Tag: rpg

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!

RichieCon 2025 And Top 6 Interesting Games In The Last Year!

RichieCon 2025 had a lot of drama this year!  We had to get a new venue this year because of … reasons. 

If you want the long version of why we got a new venue, I encourage you to listen to “Tales of Horror” in the Dice Tower Podcast “Where Credit is Due” (timestamp 32:41, see link below)
 
 

New Venue

For RichieCon 2025, we had to go looking for a new venue.  We ended up at Fruchthendler Elementary School!

This venue was great! It was a little expensive to rent it for two days, but it was spacious and easy set-up in!  The cafeteria had plenty of tables!

It even had a stage which we used some presentations (see below).

The best part of the new venue was the sound baffling!  The major complaint we always got from the Rec Center was how LOUD it was.   With the Sound baffles all over the cafeteria, that was not a problem this year!

Because of the cost, we engaged a Sponsor to help defray the costs: Thanks to Return From Subroutine Games for helping out!  See their website here!

Day -1: Getting Coolers

Because of the new venue, we don’t have a refrigerator any more! So, I had to put the call out to all my friends to get coolers to store drinks and perishables in!  In the weeks leading up to RichieCon 2025, I collected about 10 coolers!

We actually ended up having too many coolers, but that’s a good problem to have!

Day 0: Boxception and Sleeve-It!

We end up playing some games as we get ready for RIchieCon … but they aren’t the funnest games in the world!

The Wednesday before RichieCon has become Boxception: The Cooperative Dexterity game of putting boxes in other boxes! 

We end up putting about 200 games into 20 boxes over the night! (Some boxes have tons of games, some have just a few!)

We also spend some time playing “Sleeve-It!”  In this case, Teresa played a solo game of “Sleeve-It!” with the Lord of the Rings Trick-Taking game!

Day 1: The Secret RichieCon House

A large contingent of people rent an AirBNB and stay near Fruchthendler so that it’s easy to go back and forth: it also is a great place to game before everyone arrives!  Most of the out-of-towners end up here over the course of Friday before we have access to Fruchthendler!

Day 2:  RichieCon 2025 Starts!

Day 3, The Last Day: RichieCon 2025

 

Top 6 Interesting Games Since Last Year!

On Saturday of RichieCon, we like to do a little show to bring the RichieCon Community together! In that show, we discuss some games that drew our attention since the last year.  The purpose of this list is to give people some ideas of games to play for the remainder of RichieCon! Without further ado, here’s our 6 questions with answers from Richie, Kurt, and Sam!

#6: What game from the last year surprised you the most?  Good or bad surprise?

Richie: The Secrets of Zorro.  This fun little cooperative game didn’t have a very big Kickstarter, but me and friends really liked it!  It’s quick, it’s fun, and very thematic!  Good Surprise! See our review here to see if you might like it!
Kurt: Wandering Galaxy; disappointing given the awesomeness of Forgotten Waters & Freelancers Sam: Luddite. From watching the comic book into video on the wall in the man cave I was expecting it to be very story driven and thematic and RPG-like. It turned out to be a very fun roll and write that had none of that. See Richie’s review here.



#5: What game in the last year do you disagree with reviewers on?

Richie: Tales of Arthurian Knights.  This game went over like gang-busters in my group, getting played multiple times and getting borrowed for birthday parties!  All of my friends gave it a strong 8.5 (maybe 9), but the the Dice Tower seemed less enthusiastic and only gave it a 6 or 6.5.  We were very surprised!  We loved it!  See our Review here.

Kurt: THE GANG! Tom Vasel didn’t like this game very much, but my group (Kurt’s group) loved loved this game! 

Sam: Soul Raiders. Tom V. thought it was great end gave it an 8. I wanted to like it because it has great art and a great premise but ended up being too random and grindy for the story driven feel that it was giving off. My final score 5.5.  See our thoughts here.

#4: What game (that you paid for) did you really dislike? It’s easy to dislike games other people paid for, but what did you pay for that you disliked?

Richie: I bought and sold two games because I disliked them so much.  Corps of Discovery: in a game where one resource can mean the difference between winning and losing, the rules needed to be tighter.  It didn’t land for me (I gave it a 4/10), but it might for you.   The Dice Tower and other reviewers seem to like this game (9/10), so try it for yourself to see if you might like it.  See our thoughts here.    I also wanted to like Freedom Five sooooooo muuuucch, but I ended up hating it and selling it. I am still very depressed about this: see our very different review here.

Kurt: Bear Mountain Camping Adventure.  It’s all Richie’s fault; he pointed me at the game! I backed it, but when it came in, it wasn’t fun even though the production was gorgeous.

Sam: I don’t actually have one this year… Perhaps because I’ve been both buying and playing less this year I’ve been more selective (sorry Rich) and haven’t both bought and played a game I didn’t like. EDITOR: to be fair, part of Rich’s job is to review games, so he’ll take chances more

#3: What game that came out in the last year that you liked but other’s didn’t?

Richie: Dice Throne Missions/Dice Throne X-Men.  I loved this new system that makes the Dice Throne game work solo and cooperatively, but my friends didn’t love it nearly as much.  See our thoughts here.
Kurt: Link City.  This is pointed at Rich: he said he didn’t like it.  (EDITOR: To be fair, I didn’t love it as much as other people, but I recognized that lots of people did, so it still made the Top 10 Cooperative Party Games of 2024!)
Sam: Ecosfera. This one is the opposite for me – I didn’t like playing it 2 player because it felt like my turns were basically scripted and I had no agency. However others in the group enjoyed it at higher player counts.  See the review here to see what Sam’s talking about!

#2: What was your favorite expansion that came out in the last year?

Richie: Aeon’s End: The Descent.  Aeon’s End is a great cooperative deck-building game with mages working together fighting the Big Bad.  Aeon’s End: The Descent is a standalone expansion in the same universe, but adds the The Friends and Foes module!  This module makes Aeon’s End a little more balanced as it tends to mitigate the Variable Turn Order problems! See our review here for more discussion.

Kurt: Forest Shuffle (Alpine & Woodland Edge)
Sam: Townsfolk Tussle: Foul Neighbors. We played with the expansion characters and bosses and it worked great. Our final battle ended in the perfect cartoon way of pushing the plunger on the dynamite and blowing up both the outhouse and the big bad in one shot. (EDITOR: It was so fun! That’s why it made our Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2024!)

#1: What was your favorite game that came out in the last year?

