below.
Flamecraft is an incredibly cute game: the version (above) is the deluxe Kickstarter version, with a pin, bookmarks, and extra cards.
Unboxing and Components
The deluxe version of Flamecraft is chock-full of gorgeous components.
The cards are linen finished, and the art is top notch. If you only get the regular version of Flamecraft, you will still get the same super cute art, if not all the deluxe wooden bits and mats.
Rulebook
This was one of the better rulebooks I have read in a while. The rules were well-written, easy to understand, and had a lot of pictures annotating the examples.
The game is just so cute. The components pages might have been overkill!
There’s not THAT many components, and they take up two pages! But it’s nice to see everything well annotated.
The set-up pages were fantastic: see above.
You can see from the example above, there were lots of pictures, lots of annotations, and large, easy-to-read text.
One of my favorite parts of the rulebook is that they use the special “!!” section to note a rule that is an “expert clarifications” (see above). This is a rule you won’t read or understand the first time through the rulebook, but after you understand the game better and are looking for exceptions/clarifications, it’s easy to find them. (We saw something like this in Tokyo Sidekick, except they used red text to show these “expert clarifications”: see our review of Tokyo Sidekick here).
You will have no trouble getting through this rulebook. It was fantastic.
Gameplay
This is a pretty simple worker placement game: the box tells us we can play 1-5 Players at ages 10+.
Each player gets their own summary code: see above. The game is actually quite simple! On your turn, you move your dragon to a new shop in the village:
If there are other dragons there, you have to give them each one resource: this is the penalty for going to a popular shop!
Once on a village space, you choose one of two paths: Gather or Enchant.
In Gather mode, you collect as many resources are in the location! For example, for the Draco Bell above you would get 6 meats (3 for enchantments, 1 for base location, 2 for artisan dragons already there), and 1 diamond (from the diamond artisan dragon). If you have some artisan dragons and the shop has space (Draco Bell doesn’t have any openings), you can place it and get a reward. Finally, then you can activate one artisan dragon:
Pan (above) allows you to draw one more artisan dragon into your hand.
If you choose the Enchant mode, you will be enchanting the location, which adds resources to a location and (typically and more importantly) gives you victory points! See three different enchantments below.
For example, if you pay 2 leaves and 3 meat for the Fairy’s Jubilee Enchantment, you get 4 victory points and new artisanal dragon! (And you place the enchantment on a Bread shop to make it more productive!) One of the best parts of casting an enchantment is that you then activate ALL artisanal dragons on that location!!!
And that’s pretty much the main idea of the game! Move, Gather or Enchant, repeat!!! There are also other rules about new locations, Fancy Dragons, and a few other mechanisms (coins are special), but that’s the main idea!
Players play until they run out of Artisanal Dragons OR Enchantments! Whoever has the most victory points wins!
Solo Mode
The solo mode is covered in two pages at the very back of the rulebook. I admit, the rules for solo look daunting at first, but it really doesn’t change the game that much. The solo player will play a single dragon trying to get 75 victory points using the normal mechanisms in the game. To simulate other players on the board, there will be a very simple AI moving the other dragons around the board: so you may still have to pay resource to go to a space you really want! The AI also casts enchantments as well, so it’s as if another bunch of players are playing.
The goal of the solo game is to get as many victory points as you can: it’s not considered a win unless you get at least 75 victory points! See the victory point track above, early in the game I am at 24 victory points.
Flamecraft works fine, if not great, as a solo mode. It is a really good way to learn the game. The AI operating the other dragons is simple enough, so you aren’t overwhelmed by lots of upkeep. The game also moves quickly and is fun. The only reason I say this is “fine, if not great” is that the game is a little light: however, I think that’s the point of this game (see our Conclusion). This is meant to be a lighter worker placement game.
There is a fair amount of set-up and tear-down to the game, but once you get into the solo game, it moves quickly and is fun. It is also great way to learn the game so you can teach your friends.
Competitive Mode
In the base game, the game is competitive: each player plays a dragon, moves around the village collecting resources to help generate victory points. Whomever has the most points at game end wins.
The competitive mode works very well. It’s simple to explain, play moves quickly, and there’s not a lot of take-that: the only take that is really that you have to give all other players resources if you go to their village location (and that’s pretty mild).
Cooperative Mode
Elia and Something Shiny is a multiplayer game we reviewed a little while ago (see here). It’s a cooperative game where the players are all working together to play “one creature” (Elia). The players all have to come to consensus as to what Elia will do on her turn. As a group, they operate one character.
For Flamecraft, we can do the same kind of thing to get a cooperative mode! Players collectively operate one dragon in solo mode, much like all players operating Elia in Elia and Something Shiny. A cooperative group will simply play one dragon in solo mode, trying to amass the needed 75 victory points for a win!
