Tag: fantasy

An Epic Struggle! A Review of Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship

Over the course of a few weeks, I played Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship many many many times and different ways trying to find the joy and fun. I have to admit, it was an Epic Struggle! I gave this game way more chances than I should have because of its theme and designer, but I struggled with it. Follow me in my journey to see if I keep Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship in my collection or throw it into Mount Doom along with the Ring!

My journey to play Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship began back in January 24, 2025!  The game was up for pre-order on the Asmodee web site, and I pre-ordered with an expectation that it would arrive in late May or early June (as was the original promise).

Well, things changed (Asmodee had trouble shipping) and it didn’t deliver to me until Monday August 19th.  This was frustrating because I had seen SO MANY people put up reviews on BGG, and yet, as a paying customer who ordered early, I didn’t get mine until 7 or 8 months later.

I was very excited for this: this is a game in the Pandemic System (see above)!  What that means is that it’s not quite Pandemic, but if you squint, you can see the elements of Pandemic in the game!  I generally love Pandemic and its ilk (see reviews of Pandemic: Ibera, Star Wars : The Clone Wars Pandemic, and World of Warcraft Pandemic), but I have not loved all Pandemics (see our review of Freedom Five).  Will this be a good Pandemic or a bad Pandemic? (What a strange sentence)

Let’s follow this Journey!

Rulebook

The rulebook is very good and is the first thing you see when you unpack the game.  This rulebook gets an A on the Chair Test!

The rulebook opens up and stays open on the chair next to me.  The font is big, the pictures are well-annotated, and it’s easy to read on the chair next to me!

The Component page is well-labelled with pictures and text: see above.

The Game Board Features is really nice as you try to understand this world.

Generally, this was a good rulebook with a Table of contents (yay), but no Index (boo!).  The back of the rulebook shows useful info and icons.

There is one issue with solo rules that’s not well-specified (see below).

Generally, this was a good rulebook.

Unboxing and Set-Up: Building the Dice Tower!

Total time: it took me about 2 hours to unbox and set-up for my first game

See Box above with Can of Coke for scale.

The first part of the game unboxing was building the dice tower: this consumed about 20 minutes!  The directions are pretty good, but it was annoying.  Unfortunately, this was a little foreshadowing for the game itself.

In the end, the Dice Tower looks really cool (see above), but holy cow, this was kind of annoying to build.  Once you’ve built it, it does come apart easily and go back into the box (in 3 pieces: see below).

The board is a huge 6-fold board.  It’s very busy and very daunting at first glance: see above.  It does get better once you get to know the board, but, yes, it is very busy.

I was told by my friends who LOVE Lord of the Rings that this board is very accurate and consistent with the map at the front of the books. 

If you squint, you can see the Pandemic underneath!  The Region cards feel very similar to the player cards we’ve seen from Pandemic!

Just like Pandemic, there’s Events (of course, they are flavored for this universe).

The Skies Darken cards (above) are very much like the Epidemic cards from the original Pandemic!

Like the original Pandemic, you divide the deck into fourths and put one of these “bad news” into each part of the Region cards.  That way you get one Skies Darken at about every quarter of the game!

The true Bad News deck is the called the Shadow Cards; you get two (or more) per turn.  This is just like the Infection Deck from Pandemic.   There’s a big difference though!  If the Shadow Card to the left of the card you play is a red banner (see above), you activate the TOP part of card!

If the left card is a black Banner, you activate the BOTTOM part.  The bad news you get depends on the top card of the deck!  This can have wild swings to the game!

Like Pandemic, these Shadow Cards go to the top of the Shadow Deck and will come out again and again, whenever you draw a Skies Darken!  You seed the game with “troops” (not disease cubes) very much like the disease cubes.

If you’ve played Pandemic in any form, those Skies Darken cards will feel VERY familiar.

Every player will play TWO characters! Not just one! That’s different!

The characters should be very familiar to the LOTR fans! See above!

One characters gets 4 actions (like Pandemic), and other only gets 1 Action Point. That’s a little different.

With those 4 Actions (see documented above), you do things like Pandemic.  However, there are a lot of differences here!  This is where the game starts to drift from the original game a LOT more, as you can attack (with dice), capture Havens, Prepare, Fellowship!  There’s SOME Pandemic here, but the actions you get really are very different.  For example, you can trade in a card for token for hand-management reasons, but only at a Haven!

So I decided to start my journey using the Solo Rules/Set-up! See above as I operate 5 characters (well, 4 and 1).

Winning, as you might guess, is throwing the Ring into Mount Doom: see above, top right!  But before you can do that, you must fulfill the previous three missions!  Each of these missions (see above) is very different: Attain the Blessing of the Elves, Challenge Sauron, Sauraman Your Staff Is Broken!  This is reminiscent of Pandemic, where you had to stop 4 diseases!  Here, you have to fulfill 4 very different missions!  (There are actually a number of different missions to choose from, but you always have Destroy One Ring as the final mission!)

At the end of Day 0, I was pretty exhausted!  Putting together the Dice Tower and setting up the game took a lot of work!

The Set-up actually spans 5 pages!  That’s right, 5 pages! 

At the end of Day 0, I was too tired to move forward and play my first game.

It looks cool set-up on the table though!  See that Dice Tower!  That cool LOTR board!

Playing Solo Mode Using Two Kinds of Solo Rules

The solo rules are well documented on page 22.  See above! (And thank you for following Saunders’ Law!)  These rules are generally very good and very clear. One problem I had: it’s not quite clear if you can share the tokens between all 5 characters, … but you can sort of infer that you can (because when a single players plays two characters, they can share tokens); it should have been stated more explicitly. EDIT: Yes, the rule is there! I missed it, and I could have sworn I looked like 3 times. My mistake!!!

The solo player plays 5 characters … well 4 characters and (Frodo and Sam).   You choose 4 characters to play (although the rulebook suggests characters for your first few games), but you always get Frodo and Sam (since Frodo has to throw the Ring Into Mount Doom) as the fifth character.  Yes, Frodo and Sam is considered one character.

There is only one hand of cards for the solo player, so all the cards are shared among the 5 characters.  This is both boon and bane; you don’t have to worry about sharing cards (indeed, the Fellowship action which shares cards, is disabled in the solo game), but you also are stuck with the 7-Card hand limit for all characters.  

You move the little green solo token around (above) to show which character you are activating this turn; the character you activate gets 4 actions, and then Sam and Frodo get one action.  That’s right, Sam and Frodo always get one action and the other character gets four actions.

My first game ended in a loss after about 14 turns as my Hope went to zero.  That’s right!  If your Hope track ever goes to zero, you immediately lose!  There are MANY things that cause your Hope to suffer: Search Checks, Losing a Haven, running out of cards.   In other Pandemics , the end generally comes when the player cards runs out.  Every game of Fate of the Fellowship I have lost was because the Hope went to zero very early in the game.  It’s VERY EASY to lose via Hope in this game. You have to be very careful with Hope, and it’s generally hard to get Hope back (but not impossible).

It was very weird to me that I lose before I was even barely one-fourth through the game: I had only gotten one Skies Darken!

Although I lost because I lost Hope, generally my combats were terrible; I rolled poorly.

Nonetheless, I realized I had played a LOT of rules wrong.   You have to understand that there are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of little rules in this game that you have to keep track of.  As someone who has played many many many games of Pandemic, I think I expected something more akin to the original Pandemic.  Nope!  This game is very different and requires you to bend your brain a lot more.

I was grumpy how hard I lost (as I said, I have played lots of Pandemic), but I realized how many rules I got wrong and things I missed, so my first game just got me the “feel” of the game; I should expect to lose.

My next solo game was a win, but I realized I STILL got a bunch of rules wrong.  

My third game was a complete loss in 3 turns.  That’s right, 3 turns! I got two “Shift The Eye To Frodo’s Region” and the Eye was there.  I had 5 search dice to roll, twice.  I lost because I lost all hope.  In turn 3.  That’s right, 3 turns.

I was ready to throw this game into Mount Doom; this games feels so messy and random.   Sure, I’ve had games of Pandemic go bad, but never this bad. Lost. In. 3. Turns.

I played a fourth game and lost after about halfway through the deck. By losing Hope of course.

I took a break to think about this. I realized that one of my problems was that I sometimes felt like I couldn’t do anything because I ran out of cards quickly.  This is because all 5 characters share the (7-card limit) deck.  When you have turns where you maybe don’t want to move (or can’t move), then you can spend some actions turning cards into tokens at a Haven.  With all characters sharing this hand, this “sometimes” action causes your hand to go to zero cards quite a bit.

So, I decided to play the traditional solo game: play the cooperative game two-handed, alternating between two players. See above.  After playing this way, I don’t think I can go back to the solo mode as written.  With playing 2-handed solo, I felt like I had more options (“how should I activate my characters? 4 or 1 or 1 and 4? Who should move?  Do I need to share?”).  Basically, the Fellowship option is important, but you don’t use it that much in a game—it’s generally better to have more cards in the 2-Player mode.

After 7 solo games, I think that the two-handed solo game is superior way to play solo. The solo player simply feels like he has more choice in actions (to choose how to divvy actions), more cards work with (spread over two hands), more mobility around the board (to deal with bad news as it pops up). To be honest, I didn’t start having fun until I started playing 2-handed solo.

I felt like the built-in solo mode might actually do the game a disservice. I kind of hated my first five solo games; it wasn’t until I went to the two-handed solo mode that I actually started having fun. If you had caught me in my first 5 solo games, this game would be burning in Mount Doom right now. I am someone who loves Pandemic, I am someone who loves Matt Leacock designs, I am someone who has played a lot of Pandemic in his life. Yet, the built-in solo mode almost caused me to hate this game. Caveat Emptor.

I recommend the two-handed solo mode.

Two Player

One of the things that convinced me that the 2-Player solo game was superior to the built-in solo mode was playing two players!

Over one Sunday, my friend Don and I played a 2-Player game and had fun!  Now, be aware that I had played many many solo games my this point, so I had the rules down, I had the strategy down, I had the teach down.  

I think we lost, but I don’t care?  We had fun: Don definitely knows like LOTR better than me and he thought it was fun.  He also reminded me that several of his Pandemic games went south in a few turns.  

It felt like there were more options in a 2-Player game. This cemented, in my mind at least, that the 2-handed solo mode is superior.

4-Player Game

So, after teaching the 2-Player game, we went into the 4-Player game.

The game was fun, but we saw more of the randomness emerge  It was also frustrating that sometimes players couldn’t do anything.  The muster action can only be done on certain locations IF you have friendship cards.  The Prepare action can only be done on a Haven.  So, if you didn’t have friendship or weren’t on a Haven (because you were out fighting), sometimes turns felt a little anti-climactic (as you couldn’t do much).

I was reminded by friends Charlie and Allison (after they played Pandemic Legacy: Season 1), that 2-Player Pandemic is easier than 4-Player Pandemic.  Usually because 2-Players can deal with Bad News “quicker”, as you only have to alternate players.  In a 4-Player Pandemic, the only person who can deal with some “bad News” is 3 turns away.

I think we saw this in our game of Pandemic; we came close to winning, but needed just a few more turns.  We didn’t “quite” deal with the Bad News as efficiently as we should have.

Did we have fun? Yes.  Did we love it?  No?  We liked it.   We would play again, if only to wipe the shame from our faces for losing.

Randomness

There are 4 major axes of Randomness in this game.

Axis 1: The Search Dice.  These must be rolled whenever Frodo travels (if he can’t sneak), or if a Shadows card forces a Search roll.   The number of dice depend on the number of Nazguls in your region.  See above for all 6 faces.   If you roll an “evil tree” (see above), you lose Hope.  Remember, if your Hope goes to 0, you lose.  You can re-roll some dice, at the cost of some resources.  They are re-rolls, not guarantees.

Axis 2: Combat dice. See above for all 6 faces. The red faces mean the bad guys lose a troop. The white faces mean the good guys lose a troop. A particularly bad roll can wipe out all the good guy troops and completely screw you. You can re-roll if you have a character in the region, at the cost of a ring. You can use swords to eliminate bad guys if you still have anything left (if you have a character there).

Axis 3: Shadow Cards.  What bad news do you get?  Even though the Shadow cards go back to the top of the deck (like Pandemic), the bad news you suffer depends on the next card at the top of the deck.  That little difference almost adds an extra axis of randomness.

Axis 4: Cards.  Which cards do you get? In one game, I waited 10? 12? 14? turns and could not get a sword!  See above! This basically meant my mission to win Isengard was thwarted and wasted time/resources.

This 4-axes of randomness (5 axes if you count the extra randomness of Shadow cards) can be debilitating.   There are ways to mitigate this, of course, but sometimes you just get screwed.  Pandemic kind of only had the 2-axes of randomness, and it felt plenty hard.

Be aware.  This game is much more random than the original Pandemic.  It may be too random for you.

Conclusion

It’s hard to recommend Fate of the Fellowship.   The extra randomness (relative to base Pandemic) inherent in the game with the Search Dice and Combat Dice can really bring your game down.  I also think that the recommended solo mode is flawed; and I think it will do a disservice to players if they decide to start with that. If you do want to play solo, I recommend 2-handed solo: you will feel like you have more options and more choices.

The game also feels like you can’t do things sometimes; you can only muster at hubs, you may only prepare at Havens, you may not move Frodo unless you either sneak or roll search.  The game feels like there are a lot more constraints on “useful” things you can do you on your turn … because there are more constraints, I think part of this experience is just realizing how important Havens and hubs are and getting used to that.  But, it “feels like” you can do less and that can be frustrating.

It took me almost 6 plays before I started having fun and figuring out the game works.  There are a lot of complex systems, there is a lot more randomness, there are many more constraints on player actions.  It may take you a while to really get this game; it has a huge learning curve.

Having said all that, Fate of the Fellowship is incredibly thematic, with the map, the missions, the special powers, and the characters!   All of my friends who love Lord of the Rings really feel like they nailed the game.

So what’s my final recommendation?  If you love the theme, you can probably suffer through learning the rules and love this game.  If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you will probably enjoy this world despite all the complexity and randomness.  Losing is just excuse to embrace this universe and game some more!

If you just like Lord of the Rings, be aware that this game has a huge learning curve, a lot of complexity, and a lot of randomness! Much more so than base Pandemic.  If you can get past all that and learn the game, you can come to like it, but be aware it may take quite a number of plays to get to that point.  However, if you have a good shepherd (someone who knows the game and strategies), those first few games can be much more fun: my friends all had fun playing right away because I had done all the painful prep work.