Richie: Marvel United Season 3/Multiverse.  It’s not even close: I spent so much time playing the content of Season 3 and I had so much fun. Sentinels of the Multiverse used to be my favorite game of all time, but I think Marvel United has supplanted it!

Kurt: Tie: Fromage & Fellowship of the Ring Trick taking game

Sam: Limiting to only those released in the last year: Fellowship of the Ring trick taking game. It’s light, fast, thematic to the story, plays well, and is easy to just keep playing and lose track of time while going through the different chapters.  Expanding to played no matter release date: Imperium (specifically classics). I really enjoyed how each civilization feels and plays differently from each other even though they all share common market decks and basic mechanics.

Solsbury Hill

It’s become a tradition that every year, Joe must sing a parody song and make everyone laugh.  This year, I helped and together Joe and I penned the parody Fruchthendler (sung to the tune of Solsbury Hill) as a means to vent our frustration of getting unceremoniously kicked out of the Rec Center.  It’s mostly meant in jest, but with a little heartfelt sentinement!  We also had the audience participate with Kazoos.  No joke. Thanks for Mike H. for directing the world’s greatest kazoo group!  See lyrics below, and video below that!!!

Fruchthendler – sung to the tune of Solsbury Hill

Driving up to Fruchthendler
I could see the parking lot
Left the public defender
Firebird is our new mascot   (Firebird is the mascot of Fruchthendler Elementary school)

This was something of a mess,
Called HOA, they had disclosed
Richie Con would be suppressed
Through attrition, I got hosed

I called Cthulu in frustration
The Swim Team cancelled my reservation,
It’s like that game of Gloom Gloom Gloom,
“Joe”, I said,
“Grab your games, we’re going to clone the zone”

Yeah, clone some zones

The Aquatics had made me blind
The chlorine spewed out from my guts
Our holy grail had been maligned
Our old game venue had been cut

So I bravely ran away
Quest to find a new place to hut
With my minstrels Joe and Mike
And where’d you get them coconuts?

I was feeling down in chicanery

Highly Overbearing Authority  (stop song in cheesy fashion to point out that we satirically re-acronymed HOA)
They won that game of Gloom Gloom Gloom”
“Mike”, I said,
“Grab your games, we’re moving Richie-Con”

Hey –like your mom…

Found a new place to play our games
It’s probably when we want to be
Because of HOA I have no claims
To a place I thought was free

Screwed by faceless bureaucrats
Who close their gates to my party
Add one to my gaming stats–
In their pool, I will pee                –soon as I saw “pee,” I had to go there…

I’m not afraid of their displacement
Even if I have to pay rent
I won that game of Gloom Gloom Gloom
“Kurt”, I said,
“Keep your games, and come to Richie Con!”

“Wha!”

“Hey!”

“Con!”

Most Played Games

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition was played quite a bit! I personally saw at least 3 plays of it!

By far the most played game was Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking game!  We had sleeved it just before, and it was good thing we did!  It was pretty much always being played!

I saw Lon teaching Nana (Japanese version of Trio) quite a bit!

I saw Aeon’s End: Descent played a number of times!

Weird Games

Lon brought a lot of weird games from Japan.

 DroPolter (above) was this weird one like Jacks where you grab things on the table, but can’t drop anything!

Toy Story is a cooperative memory game ONLY in Japan! It was my birthday present!

Nana is the original Japanese game that’s the inspiration for Trio!

There were several RPGs going too!

Kurt R. brought the original Dark Tower game … and it worked!  Did you know that they stored the values in BCD in 128-Nibble RAM memory?  Josh looked it up!  This game is from 1981!!!

Conclusion

After all was said and done, was it worth it?  I think so! I got to see friends from out of town and play games with everyone for my birthday, and that’s what I wanted!

What will happen next year?  I really don’t know!  This was a very expensive and stressful year because of the events leading to the venue change.   I love the new venue, but it is expensive.  Will we come back?  Come back next year and find out!

 

The Dark Quarter: Into the Muck

It arrived!  No, not the physical copy of The Dark Quarter!  That arrived like early 2025!  

But the APP finally arrived at the iOS store!  See above! Late May 2025!  This game is completely unplayable without the app, so my physical copy of The Dark Quarter sat silently in the corner for months, waiting for the APP to be available!  And it finally arrived!  I think I downloaded it May 25, 2025.  I have been really looking forward to this, as it was my #4 on my Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2023 … it’s years late at this point!

So, in any other year, this might be considered weird to get the physical game before the APP is ready, but with the Tariff situation changing daily, I think Lucky Duck/Van Ryder games did the right thing getting to us ASAP!  

Let’s take a look!

Unboxing

This is a pretty standard sized box; see Coke can above for persepective.

The game comes with a lot of cardboard tokens (see above),  but I had gone all-in on the Kickstarter and got the nice plastic tokens as well.

I also got the metal coins (see above).

Even though I got the miniatures expansion as well, you will still need some of the little hexes with people on them.

You could play this game just fine with the cardboard, but the upgraded components make you feel…. like you’ve spent more money. 🙂  No, they are nice.

The little plastic cubes denote your ability scores.

And each player will get their own dice (see above, as the dice as color-coded for the 4 players).

There’s some nice Location  cards that will come out (see above) as you explore.

And there’s both objects (see above) and story cards (see below).

What’s that?  Yes!  A QR code!  These cards will be scanned when you play!

The minis are pretty good, but not great.

But the minis are notated with a number on the bottom so you can put them back where they belong (see above and below).

I mean, this game looks pretty good, ya? 

Rulebook

The rulebook is fine.

It fits pretty well on the chair next to me open flat, and the font is pretty big.  This is venturing into A territory (although it maybe could have used a few more pictures) for The Chair Test.

The Components page is well-labelled.

The set-up is pretty good, although there is always confusion in an APP based game: usually the APP sets you up, so do you need this?  You kind of need both the rulebook and the APP for set-up.

The last page has an ICON summary, which is great! … but I don’t think I ever used it once in all my solo or cooperative gameplays.

The rulebook is pretty good, but you don’t spend a lot of time there; you are always in the APP.

Warning! 18+!

You may miss it, even though it is clearly on the box (see above) but this is clearly an 18+ game!  Between language, grisly murders, some sexual references, and just dark imagery, you probably don’t want to play this unless you are ready for a dark, grimy, and morally ambiguous world.

Teresa, who started out censoring the bad language from the APP, was swearing like a sailor by the time we finished our first session!  She really embraced this world! Be aware, this game will corrupt … something?