You might remember that we also suggested a similar cooperative mode for Canvas: in that review, we called this inferred cooperative mode Saunders’ Law Converse:
The converse of Saunders’ Law would say “If a game has a solo mode, designers should really put in a viable cooperative mode“.
In the case of Canvas, Elia and Something Shiny, and Flamecraft, this inferred cooperative mode is dirt simple to try out: just play the solo mode with multiple people.
One of the reasons I think this implied cooperative mode works is that these are ALL LIGHTWEIGHT FAMILY GAMES: I can very easily see playing all of these games with a younger child operating the main character (dragon, Elia, etc), with Mom and Dad “helping” like a cooperative game. If you wanted to get Flamecraft, but were wary you couldn’t play it cooperatively, worry no more! You can!! I will say that this implied cooperative mode probably isn’t the best way to play: Flamecraft was meant to be a game with multiple players and it works best as a competitive game … but honestly, there’s not that much “take-that” in the game if you were worried about a super competitive game.
Sense of Humor
So this game has a little bit of a sense of humor. The Enchantments all have silly names (I think Hobbichino, above, is my favorite).
The names of the locations in the village are silly. Draco Bell? Like Taco Bell?
Honestly, this sense of humor didn’t detract from the game for us: it lightened the mood and made the game that much more fun.
Conclusion
Flamecraft is a beautiful game with gorgeous art. The gameplay is really straight-forward, it’s easy to teach, and players will always feel like they are doing something on their turn. There’s not really a lot of getting in each other’s way other way, so if you don’t like super-competitive games, Flamecraft will be up your alley.
The art style is a very much an indicator of what the game is like: if you don’t like the art, you may not like the game. This is a simpler worker placement game: it may not be the first game you want to teach a new gamer, but Flamecraft would be very good as a next-step game. It’s a little more complicated than some intro games (like Forbidden Island, Splendor,Century Spice), but not too much more complicated.
The solo mode is great for learning the game, and pretty good for ongoing play. The implied cooperative mode also gives players another play option if they want to play Flamecraft cooperatively: this cooperative mode might be best for a family playing together … but it’s probably not the best way to play! Honestly, the competitive mode with multiple players is probably the best way to play, but the extra modes give the game more variety.
Flamecraft is a great “lighter “worker placement game: it’s super cute aesthetics, gorgeous components, and sense of humor will attract a lot of players. And it’s pretty fun. One of my friends wanted to order this immediately after playing it.
I have many friends who love trains: talking trains, taking trains, training trains … Don and Patrick in particular. When I go to lunch with Don and Patrick, I’ll say: “I’m going get to a drink refill, you guys talk about trains while I’m gone”. It’s not that I don’t like trains, I just don’t have the same passion that they do. So, I was excited when I discovered Switch and Signal: a cooperative train game from Kosmos! This ticks the boxes for all of us: trains, cooperative, game!
Unboxing and Gameplay
Switch and Signal comes in a standard sized box. It’s about the same size as what we call the Ticket To Ride sized box: I suspect this is not a coincidence.
The rulebook is colorful and easy to read.
Locations 2-12
This is a train game, so it has to come with a map! In fact, the game board is a two-sided map! The Europe side (above left) is the introductory map. The North America side (the flip side, above right) is the more advanced map.
This is a train game, so there have to awesome little plastic trains! Note that each train has space for a goods cube!
In fact, there is a die for each type of train! Players will roll those dice to move trains of that color.
Also, because this is a train game, there have to be goods cubes to deliver!! See the colored cubes (yellow, red, white, blue) above. This game is all about delivering goods cubes to the harbor before time runs out!! And because this game is called Switch and Signal, there are switches (the little black circles above) and signals (the green discs). The signals open train lines, and the switches redirect trains along different lines.
For example: the black train above can’t move across the Salzburg switch because the switching is the blocking the way.
The grey train (above) can move into Marseille (with the white goods cube) because the (green) signal on his track is open. Notice the (red) signal on the leftmost (east) entry into Marseille is NOT open!
How do players operate the switches and signals? Through card play! Each turn, each player plays his 5 (or more) cards to cause stuff to happen on the train tracks. The cards are dirt simple: you can move a signal (left green card), update a switch (middle black card) or move a train (rightmost train card). And that’s it! Note that we say “move a signal” because you can only move a signal from some other part of the board to an empty signal slot … you can’t introduce more signals! Similarly, on a switch space you can only reconfigure a switch (no moving them off the switch). And finally, you can move a train via dice. Remember those dice you saw earlier?
When you play a train card, you can move a single train, using and rolling the appropriate die. Notice that the trains all move different speeds! The grey trains tend to moves slowly, brown trains tend move normally, and the black trains tend to move very fast!