My final score is a range: 4 to 7 out of 10.  That’s a huge range because I hated the extra randomness (that’s the 4), but when it was fun, it was fun (that’s the 7).  So am I keeping it? Yes. 
Be aware this probably won’t work for you right out of the box; you may have to live with it.

Was this a good Pandemic or a bad Pandemic?  It was a Grey Pandemic.

Late To The Party, But The Party’s Still Going! A Solo and Cooperative Review of Tales from Red Dragon Inn!

So, the original Tales from Red Dragon Inn was on Kickstarter way back in October 2021, and delivered to backers in 2024.  It was so popular, they had a second Kickstarter in June/July 2024, and that’s the one I backed!   This cooperative dungeon crawler for 1-4 players looked really cool!

Why didn’t I back the original? I think I was afraid of getting YET ANOTHER DUNGEON CRAWLER (YADC) campaign that I wouldn’t play!

I do love this universe … especially the Red Dragon Inn cooperative Deck-Building game called Battle for Greyport (see review here and here: It’s also in our Top 10 Cooperative Deck-Building Games!)! I love the art-style and the silly vibe of this universe!

Let’s take a look!

Unboxing

This is a fairly big mama-jamba of a box: see Coke can above and below for scale.

Ah, this game comes with a first-play walkthrough!  This is a really good walkthrough!

What’s in here?

The game comes with most of the cards and minis in this little grey box.  (Grey box?  Greyport? Get it?)

And some dice.

The minis are pretty good.

Underneath all that are the map packs.

This map pack is pretty huge! See Coke can above for scale.

… and there are quite a few maps for the adventurers to go on!

Underneath the maps are TONS OF PUNCHOUTS.  And by tons, I mean tons by weight!

There are 5 individually wrapped punchout sets (with multiple punchout sheets per set!)

And a new chapter rulebook per set!  Whew!

There are … so …. many … punchouts!

But overall, this looks pretty cool!  I am just scared of how many punchouts there … (but keep reading below …)

Gameplay

This is a cooperative dungeon-crawler where each player takes the role of a different hero … the typical Dungeons and Dragons archetypes are all here: thief, fighter, barbarian, etc.  Despite the classes being fairly generic, these characters have so much … character! 

Each character has some character specific cards giving the asymmetric powers.

For example, Zot (above) has some special Actions specific to his character!  But notice the art and the feel!  This is not your typical dungeon crawler!  There’s character and a sense of humor here!  The game looks light and fun … and surprise! It is!  And pooky!

Players will set up the Chapter of their campaign; see scenario 1 of Chapter 1 above!

One of the coolest parts of this game is that the monsters are all described ON THE MAT!  So, you don’t have to go searching books or monster manuals for the monster info!

The minis are color-coded via bases, and this system works great. I was a little worried that the bases might “harm” the cardboard standees ( … Gloomhaven: I am looking at you …), but the standees stand well and the bases DO NOT harm the cardboard (NOTE: After a number of plays, there’s a little bit of wear and tear, but it doesn’t ruin the cardboard: it just indents it a little).

To keep track of hit points, each mini has a number above it, and  it also a little card associated with the number. See above.

It makes it really easy to correlate the mini with its hit point card!  This system is simple and works surprisingly well! They used colors really well here.

Players operate these heroes, explore the dungeon, and fight the baddies!

This is a fight-em-up dungeon crawler!

Combat is decided by the yellow and black dice.  You might be worried that the game is too random if dice decide a lot, but the dice are pretty consistent.  You will always get at least one success per dice, sometimes you will get exploding dice (which you can reroll over and over) and sometimes you will get some extra epic dice for FUTURE rolls!

If you roll the ! (exclamation point) symbol on the yellow dice, you get an Epic black die (modulo some rules) which you can use on a future turn! My favorite part of this is that you can CHOOSE when to use the Epic dice on a future turn!  This reminds me a little of the Hour of Need system (see review here and here) where current rolls can contribute to future successes WHEN YOU WANT/NEED THEM!  You choose when to use those Epic Dice!  That’s so cool!

This is a Variable Turn Order game: each player and each set of monsters gets a token and one players pulls the token out of a bag to decide when each one goes.  See above.  I was very worried when I saw Variable Turn Order: was I going to have to worry about all the problems and try to come up with a solution?  See a very in-depth discussion of Variable Turn Order and its problems/solutions here!

After all was said and done, the Variable Turn Order system didn’t seem to suffer from the problems we normally see!

Depending on the token you draw, you either get 2 Actions and 1 Shenanigan …

Or 1 Action or Shenanigan! (1 and 2-Player games with partial actions).

Your Actions and Shenanigans are well defined on your cards!  See above!

Note that every character has very different Actions and Shenanigans! It’s funny, that one word Shenanigans kind of implies the overall vibe in this game …

This is all about your characters moving around the maps and fighting baddies!

If you reach the final objective (killing the yellow slime above for scenario 1: see above), you win (… if you survive to the objective phase…)! If any character dies, you lose! There are other losing conditions too, as you get further into the game.

It’s a fun dungeon crawler! And you get to level-up your characters too! As the game gets further along, you can get new cards from THE VAULT which you can use to choose upgrades!

Walkthrough

By far the best part of this game is HOW GOOD the first play walkthrough is!

This Walkthrough takes you through the first 4 scenarios of Chapter 1 in great detail!  There’s no need to read the rulebook ahead of time (well, because there isn’t one) … you are just learning the rules as you play from the Walkthrough!

Coupled with the Walkthrough is also the Chapter Guide (see above).  The Walkthrough tells you when to look at the Walkthrough and when to look at the Chapter Guide for specific set-up.

I can’t tell you HOW MUCH I liked this walkthrough!  Worried about getting into the game?  Naaah … this Walkthrough is fabulous!  It slowly introduces you to all the rules as you go.  This reminds me very much a video game training mode; it works so well!

Incremental Punchout

One thing I was VERY worried about was punching out ALL THOSE TOKENS before you can play!  And guess what!  You don’t have to!  You can punchout what you need as the game flows!

Do you need some monsters?  Just punch them out now when you need them!

This Incremental Punchout philosophy worked really well with the way that the Walkthrough taught the rules; learn a little bit at a time, punchout a little bit at a time!!! So, don’t get overwhelmed by all the tokens … just take tokens as you need them.  I wish the rulebook had emphasized this point, because just LOOKING at the token sheets gave me heartburn! 

I strongly recommend you punchout as you go and do not do everything at once: you’ll get right into the game that much quicker!

What Is This?

How would I describe this game?  In one word: Lighthaven!  Tales From Red Dragon Inn has a lot of similarities to Gloomhaven: it’s a cooperative dungeon-crawler campaign!  Players explore the world, fight monsters, upgrade characters, and quest quest quest.  But the gameplay is lighter, the rules are lighter, the world is “lighter”, the art is lighter and cuter … there’s no Gloom here!  

Like Gloomhaven, Tales from Red Dragon Inn does have a lot of components, but this world just feels just so easy to jump into.  

There is some story here: about as much story as Gloomhaven.  If you are looking for more adventure games, consider games like Arydia (see review here) or storybook games like Tales of the Arthurian Knights (see review here).  If you want story story story, this probably isn’t the game for you … this is a dungeon crawler where you fight monsters!

Solo Play

So, Tales from the Red Dragon Inn does support a solo mode!   (Thanks for following Saunders’ Law!)   In fact, two solo modes!

It’s a little bit of a bummer that the solo play isn’t addressed right up front … you have to go looking for the solo rules in the Glossary (a very complete book!) that comes with the game.  See above.  There are two solo modes; play normal, but alternate between some characters like a multiplayer game …  or play a solo character with a Companion.

The Companion has a special set of cards: see above.  The Companion rules also take up a full page on the Glossary with lots of exceptions to gameplay.  I usually HATE solo modes with lots of exceptions to the rules, so I opted to just alternate between two characters because there are NO RULES CHANGES.  I strongly recommend this is how you play solo; the Companion is still an “extra” thing to play and doesn’t save that much context switch overhead.  At this point, I have played the first Chapter all the way through with two characters and didn’t have any problem going back and forth between characters. In other words, the context switching between two characters didn’t seem to cause me any issues as I played solo.

My solo game was operating Deidre and Gerki.  They made a great team!  These two characters really worked well together; Deidre is better at long distance stuff, but occasionally she’ll get in there and help Gerki!  If she stands NEXT TO some monsters, Gerki gets his backstab ability (an extra die!)  The amount of cooperation between the two was quite good.  

I have spent about 15 hours playing the game solo.  I learned the game solo, set-up the game solo, upgraded, read the Walkthrough solo, and played all 4 scenarios of Chapter 1!  I had a blast!  I loved the simplicity of the system, I loved how the characters can work together well and support each other, I loved the “sense of humor” the art implies, I loved the art, I loved the vibe!

Once you know the game, your sessions can be quicker, but be prepared for your first 4 sessions to take about 15 hours or so!  But, it flies by!  You are having fun and always doing something!

I look forward to more solo sessions, but I had to reset the game (this is not a legacy game, but it is a campaign game and you can reset it) so I could play it cooperatively with my friend(s).

Cooperative Play

My first cooperative experience was a 2-Player game with Teresa.  She brought over a little red dragon as a mascot … it was quite apropos!

For a different experience from the solo game, I played Zot the wizard.  He was funny!

It’s hilarious that the little guy POOKY who helps Zot summons HIM!  (Not the other way around) See above!  That’s hilarious!  And yes, we are convinced this is the rabbit from Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

Like the solo game, we saw some good cooperation as Teresa’s Fiona Character was all melee, while Zot was all distance!  A good combo!

The game also moved much more quickly since I had already played the entire Chapter 1 solo.  A lot of those “15 hours” I spent in the first 4 solo games were shortened considerably!  I think Teresa and I got through Scenario 1 is about an hour!

Playing solo ahead of time significantly increased how quickly we were able to get into this game.  

Will we play more?  Basically, Teresa wants to wait until Sara comes back and then we’ll start a 3-Player campaign!  

I think it was a success cooperatively: it’s always a good sign when your friends ask to continue the campaign!

Story vs Flavor Text

There’s not a lot of story per se, but there is a lot of flavor text that gives the game direction and charm, and helps establish the parameters of the game.   To be clear, you really don’t HAVE to read the flavor text … I didn’t read it all in my solo play, but it didn’t really detract from the game by not reading it.  Teresa LOVES flavor text, so we did read it (see above) and it did contribute to the atmosphere of the game: see above.

What I Liked

Charm: This game has so much charm!   The art style that permeates this game is just so much fun! It stays within the Red Dragon Inn universe … Dragonverse?

Unique Characters: The characters are also so unique and different! For example: the fact that Pooky (the little familiar) summons Zot is hilarious!

Walkthrough:  This first play Walkthrough is exceptional and makes it easy to jump in!

The Dice System:  I was really worried the dice system would be too random, but it’s really not.  You always get at least one success, you can get exploding dice, and you can choose to use Epic Dice if you want for “extra help”!  The Epic Dice system worked well!  You could choose when to use the Epic Dice when you really needed a win!  

Vibe:  This is a light-hearted Gloomhaven … it could have easily been called Lighthaven! Yet, it’s still a deep game with lots of play and meaningful decisions!

Level-Up:  Levelling-up is easy and interesting!  Every character levels up, but it’s not described u pages and pages of tables in a book!  You just grab the cards destined for you, or choose some! It’s really easy!

What I Didn’t Like

SO MANY PUNCHOUTS!  The sheer number of punchouts in this game is terrifying.  Word of advice, just punch out tokens as you need them.  In fact, I ended up trying to put the monsters BACK into the token sheets when I was done with them!  Partly I did this to reset the game, but the game just stores easier if you keep things in the punchout sheets as much as possible. I know, that’s not ideal. 

Part of this was a little foreshadowing too … you saw how many punchout sheets are coming, right?  Do you REALLY think you are going to be able store ALL THESE tokens in bags back in the box?  So, I put as many tokens as a I could back into the punchouts as a favor to future me.

Conclusion

Well, Tales from Red Dragon Inn should have made my Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024 because the first release came out in 2024.  But I didn’t get it until the second Kickstarter, so I didn’t get it until 2025!  So, it will probably make my Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2025 … but it might have to be an honorable mention, just because it wasn’t released in 2024.  Or maybe I’ll just count it as 2025 since I backed the second Kickstarer … not sure …

This is a fun and light dungeon-crawler, but still lots of depth and meaningful decisions.  You fight monsters and you have fun as a group of adventurers!  There is some story here, but it’s mostly just fun flavor text.

Tales from Red Dragon Inn is a great solo and cooperative game: 9/10. It’s so fun!

I think the only reason this didn’t get a 10/10 was because the Variable Turn Order can sometimes be … disappointing.  I wish there had been a way to mitigate/control the Variable Turn Order, but it didn’t get in the way that much. 

 

A Cooperative/Solo Print-And-Play Roll-and-Write Game! Roll or Stand: Jurassic Adventures! The Theme is EXACTLY What You Think It Is!

Roll or Stand: Jurassic Adventures is a print-and-play solo and cooperative roll-and-write game that was on Kickstarter back in March 2025, and it promised delivery in April 2025.  That’s right! One month afterwards!!  And it did it!!!  How did they do that?  Because there was no actual physical delivery; I was sent some PDFs in email after the Kickstarter fullfilled.  It’s a print-and-play!

In order to play, you need to print 3 pages per player (if you want the full campaign). You also need just one copy of the rules (4 pages of rules) and one copy of the campaign rules (1 page).  See above. For one person, you need to print 3+1+4 = 8 pages.  For 4 people, you have to print 4*3 + 1 + 4 = 17 pages.

Ever since my first print-and-play was a little more work and money than I expected (see our review of Legends of Storm City), I picked up a newer printer that was was MUCH cheaper to print stuff on.  I was able to print pages for one solo game and a 4-Player cooperative game without worrying too much about the cost.  (But see our Legends of Storm City review if you want more discussion of how much it can cost to print print-and-play games!)

In case it isn’t instantly clear (see above): this is a roll-and-write with a Jurassic Park theme! The publisher probably won’t get sued for calling it Jurassic Adventures, but you never know!

Let’s take a look!

Printing

What are the pages you need to print?

The rules: See above.  The rules are very nicely done over 4 pages.  The rules have lots of examples! The font, although is a little small, is very nice and, dare-I-say, pleasant to look at?