Gamplay

Each player takes the role of an “investigator/consultant” for the Beaumont Detective Agency.  Each character is flawed in some way, but they are generally seeking redemption (but that’s your choice to make).  

Players use the APP to guide the game.  The APP shows how to set up places of interest (see above):

And you reflect that on your game board.

The boss lady tells you what to do in the APP, and you explore a 1980s New Orleans investigating a murder!

Each characters gets some items they can use, and has some level in 4 different skills/abilities (see above).  These abilities are rolled against, and however many you surpass is how many successes you get.

This is absolutely a dice game!  Almost every turn, you will roll the dice to do “some skill check”.  You always get your two base dice (color coded for the characters: see above), and some extra effort dice.

These effort dice are enabled as you play.  You always get one effort die at the start of your turn, but sometimes you will get more through other actions.

Players explore the city, trying to investigate a murder!  The APP controls the narrative, with the players making choices, and the dice determining success or failure.

You’ll notice a lot of items have a QR code (see above): you will be scanning your items to interact with them.  This may remind you of Chronicles of Crime (that made our Top 10 Cooperative Detective Games), and it should!  Lucky Duck (who teamed up with Van Ryder Games to make The Dark Quarter) also made Chronicles of Crime!

Honestly, playing this game reminds me of playing out a Detective series on HBO or Apple+ mini-series.  Story happens, characters develop (or regress!), and a lot of swearing and adult situations occur.   

Solo Play

So, you can play solo (thank you for following Saunders’ Law).  

However, solo play has you take control of two characters: there is no true solo play. See above as I chose to operate both Constance Moreau and Winter Mullins.  

The rules do cover the case where the solo player has to play two characters (see above), and justifies needing at least two characters as “the stories are intertwined; you need at least two characters to get the best out of this!”  And that makes sense; these characters destinies are all tightly coupled!

So, I started a game.  And went back and forth between the two characters.  And I didn’t enjoy it.

The back and forth between the two characters as a solo gamer just didn’t work for me.  It felt like I couldn’t get any thing done, as just as I did one thing at a Location, I’d have to immediately go to the next character.  I remember loving Detective: City of Angels (A Van Ryder game also in our Top 10 Cooperative Detective Games) because you had four precious actions on your turn and how you spent those actions mattered! It felt like you could concentrate on a Location and get stuff done!  In The Dark Quarter, I frequently felt like I got to do just “one” thing, and then it was the next character’s turn.  

I played out the first two sessions as a solo player, but … I kinda stopped caring.  I felt like I couldn’t get anything done as a solo player, I was so busy “advancing the story”, I felt like I wasn’t playing the characters or solving the mystery.  I felt like the game was playing me.  

The story was interesting, but I felt like I couldn’t focus.  Some of that  lack of focus was the context switching between two characters, and some of that was going back and forth between the game and the APP, some of that was all the dice-rolling, and part of it was just how “little” I felt like I could do on my turn.  I just had to swap between too many things, and it took me out of the game.

I hoped a lot of these issues would go away when I played cooperatively.  I was expecting to love and adore this game straight out of the box.   I didn’t, and my solo experience wasn’t great.

Cooperative Play

Whew. Luckily, the cooperative experience was much better!  The fact that the focus moves around quickly between characters is actually good in the cooperative game, as most people feel like they get their chance to play; quickly and regularly.

You can see as the board and locations expand out!  The world definitely envelops you as you play!

This game feels “tuned” to work best as a cooperative experience.  The 3-Player game we played was fun!  We ended up playing about 3 hours and still didn’t finish the first play!  But, we still wanted to play more, so we kept playing …

The game, in the rulebook, does a really good job of emphasizing “READ EVERYTHING OUT LOUD!”  See excerpt above.  This really encourages everyone to stay involved with the story and all the decisions in the game.  Even if some decisions are only character-based, everyone stays involved.  I am glad to see that emphasis in the rulebook (see above), and I think that is the best way to play the game.

Good times.  The cooperative play has been a success.  Currently, we have played two weeks in a row, having invested about 6 hours into the game … and wanting to play more!

Solo Vs. Cooperative

It’s really interesting to me that the solo experience fell flat for me, and the cooperative experience worked so well!  It makes sense; the game seems “tuned” to keep stories and plot points coming out, as to keep the players all involved! 

Like a car “tuned” for Sports mode instead Eco mode, The Dark Quarter seems “tuned” to cooperative mode.  The solo mode will work, but the game operates (in my opinion) at a lesser gait.  At least, that was my experience.   (And you have to understand, I love mystery games!)

Length of Game

The game is long. Longer than you might expect.  We played for three hours straight the first session! And three hours the second session!  And we still had a lot to see!  And we still have more to go!

Luckily, the APP can help you save the game between sessions.  There are several points where you can save the game; these intermissions happen about every 45 minutes or so.  So, if you really wanted to, you could just take up about 45 minutes. But given how much set-up and tear-down there is, you probably want to play at least two sessions.  We ended up playing three on our first playthrough.

The App

The APP is pretty good.  We didn’t encounter any real glitches or problems in solo or cooperative play.  Although it took them a while, the publishers did get the APP out and stable.

One problem: the font is probably too small.  We had trouble reading all that text (to be clear; the players read the text out, not the APP), and we wished we had a control to resize the font.  

Another gripe about the APP; there was no UNDO!  This is one of my biggest pet peeves in cooperative APPS; the lack of UNDO makes me me grumpy!  If this were a completely physical board game, UNDOs are easy:  “Oops!  I meant to go to the Graveyard!  Back me up!”.  Nope.  There is no UNDO in this app.   I think this actually slows down gameplay a little: “Are you SURE you want to do that?  We can’t back up!”

In general, the APP seemed to work fine for us in both solo or cooperative play.  It was pretty good.  Be aware, the players still have to read all the text out loud!! The APP does NOT read the text for you!

Dice and Murder

I said this earlier, almost everything in this game is a skill check with dice.  The game seems pretty balanced.   For instance, if you fail, the game typically gives you an “extra” effort die for your next die roll (which I appreciated).

But in the end, The Dark Quarter is still kind of a dice game.  Which I don’t love!  I feel like a detective game should be about following the evidence, making best use of your resources, and generally trying to be smart/clever.

Detective: City of Angels, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, are detective games where you have to be smart.    Although The Dark Quarter is a nominally a detective game, it has more drama in it than I expected.   The dice contribute to that drama, because they make the game more random and unexpected!