How do trains get on the map? The departure cards (see above) specify what color trains come out (and also move them). Usually, one comes out every turn. If you run out of departure cards, you have run out of time and players lose the game!
The time tokens (above) help count down time as well. Every time one of your train gets “stuck” (can’t move because it’s behind another train, or at a closed switch, or at a closed signal), players lose some time tokens. If players lose too many time tokens, they discard an extra departure card! The normal flow of time causes the departure cards to count down slowly, but blocked trains lose extra time. It’s important in the game to keep all your trains moving!
You’ll notice the two brown numbered dice above: the sum of those two dice tell you where a train will come out! There are 10 locations, labelled 2-12. This mechanism adds a a bit of randomness in the game, but the locations 6,7,8 tend to be the busiest locations. See below and below.
Locations 2-12
Putting all together, players need to try (cooperatively) to deliver all the good to the harbor before time runs out!
If you deliver all the cubes, you win! If you run out of time (no more delivery cards), you lose!
Overall, this game looks good. All the cards and locations are easy to read and see.
Rulebook
This is a very good rulebook. It’s short and succinct: only 8 pages. The pictures are very helpful and useful, especially the set-up which spans two pages! It is so easy to set-up!! The base rules are explained well. More importantly: all the edge cases seem to be discussed one way or the other. This rulebook is easy to read, easy to peruse, and easy to search.
Solo Play
Somewhat surprisingly, this game doesn’t adhere to Saunders’ Law: Switch and Signal doesn’t have a solo mode! In the modern gaming landscape, many cooperative games add a solo mode just to appeal to more gamers. Nope! Not Switch and Signal!
Weirdly, I don’t think it would be that hard to add a solo play. I went ahead and played two-handed as if I were two players and it worked fine (see above): in fact, it was a great way to learn the game. After getting through the game, I could see how easy it would be to play this one-handed for a solo game!
This is nominally a hidden information game, as players are allowed to talk about the cards in their hands, but they can’t show the other players. (It’s not 100% clear: the rules explicitly say you can “talk about the cards in your hand” but the rules only imply you can’t show your cards to other players). So, a two-handed solo game has everything laid bare like the picture above: there’s no hidden information! So, is the game too easy with all information laid bare? Perhaps that’s why there’s no solo mode?
Honestly, I had a great time playing a two-handed solo game! Even though I lost my first solo game (see above), I could easily see playing this as a solo game again. It was fun! So, my recommendation? Play it two-handed solo to learn the game: that was a great way to learn it. If you like that mode, there’s nothing to stop you from playing solo that way! I don’t think the board game police will come and get you for playing this solo. I think.
Cooperative Play
I was able to get this played with 2, 3, and 4 players and we all had a blast! It was quite a hit at RichieCon 2022! As we look at the board, we decide as a group which things we need to deal with: we set direction for the current player and a little bit of direction for the next player. We have fun just having these discussions! I mean, the train people love just having the discussions about trains!
I could see there might be an element of Alpha Player Syndrome in Switch and Signal, as you really do need to discuss things and come to consensus as you play: Alpha Players aren’t as good at coming to consensus. This is especially true (when sometimes your hand isn’t very good) when all you can do is set-up the next player! So, I am pretty sure that’s why you can only discuss what’s in your hand and not show it. I think if an Alpha Player shows up in your game, you have to lean hard into “I can’t show you what I have” rule and simply engage discussion at a higher level. If your group luckily avoids the Alpha Player, I don’t think there would be a problem showing your cards.
Conclusion
If Switch and Signal were trying to be the cooperative replacement for Ticket To Ride, I’d say they succeeded! Switch and Signal is a light game that plays quickly (in 45 minutes), it’s easy to teach, it’s easy to play, but it has lots of interesting decisions! There’s not quite as much cooperation in Switch and Signal as other cooperative games (like, say The Reckoners, which we’ve reviewed here, where every dice face and order matters), but that’s probably a good thing: my train friends tend to be fiercely independent creatures! There’s just enough cooperation to make us feel like we are working together, but there are enough independent decisions to keep each player focused on their hand.
Switch and Signal is a rare thing: a cooperative, simple, light, but deep game that plays quickly. I suspect me and my train friends will be playing this quite a bit in the future. If you aren’t a train person, I suspect this game will still appeal to you.
Recall that we did the Top 10 Cooperative Detective Board and Card Games here: we could have also called that list Top 10 Cooperative Heavy Deduction Games because many games on that list are heavier deduction games. This list here concentrates more on the lighter cooperative deduction games that are easy to bring out in a group. When you want something quick and simple, try one of these!