There were a few times when I wish the rules were a little better, but they do seem to specify everything: you might just have to look through them a little.   Luckily, you can reuse these rules over and over after you print them.

The Campaign Sheet:  See above.  This sheet gives bonuses and starting conditions for each game plus a little flavor text.  You only need one of these for each group (arguably, you can reuse this over and over if you don’t put your name at the bottom).

But the most important pages are the 3 Scenario Sheets (see them above). Each player will need their own copy of these Scenario Sheets to play: this is the one thing of which EVERYONE will have to have their own copy!

Each scenario sheet has four chapters (puzzles) at the top of the page (see above), and a shared preparation area at the bottom.  The player will marking both the top part AND and bottom part up! See below!

Gameplay

Every turn, two dice are rolled (you have to supply your own dice).   These two numbers are shared to everyone playing.

The stamina area “forces” dice to a certain regime; if there is no entry (“charge”) for one of the numbers you rolled, you must decrease that die until you find an empty charge (rolling over back to 6).  Once a stamina line is “filled”, you move to the next line … and possibilities open up again.  Let’s be clear; when the stamina line is almost filled, you have a very good idea what the next numbers will have to be!  This really helps mitigate some of the randomness of rolling dice!

After you get your two numbers, you choose to record one number on the left Preparation side and one number to the right Preparation area. See above.

If you wish to “futz” with your two numbers, you can cross off “ideas” to add or subtract one to the numbers (for you only: this doesn’t affect anyone else).

You record the number to the next empty box.  If you want, you can push-your-luck and “roll”, hoping to add more numbers to you line on the next roll of the dice.

Or, if you want to, you can “Stand” (marking off the leftmost square with a cross) and activate your actions!  You are now committed to act!

The number of actions you get is based on how far you pushed your luck: the longer you wait, the more actions you get.  See above as I get 6 actions when I activate my line!

How many actions do you get?  Your sum (4+2+6 = 12) – rightmost (6) = 6 actions!

Note that you CAN BUST if you put too many numbers on a line!  In the case above, I BUST because my numbers exceed the MAX (10) by being 2+3+1+6 = 12!!  If you do BUST, you lose all the actions of that line BUT you get a booby prize of one of the tools (the rightmost symbol: the binoculars at the right under the 6).

So this is a game about pushing your luck, and knowing when to activate a line to get your actions! The Kickstarter called this a “blackjack-like” mechanism! Basically, push-your-luck so you don’t bust!

Once you have your actions, what do you do with them?  Basically, you mark off lines on the current puzzle!  With each action, you can mark a line!

Which lines?  It depends on the numbers on the line!  On the line above, I had a 2, 4, and 6 which means I can only draw upper left, upper right, and down lines!

That’s right!  You are limited to what lines you can draw by the numbers you used to activate the line!  

This is why ideas and Tools are so important! If you really need to up/down a dice, you can use ideas or tools to draw the line you need!  Be careful!  Ideas/Tools are a limited resource!

After you achieve the current puzzle, you immediately move to the next! 

If you can get all 4 puzzles done before the stamina or preparation lines run out, you are done!

Whether or not you win depends on “how many puzzles you failed!”  If you failed NO puzzles, you get the Success story!

If you have under 1 failure per player, you get the Delayed outcome (which is usually still a success .. see above!)

Play all 3 scenario sheets for a full campaign!

Solo Play

I had my solo copy ready since April 2025, but I just had never gotten around to playing it.  It didn’t take too long to print out (3 months ago), but I was ready to go!

Over the course of one evening, I played through the entire 3-sheet campaign. I took a break after scenario 2 for dinner, but came back to it.  All in all, it probably took about 2 hours to play all the way through, with about an extra 1.5 hours of reading and deciphering the rules.  

The solo campaign is easy to get to the table; it has some interesting decisions as you have to decide when to use your limited ideas, limited tools, which dice to use in which area, when to stand and when to roll!

This is also a very spatial-oriented puzzle, as you have to make sure you have the right line segments to do what you need to on your current puzzle!  The puzzle above starts at the top (3), and you want more “downwards” line segments to help!

There’s a lot of great decisions, but the game moves along at a pretty good clip.  You can have as much analysis paralysis as you want, but generally the game moved along.  I freely admit that I stopped a few times and had some analysis paralysis …

I had a fine time playing solo.  Even though the puzzles are similar in some ways (just draw line segments), they were pretty thematic with the “Jurassic park”-like concept.  There was a good variety over 12 puzzles in the campaign—I saw a neat little story unfold.

Fun solo.

Cooperative

For my cooperative game, I readied myself for a 4-Player game.  I may have overprinted the game; I probably didn’t have to print rules sheets for everyone, but in my group, people like to have their own copy of the rules!

We ended up only playing a 3-Player cooperative game!  

This went over … okay.  The only real opportunities for cooperation are that you can share Ideas and/or Tools.  Thematically, that made some sense!  “Hey!  I got an Idea I can share with you!” Unfortunately, we didn’t end up sharing at all!  The resources are so limited in the game (you only have so many Ideas and Tools) that it never felt good to share them!  Although the opportunity was there, we never availed ourselves of the “sharing”.  

This game was mostly multi-player solitaire. But at least we weren’t getting in each others way.

Pen vs. Pencil

A pencil probably won’t work with this game.  Can you tell I circled the first 5 Ideas above?  No? Me neither!

I ended up using a red sharpie so it was VERY clear when I noted something. See above.

Ah!  Now you can tell I circled the Ideas!

Of course, sharpies may bleed, so I got a paper bag on the back side to handle any bleed through.

The only problem with the Pen is you really can’t correct any mistakes.  Remember my BUST example?  Can you tell that was a 6 on the right?  It was only a 6 after I “sorta” corrected it.  

If you find yourself wanting to play more of this, consider laminating the Scenario sheets and using dry-erase (extra-thin!!) markers; then you can correct them and re-use the sheets over and over.

Small House Rule

The rules specifically say to write the number of actions in the right most area: see above as I clumsily write a 6, and it obscures the direction wedges!

What I ended up doing is writing the number of actions off to the side!  See above as the actions are on the LEFT for the left prep area, and the actions are on the RIGHT for the right prep area!  And then it’s MUCH easier to see which wedges are available for your actions, since the action number isn’t obscuring the wedges!

Things I Liked

Theme: there’s a surprising amount of theme and story 

Choices: I generally feel like I have a lot of choices, and I know what’s coming because of the stamina concept forging the dice.   This had just enough randomness to be interesting, but not enough to infuriate me.

What I Didn’t Like

Too small: the sheets at times felt a little too small! Each scenario sheet feels like it should be two sheets; the top half should be its own sheet, and the bottom half should be its own sheet. I am surprised this wasn’t a printing option. The whole thing does fit on a page, which is nice, but I think if I wanted to laminate this and use dry-erase pens, I’d want bigger sheets. I wish a full-sized upper half and full-sized lower half had been PDFs included in my distribution.

Cooperation: There wasn’t really any cooperation.  Although the opportunities were there, we didn’t avail ourselves of them because the resources were so limited.

House Rule for More Cooperation

How can we cooperate more? One complaint is that the game really wasn’t that cooperative.

Looking back on our cooperative game, the one thing you can do is change the dice separately! The players have to take the dice as rolled, but then each player can spend Ideas “separately” to +- 1 the dice on their board. What if this were more cooperative? What if, as a group, we could decide to spend an Idea and have it change a dice for all of us? This would promote a lot of conversation and lots of interaction! “Well, I really need a 6!” “But we both need 5s!” “Hm, you can save an Idea if you change it once!”

This is just an idea for a House Rule, but it would make the game more cooperative and interactive.

Conclusion

Jurassic Adventures was a mixed bag.  I liked it solo and might play it again: the theme and gameplay was fun!  It was a 6.5/10 or maybe 7/10.  My friend Sara probably wouldn’t play it again cooperatively, (5/10) but my friend Teresa would (6/10).  Although the game bills itself as cooperative, it felt much more multiplayer solitaire … mostly because the resources were so limited that it was too hard to share!   We do propose a house rule that might make Jurassic Adventures more cooperative and more enjoyable, but you may like this “mostly” multiplayer solitaire game as it is.

If you do play this, make sure you play with a pen instead of a pencil; even though you can’t correct your pen without making a mess, you just can’t see the pencil marks!

Magic And Murder Mysteries! A Review of Murders at Karlov Manor: The Case of the Three Blade Knife

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So, this is a murder mystery in the world of Magic: The Gathering?  Yup, that’s what this is!  Although its official title is Murders At Karlov Manor: The Case of the Three Blade Knife! See the BoardGameGeek listing here.

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My friends and I really enjoy our murder mysteries (see our Top 10 Cooperative Detective Games), so we were excited to try this out!

Let’s Take a Look!

Unboxing

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Part of the problem with reviewing Murder Mysteries is that part of the fun of the game is exploring the system!  What’s new in the box?  How do things work?  How does this do stuff differently?  

To that end, we’ll give some very generic thoughts up front which shouldn’t reveal too much of the mystery.   Feel free to stop reading after that if you want to just try it yourself!  After that, we’ll have some minor spoilers, followed by possibly some major spoilers.  Read as far as you want!

High-Level Thoughts: No Spoilers!

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This was a mystery set in the world of Magic: The Gathering.  I know nothing of this world, and my friends know just a little.  Not knowing the world didn’t affect whether or not we could play the murder mystery.  I am sure there there were plenty of “A-HA!” moments for Magic: The Gathering players, but it didn’t stop us from enjoying the game.

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There are a LOT of materials to get through: our game took place in one night for 2.5 hours.  We were able to get to the end of the crime and solve it in one night.  This is a little bit of a slog to get through: there are a lot of materials to read out loud and share!

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In the end, we didn’t love this. 

Rich: Has specific complaints, which he will address in the spoilers section below.
Teresa: Liked it the best, as she got to “perform” and she really enjoys reading stuff out loud. 
Andrew: thought it was a little bit of a slog, as there was so much paperwork to get through!  He still thought it was better than Detective (the Portal Games).  It kinda felt like work.
Sara: It was pretty good.

The general consensus was that it was okay.  Rich liked it the least (probably with a 4/10) and Teresa liked it the most (with a 7/10).   The biggest complaint from everybody was that, even though this was set on the world of magic, specifically Magic: The Gathering, it felt like it could have been in any world: Noir, Cthulu, Voodoo Pirate, something else?   We still dusted for fingerprints, but it felt like someone searched and replaced “dusted for fingerprints” with “used fingerprint ooze“.   Sara pointed out (I think correctly) that this would have been a better mystery set in the 1920s world of Cthulu.

Overall, it was ok.  There were some nice highlights in the experience, but it was a lot of paperwork to slog through, and the mystery itself had its issues.   The 4/10 from Rich was because he really disagreed with how the mystery was handled, Andrew was probably a 5/10, Sara a 6/10, and Teresa a 7/10. 

Maybe you just like living in this world, and just like doing the paperwork of a mystery, and reading the materials: then you, like Teresa may really enjoy this.   The story presented overall was interesting.

If you want to read more specific complaints, read on. 

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Minor Spoilers: Some Issues

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The game comes with a very cool metal pendant!  It serves as your RAMI badge for the game!

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You download an app, and put your phone above it to get “some augmented reality options!”  See above!

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One complaint is that The Case of the Three Blade Knife looked like it would be a cool immersive augmented reality adventure! Look at the cool app above!  But it really wasn’t!!

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We loved The Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City (see review here) and it even made the #1 spot on our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2023!  We were blown away by the augmented reality here!

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This wasn’t really much of an augmented reality experience. We used the phone just a few times? We could have replaced the phone with a piece of red acetate for some of it.  The best part of the phone app was in the finale, where THE GAME WAS ON RAILS!  At the end of the game, the phone was cool in that it presented the finale really well (cool voice acting), but during the adventure when it mattered, we used it like once.

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How much money was spent on the metal RAMI badge?  How much money was spent on making the app?  If we used the phone more during the adventure, this would have been cooler.  But we didn’t.  The ending was cool, but by that point, the adventure was over and this was just a “presentation”, not an interactive murder mystery with cool augmented reality.

I am not sure it was worth the extra money for the metal RAMI badge and the money to make the app.

I will say that the finale was very cool.

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Major Spoilers: Mystery Progression

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There was a lot of reading: This was work. The materials were well-organized, but getting through them was almost like homework. Still, the materials were very cool: see some above and below.

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There were two major problems with the mystery: 

1) Ignore motive.  The game literally said something like “don’t worry about the motive, just choose someone“.  So, we are looking for means and opportunity only?

2) What are The rules of Magic?  We live in a world of magic, literally Magic: The Gathering!!  What the rules of magic?   Magic can make means and opportunity that much more opaque (teleportation, scrying, Bigby’s giant hands!).   We have NO IDEA what the rules of magic are going into this adventure, so that completely obscures means and opportunity.

I feel like, unless the rules of Magic are somehow explained in some way, it makes it too easy to make a murder mystery unsolvable.  “The murder weapon could have been handled remotely, the murdered could have teleported in and away, the murdered could stop time to leave no trace, etc.., etc., etc., etc.”. 

So, hints, evidence, don’t seem to matter as much.  Because magic can do anything.  This really soured some of us on the mystery after it was revealed:  we had spent 2.5 hours combing through evidence only to have a Deus Ex Machina explanation. I hated it.

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Giant Spoiler!! Read At Your Own Peril!!

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In the end, the only major use of magic was to possess someone and frame them for the murders.  We had no clue this was happening, we had no books to read, we had no idea.  We just “guessed” the murderer based on location, and then went to the endgame.  By the time you are in endgame, the game is on rails and it’s easy to solve.

This game pissed me off because it didn’t feel like a mystery.  You just guessed at someone based on  location, but all the while “magic” (whose rules were unexplained) was the driving cause.  

This was more of a “explore this world, make some guesses, and enjoy the story”.  If I had known that going in, I may have enjoyed it more.  But I was so busy trying to put a good solid well-crafted mystery story on top, I was pissed off when I learned what actually happened.

My friends, who enjoyed the story for what it was, had more fun that I did. 

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Conclusion

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If you look at Murder At Karlov Manor: The Case of the Three Bladed Knife as a story that unwraps, then maybe you’ll enjoy it for what it us.  Given how much work there is to go through all the paperwork, I was very frustrated with the lack of clues,  lack of evidence, lack of explanations of rules of Magic, and the Deux Ex Machina final solution.

But I was definitely the outlier here: my friends enjoyed the story and had fun.  I didn’t.