When I play Detective: City of Angels or Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, I feel like I am playing a detective show like Death in Paradise, or Midsomer Murders where the mystery is front and center.  When I play The Dark Quarter, I feel more like I am playing a police drama where the mystery is less pronounced.  It’s not bad, it’s just not quite what I was expecting.  

If you want to jump into a police drama in New Orleans in the 1980s with lots of magic and character development and story, this is the right game for you!  If you want more of a mystery, well this isn’t quite that.  But there’s still more than enough mystery to keep you going!

Conclusion

The Dark Quarter is a really interesting game, but you have to know where it fits best.  I don’t think it works great solo, it’s more random than most mystery games, it’s very dependent on the APP, and the 18+ age requirements are pretty stringent.

But, if you find a group that wants to jump in to a 1980’s drama/mystery with lots of adult twists and turns, The Dark Quarter is the game for you!  It’s got great story, interesting interactions, and plenty of character development/regression!   Instead of watching an adult mystery/drama on HBO or Apple+ tonight, consider playing The Dark Quarter instead!

Solo play: 6/10. Cooperative Play: 8/10.  I think most people would probably give this a 9/10, but I think I wanted just a little more mystery and a little less dice-rolling. It’s still really good though.

Corps of Discovery: A Cooperative and Solo Game

Corps of Discovery is a cooperative game that was on Kickstarter back in May 2024. This promised delivery in Jan 2025, and it was about 3 month late, arriving in late April 2025.

This looks like a thematic adventure/exploration game set the in era of Manifest Destiny and Lewis and Clark!  And it is NOT!  This is a deduction game, with bare hints of theme.  The text on the back of the box even hints at this being a thematic game:

“Take command of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery and lead them on a cross-country mission to explore the land … and kill demonic monsters.”

Sounds like a thematic exploration adventure, huh? Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope! Corps of Discovery is a deduction game! A cooperative deduction game, but a deduction game nonetheless! You need to know that going in or you will be severely disappointed by that description.

Let’s take a look!

Unboxing

Corps of Discovery is a pretty standard sized Ticket To Ride style box.

Now, we are showing the Ultimate edition of the game, which has slightly nicer components and a few expansions (see above).

The unboxing starts poorly, as you have to “fix” some maps in the game.

See above: as I have to X (or notate) which maps are bad.  Now, they aren’t full maps, there are just partial maps, so one side of the maps is good and the other side is bad!!  So, you still have to keep your “bad” maps, because one side is ok.   This started me off a little grumpy, but at least they fixed the problem.

The main part of the game, the key part of the game is the map holder above: in the Ultimate Edition, this is a beautiful wooden map.

There are some resource tokens (and a holder, which got very badly shaken up in delivery).

Underneath all that are BUNCHES and BUNCHES of maps!

There are different “themes” of folders with different maps: see the training mission folder above.

See the Flora map pack above.

See the Insecta map pack above.

See Vameter map pack above.

Coupled with these folders of maps are missions and the goals. See above.

Underneath all the maps are holders for the tokens for each Map pack.  Note that mine got shaken up a little, so the components are a little wonky.  I wish there had been a discussion somewhere of what all these things were, but you will figure it out … it could have been easier.

Basically, under each hard card are some components for the necessary map pack.

See above for some core components under the Core Game hard card.

The components are pretty nice, but you have to like the comic-book art style of the game. I do, but others may not.

The quality of these maps is a little flimsy, which isn’t a big deal if you are careful.

I was a little underwhelmed by the quality of the components, especially because of the errors on the maps! I did like the variety of maps, the comic-booky art, the wooden resources, and the wooden map holder. My friend Lon texted me after he got his copy: he was less than thrilled with the quality:

“I saw you posting about Corps of Discovery. I will say, I am not super happy with detail and packing quality. The manuals and the backs of the expansion tiles have different numbers of items (that is just bad), so I don’t know which is right. Also, I’m missing 8 tokens…at least I think so. Since I don’t have an actual list of the number of individual resources, but it looks like I’m missing several of those, plus I know I’m missing two water, and 1 Tipi. On top of that they had the errored maps and tokens, with I’ll say substandard ways to fix them (proxy the tokens, and to save a few pennies, we’ll have you “x” out the bad maps, so we can print 2 sheets instead of 4).”

Lon is also talking about the components page: it doesn’t give an accurate count of the resource tokens, so we don’t know if we got them all!!

You saw how messed up they were.  So, are we missing some?  I don’t know! They aren’t clearly enumerated the rulebook!

The component quality left a little to be desired, but I think Lon was grumpier about the components than I was.  The rulebook, however, left me MUCH grumpier than Lon.

Rulebook

I have not been this frustrated with a rulebook in a very long time.  The rulebook looks like it might be okay (it actually gets an A- on the Chair Test),  but for a deduction game where every word matters, this rulebook struggles to specify the rules well.

A few weeks ago, I didn’t love Soul Raiders, but I even reprimanded the rulebook for too many examples.  Oh, if only that were the case this week!

There was essentially ONE example on page 9; and it didn’t do a great job: the example crossed page boundaries, so it made it it harder to correlate the rule with the example.  It also was too small!  I struggled to read the page because it was a little too small in the rulebook! Also, some of the rules we so small because they were hidden in the text of the box!  

See Coke can above for scale: it’s too small!

This is a game where a single resource can make the difference between winning and losing.  Yet, there are so many places where things are poorly specified.    Some examples:

What happens when you discard a Challenge? (see Bait and Trap card above) Are there rules about which one? Can you discard one in progress?  Do you keep the path tokens for the next challenge that replaces it?  This makes a HUGE difference!   The summary icon page at the back of the rulebook DOES NOT show this and offers no explanation in the rulebook.

What happens when you add a Challenge?  (see Pass/Fail on Sweltering Challenge above).  Can you specify where the challenge goes in the day?  Before? After?  Can you put it to the front?  Can you choose NOT to add a challenge?  (Usually, you want to, but sometimes you want to move to the end of the day to reset all your Gear).  Again, there’s no specification anywhere and these rules make all the difference in the world.

What does the ?/Water notation mean?  See above on the bottom of the Landslide card.  I went spare looking for it! 

It’s not on the back page with the summary of icons!! See above!! I figured it could maybe mean three things:
1) discard a water or some other token (I think this is the actual interpretation)
2) make it so the minotaur lines don’t require lossage
3) lose a water ONLY IF it’s on the ? side, or off the board (or remove a ? water from the board)
This is one place where the token iconography failed: the ? side is useful for the players to “mark” what they think resources are.  Corps of Discovery conflates the meaning of ? to be “any single resource” and also “notate where a resource might be”.  Which is it? 