10. Crack The Code
Crack The Code has interesting ideas with hidden elements moving around the board. Player have to get the proper colored balls to each player. The components are little rubber balls that go from player to player and can generally only move left and right. There are a few component issues (sometimes the little balls get stuck), which is why this is number 10, but there are enough interesting ideas in this light deduction game to make it worth a look.
9. Mysterium
NOT the USA release of Mysterium!
The only reason that Mysterium is number 9 on our list is because the deduction is more inference and guessing than other games on this list. But Mysterium is so fun, it has to be on this list! One player plays the ghost, giving clues to all the other players. These clues (clue cards) are meant to help the players guess aspects of the ghost’s murder! Using these clue cards, which are crazy and wild pictures, (see some below) players try to “deduce” what the ghost is trying to communicate! It’s so hard to be the ghost, but ultimately very rewarding. Some players may like Mysterium Park better: it’s essentially the same game but a little more streamlined.
8. Mysterium Park
Speaking of Mysterium Park: This game offers a very similar experience to Mysterium, but in a streamlined fashion. The game center on a carnival setting, with creepy/spooky cards in that world.
A game of Mysterium Park only plays in 28 minutes, but has the same creepy and weird cards that Mysterium does. It’s also a much smaller box!
7. Outfoxed
Outfoxed is a very lightweight games, mostly for kids but still a fun deduction romp you want something very simple. The ages of the game are labelled 5+: I could easily playing with my young nieces. But, I could also see this being an end-of-the-night game when you want something light and fun.
The components are nice, and it even has a little toy factor with the orange clue looker-upper!
Overall, we had a nice time playing Outfoxed, even if it is a little lighter.
6. 5-Minute Mystery
We reviewed 5-Minute Mystery here some time ago: this game is only 5 to 8 minutes per session, but has a major toy factor with the codex the players use. This game is a combination of “find the hidden symbols” and “deduction”. I didn’t think I’d like the hidden symbols portion, but it was fun and worked great in a cooperative group setting. This is a fun, light deduction game with a cool plastic codex!
5. Stop Thief!
Stop Thief! is a cooperative deduction game by Restoration Games. The original 1986 game was one-vs-all, as one player played “the thief” moving around the board, and others had to try to catch him. When Restoration Games “restored” this game, they added an app which can play as “the thief”, thus allowing the game to be played fully cooperatively. Players work together to deduce where the thief has been so they can try and catch him. This is a fun little puzzle with the thief controlled by the app! Stop Thief! also made our Top 10 Cooperative Board and Card Games with an App!
4. Rising 5: Runes of Asteros
Rising 5: Runes of Asteros is an older game which we reviewed here. It’s essentially a cooperative version of Mastermind, where players have to work together to deduce some symbols. This game is set in a fantastical space setting with Vincent Dutraite art and it simply looks fantastic. The game is run by an App giving out clues to the players as they try to guess the symbols. A player can sit out and you can play without the app if you like, but the App is great! You can can scan your board with your camera and it will give you the hints you need to deduce! This is a light game that can be played in about 20 minutes. It also made our Top 10 Cooperative Board and Card Games with an App!
3. Paint The Roses
Paint The Roses is a deduction game by Ben Goldman where players have to guess the symbols on each others cards. If you don’t do it quickly enough, the Queen of Hearts comes around and chops of your head! We originally reviewed Paint the Roses here!
This is a silly deduction game for 2-4 players with beautiful art by Jacqui Davis. The deluxe version has beautiful plastic components. This game is interesting because you can go as shallow or deep as you want in your deduction: do you use just positive information or negative information as well? See our review here for more discussion!
2. Shipwreck Arcana
We reviewed Shipwreck Arcanahere some time ago, but it has become a favorite game here at Co-op Gestalt!Shipwreck Arcana inspired us to develop the Changing Perspectives idea and also made the top spot on our Top 10 “Small” Cooperative Games! Shipwreck Arcana is a very pure deduction game where players can only use the information on the board to guess what number is hidden for each player. It’s a fun and light deduction game, but it can be very thinky. Some might have trouble with calling this a “light” game, but at the end of the day, there’s not too much too it! Just some cards and a few things you can do on your turn: it’s just that this is probably the thinkiest game on this list!
Basic Set-up (for a solo game): After a few turns where the DOOM token has moved up to 3, and the Guesses token is only at 0! I haven’t guessed anything right yet!
1. Hanabi
Hanabi is an older cooperative card game, but it is such a tight and clever deduction game! It’s probably the lightest physical game on this list, as it is just a small deck of cards (see below), but it may be the heaviest in pure deduction. Hanabi is the definition of a hidden information game, as each player can see all hands of cards except their own! Players can only communicate in very strict terms: “You have a/some [color or number]” and that’s it! It’s pure deduction and won the Spiel Des Jahres game of the year in 2013. This game took my game groups by storm in 2013 but it still gets played to this day.
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