Soul Raiders: A Solo and Cooperative Review

Soul Raiders is a cooperative fantasy adventure game that was on Kickstarter back in July 2021 and promised delivery in December 2022.  I backed the deluxe Grimoire Edition (above). Well, it finally arrived last month (March 2025), so it’s about 2.3 years late.  This wasn’t on my Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2022, but it probably was my #11 or #12!

This sat unplayed in the box longer than it should have; I think I was scared of how big it was! Look how big it is!!!  Did I have the cycles to even try it?

Well, I finally got around to getting out and trying it … was it worth it?

Unboxing

Although this unboxing here is to show you what’s in the box, it’s also here to remind me how to put the box together!  So, it’s for me and you!

This is a BIG box.  This is the Grimoire Edition.

It’s got a lot of stuff packed in: see the character boxes above (this is a cooperative fantasy adventure game).

This game is so grandiose, it has it’s own lore book!

If you really want to get into a fantasy universe, this might be the right game for you!

This dual-layered board (above) keeps track of a lot of shared attributes and state of the game.

There’s lot of little boxes to store your game between sessions.

There’s some fabulous minis.


The campaign notebook allows to save the game between chapters.

There’s a bunch of cardboard tokens.

And boards for the characters.

Underneath all that, are the three main chapters of the game.

The cards of the game are in two boxes: see above.

Each of the chapter boxes has huge Location cards and little cards.

This game is GORGEOUS.  The production is GORGEOUS.

Consult the pictures above for when you need to repack your box!

Rulebook

The rulebook is good.  Well, ish.

It gets about a B+ on the Chair Test: it overhangs on the chair next to me just a little (see above), but it lays flat and open, it has a big readable fonts, and it has lot of pictures.

The components page is well-labelled and notated (see above).  It even breaks up the cards by chapters.

The set-up works pretty well, although it doesn’t show how the story cards will be laid out (which we need to discuss more).

This is a gorgeous rulebook that’s written pretty well, it has lots of examples and lots of pictures.

It even ends with a very useful summary of icons on the back!

Although I liked this rulebook a lot, it made the mistake of putting too much content into the examples.  I like it when rules have clear definitions, then maybe use the examples to help explain and/or clarify.  Unfortunately, I think this leaned a little too much into using the examples AS the rules a few times.    Don’t get me wrong, I am glad the examples are there, but I wanted clear succinct rules as well.  (I think the last time we noticed this “rules in examples” phenomena was back Sleeping Gods rules: see link here).

The rulebook was generally good, and it frankly looks gorgeous (like the rest of the game).

Gameplay

The best way to describe this game? It feels like it a video game: a  Point-And-Click (fantasy) Adventure game with lots of monster fighting.

Each player takes the role of one of six characters: see the character boxes above.

Each character has his own set of cards: there’s basic Action cards (above top) and Heroic Action cards (above bottom).  Notice the Heroic Action cards have a special foil on them so you can tell them apart!

These Heroic Action cards are earned (in order) by spending Heroism tokens (3 to earn a new Heroic Action card).  Cool fact; you can spend 3 Heroism tokens at ANY time to immediately earn a new card! Very useful when you need a card immediately!

You get Heroism tokens are various plot points in the story, but the most reliable way to getting Heroism Tokens is by defeating BIG BAD MONSTERS!  Defeating the one above opens Story Card 14, but also earns the player 2 Heroism tokens!

By the end of Chapter 1, I had been able to earn 6 new Heroic Actions cards! (Heroic Action Cards must be earned in order: note the numbers on far right).

The cards are you primary currency for “getting things done”.  Some cards are more attuned to movement (as you must explore) … see above …

… and some cards are more attuned to fighting!  See above.  Basically, you can always use the value on the card for whatever you want, but the card will have “bonuses” if you use it for the specific specialization!

For example, Heroic Action card #6 (the top one) has a basic value of 5, but if you use it for fighting, you get an extra +3!

Example above: Even though the cards I drew were all movement-centric, I can use the values on the cards for fighting: 4+4 = 8 takes out the first shield on the bad guy, and 4+2 = 6 takes out the second shield!  I used all my cards, and I didn’t get any advantages, but I was able to do what I needed!

Basically, your character explores the world, moves around, interacts with the world, and fights monsters!  All actions are based on the values on your cards!

Basically, you character(s) move around on the Location sheets and explore!

The Locations have arrows which tell you how much its cost to move between Locations: see above and below.

For example, to move to Location 2, I need to spend 4 points from my cards.

This is kind of a choose-your-own adventure tale!  You decide which paths to take, which monsters to fight, which puzzles to interact with!  It feels very much like a choose-your-own adventure!

What’s cool is that each Location has pretty great art (a little comic-booky, but I like it) which describes all the things you can do at that Location … kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure book does in each section.

See above as the character starts on the maps!

An interesting thing that happens is that there is a “clock” pushing the game forward.  At the end of every “turn” after you’ve played all your cards, the Vitae track moves down.  Basically, every time it “wraps around” back to 30, you drop the Action token one space (upper right).  If your threat or the action space ever get to the end, the game is over!

To win, you need to find the Red Stars on the story cards.  If you don’t find appropriate story cards, you lose!

Explore, fight monsters, interact with your world: this is an adventure game!  The way the movement works, it feels very much like a choose-your-adventure game (as the Locations could just be pages numbers in a book!)   This game also feels like a Point-And-Click Adventure game too!  See our Top 10 Point-And-Click Adventure Board Games for more discussion of this genre!

Solo Play

So, this game supports the solo player (thank you for following Saunders’ Law).  This is a true solo game: the solo player operates one character.

The only real change for solo play is on the Game board:

On the Game Board, the final space has a “3” marker on it (instead of 2).  This is the number of cards you draw every turn, so the solo player has that extra advantage that (on the last set of rounds) they get three Action cards instead of two.  And that’s the only change!

The solo player explores, fights, and interacts … but just by himself!  There’s no real balancing anywhere else.    It seems a little weird that there are no other balancing mechanisms, but basically what tends to happen is that more enemies come out as more people play, so that tends to balance the game.  We’ll address that a little more in the cooperative section.

Cooperative

The cooperative game brought up a lot of rules I didn’t have to deal with in the solo game!  When you explore new Locations, whether or not someone is already there “changes” how the Location works!

Unfortunately, the Icons were very confusing about this.  A slight change of color AND whether its on side A or B makes a big difference.  It actually took us almost half the game sessions to get this right!

Although the cooperative game has a sense of Player Selected Turn Order, there really is no turn order!  Players just play when they want and support each other if it made sense.  Although I love this idea, as it should make the game go faster, the game tended to serialize as each player waited to see what happened to see if they needed help.  “Let’s wait to see what Sam gets!”   I love this from a cooperative point of view, as it lets us support each other!! Unfortunately, what really happened more often than not is that the game really just slowed down behind one (the current active player).  To be fair, there were also plenty of times when concurrent play kept the game moving forward.  This system worked pretty well from a cooperative point of view.  From a length of game point of view, this was not optimal.

Although this game is a 1-4 Player game, I was the fifth player and “the rules guy”.  I just read the rules and taught the game and looked up clarifications.  Sadly, this was a very busy position for most of the game!  I would constantly be looking up rules clarifications, icon clarifications, and other things.  I had played the solo game for about 8 hours, and I was still struggling to find some rules!

There are good moments of cooperation as the players supported each other.  Me being the “rule guy” actually worked pretty well, although it was sort of depressing that I had to fill this role.

Urgency

This game has, essentially, a built-in clock.  Every time you have finished playing all your cards, you have to take “Vitae” damage (basically, a shared hit point pool) based on the the current.  The threat will go up occasionally as monsters or other things happen.   And you can’t “usually” just rest on a Location: almost all Locations force you to fight new monsters if you stay there.

So the game is just always pushing forward:   This is both good and bad.  If you are looking for a contemplative adventure/exploration game, this isn’t really it.  If you want an adventure game that doesn’t stand still, but presents a sense of “you have to keep moving“, this is the adventure game for you.   Here’s a very bad analogy; some sharks have to keep moving in water or they die.  That’s kind of what you feel like here: players always have to keep moving (exploring) or you die.

Whether you like that urgency or not is up to you.

Kind of a Big Mess

When you take out the Location cards, there’s no real rhyme or reason to them.  They don’t form a map (like Arydia Locations did: see that review here), they are more like “pages of a book”.  See my big mess after finishing chapter 1!

The problem is that you WANT to see the connections from previous Locations you visited!  So you try to keep a lot of Locations out as you play so you can see how you came here.  And you can see my big mess above as I try to keep some Locations out.  To be clear: the Locations DO NOT form a map! (The rulebook even emphasizes this point).

So, the Locations that come out are kind of a mess.  Shrug.  It feels like there should be a better way to deal with it?

Portals

There are some very cool minis for portals!  See above!

You can see above as I have built at least one early in the game!  I was hoping to make this spot an easy one to come back since there are no “monster spawners” there!

And yet, I don’t think I took full advantage of the portals.  At all. I don’t think I used them once.  Which is a real shame, because they are so nice!

This is where I feel like this is even more like a Video game … where you replay the level to get the highest score and use the portals to their best advantage.  I played Chapter One and got a few extras, but not enough.  I feel like what I would do in a video game is replay it until I got the perfect score for that level!  I think to do that, I think you’d almost have to use the portals.

Maybe the portals will become more useful later on.  I was … disappointed with them.  Given how you never really get to just “think” (see Urgency section above), the only time it feels like you might be able to take full advantage of them is to replay the level.  Remember how I said this feels like a video game?  That min-max feeling emphasizes that point even more …

Save Game

This is a campaign.  You will need to save you game between chapters.  Unless you can leave the game set-up (and it is a table hog), you will have to save your game.

You can either use the campaign book   (above) …

Or just take a picture of your game and extras at the end (see above).  The cards are pretty well marked.

Let’s be clear: this is a campaign you can reset!  I have a solo game going, but we are also playing a cooperative game at the same time.  Sure, I’ll have to “pick” the cards out I want, but it’s fairly easy to reset the campaign to replay it from scratch.  This is not a legacy game.

Too Many Rules?

For such a lavish game, it’s both really simple and really complicated.  The basic card play is really straight forward, but all the little rules for combat and especially movement feel very complicated.  If you enter a Location with someone else, it has a different effect depending on the Icon in there, which has subtle difference between other Icons.

The fact that my role as “The Rules Guy” (as the 5th player and NOT playing the game) was pretty active the entire game might be an indicator that maybe there’s a few too many rules.

Reactions

Oof, Soul Raiders did not go over well with my group. My friends compared this to Tainted Grail (see part I and part II here) where it was just a grind to explore.   Andrew even commented: “This doesn’t feel like an exploration game, even though it kind of looks like one!  I have no mental model for how the map lays out because it’s so clumsy!”  Sara commented that the “.. Exploration feels like Tainted Grail because you just keep getting monsters!  You don’t really feel like you advance!”

Andrew pointed out, “It’s not even really choose-your-own Adventure, because you don’t really have a lot of choices!  You left, right, or forward most of the time! And it feels randoms!”   

The reactions were ok to not great.

Sara and Andrew: 5/10.  “Don’t really want to play it again.  It didn’t feel like exploration. It felt too grindy like Tainted Grail.”

Sam: 5.5/10 “I’d play it again, but I really didn’t love it.  I thought Luddite from last week was more thematic than Soul Raiders!”

Teresa:  6.5/10 “I had okay fun and would play again.”

Rich: As a cooperative game, I definitely saw what my friends saw with the grindiness, and I could see why my friends didn’t love it.  As a solo game, I’m right on the fence of recommending it:  I’ll give it a 7/10 for the solo game, and maybe I could see it working as an intimate 2-Player game.  I think as a solo player, I became more invested in the story, but I still had some of the problems that my friends had. I love the art, and I really like the simplicity of the card system.  I also really like the upgrade system (where you can IMMEDIATELY grab a card with 3 Heroism).  I think there is some interesting stuff happening in the story, but the game does fall to the grind sometimes.

Conclusion

Soul Riders is a gorgeous cooperative adventure with a sense of urgency.  That urgency adds to it’s video game feel: it’s kind of a Point-And-Click Adventure in a board game, with exploring and interacting, but also lots of fighting!

Unfortunately, this game didn’t go over very well with my friends as a cooperative game, with scores ranging between 5/10 and 6.5/10.  Soul Raiders reminded my friends too much of the grindiness of the original Tainted Grail in both its exploration and fighting.  And that grindiness was a big turn off. Having said that, the system worked well from a cooperative perspective, because my friends seemed to cooperate well!

As a solo player, I become fairly invested in the story and I enjoyed it a little more.  I think the solo player can reflect a little more than a cooperative team, so maybe that urgency in the game is less intrusive for the solo player?  I do think that an intimate  2-Player game could go over well as the solo game.

Hopefully this review can tell you whether or not that Soul Raiders is right for you.

War Story: A Choose-Your-Own Adventure Game Where Choices Really Matter

I pre-ordered War Story from GameNerdz on Oct 17th, 2024. I wanted to play it as soon as possible, so I went ahead and paid full shipping for it (I normally try to get to $75 or so to get free shipping); that’s how excited I was to get this! I paid for shipping to get it sent separately ASAP!

War Story arrived at my house on February 21, 2025 (I noted the date on the tab on the back).  Over about three days I played the entire campaign solo: one chapter a day for three days.  (This is a fully replayable campaign game, but you can also just play single chapters if you like).

What is War Story and why was I was I so excited to get it?  This is a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game set in World War II, but it is unique and different.

Let’s check it out!

Unboxing

This is a smaller box (see Coke Can above for perspective) but it’s actually quite heavy; it’s brimming with books!

There’s thee Mission Books (see above), three big envelopes, one small envelope, a status pad, cards, and tokens. See above: there seems to be quite a bit in here for a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game!

To preserve the longevity and replayability of the game, I went and made a few copies of the status sheets (see above).   See, even though this is a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game, it’s fairly replayable!   You need a status sheet for each game/campaign you play.

There’s a bunch of punchouts and tokens.  The cubes all have different uses that become clear as you play.  Spoiler: the orange cubes are the Nazis! (Although the are called red, they look more orange to me).

As you might guess from the components, there’s more to this game than first meets the eye.  Don’t be fooled by the Choose-Your-Own Adventure monicker: this is a pretty different game.

Rulebook

The rulebook is good.

The rulebook gets an A on the Chair Test: it can sit wide open on the chair next to me, within easy view when I need to see it (which is weird because the Mission Book completely fails the Chair Test: see more discussion below); they really got the Rulebook form factor right.