  

The final meaning is not where you expect it on the rulebook: I expected an explanation on the last page with the icons: NOPE!  It’s hidden next to the path rules and Monster Threat Effect on page 10????  It’s not even clear if it’s supposed to be a token?   It sure looks like it from the picture, but I have none of these tokens in my game!!

Another problem: this page 9, which is arguably most important page in the rulebook, does not specify all the rules that appear in the Training Scenario!  It alludes to some of the rules, but isn’t clear.   See this posting over on BGG: With a little help from the internet, I figured out what was going on here.  But I feel like this page needs to explain a few more rules.

In a thematic game, I don’t mind making a few snap judgements for rules, but deduction is all about precision.  This game needs an Index, more examples, more clarifications, and some rules need to be actually specified.

Gameplay

If I said this played like Minesweeper, would you get mad at me?  Players uncover spots of the board grid using deductive rules (board sideways to maybe not give any spoilers; each map is unique).  What’s revealed leads to more clues about what’s around you!

These spots have resources which you use to overcome challenges and monsters.

It’s Minesweeper, with resources and a lot more deduction rules.

10 Plays

I gave myself 10 plays to play the game: I played two of the Training Scenario, six of the Fauna Scenario, and two of the Flora Scenario.  This took place over two weekends with pretty much my the last weekend being consumed by this game.

I was able to beat the Minotaurs reliably in the Fauna scenarios after about 5 plays.

The Flora Scenarios kicked me around.  I lost.  Hard. And I didn’t have fun.

By the end, I was tired of looking for the fun in this game.  After my 10th game, I was done.

Randomness

Like I said, I was able to defeat the Minotaurs reliably after 5 games. But I noticed that my score ranged from 3 to almost a perfect score (27)!  I got “lucky” and just happened to have the right cards come out and the right resources emerge so I was just able to trounce the minotaurs!  This was right after a game where I barely won, and I got 3 points.  The score was more of a representation of “how lucky” I was; one game, I got lucky and obtained almost a perfect score! One game, where I got trounced by my Misfortunes, I won … but barely.   The score meant nothing:  It just noted how lucky I was.  To be clear, I didn’t play THAT differently between games.

In the Fauna games, the game felt VERY lucky; how far you could advance, and when you get the Flora Terrain tokens, just felt very lucky.  (Uncovering Flora tokens means you don’t get the resource, and you have NO IDEA if you will uncover a plain resource or a Flora resource).

In a game where Deduction is such an important part of the strategy, there seemed to be too much luck for me to want to come back to this.

Conclusion

I wanted to like this game so much.  I was initially a little disappointed that it wasn’t particularly thematic, but I still really like Deduction Games, so I was still so happy to move forward with what it was. A deduction game needs tight, well-written, and well-documented rules; sadly, that was not the case with this game!  The rulebook was one of the most frustrating rulebooks I have encountered in sometime.  To add insult to injury, I felt like a lot of scenario-specific rule were also under-specified.  Even powering through the rules and making the “best I can” with the rules as given, I found the game just too random for a game that just leans so heavily on hard deduction.

I gave Corps of Discovery so many chances; I forced my way through ten games, hoping to “finally” overcome the hump of rules.   But I rarely had fun playing: I was always just so angry at the randomness and poorly specified rules.  I am selling my copy. 

Maybe you’ll like it if you can power through it; maybe being forewarned about the pitfalls will help you like it.  Corps of Discovery has a really original premise, and it has some great ideas, but it just never came together for me.  Maybe it will for you.

EDIT: My copy has been sold.

A Comparison of Three Methods For Flattening Your Board Games

What do the three games above have in common?

If you said “They are all cooperative games“, well, you are mostly correct! (Comic Hunters isn’t cooperative by default, but there is an expansion that makes it cooperative! See here). This is a place where we talk about cooperative games, so that’s a good guess.  But there’s something else they all have in common: none of their boards sit flat! See above and below!

You can really see it on Comic Hunters (above): that board just does NOT want to lay flat!

It’s weird, we never thought too much about boards not being flat enough,  but we encountered this problem a number of times in the last few years: Comic Hunters, Plum Island Horror, and Dice Throne: Missions!  These games really emphasized that sometimes a game board needs some flattening.

We’ll take a look at three different (cooperative) games and three different solutions to this problem!  The games of interest all have boards that don’t lay flat!  And they are all different sizes! See above!

  1. Plum Island Horror:  Very large 8-fold board
  2. Dice Throne: Missions:  Medium size 3-fold laminated sheets
  3. Comic Hunters: smaller 3-fold board

Solution 1: Board Butler

The Board Butler is a product specifically designed for the problem of boards-that-don’t-lay-flat.  I have seen advertisements on BGG, so I knew this existed.  I ordered it from their web site and it arrived within a week.  It was like $19.99 + taxes and some shipping (but for some reason I got free shipping).

These are basically little plastic piece you put at the edges to force the board flat.

See Comic Hunters with The Board Butler above.  It only needs 4 of the 6 pieces.

It works pretty well and it was easy to put on: no issues on Comic Hunters.

The Board Butler pieces are small enough that I need 4 pieces for the Dice Throne:Missions board: one at each edge.

See above.  The clear nature makes them relatively uninvasive.

They work well and keep the board flat.  Arguably they could obscure the text at the very bottom, but they don’t seem to.

Finally, let’s look at Plum Island Horror!

For Plum Island Horror, we have to use all 6 of the pieces, which means I can’t put them on the long ends.  This doesn’t strictly need another 2 pieces, but it might have been nice.

The Board Butler pieces work well: they hold the board down, and they don’t get in the way.

Basically, The Board Butler worked pretty well on all three games.  The weakest was Dice Throne: Missions because the Missions boards are thin laminated boards, so they didn’t fit as tight.  They fit securely (but not too tight) on Comic Hunters and Plum Island Horror.

Solution 2: Report Binding Bar

These Report Binding Bars are those little plastic sliders you put onto plastic report sheets.  See above and below.

I found a thread on BoardGameGeek that recommended these: see thread here.  You can order them here:  I got 30 of them for $13.99 plus taxes and shipping.  See above.

On Comic Hunters, they work great!  They are actually being long enough to cover both edges!

The only real complaint is that they are tight.  I was “worried” that by sliding them on, that they would TEAR the board!  They did not, but I was also very careful!  If you go with this solution, you may want to use your finger to “force” the bar open so it’s less tight:

See above as I jam my finger in there to “loosen” it up.