The Components and Set-Up pages are fine.  It’s a little confusing because the set-ups are intermingled between the mission books and the rulebooks, and there’s a few things that aren’t quite clear (unless you read closely): I had trouble finding where to setting the entry for starting tokens (at the top of the Status sheet).  Just be patient and I think everything reveals itself to you as you read.

And the Rulebook ends with a nice summary of Icons. 

One quick note: I usually don’t like it when rulebooks use “thematic” fonts (this one uses a typewriter monospace font: see pictures above).  This thematic font doesn’t detract too much from reading the rules here, so I’ll give it a pass.

Good rulebook.

Gameplay

There’s a few minor minor spoilers in the pictures below, but they are from the first few minutes of the first mission, so they shouldn’t spoil too much.  Out of context, they aren’t much of a spoiler, but feel free to skip this section if you don’t want any surprise.

War Story nominally plays 1-6 players, but honestly it’s just a solo game where the other players just all help decisions together (kind of like Eila and Something Shiny: see review here).   The player(s) lead a group of 8 resistance fighters in France during World War II.  Your first choice in the game is to choose your crew of 4 for the first missions.

These 4 characters, whose names you must write down, will serve as your Agents during the missions.  You use the tokens to mark where the Agents act (there are 2: one to keep on the card for and one to move into the field; this way you remember which agent is which).

Your Status Sheet gives you a hint of what can happen to your Agents as you play: Survived, Killed, MIA.  See above.  If you think all your Agents are getting out alive, well, good luck to you.

And again, notice we wrote their names down.   I think it brings an emotional connection to the characters a little more than usual.

At this point, you open the first envelope and being reading the Mission Parameters!  See the Top Secret note above (too small to see anything unless you go zooming in, but that’s on you). See above!  This tells you what you need to do to “win” this mission!

Off to the right of the Status sheet are marks for the Primary and Secondary Objective(s); did you succeed? Partially Succeed? Fail?  These will all influence your final score.  

From here on out, it’s all about making choices and reading from the Mission Book. (Mission Book page blurred on purpose).

As you read from the book, things will happen, you make choices turn to entry 17, make a choice, turn to entry 31, and so on.

You have Locations you can visit as you start, and what entry you get in the rulebook depends on the time of day.

As the game unfolds, you will be told to “advance time” and move to the next time space (see As we move fro Early night to Late night).  What this means; what happens when you visit a location depends on the time of day.

It’s a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game!  Player read and choose, read and choose, read and choose … until it’s clear their chapter is up!

Combat

You will get into combat as you play, and combat will also be resolved using a Choose-Your-Own Adventure mechanism.  That’s right, your French Resistance fights the Nazis using a Choose-Your-Own Adventure mechanism!  “Do you shoot the guy coming right at you? Read section 12! Do you shoot the guy hiding in the bushes?  Read section 701!”

And let’s be clear, your Agents can die.

Death

Death is part of this game. You kill Nazi guards with your gun. You blow up Nazis with grenades. And your Agents will die. See above as Christian is the only survivor of Chapter 1. He definitely has some PTSD going.

Granted, you are generally “trying” to sneak around to achieve your objectives, and usually the sneakier you are, the better. But, combat will inevitably come up. And even it though it might seem weird at first to use Choose-Your-Own adventure books as a combat resolution mechanism, it does work. In some sense, you feel more vested in the combat as you are making hard decisions: “Do I shoot the guy coming at me because he is an immediate threat, or do I shoot the guy trying to come up behind me who might be an even worse later threat?” Somehow it feels more immediate.

So, combat will happen. People will die. Your Agents might die. Or you might have to put a bullet in the Nazi’s head. Be aware that death is at the forefront of this game. If that sounds too intense for you, then I suspect this game is not for you and you should just get out now.

Choices Matter

I know some of you (including myself) blanche a little when you hear Choose-Your-Own Adventure.  I still remember (40 years later?) how random my first Choose-Your-Own Adventure book was: The Cave of Time (see above).  What seemed like the right choice lead nowhere and the dumb choice led you to a cool adventure!  It didn’t seem like your choices mattered, you just “did stuff” and see what happened.  Choices didn’t “really” matter; you were just along for the ride.

That is very much NOT the case in War Story.  Of all the Choose-Your-Own Adventure games I have played, it feels like this is the one where the choices matter the most.

First of all, there are other choices in the game besides which entry you read. There will be Skill checks: “If your Sneak is 4+, read entry 12, else read entry 11″. You can choose to raise your Sneak by using Advantage tokens (either from a shared pool or sometimes a separate pool, depending on the Agent): see tokens above. You start with a limited amount of Advantage/Firearms tokens, and you have to choose when it’s best to choose a middling result or when you REALLY need an extraordinary success!!!

Second of all, as the progresses, the choices you made earlier WILL AFFECT your outcomes.  Did you let that Nazi survive?  Maybe that was a good choice, maybe that was a bad choice, but either way … it affects what happens to you later in the game!  See the State Tracker above for game 2 as Events G and M were circled.  Was it good I left that Nazi alive and showed mercy? Or not? Was that Event G?  I hope that doesn’t came back to bite me!!  And it might bite you, or it might help you.

Your choices matter here. They really matter.

Emotional

So, this game is pretty emotional.  You feel … close to the war, you feel close to the resistance, you feel close to death.  My second game of the campaign, all my Agents on the mission died.

I was left with one Agent left (poor Francois) as I headed into Chapter 3.  How well could I do with one agent?  There was so much emotion as my entire squad died … and poor Francois was all that was left.

Over three nights I played through the story.  This game is pretty emotional. Be aware.  

Binding

I need to say something about the binding on the Mission books:  I hate it.  War Story uses the thick glue binding for a large book.   This binding does NOT stay open; it is the worst choice for board games!

We had this same problem with the binding on the Freedom Five books from last year  (see review here), and the binding on the rulebook for the Forests of Admiron (see review here), and the binding on the Batman: Gotham City Chronicles Solo/Cooperative Expansion (see review here).  This type of binding does not lay flat.

You can’t hold these books open unless you completely counterfold the books!  (See above as I try to hold the Mission book open with a little leather thingee).  Even then, the books don’t really stay open!  It’s very frustrating!  If you “slip” and lose your place in the book, you lose the page you were on, as the book closes on you!!!  In my third chapter, I slipped a few times and had to literally replay the introduction three times so I could find where I left off!  It was very annoying and almost put me off the game.

This binding does not work.  Please, I beg you board game companies, don’t use this binding ever again!

I came in to play this game the first day I got it … I was so excited!!!  I saw the binding on the Mission books and I was immediately turned off.  In fact, I was so turned off by the binding, I went inside my house and did my Income Taxes.  The binding was so debilitating that I did my Taxes instead of playing this WONDERFUL game.  

Conclusion

And I don’t feel like I can say too much more, because I don’t want to give anything else away. I liked War Story! This is NOT the Choose-Your-Adventure books of yore, where nothing really matters: this is a Choose-Your-Own Adventure game where choices really matter! And you feel like you have choices!

Be aware that War Story is not for everyone: it’s gritty and people will die.  Nazis will die. Your Agents will die.  You will actively take part in the resistance and shoot Nazis in the head.  But this was the life of the French Resistance in World War II.  I think this game really captures the spirit and vibe of that time.  

I can’t give it a rating except to say you will probably know if you will like it based on the description in this review. I liked it, and I am glad I played it: It felt very emotional and really captured the vibe of World War II (I think; I wasn’t there). But I think you will know if this is for you or not.

A Story Unfolds: Review of Tales of the Arthurian Knights (Solo and Cooperative Modes)

Tales of the Arthurian Knights is a cooperative and solo storybook game. What’s a cooperative storytelling/storybook game you might ask?  Take a look at our Top 10 Cooperative  Storytelling/Storybook Games for more discussion of this genre!

Tales of Arthurian Knights is a follow-up to the hugely popular storybook game Tales of the Arabian Nights, (another massive storybook game) … but the original is not cooperative!

What makes this “Tales of …” series of these games so impressive is the size of the book(s) that come with the game! Players basically make skill checks and have adventures from this book! See the book from Tales of the Arabian Nights above!

Now, the original game Tales of the Arabian Nights was a competitive game (although my friend Greg always argued that it was kinda a co-op), but Tales of Arthurian Knights has added a true solo mode and a true cooperative mode! Let’s take a look!

Unboxing

The size of this box feels pretty standard, except that it is a pretty tall box! It’s also quite heavy! See the Coke can and #2 pencil for perspective on the size.

There are a TON of cardboard sheets to punch out! A ton I tells ya! See above as I use the Coke can to demonstrate how tall the pile of cardboard is!

But what makes this game heavy and a storybook game … is the storybook.

This is a hardcover storybook! And it is very thick! See the Coke can again measuring its height!

Underneath the storybook are a bunch of cards.

That’s what’s in the box … let’s take a closer look at some of the components!

The Rulebook

The rulebook was pretty darn good.

The components page shows just about everything, but here’s a little warning: you should be careful about how you punch some stuff out (we’ll discuss this more below).

The set-up is across two pages and has a picture and correlating notations; it works great.

There’s even a Bibliography (!) and A Pronunciation guide! That’s right! You can tell the people who made this game really care about the Arthurian Mythos! This care shines through from the very beginning, and manifests in the writing!

In general, this was a good rulebook: the fonts are big, the pictures help understanding, and it seems well organized. And the game gets an A- on the Chair Test: I can keep the rulebook open on the chair next to me, and it stays open and flat so it is easy to consult!

And the rulebook even ends with a QuickStart guide on the back: see above.

This was a good rulebook.  The only major fault with this rulebook was that it didn’t have an Index (which is weird for a game that has a Bibliography and Pronunciation Guide), but it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Storybook

The storybook is GORGEOUS! It’s a hardcover! The entire game centers on the stories that come out of this book!

Even the paper is nice (it’s not cheap paper by any means), and it has a built-in bookmark … what?? See above!

The binding on the book is very high quality! I still do that thing you do with new textbooks; slowly open the book and let pages fall left-and-right to ensure I don’t break the binding. (Am I the only one who does that?) See above.

The font is easy to read and it’s high quality: and no, the above isn’t a big spoiler: it’s the VERY FIRST ENTRY every game reads (but it shows what the font looks like).

Most entries in the book have you read some text to the current player (or yourself if you are playing solo), and presents you with a choice … something like … Do you want to use HONOR to solve this issue or PIETY?  You make a skill check against that Skill and read the appropriate SUCCESS or FAILURE.    

See above for an example for a reward (from the rulebook). Getting a SUCCESS usually gives you extra Skills, extra Ranks in Divinity/Villainy/Romance, or Statuses.

This storybook is just gorgeous (you said that Rich … I know, I know, it’s just so awesome).

Punchouts

There are a LOT of punchouts for this game (see above): BE WARNED!! I don’t think you need to punch them all out at first.  Each player takes the role of a Knight of the Round Table (see above: there are 8 possible Knights).

You really only need to punchout the components for THAT KNIGHT! Most of the tokens I need to play Sir Palomides (see above) are just on HIS SHEET; so there’s no reason to punchout EVERYTHING.

I played Sir Lancelot in my first solo game.

I only punched out the components for Sir Lancelot … I didn’t have to punch out everything!

I hate to say it, but I wish this game came with baggies. I stole baggies from some other games I have, and used those. Basically, I give each character THEIR OWN BAG for tokens (and the other shared components go into other bags).

You will to punchout the Skill tokens: every Knight gets 12 (which only some become active as you play).   I made separate bags for each set of 12 tokens.

In fact, there are 8 sets of Skill tokens (even though the game only plays 1-4 players): Why? Because you can  be ACCOMPANIED and have a companion who has skills … like I said, I just punched out the Skill tokens and put each 12 into separate bags (for a total of 8 separate bags of Skill Tokens, and 8 different bags for the 8 characters).  

This game really needs baggies I think.

So, be wary: if you punchout everything right when you open the game, you might want to have a bag per character to store their stuff. And 1 bag per 12 Skills. And a few more baggies for other components.

The SKILLS give you bonuses to certain SKILL checks: See above as Lancelot gets +2 on Peity, Shield and Sword, and Honor SKILL checks.

Status Cards

As you play the game, stuff happens to you. And this is represented by the STATUS cards! Each player gets a stack of STATUS cards which may become activated as you play.

The nice thing is that STATUS cards can expire! See above as I am IMPRISONED! As the start of every turn, if I can’t escape my prison, the STATUS token (red dot) moves down, and if it ever moves to the last space, the STATUS goes away naturally! I have to say, after some games of Tales of Arabian Nights, I got stuck in prison and couldn’t get out! At least with this “expiration” mechanism, I won’t get completely stuck!

Quests

What generally “directs” you in the game is the QUEST!  Every player starts with a STARTING QUEST (see above) and that directs you to places on the map to “do stuff”!  You don’t HAVE to do these quests, but usually the rewards for QUESTS are worth it!

There are many places where you can get more QUESTs as you explore, but if you never have one, you just draw from the QUEST pile!

Your QUESTS have a very pick-up and deliver feel; you usually have to visit 1 or 2 Locations on the map (see above), and do “something” (SKILL check, standard encounter) to finish the QUEST.


The QUEST locations are notated with your little markers (see above).

Destiny

To win the game, you (solo/cooperative group) need to get enough DESTINY POINTS: see above.

How much DESTINY you need depends on the number of players and the difficulty you choose. For example: The solo game at SQUIRE level requires 35 (see above), and a 4-Player cooperative game requires 126 DESTINY!

You mostly get DESTINY from two sources; completing  a QUEST (see above) or succeeding on a SKILL check.  There are also other ways that come up in the game, but those are the most likely sources.

The Map and Encounters

This is a big game where you explore the world, hunting down QUESTS as you move around the map!  Just about everything you do has someone read “something” from the storybook!

The most common encounters (standard encounters) are in the game are made up from two decks: a FEATURE deck (which has an adjective and the last two digits of a 4 digit number) …

And the ENCOUNTER deck, which is frequently a traveller.  The LOST KNIGHT will be entry 1215 in the storybook!   See above! And that will be the encounter for that Location!

Every encounter in the storybook is a 4-digit number (see above).

And that’s the basics of the game; explore the world, go on QUESTS, read from the Storybook, make skill checks, and try to get enough DESTINY to win!

Solo Play

So, there is a solo mode in this game (thank you for following Saunders’ Law), and it is “generally” well-thought out; but there are some issues.  

Let’s be clear; even though Tales of Arthurian Knights has a solo and cooperative mode, it is a competitive game first.  Most STATUSES and QUEST cards have “another player” make a choice for you!  See above as ENSORCELLED STATUS has another player, who is your competitor, make choices for you!  

So, when another player is supposed to make a choice for you, you instead draw a card from the SOLO/CO-OP deck (see above) and that makes the choice for you! 

For example, if another player were to choose a REGION, the card above instead specifies what to do.  Same with City, Terrain, or the STATUSes LOST, ENSORCELLED, or MAD.  Don’t know what to do?  Draw a card!

The problem is that there are still ambiguities that come up.  Which Forest space?  Which sea space?  There’s a whole page discussing how to place things from those cards, and it’s still not 100% clear sometimes; Honestly, it’s a little bit of a wart on this system.  Rather than get bogged-down in some detail, I’d get “about” where I was supposed and just pick one.  It’s better to move forward than get obsessed. (Because this game can very random, it feels very silly to obsess on some of these rules).

Besides that one issue, the solo game worked pretty well. See above as I had the board set-up!

This is a true solo player game: the solo player plays one character! See above as I played Sir Lancelot. Player proceeds pretty much as the main game; just get enough DESTINY to win!

What this means, of course, is that the solo player has to read all the text to themselves. You have to be a little careful not to read too far ahead, as you can see what the “difficulties” are when you really shouldn’t: “Choose PIETY or HONOR” (oops, I accidentally saw that HONOR needs a 4 check, but PIETY is a 6 … I’ll just go with HONOR”): you aren’t really supposed to know the difficulty of your checks. You are supposed to choose the check based SOLELY on the type of check, nothing else! So, it’s easy to “accidentally” cheat and see what the SKILL checks are.

But, if you can survive 12 rounds (you have to play a full 12 rounds) and get enough DESTINY (see above as I do!), you win!

The solo experience is fairly sedate; you read to yourself, you roll the dice, you make choices. It was fun, and I really enjoyed the text, but it’s a quiet experience with a lot of reading.

The solo mode is a great way to learn the game, but I didn’t love it because it was so sedate. It was a good way to learn most of the systems of the game, and I might play it again solo. The solo mode is a 6.5 or 7/10? It works, and it teaches the game, but I didn’t love it (especially with some of the ambiguity).

Cooperative Mode

Cooperative mode, on the other hand, was a rolicking good time!

It’s hard to believe, especially since the players are reading from this tome all the time, but the game was such a HOOT! What happened was that we read the book with silly voices! We quoted Monty Python and the Holy Grail all night long!

Some of the best things that happen in the game are when you FAIL and the story just gets crazy! Sara’s story was so wacky as she had three lovers, including Morgana! We laughed as Dame Enid’s Villany track escalated as she kept three lovers! In the meantime, Sir Galahad struggled to keep his Villainy down! Sure, you make choices as the game proceeds, but you may or may not make it … it’s all the crazy things that happen!

Let’s be clear, this is not a “silly” storybook game like Wandering Galaxy (see review here), Freelancers (see review here), or Forgotten Waters (see review here)! Those game are built as silly from the ground up! But Tales of Arthuran Knights is nominally a serious game (I mean, it’s got a Bibliography for goodness sake), but the moments that happen, the plot twists, the fails, the wins, are all kind are electrifying! The mood of the game is light as Monty Python quotes fall from the tongue (“Bad, naughty Zoot!”) and players giggle at your wins and losses! “Wait, Dame Edid has THREE lovers now??? Save some for everyone else, Sara!!”

My players loved this game! They gave it an 8/10, which is especially high for Sara!

The only thing that would have made this more fun is if it were more cooperative! We certainly enjoyed reading to each other, but at the end of the day, the game was pretty much multiplayer solitaire as we each had our own adventures! Had there been mechanisms for “questing together” or “moving together”, maybe that would have elevated the game to a 9/10 or 10/10? Don’t get me wrong, we LOVED this game, but we just wish there were a little more cooperation …to be clear, there’s plenty of interaction among the players, as they read to each other and choose entries, so there is definitely full engagement, but that’s sort of outside the game (in the running of it). The actual cooperation in-game is pretty much non-existent. Again, this game is great, but it’s not a cooperative touchstone by any means.

Overall, my friends loved this game.   It was so fun!

House Rules

One possible set of house rule to encourage cooperation might be the following:
1) If two (or more players) are on the space or move through each other, they can “pick-up” and “drop-off” other characters during movement. This might allow some sharing of movement points and encourage players to move together and move quicker around the map. They have to talk and discuss strategy!
2) If another character is with you on an encounter, that other player can spend his DESTINY (we would assume players get their own DESTINY even if needs to be shared) to up SKILL roles: discard DESTINY on a one-for-one basis to increase the check!!! BUT you could only do that if someone ELSE did it, not the person in the encounter! (I think this means each player would still get their own encounter though … it’s just travelling together allows players to influence each other)
These two House rules might help engender a little more cooperation. They would obviously need more some balancing (I think it might make the game slightly easier), but it’s easy to just up the difficulty level by one and see how you do!

What I Liked

Failure is still good! We didn’t mention this when we discussed SKILLS, but even a failure is good! First of all, sometimes a failure is interesting or even funny from a story perspective, so that good! More importantly, a failure on a SKILL roll almost invariably leads to “gain experience” in that SKILL and up it by 1! For example, If I fail a DIPLOMACY SKILL check, I will learn from it! “Oooooohhh, that’s a good example of what NOT to do when negotiating! Lesson learned!” .. and my DIPLOMACY goes up +1!

The Game Is Electifying Cooperatively! If you have the right group who is just a little silly, will quote Monty Python, and read the text with silly accents, this game is just electrifying and a fun romp! I think to enjoy this game to the fullest, you have to “lighten up” a little and just enjoy the ride!

Cooperative mode:  The original Tales of the Arabian Nights was fantastic, but it was a competitive game!  By Tales of Arthurian Knights being cooperative, it seems to “lighten” the atmosphere a little.  In general, this new version just seems more approachable.

What I Didn’t Like

Time is wrong: After many solo and cooperative plays, I think the playing time is off. I’d say it’s more like 1 hour per player (plus set-up and tear-down). It’s not a big difference, but it may keep you from playing the 4-Player game!! The 3-Player game at 3 hours is just about the right time.

Ambiguity/Extra Complexity: In the solo and cooperative mode, you depend on the solo/coop cards to resolve ambiguity when placing Locations and other things. Unfortunately, sometimes the rules are just ambiguous or at the very least contorted for placement! See above as we place on Sea spaces, which require looking up the rules for placing Quest Markers which span almost an entire page! In the end, you still just “Place the Marker on the location closest to the indicated City that matches the correct terrain type (including Sea space, if required)“. I think, if you study page 17, you can resolve most things, but it’s much more complex than it should be. This can really take a light-hearted game and bring it down: “Please give me a few minutes to look up this rule!“. In the end, we just kept the game moving and made the best choice on the card to keep the game moving.


Reboxing:  I think you will struggle with the reboxing.  Even with little baggies (which don’t come with the game: make sure you get some), you may struggle to fit everything in the box.  

Randomness

Let’s be clear about one thing: this is a story you (hopefully) get swept up in!  Although you do “level-up” as you play (your SKILLS get better and better, and your Renown goes up, etc), it’s still kind of a random game.  

I get the LOST KNIGHT encounter randomly (see above) which might be great for my SKILLS, or it might be sucky!   Stuff happens to you, and you roll dice.  This is a game with a lot of randomness!  The dice make the SKILL checks more random!  The encounters you get are random! The QUESTS you get are random!  I normally hate all that randomness, but it works here!  Why?

Because this is a story that you get swept up into!  Maybe, like Dame Enid, you’ll have 3 lovers! Maybe, like Sir Lancelot, you’ll have no love in your life, but get the plague and save others from the plague!  It’s all about what happens to you as you play! It’s all about the well-written story, the shared experience, the aloud reading, and the silly fun with your friends! It’s random, but it’s fun.

To be clear, Tales of the Arabian Nights was even MORE random (and that could be a bit much); at least Tales of the Arthurian Nights has backed off on some of the randomness and improved upon the original (with expiring statuses, upgrading skills, and upping reknown).  If you didn’t like Tales of the Arabian Nights, this may still appeal to you.  If you like Tales of the Arabian Nights, you may find this even more enjoyable!  It’s a slightly less random experience. 

Conclusion

What a great time! I think that Tales of the Arthurian Knights might be my friends’ favorite game we have played in some time! They both give it an 8 or 8.5/10: it would actually be higher, but the game is mostly multiplayer solitaire! The game is very interactive, but just not particularly cooperative. We did suggest some House Rules to encourage a little more cooperation; see previous section.

The solo game works, but it’s just a little less fun because you are just reading to yourself as random things happen to you. What makes this game great are the crazy things that happen to you when you are with your friends! That shared experience of failing and being swept up in the story is so much more satisfying when you are with your friends! So, I didn’t love the solo game: The solo game is still respectable and will teach the game: 6.5 or 7/10.

In the end, this is best as a shared experience where players get swept up in the story and don’t care too much about “winning”; it’s all about the experience! It’s all about the story!

If you are willing to quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail, be open to the story that unfolds around you, read lots of text, and enjoy this with a light heart, I think you might really enjoy Tales of the Arthurian Knights! Be aware that there is a lot of reading, so if that doesn’t sound like fun to you, you may want to stay away from this game.

A Review of Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread. Part I: Unboxing, Set-Up, Solo Play, And First Impressions After 20 Hours of Play

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Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread is a cooperative adventure campaign set in a fantasy universe.  This was on Kickstarter back in August 2021, and promised delivery in December 2022.  

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It arrived at my house Dec 30th, 2024!  So, it’s about 2 years late!  I mean, I have been looking forward to this for some time: it was #6 on my Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2022!

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Has this been worth the wait? Let’s take a look!

Unboxing: Day 0 (December 30th, 2024)

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This is a big mama-jama of a game! It took up the entire delivery box with no extra room! As soon as this game came in, I went to the game room and immediately opened it up!

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See the Coke Can above for scale! It’s HUUUGE!

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It’s is just chock full o’ stuff.

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There’s even a list on the side how to put this back together (I still recommend taking pictures as you unbox) because it’s so big.  Oh yes, there’s also a list of everyone who backed the game on Kickstarter.  Do you see my name there?  (No, I don’t either … that is a tiny font!)

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The rulebook is a reasonable size and has great art: it’s right on top.

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There’s some punchouts below the rulebook: these are REALLY nice punchouts: they are thick cardboard and very well notated (and readable).  These are all tokens that come out slowly as you play: you don’t have to punch things out until you need them (which is kind of nice).

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And what’s all this?  So much cool stuff!

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There are some tokens (red for damage, orange for “wear-and-tear”, and combat dice) as well as some minis.

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The minis are HEADLESS!  You heard me! No head! See above!

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You choose a head that matches the character you choose!  

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So, if you choose this guy with this body, you can make the mini!  This is a cool idea, but I felt like I had to be very careful as a I put the head in … I was kind of afraid I’d break something!  They did work, but … just be careful.

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There are a lot of boxes in different colors; each color is correlated to a “Path”, or a type of character (Class) you take.

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There’s essentially 3 boxes for your Path: the card boxes (below), the Treasure Chests (far right) …

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And the long thin boxes (above).  These are all for your character!

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But I want to end my unboxing the same way I ended Day 0: setting up the card and map decks.  These card decks (see three boxes above) control how the game unfolds: the stories, the combats, the twists, the turns … all of the game is in these three decks.

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One of the first things you have to do is put the backers (see above) in the card boxes to indicate where different sections start and end. 

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This is literally one of the first directions in the quick-start: “Insert Dividers” .. see above.

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So, at the end of my first day of unboxing, I ended up putting the dividers in.  This was … more work than I expected, as the card decks have a very precise way they need to be set up.  I think I spent a good 30-45 minutes inserting the dividers (don’t laugh! It’s true!).

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There’s also dividers for the maps (which we’ll talk about in the Day 1 section below) that you have to insert.  Really! It’s more work than you might expect to put in these inserts!

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So, at the end of Day 0, I got all the dividers set-up and the basic game unboxed.  Overall, I probably spent 2 hours to get to this point.

Starting First Play: Day 1 (December 31st, 2024)

NOTE: Some of the stuff here might be considered spoilers, as it’s from the Quick Start Guide, but it’s the first things you see, so it’s not much of a spoiler. Feel free to skip this if you want to be completely surprised.

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We didn’t focus on this too much in Day 0, but there is a really nice Quick Start Guide (see book above) to guide the players through the game.  

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This Quick Start Guide is 16 pages  long … yes, let that sink in … a Quick Start Guide that is 16 pages!  That’s because the rulebook is 36 pages!  And yet, the Quick Start Guide does a GREAT job getting you into the game!  I spent Day 0 setting up the decks and maps (which is described on page 1 on Quick Start Guide).  The next page has the components! The components are interestingly listed in both the Quick Start Guide (see above) and the Rulebook.  I mean, a good list of components and correlating text is ESSENTIAL to any good rulebook, so I am all for this!

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The next step, which I spent a lot of Day 1 on, is Character Creation (see page 4 of the Quick Start Guide above).  This guides you through the process of choosing a Path (Rogue, Cleric, etc, basically a Dungeons and Dragons Class).

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I chose the purple boxes, so I am a Rogue! (you actually get to read the summary of each type if you want more info before you choose). The small card box contains a d20, some colored cubes, and cards describing your skills. See above.

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The long thin box (above) contains your character sheets (below) … which are all double layered boards!

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See above as my Rogue has his skill tree board (left), character board with skills and inv (right), and the the character profile (above, right), and the more descriptive skill cards (above, left).

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At this point, you also choose your name, character mini, head (which still sounds weird), and race. See above.

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Your Race (I am human, see above) choice also get some special abilities (the Human gets a free re-roll every so often).

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This process of choosing characters was really well done!  They even give you a hint how combat will work: see how one sheet has an armored profile which armor covering areas?

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The next step has you start into the world!  This game is combination of exploration, combats, and puzzles and quests!  You start on the WorldMap (“the Basin”, see above) and explore, looking for stuff!

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There is a REALLY NEAT mechanism for discovering the hexes: the hexes are inserted in, but you can “push” on the right of the hex and pop it our easily, as there is a little ledge underneath the hex!  This makes it VERY EASY to pop out a new hex!  The world starts unexplored, except for the Exile’s camp!  See above!