On Dice Throne: Missions, these are the best by far!  They hold the board tight, and they even cover both edges with one piece!  See above! I only needed 2 of the 30 pieces to hold this board together!

These just slip on easily (no chance of tearing since the boards are laminated) and hold the boards stiff and flat.

Finally, we use these for Plum Island Horror. We need 4 of them to hold the board down: see above.   Again, like Comic Hunters, these were a little scary to use because it “felt like” they might tear the board as I put them on.  So, I was very careful.

In all three cases, these held the board down and flat very tightly.  They were the cheapest by far, at 30 for $13.99, so you could easily share the cost with friends.  You probably only need to 6 each!  Even with with Plum Island Horror, you could get by with only 4!!

UPDATE: After sliding these on again and again and again on the Dice Throne: Missions boards, they started to show “slide marks”.  That is worrisome.

Solution 3: Giant Plastic Overlay

From the same thread on BGG where we got the Report Binding Bar, we also found a link for these giant pieces of plastic you can just “plop” on the board and force it down!  See Amazon link here! You get TWO pieces, but it’s $37.99 plus shipping and tax.

You just put it over your board game and “smoosh” it flat!

It turns out it also has a pocket, so if your game fits, you can just put the board inside! See above as Comic Hunters fits!

It works, it keeps Comic Hunters flat, but the plastic overlay is a bit distracting.  It’s especially shiny.

The Dice Throne: Missions boards fit in almost perfectly and look good and flat.  See above.

Plum Island Horror is WAAAY to big for a single overlay.  Luckily, when you order this, you get TWO sheets.  Two sheets work:

The problem is you CANNOT fit this board  inside the envelope (see above) , so they simply have to lay two of them on top.  Since the Plum Island Horror board is so “hefty”, even this solution had trouble keeping the board flat.

In general, this was the worst solution. It was the hardest to see, because it was so reflective, and it was by far the most expensive.  And, for the largest board, it required TWO Sheets.

The only advantage of this solution is that you can WRITE ON THE PLASTIC with a dry-erase marker!!  See above.  If you want to “annotate” your boards, at least you can do that with the overlays.

Conclusion

Which solution you gravitate towards depends on what you want!  The cheapest by far was the Report Binding Bar: it worked on all three boards well, except that it was tight on the thicker boards.  You could order 30 of them and split them between your friends for $13.99!    The best overall solution was The Board Butler; it worked on all boards well, even if it wasn’t “quite as tight” for the Dice Throne Missions board.  The Board Butler was high-quality and I never felt like it was too tight.  The Overlay was probably the weakest solution: it was the most expensive (as you needed two overlays for larger boards like Plum Island Horror), it was very reflective, and it is harder to store!  The Overlay, however, did had the unique advantage that you could write on it if you needed to!

If I were only getting something to fix the Dice Throne: Missions boards, I might get the Report Binding Bars. If I wanted something more general, I would get the Board Butler.  If I wanted to annotate my board with dry-erase markers or keep water off it, I might consider the overlay to help keep my board flat.  It’s up to you.

UPDATE: After seeing the Report Binding Bars starts to leave skid marks on the Dice Throne: Missions board, I think I strongly prefer the Board Butler over the binding bar, even for Missions.

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!

Wait, What Am I Unfolding Again? Review of Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders

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Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders is a cooperative campaign that was on Kickstarter back in April 2022. This was the follow on to the original Tidal Blades game (which is really more of a head-to-head skirmish game). I knew nothing about the original Tidal Blades when I backed this: only that the components looked really cool. I backed it because it looked like it had a cool solo and co-op campaign.

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I went all-in and got the base game (lower right), the stretch goals (upper), and the miniatures (lower left): See above.  This is the deluxe version with awesome miniatures!

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The most important thing to realize is that this is a standalone solo or cooperative campaign game!  I.e., you don’t need the previous game at all!!! 

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It’s a little confusing because the side of the box says “Part 2” (see above), but this is really just the next game in the same universe! Tidal Blades 2 continues with the ideas of the original Tidal Blades (which was NOT cooperative) but in a solo and cooperative game!

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So, in some sense, this is still a skirmish game, as players play cooperatively against monsters in the game.  Honestly, this game really gives me a Gloomhaven (see review of Jaws of The Lion here) or Batman: Gotham City Chronicles (solo or cooperative mode: see our review here) vibe! Players move around on a map in a book and fight monsters!  You’ll see what I mean more below.

Let’s take a closer look!

Unboxing the Miniatures

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As much as you really want to see what’s in the main box, I gotta show you the miniatures first.  They are fantastic!

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The minis are washed, they are tri-color,  and they have 2 sets of bases!  These are some of the nicest miniatures I have seen!

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The top part of the box comes with the monsters you fight: they are all notated on a sheet (and, eben better, are labelled where they are in the box!!!) at the top of the box.

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Wow!  The monsters are all bluish and really great! See above!  Let’s take a look at a few!

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These are pretty awesome!  Below the tray with the monsters are the Heroes and Boss Monsters!

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The Heroes are light brownish, and the monsters are very purple: see below.

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Let’s take a closer look at some Heroes (below):

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The Boss Monsters are very purple! See below.

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These miniatures are just awesome!

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The game also comes with plastic bases for the minis so you can tell them apart.  The normal bases denote the normal monsters, and the sparkly bases denote the “mutant” monster (like the Elite monsters in Gloomhaven).  The “mutants” are just the tougher version of the monsters!

We also have really nice plastic Fruit and shells (replacing the cardboard from the base game).

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See above as the colored hit point tracks match the colors of the base?  And the “sparkly” yellow one is the mutant!

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These bases really make it easier to tell monsters apart so you can track the hit points.

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Overall, the colors and bases are well-thought out and make each entity stand out on the table. See above with some monsters, characters, and a boss monster all in the same frame! 

These minis are just fantastic.

Rulebook

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The rulebook is quite good.  But it has two major flaws.

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The rulebook completely fails the Chair Test!  See above as it flops over both edges being almost unusable!  This rulebook made a fundamental error by being the same size as the box!

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Much like Batman: Gotham City Chronicles, the solution is to use TWO chairs, and have the spine of the rulebook sit in between!  See above as we can keep the rulebook open and useful!  I do like that the fonts are big!  And the rulebook is full of good pictures!  It is easy to see the rules on the chair next to me … once there are TWO chairs!