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When you explore a location (like the Exile’ camp), the game will direct you to use some of the maps that come with the game!  The maps are LNG (long), MED (medium), SML (small), and BIG (big). See above.

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One side of the maps describes the scene with words and text!   See above!

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Then you flip it to the other side!  And then you explore the maps at that Location!  At that maps are POI (Points of Interest), FOE (foes, potentially), NPC (Non-player characters), and other stuff!  You interact with the place by moving to them (if you start a board with a FOE … you start combat immediately!  We aren’t quite there yet!)

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Interacting with a NPC (or POI) is basically the same: everyone interested goes to that Location!  You get their card and read it!  The first NPC you encounter is Guild Leader, Thades!

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Then one player “roll plays” the card to another group, and the group makes decisions!  See above as the group can ask about the GUILD, the SQUILLS, PRACTICE DUMMY, or LEAVE!  Basically, this interaction  is kind of like some of the point-and-click adventures we’ve seen before (see our Top 10 Cooperative Point-And-Click Adventure Games)!  

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And sometimes these interactions will point to a new map, a new card, a new KEY (a way to keep track of open adventures), or other stuff!  See above as we head into our first combat!

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This game definitely has a lot of combat in it!  We are fighting the Practice Dummy!

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Where does the little Practice Dummy come from?  The Fig Box of course!

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Each FIG box has a bunch of closed windows, so we can’t see what’s coming … we can only the window for the mini we want!

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That’s right!  The minis are all “hidden” until you encounter them!  So cool! (Advent Calendar!)

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So, at this point, we switch to ANOTHER rule book, The Combat Example book!

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Every single Path (character Class) has a different combat example book! See all 6 of them above!  That’s right, you have a specified walkthrough FOR EACH DIFFERENT Class (Path)!!!

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This is really cool, as it kind of tells you how the character works!  The Rogue-like Class (I mean Path) is very much about hiding and laying traps!  This 4-page tutorial takes you through one combat with the Practice Dummy, showing you all the different things you can do!

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Basically, the combat alternates between the Bad Guys (the Practice Dummy here) and the Good Guys (you and your group).  

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A deck controls what the Bad Guys do: usually either upping the THREAT level or actually attacking using the current THREAT level!  The more THREAT there is, the more intense the attacks by the Bad Guys!

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When the Bad Guys attack you, they “hit” automatically (unless you have some mechanism like the Rogue to stay hidden) and do damage based on the die they roll.  The Practice Dummy rolls a RED die, and hit you square in the middle! See how the die specifies where it hits?  

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We saw a similar mechanism for hitting back in Sleeping Gods (see our review here)!  This as one of our favorite parts of Sleeping Gods!  It seemed like such a cool combat mechanism to have your body “mapped” for hits!

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The Bad Guys have a similar system, where they have an array of “hits” and you only kill the Bad Guys if you hit every spot!

EDIT: Some people complained about SPOILERS, so I turned this picture into a link instead; it shows a more complicated monster, but it does reveal a monster you haven’t seen yet. SPOILER in this picture: click on the link if you want to see it
SPOILER: shows a more complicated monster

Later Bad Guys have significantly more spots that contain damage points, so they are harder to kill!  (Minor spoiler in the picture above, but trust me, you won’t see this one coming!)

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See above as I have taken out the Practice Dummy!

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So, I was able to explore a little part of the world and have my first combat!  And I was still only halfway through the Quick Start Guide!  However, I ran out of time.  This was a good 4 or so hours of set-up and exploration and play.  But that Combat Guide is SO GOOD!!! I loved that!  I really felt like I understood combat after that!

Rewards, Level Ups, and Exploration: Day 2 (January 1st, 2025)

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So, now halfway through the Quick Start Guide, I had all day to play on January 1st!! I got my rewards (some experience points) and moved on. Incidentally, Experience Points make it easy to level up and upgrade your character. Let me repeat that: You get to Upgrade your Character!

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I was able to explore the Location a little more, and found a neat little cave in the same area.  This found me a KEY (think keyword) that allowed me to get off the map and move on to more explorations.

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Just like NPC, the interaction with a POI feels like a Video Game!!!

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The Quick Start Guide also talks more about KEYS and STATE CHANGES (a way to keep track that you have completed quests).  A STATE CHANGE represents something “changed” in the Adventure and the way the card deal with that.

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Next, you get to go to a town and heal up.  For those of you who have done any Dungeons and Dragons, towns are very important waypoints to heal and get new stuff!  In this case, the Exiles Camp also allows you to Level-UP!  The back of the Path card has a Level Up Guide! 

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I chose to make a copy of it, so you didn’t make the pristine cards (you can also download these and print them).

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Levelling-Up is a great time for the Adventurer, as they can choose new upgrades to their abilities!

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They can also choose a new Skill from their Skill tree (if they have the prerequisites)!

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Now, after levelling up (and healing), we are ready to explore the world!  The explore deck above is used to tell you how exploration is going!

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Basically, depending on what terrain you are traveling through, you may have simple success travelling or some hardship!!  See the card above, as Mountains, sea, and sign posts/roads are just a simple travel, but Plains,Grassland, Forest and Ice you become frustrated!

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Basically, you may to flip some of your tokens to represent the hardships.  It’s not too big a deal when you start your travels, but it’s possible the hardships will start overtaking you if you don’t rest after too many travels! I thought this mechanism was fairly thematic and simple and interesting!

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At this point, the Quick Start Guide ended and I was ready to take on the world!  The Quick Start Guide takes you through so many of the games mechanisms so well, I didn’t feel the need to read the rulebook!!  I learned Travel, Days and Resting, Points of Interest, Non-Player Characters, Combat, Experience, Levelling Up, WorldMap Travel, Location Travel, Town Actions, Floors and Stairs, Events, Character Creation, and so much more!

Exploring the World (Day 3, Day 4, …)

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From this point on, I was exploring the world myself, levelling up, and find the stories of this land!  Arydia has ended up on my table continuously for about 6 to 7 days.  Some days, I would play for hours, or some days it would be just one combat.  But I couldn’t bring myself to put it back in the box  …. there is a SAVE mechanism, but it’s still a lot of work to SAVE and LOAD it back.  It’s just easier to keep it out.

Rulebook

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Great rulebook. 

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It droops just a little, but the rulebook is so well done, I am willing to overlook that.

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Honestly, I didn’t need to rulebook (because the Quick Start Guide was so amazing) unless I was looking up a rule! And guess what??  There’s an Index!  There’s a pretty good Index on the last page! So, this rulebook delivered and became a good resource when I needed it.  

Let’s be clear, this is a complicated game, so there are always questions that don’t get addressed (what’s the order of operations of a combat hit if the last hit damages a point what heals another point?  Does the heal happen before the final death?), but in general, I was pretty happy with this.

In fact, the Quick Start Guide and Combat Guide gave me SO MUCH Confidence to just jump in!  The Rulebook with its Index worked well when I needed it.  This is one of the better documented games I have seen in some time. Kudos!

What Is This? Do You Know What Ultima IV is?

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What is this game?  If I had to describe this to someone who played Video Games in the 80s, I’d tell them that Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread reminds me so much of Ultima IV for the Apple II and Commodore 64!   If you have ever played Ultima IV, you know what this is!  It’s a game where exploration is a major component of the game! 

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You explore the big map (like in Ultima IV) and the little maps (like in Ultima IV). 

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Your interaction with NPC and the environment feels like the way you interact with NPCS in Ultima IV!  “I am the king of Eros!  I am all about Honesty!” “Tell me about Honesty!”  The keyword interaction system just feels like Ultima IV!

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And the combat, which is an important part of the game, feels a little like Ultima IV combat!  You interact on a Grid and move about! 

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But Ultima IV is all about the Quests and exploration as well!

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But, if you are a more modern gamer and have no idea what Ultima IV is, I’d tell you that this feels like Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion … with more story and exploration.  Jaws of the Lion is a fantasy exploration and combat game with great onboarding … sound familiar?  Now, don’t get me wrong, I like Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion (see our review here), but I always felt like there was too much focus on combat.  Sure, there was always some exploration and such, but at the end of the day, it felt like most of the hours you invested into the game were mostly combat!

Possible SPOILER picture, so turned it into a link: Possible SPOILER: picture in a town with a combat yet to be seen

I feel like the little stories and quests and puzzles in Arydia are more … fun?  That’s why I make the Ultima IV comparison: the end all of Ultima IV is to pursue the quests and stories, with combat being some part of that, whereas Gloomhaven (all of them) seem to have so much more gameplay focused on Combat.

Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread feels like the board game manifestation of the video game Ultima IV! 

Solo Play

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So, Aydia: The Paths We Dare Tread has a solo mode (thank you for following Saunders’ Law)! And guess what?  It’s a true solo mode: one player playing one character!  (Although the Rulebook does mention that you can play multiple characters, but it will just really slow down the solo game).

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This game works so well as a solo game. In a few places in the text, there are slight adjustments for solo games (the RP: Role Play Points, for example, allow the Solo Character to hold more RP than normal), but in general the games seems to scale just fine. Like we said earlier, this game has great documentation, so they few places (like Role Playing Points) where there are adjustments for solo play, it’s very well documented!

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Combat seems to scale fine, as the Combat alternates between Bad Guy and Good Guy (one from the party).  For example, consider a 4-Player game: in four turns, the Bad Guys goes 4 times, and each member of the party goes once.  For a solo game, this balance stays: the Bad Guys go 4 times and the Good Guys go 4 times … it’s just the solo player goes all 4 times!  The only thing I worry about is that the solo player might have too few hit points, as a 4-Player games would have 4x the hit points!  What balances this out, of course, is that all upgrades get applied to the solo character, so he tends to be more of a superman as he levels up …

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Frankly, this was a great solo experience.  I have played probably about 20 hours as I write this, and I have really been enjoying this.  I like the Video Game feel of exploration and combat.

This will probably make my Top 10 Solo Games of 2025.  

2024 or 2025?

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This delivered to my door Dec. 30, 2024.  I got through “a lot” of the Quick Start Guide on Dec 31, but finished the Quick Start Guide in January 1st, 2025.  So, is this a 2024 game or a 2025 game? BoardGameGeek lists the date as 2025!  Since it is SO CLOSE to the end of the year … and a lot of people on Kickstarter haven’t gotten their copy yet, I am calling this a 2025 game!  

What I Liked

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Hidden Minis: The way the figures are only revealed one at a time through an Advent Calendar like mechanism is pretty great. I have no idea what I am fighting until I open the little door from the Figure Box!

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The Card System: The state of the world is handled in the three card boxes above. What adventures have you seen? What NPCs have you talked to? Where have your Travels taken you? This system seemed to work so well! Rather than getting caught up in a big book full of cross-references, this card system makes the adventure “bite-sized” so you never feel too overwhelmed by the text! There’s just enough adventure on the cards to keep the game interesting, but not enough text to be overwhelming! (I am looking at you, My Father’s Work as an exemplar game with too much text…).

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Quick Start Guide: This guide works SO WELL for introducing the players to the world.

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The Combat Guide: The fact that there is a combat guide tailored to each type of class (Path) in the game is tremendous! Each class (Path) has such a different play style, it’s great to see Arydia embrace all the different styles! It’s like having 6 different experts in Cleric, Rogue, Mage, etc! This just works so well!

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The Adventure: I love that this game is all about adventure too! The cards present stories and interactions that make this feel like a Video Game! Ultima IV!

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Levelling Up: As you explore this world, you get to level up and become better! You choose skills that get better and better, and you may even change direction in your skill tree! One of my major complaints about Sleeping Gods is that you never felt you you were getting better, but just barely getting by (and I had a similar complaint about Lands of Galzyr, but we never reviewed that). Here in Arydia, you absolutely get better, and you feel like you have a hand in choosing the direction! You feel involved as you become more powerful! I just feel like that’s so engaging!

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Well-Thought Out: The production is amazing and well thought out. Everything in the game seems to be a well-thought out decision. How does this game go together? There’s even a guide on the side of the box.

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Combat: The combat in Arydia is interesting and different, but it’s not the entire focus of the game (like Gloomhaven’s combat is).  I like the combat, but I don’t feel like it takes over my life. I can explore when I want, and do combat too!

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Resettable: You can reset the game back to its pristine state: this is not a legacy game.

What I Didn’t Like

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Overwhelming: Sometimes I felt overwhelmed. When you explore a new Location, you have to find all these maps, then all these POI and NPC, and all these new minis, and set everything up. Sometimes it was just a little overwhelming. Some of this would probably go away in the cooperative game with more people to share the load, but there is a lot of maintenance by the solo player to keep this game going.

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Only One Save Game:  There is only game going ever.  Period. The state of the card boxes represents the majority of the state of this game.  You can’t have multiple games going on!  We were able to have a solo game and a cooperative game simultaneously running in Tidal Blades 2 (see our review here), but only because most of the state was in the sheets and some cards.  Here in Arydia, you can only have one game ongoing.

Conclusion

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This solo game took over my life for about one week! I love Arydia: The Paths We Dare Dread! It was definitely worth waiting for (from the #6 on our Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2022!) even though it took two extra years to arrive! This is a 8.5 or 9/10! This feels like an exploration Video Game that I kept coming back to!

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Unfortunately, I can’t say anything about the cooperative game (from 2-4 Players) because I have only played the solo game!   As great as this game is, I can’t have multiple games going on at once!

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So, now that I have played the solo game and really enjoyed it … I are going to reset the game back to the pristine state (this campaign is resettable) so that me and my friends can try the Cooperative Game!  This makes me very sad, as I will lose all progress in my 20+ hour campaign!  

If you see a Part II review of this, you will know that I broke down and reset the game to be able to play cooperatively with my friends!  If, on the other hand, you never see a Part II of this review ……… well, maybe I didn’t want to lose my progress … and I selfishly kept playing the solo game …

Let’s see what happens!

Groundhog Day Meets Murder? A Review of The Revenant Society

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I picked up The Revenant Society from Kickstarter from March 2023, just about a year ago (it is late April 2024 at the time of this writing): see link here. This game seemed to be the unholy fusion of both a board game and a Role Playing Game (RPG). It has a core rules book, but also many supporting cards and tokens: see below.

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What you see above is the pledge level The Revenant Society: Deluxe Box  Set (for $75). There was also the option to just get just the core book in physical form ($40) or electronic PDF ($20).  Anyone who has been following my blog for a while knows I prefer the physical copies, so I got the Deluxe Box Set (the exact one in the picture above).

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What is The Revenant Society?  The basic premise is that you have been murdered, but you are given a chance to come back as an undead creature to solve your murder!   It many ways, it’s like Groundhog Day (the movie), as you repeat the same day over and over, hoping to find clues to lead you to your murderer!  If you fail to solve your mystery after four days, you are stuck in the loop of your last day forever!

What a great premise!  I was immediately drawn in and backed this. 

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The PDF delivered in late March 2024 (I have the PDF labelled as March 29th) from Drive Thru RPG.  It has my name and my order number smeared on a number of pages, so don’t ask me to share this with you!

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The physical copy of the box delivered in mid April 2024 (about April 16th).

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This review is going to take a weird arc: we ended up playing the PDF version of the game in our first session, and then the physical version of the game in our second session!  So, we’ll discuss how each sessions went: electronic PDF version vs physical version!

RPG or Board Game?

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Is this more of an RPG or more of a board game?  The little minis (above) and the cards (below) that come with the game offer some suggestion this has more than a little board game DNA.

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After reading the rules and playing a few times, I can tell you this is 95% an RPG and 5% a board game!  The boards that you use are “nice” for helping you keep track of events in the game, and the cards and tokens are useful like a board game, but at the end of the day, this is really an RPG!

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The biggest clue that this is an RPG is that one player has to be the Dungeon Master  (or DM) or Game Master (or GM): they are called the Fate Weaver! The Fate Weaver has to run the game for the other players, just like a GM would.  A further clue is that this system is based on an RPG system called the Apocalypse: a lot of modern RPGs are “Powered by the Apocalypse“!  So, this is really an RPG with just a touch of board game elements to keep track of a few things.

If you find yourself interested in this, be aware!  This is really an RPG where one player (The Fate Weaver) will have to invest a lot of time learning and setting-up an adventure for this friends: this is not really a board game.

Session 0: Getting Ready

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So, I ended up being the Fate Weaver and picking an adventure to run: this means I had to do a lot of reading and set-up to get ready!  The core Revenant Society rulebook comes with six scenarios, and another expansion PDF (that comes with the deluxe version) another four scenarios.  The game is set in either Paris France 1910s or New York City USA 1920s: about half the scenarios are in Paris (see map below), and the other half in New York.

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Since the deluxe version hadn’t arrived yet, I made due with using the PDF version.  This means I had to print out a lot of stuff to hand out to my players! See below all the stuff I have to print out!

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Probably half the stuff I printed you didn’t need: some of it I wasn’t sure, so I printed it, and the other half you can just show the players some pages from the rulebook on your PDF.  But you still need to print a awful lot of stuff!  Luckily, this is ALL IN THE PDF RULEBOOK!!  You just have to print the appropriate pages (near the end of the book).

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Over the course of about four days, I read the rulebook a couple of times (it’s like 284 pages, but most of that page count is scenarios at the back of the book/print-outs); I tried to figure out what I needed to print. 

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I ended up using a paper cutter (see above) to help with some of that. 

After reading the rules, re-reading the rules, choosing a scenario, and printing everything I needed, I felt ready to run the game.

Session 1: Paris Scenario: The Petals of Belladona

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Like most RPGS, each player needs to create a character to run through the scenario.  There are six  basic archetypes in the game (one is “The Glamorous”: see above): each player chooses one and expounds on that basic framework to create a more personalized character.

So, my friends and I met for the first session.  I had planned to “just” create the characters and explain the game!  I “expected” that to last 2 hours, but it went very quickly!  We got the characters created and got the the gist of the game in 45 minutes.  So, GULP! We just jumped right in!

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I think the reason it went so well was because I had spent a lot of time preparing, so I didn’t have to lookup too much stuff as we played!  Don’t get me wrong: I still had to make up a lot of stuff as we played … which is typical:  most Dungeon Master/Game Master have to be creative and make up stuff to respond to their players.

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In the end, we made it through Loop 1 (where we uncovered a lot of the story) and ended with a dramatic reveal!  This was all by the seat of my pants, but I think it went well.

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Even though we had cheesy cut-out components, it actually worked pretty well.  Again, it was probably because I over-prepared so I think I knew everything we would need.

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We liked the game enough to want to play again! So, we looked at our schedules and decided to try again in two weeks!

Meanwhile …

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While we were waiting to meet again, the physical copy came in the mail!

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Instead of cheesy cut-outs, we now have real tokens! Real cards! Real boards! Real dice! And dry-erase boards to boot! 

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Probably the most exciting piece was the physical copy of the core book!  See above and below!

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I took a picture with a can of Coke to show how thick the book actually was! It’s a big boy!

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In fact, I was worried about stripping the binding, so I made sure to open it and slowly open parts of the book so the binding would get some equal wear and tear as I opened it.  We used to do this to all our AD&D books growing up … it keeps the binding fit!

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So rather than a sheet of memories (used to generate content) like above from the PDF …

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We get a full deck of cards from the physical edition! See above.

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Instead of cheesy cut-outs (like above) …

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We get plastic minis!

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On the left, you see all the things I printed from the PDF … and on the right, you see the physical components.

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A bit of a surprise was the character sheets in the deluxe version are dry-erase!

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The deluxe version even comes with dry-erase pens!

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The map is much nicer too.  See the map of Paris above.

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Besides the book, probably the nicest component was the Fate Weaver screen!

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So, basically, everything now has “deluxe” pieces: the next time we play, we’ll move to the new pieces!

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Session 2: Playing Loop 2 With The Deluxe Components

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So, in our second Loop of the game, we embraced all the deluxe components.  We decided quickly that the dry-erase boards are terrible for writing lots of text (upper left uses pencil-and-paper), but good for writing simple adjustments and damage (upper right uses dry-erase board).

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We also put some ultra-fine dry erase pens on standby, but we didn’t need them (because we didn’t write any text on the dry-erase boards, just simple marks).  See above as I have the Fate Weaver Screen and the  big old Revenant Society core book in front of me.

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I ended up putting some markers in the book to remind myself where certain sections were: I found out very quickly that this beautiful book DOES NOT have an index!

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Sara ended up using a notebook to take notes through the adventure: she was never tempted to use the dry-erase boards.   I will say that the map looks a lot better (see above) and the Fate Loop board is much easier to use with the dry-erase boards.

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In the end, we had fun playing.  I think we took the game a little less seriously in the second game …

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We ended up bringing a very saucy NPC named “Skully” into the mystery … see Teresa cradle Skully in her arm.  (They had to wrap Skully in something to shut him up … Skully liked to talk a little too much!)

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We went ahead and finished our story that night, completing the second Loop and solving the mystery of the deaths!

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We had fun.

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Probably the place where the Deluxe Component shone most brightly was the One-Shot Loop dry-erase board with the little Watchers: that seemed to work the best of all the deluxe components. See above.

Well-Crafted Murder Mystery?

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After getting through the game, I realized this was not what I expected: the game labels itself with the byline ‘Solve the mystery of your own death in this role playing game‘ (see the cover above).  What I thought this meant was that The Revenant Society would provide several well-crafted mysteries for the players to solve. No no no no no no.  That’s not at ALL what this game was!   This a game where the players make-up-what-they-want about their character and most of the story and the Fate Weaver simply “responds” and tries to push the game in certain directions.

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For example, take a look at the clue above: this is something the Fate Weaver is required to physically pass to the player at some point during the game.  But this is not a clue about this mystery, this is the player making-up whatever-the-heck-they-want to answer the question!

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Another example: at the beginning of every Loop, there are “questions” the Fate Weaver asks the players!  (See above) And the players answer whatever-the-heck-they-want!

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Detective: City of Angels Box Lid

If you were expecting something like Detective: City of Angels, or Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (or many games on our Top 10 Cooperative Detective Games) with well-crafted mysteries, thoughtful clues, and meaningful timelines, that IS NOT what The Revenant Society is! This is a game about the Fate Weaver and the players collaboratively making up whatever-the-heck-they-want. (Well, the timelines are actually fairly well-defined, so I take that part back).

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I’ll be honest, I am very disappointed in what The Revenant Society is: I admit that I prefer my mysteries to be well-crafted and thoughtful!  I was hoping to be a GM that slowly guided the players to the final solution, by dropping clues and hints as they played.  What I got was a game where players do whatever-the-heck-they-want, and I, as the Fate Weaver have to somehow rectify that with the world and mystery they inhabit.

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You might say “Well, play the way you want to then! Make up a well-crafted mystery and present that to the players!”  I thought about that, but the mechanisms already in the game keep prodding the players to make-up whatever-the-heck-they-want: unless you alter the game drastically, this is a terrible framework RPG for well-crafted mysteries.  

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This isn’t what I wanted: I usually hate these kind of games, because they remind me of the TV Show: LOST.  Things just happen with no cohesion or thought, and frequently things just don’t make sense or get resolved.  I really hate shows like that: I want my shows (and my games) to be thoughtful.

Despite

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Despite this NOT being a well-crafted mystery, I still had fun running it. Once I set my expectations for what this game is, I did the best I could to stay in the moment.

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My friends loved the setting and the idea of a Groundhog Day meets Murder game!

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I also did get some enjoyment trying to take my friends’ crazy ideas and turn them into a well-crafted mystery as much as I could!  I have seen so many murder mystery shows, read so many books, played so many murder games, that I feel like I do have a chance to turn my player’s crazy actions into a well-crafted mystery.    So I did enjoy it, once I got into it.

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And Skully ended up being an unexpected fun NPC, even though he hit on Sara the entire night … but that’s just what Skully does.

A Comparison To Spirit of 77

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My major compliant with the Revenant Society is that it really doesn’t have well-crafted mysteries: players just make up stuff as they go, and the DM/GM has to rectify what they do.

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Spirit of 77: Get the Funk Out!

Another RPG I played that has this same “make-up-stuff-as-you-go” style is Spirit of ’77 … and I loved that style there!! See out review of Spirit of ’77 here! What’s the difference? Why do I love this in Spirit of ’77 and hate this is The Revenant Society? At the end of the day, the purpose of Spirit of ’77 is to make each other laugh! So, anything that takes the game in a weird direction is welcome! To me, the purpose of The Revenant Society is to solve a mystery (and it even says that on the cover of the book), so the “make-up-stuff-as-you-go” style doesn’t lend itself to any kind of well-crafted mystery.

Maybe if you love this setting in 1910’s Paris or 1920’s New York, you don’t care as much about the well-crafted mystery as I do.

The Book

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We have to stay something great about the book: it’s very beautiful production.  It’s very readable! It has a lot of (it looks like) well-researched history around the two eras of interest (Paris 1910s and New York 1920s)!  The font is good sized!  In general, it looks fantastic and is almost a piece of art. 

Physical vs. Electronic

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If you are interested in this game, should you get a Physical version (the Deluxe Components or just the book) or the Electronic version (PDF)?

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Those of you know who know me would expect me to say “Get the Physical Product!” And you’d be wrong.

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First, let’s talk about the Deluxe version.

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Using dry-erase markers is a terrible idea for any meaningful amount of text!!!  We saw this waaaay back in our review of The Forests of Admiron (see link here).   First of all, the deluxe game comes with fat dry-erase markers … and they are hard to read! See below.

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If you really want dry-erase markers, you need ultra-fine to have any chance of them working well.

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In the end, Sara’s pen and paper system worked SO MUCH better: See above.  We tried it both ways (pen-and paper in Session 1 and dry-erase boards in Session 2):  pen-and-paper worked so much better.  You really don’t want the dry-erase boards: they are clumsy, messy, and harder to read/write.

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I do admit the map looks better (see above), but everything still works fine in PDF printed version (see below).

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I am really not convinced the Deluxe version is worth all the extra money, and in fact, makes the game worse with the dry-erase markers!

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Should you just get the physical book then?  I mean, it it gorgeous and a beautiful production.  That’s up to you: left to my own devices, I would just get the PDF.  Why? For one, the PDF is electronically searchable, and the physical book DOES NOT HAVE AN INDEX!!  For a book with 280+ pages, I am very surprised there is no index: how do you look up stuff in the physical version???  Answer, you can’t without a lot of searching.  The only way to really look stuff up quickly is electronically to search the PDF.

Another reason: A lot of the stuff I want to print out comes from the PDF only!  I had trouble finding the PDF pages I wanted online … I could only print them from the PDF I owned (to be fair: if you get the Physical version, I think you also get the PDF as well).

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The most important thing to print for the players in the Basic Moves!  See above!! Players consult this sheet ALL THE TIME: why was it not one of the things printed in the deluxe version?  I went out of my way to make sure each one of my players had a copy of the Basic Moves (they could have maybe gotten away with this by putting the Basic Moves on the outside of the Fate Weaver screen, but the Fate Weaver screen has no useful info on the outside).

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In the end, you the Fate Weaver still has to print the clues from the scenario (see the Hopeful clue #1), so what’s printing a few more sheets?

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In the end, the pen-and-paper approach worked best, with my searchable PDF being preferable to the physical copy of the book (which has no index???).  And my laptop also served as a Fate Weaver screen as well: see above.  Overall, I strongly preferred the electronic PDF version of this: the dry-erase player boards of the deluxe version just didn’t work that well. I needed to print quite a bit from the PDF anyways, so even though the deluxe version has some nice components, it wasn’t worth the extra money.

Conclusion

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Would I get The Revenant Society again?  Even though I did enjoy my plays of this once I set my expectations, it wasn’t really what I wanted … but I would still play again.  I wanted a murder mystery game with well-crafted mysteries: that’s not what this is.  If you like the idea of playing in this thematic world with your friends, I think you can have a great time: we actually had a great time after setting our expectations!!  If the game does sound interesting to you, I strongly suggest you get just the PDF version of the game: you find yourself having to print stuff from the PDF anyways, so you might as well print everything you need at once.  We found the dry-erase boards experience from the Deluxe version lesser than a pen-and-paper experience, so even with all the cool stuff from the Deluxe version, it just didn’t seem worth it.

I did enjoy trying to turn the crazy ideas of my players into a well-crafted mystery as much as I could.  But the game mechanisms in The Revenant Society don’t really lend itself to any thoughtful crafting: said mechanisms are too ingrained as a “make-stuff-up-you-go” style.   This game is  just antithetical to any thoughtful mystery crafting .  I enjoyed my plays of The Revenant Society, I might even GM a few more games,  but I wouldn’t pick it up again. 

Maybe you would enjoy living in this world and having fun collaboratively putting together a mystery: decide for yourself! Just be aware, this is not a game with well-crafted mysteries.