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The rulebook has a Table of Contents that make it easy to look stuff up! Nice!

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The components pages are great, with every component having a picture and being well-labelled!

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The set-up is nice (it’s over three pages), but some of the set-up is deferred to the campaign book. See above.

In general, I thought this rulebook was great.   There’s a nice glossary in the back (ya), but no index.  I’ll forgive the lack of index because the glossary and Table of Contents were great.

My other major complaint (besides the form factor) was that the combat wasn’t quite as well specified as I want.  We’ll discuss that below.

Otherwise, great rulebook!

Unboxing the Base Game 

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This base box (and the minis box) and both pretty big!  My friends lifted the main box and were surprised how heavy it was! What’s in this gargantuan box?

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See how tall the box is too (relative to a can of Coke)!

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If you want, you can use the Foreteller app to read the “plot” as you go: this is a campaign game where a story unfolds and you may want to get some professionals reading it aloud.  I didn’t get the Forteller narration … and it was just fine without it (but it does have the option: sold separately).

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There’s a LOT of stuff when you unbox (see above); we’ll go through the components as we discuss gameplay.

Gameplay

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Each player (1-4 players) chooses a Tidal Blade warrior to play. See the six options above and below.

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Each player gets a sheet with their character: see the six above and one (closer, below).

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Each character sheet is for recording stuff as your character levels up during the campaign. Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders is campaign game! Characters will be leveling up; you will be making decisions about how to do that! This sheet will become incredibly marked up as you play…

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See above as Caiman has experienced a lot and marked up his character sheet!

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On the back of your character sheet are “tracks” where you will make choices about how you use experience points and other forms of up-levelling.   To be clear: each character is different! They have a different sheet with different cards and powers that can be activated!

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But, what really distinguishes the characters are the combat decks: see above!!!  Each player has a different Persistent Power (see above) when they start, as well as a different deck!!!  (Well, some cards are in common, but generally the decks are different!!)   These decks will be augmented, culled, and clogged as you play!  To be clear, Tidal Blades 2 is not a deck-building game per se (as that implies you are dynamically changing the deck as you play), it’s what we called a deck-advancement game.  We made this distinction back in our review of Adventure Tactics: See that review here for more discussion of the difference.    Suffice to say, your combat deck only changes/updates  at the end/beginning of each chapter of the campaign.

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What’s even cooler is that when you use of the cards during play, you activate either a row or a column on your board!  What this means, of course, is that you piggy-back on our previous turn! For example, if we just played Careful Strike to the board (top middle), we are allowed to activate ALL the actions in either the middle column or the top row!  Some actions give you shells (armor), some actions allow melee strike (swords), some actions give you resources (yellow/pink), some actions give you movement, and so one!

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As your character takes excessive damage throughout the game,  you can take WOUNDS (see bottom right) which clog your board!  Now, if activate the last row or column, you can’t use anything from that last space!

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This mechanism of playing a card to a row is central to the game!  What card you choose dictates your initiative (Stand Fast! gives me +1 initiative), your current turn, and what actions you might want to play on future turns!  And it’s really fun, because you feel like you have a lot of choices:

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1) Which card do I play?  It affects my current turn and initiative!
2) Where do I place my card?  It affects which “core” symbols I block!
3) Which row or column do I activate?  What previous cards do I want to leverage?
4) Do I want to finish a row with 3 cards?  I may clear it, but I get a very powerful one turn!
Each turn is just rife of choice!

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Each character also has spirit, focus, and some “shells” which can serve as armor or activate other abilities!  Armor in the game is handled by putting shells from your uncharged area into your blocking area!  So, if you want to play defensive for a round, you can choose the shells action! Yet another type of choice: defensive or offensive!

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Players move around a map of hexes, fighting creatures! (Sound familiar? Gloomhaven, I am looking at you…)  See above.

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The map books remind me a little of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, as you just set-up the board from a book of maps and go!  This map book was the key innovation in Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. What’s cool, is that Tidal Blades 2 furthers that innovation!

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The storybook is the play area! Set-up is easy! Just turn to that page!

Players move around the map, but the stupid spiral binding gets in the way of the map in Jaws of the Lion!  See above.

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What Tidal Blades 2 does is very clever! Rather than just one map book, Tidal Blades 2 has two map books (actually 3), but each book is rotated so that the spiral bindings are on the outside!  Instead, the middles just touch and make a contiguous surface!  See above!  The middle of the board, where a lot of action is, in untainted by the spiral bindings!  It looks more like a contiguous surface!

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It’s really easy to set-up each chapter of the campaign!  Just turn the book to the proper pages!

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Combats are decided by dice: every SWORD you generate from your cards gives you a die! Red symbols are a straight-up hit, blue CAN be a hit if you have advantage (if your compatriots are flanking), and yellow focus CAN be a hit … if you spend a focus point!  And that decides how much damage you do!

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Monster combats are similar: all monsters perform the actions of their current card: see above as the mudcrabs move 2 (to the closest character) and then just do 2 straight damage! (This is modified a little by a damage die).

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There’s all sorts of monsters with all sorts of abilities! Some poison you! (See above)

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Each monster is tracked by a hit point track (see above) with the bases differentiating them.  The purple die (lower left) modifies every monster attack!

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There’s a lot more to this game, but that’s the “flavor” of the game!

Campaign

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Let’s be 100% clear: this is a campaign game!  It last about 18 chapters, and each game is about 2 to 2.5 hours (including set-up and tear-down: a lot of your time will be set-up and tear-down).

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Each chapter describes in great detail which maps you need, which monsters you fight, and what the set-up is!  See the first chapter above! (Minor spoilers above).

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There is a story unfolding (pun not intended) about the folds of time.  Each chapter begins with some text describing the story (picture blurred on purpose above).

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After a few chapters, there will be Interludes which give you a chance to level up.  To be clear, there is SOME levelling-up after most chapters, but the Interludes offer significant levelling-up!

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At these Interludes, Players choose where to go to “spend” their resources: the market? The floating gardens? It depends how you want to level-up your character. Cull cards? Add Items?  Add skills? Whatever you want!

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Although this is a campaign, the Stretch Goals pack (see above) comes with 5 one-shot scenarios.

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Since this is a campaign, and you have to mark up your sheet, I went ahead and made a copy of all the character sheets so I don’t have to sully the originals.  There are enough sheets in there that you “probably” don’t have to do this, but I prefer not to mark up the originals if possible.

Solo Play

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So, Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders has two solo modes! (Congratulations for following Saunders’ Law!)  The simpler of the two solo modes is to just play two-handed: choose two characters and operate them as-if it were a 2-Player game.  This is the route I chose. And so should you!!

If you REALLY REALLY REALLY want a solo mode where you only play 1 character (but then still kinda have to operate some other pets/creatures anyways) with complicated exceptions, there is a second solo mode.  I usually eschew complicated solo modes because the exceptional rules are always SO HARD to keep track of!  Play two-handed: you’ll thank me for embracing the simpler mode … the simpler two-handed solo mode has NO exceptions to rules; you just play the game they way it was meant to be played.

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At the time of this writing, I am eight chapters into the campaign!  I have seen boss battles, several maps, several different ideas (jumping, running water, flying, etc), and some really great miniatures!    Every new chapter introduces new monsters and new ideas and keeps the game fresh!

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Playing two characters is juuuust about the right level of complexity.  Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming, since each character has their own deck with their own unique cards, but since the system is well-described and well-notated (seriously! The icons are VERY intuitive), it doesn’t make it too hard to context switch back and forth between the characters.

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One drawback is that there is a lot of maintenance for the solo player: set-up, run character 1, run character 2, operate the initiative track, operate the villains, lather-rinse-repeat, tear-down. This is really where the vibe felt like Batman: Gotham City Chronicles: there’s just a lot of work to keep the game going!  But, it’s kinda fun!  Everything is so bright and well-notated! The monsters are well-tracked (with the bases and colored hit point tracks), and the rules are pretty solid (so there’s not much second guessing, modulo one issue).

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I really like this solo mode: I hope to finish this campaign at some point during the year.  I am currently playing two campaigns: my solo campaign with 2 characters and a cooperative campaign with the other 4 characters (with my friends).

I fully expect this to make my Top 10 Solo Games of 2024: it’s that good!  There are just so many good choices!  Where do I go? What cards do I play?  How do I level-up my character? The choices keep me involved the whole time, even if there is quite a bit of maintenance per turn.

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The solo game took longer to play than perhaps it should: the box says 60-90 minutes but I frequently was at 2 hours; I also tend to like a little analysis paralysis when I play by myself.  There’s no one around, so I can try lots of things without fear of wasting someone else’s time.

Cooperative Play

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The cooperative experience is just in its infancy as we are only two games in, but my friends still keep wanting to play it!  “Let’s keep playing it!”  They really like it!

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Every player has agency on their turn; the game is just too complicated for an Alpha Player to come in and ruin a player’s experience … there are just too many choices for a single player: the Alpha Player will be too busy figuring out his own turn!! At the same time, there’s plenty of cooperation and players plan when to flank (see below), which enemies to engage, which actions to take, when to defend vs. attack!   This has a good blend of agency and cooperation.

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One of the things we DIDN’T like about the cooperative game Endeavor Deep Sea (from two weeks ago: see review here) was that the game didn’t “really” have any mechanisms for helping each other too much; players had a lot of multiplayer solitaire going on in Endeavor Deep Sea.  That’s not the case here!  Even you though you can choose to play multiplayer solitaire, you can also do quite a few things to directly help your compatriots!  You can spend shells to allow your friends to re-roll dice (if they run out of re-rolls)!  You can set-up flanking opportunities! You can use skills that help everyone within 2 spaces!  There’s a number of mechanisms where the sole purpose is to help your compatriots!  And that does increase the level of cooperation!  Even choosing the initiative order can be an act of cooperation!  And THANK GOODNESS there are no Communications Limitations in this game!  Just last week, we saw how the Communications Limitations ruined that cooperative game!  Luckily, you can talk all you want and work together in Tidal Blades 2!!

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The only real negative for the game is that sometimes it can take a while to get back around to your turn (as there is no simultaneous play): players must play in initiative order.  Like any game with lots o choices, sometimes a little Analysis Paralysis can slip in and slow down the game.  It’s still not too bad, because you can always be talking with your friends or figuring your own turn out while waiting for others.

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It’s easier to overlap turns in a cooperative game (like Tidal Blades 2) because you can ask your friends to leave the board “in a certain state” so you can preplan your turn!  In a competitive game, you always have to wait until the previous turns are over to re-assess the board every turn!  With a little cooperation, there can be much more overlap!  And we saw some of that overlap here in Tidal Blades 2!  It’s a minor point, but that overlap can make cooperative games (without simultaneous actions) move a little faster.

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Overall, this game was a lot of fun cooperatively.   It’s a good blend of agency and cooperation, and there are many ways players can help each other.  It’s fun to talk and plan with your friends!

Flanking and Advantage

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So, this is, at its core, a miniatures fighting game!  Which means you have rules for flanking and advantage!  If you flank  (players surround an enemy adjacently from opposite sides), you can get advantage (which allows you to turn the blue wave symbols on dice into hits)!  This is very cool, because it is a mechanism that encourages the players to cooperate and coordinate their attacks!  The best results come if you cooperate, flank an enemy and maybe get 50% more hits because you can gain advantage!

If you saw “Flanking and Advantage” and thought “What is this … 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons?”  You are not the only one who thought that!!!  But, these ideas in this game really do help improve the cooperation: they encourage an easy way to increase the odds of hits! 

What I Liked

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The minis!  You can get the game and just use cardboard standees, but I would strongly recommend getting the miniatures! See above!! They are so well done, with the different bases, the beautiful sculpts, the different colors to highlight the different types!  I feel like they really made the game feel more thematic.  The minis add to the cost of the game (as you buy them separately), but I think in this case, they were worth it.

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Combat Mechanism! The combat mechanism of choosing a card, then choosing where to put it, then choosing a row or column to activate is so cool!   Your choices affect your current turn as well as future turns!! This mechanism is at the core of the game, and it makes you feel like you have choices at all times!

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Well-done Monsters! The monsters are pretty easy to run (modulo one problem, see below)!  The cards clearly specify what to do, the bases clearly denote which monster is which, and it’s pretty quick to set-up a game!  Heck, I spent more time putting plastic bases on monster minis than I did setting up the cards!  It really is easy and quick to SET-UP and RUN the monsters!

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Not too much Randomness!  I was very worried that there would be too much randomness with dice deciding combat … but here’s the thing, there’s not that much randomness!  There is usually at least one hit per die and sometimes your focus shows (which means you may have to spend focus if you want extra hits).  See the dice above! If you roll XXX dice, you will probably get about XXX hits!  If you have extra focus to spend, or some special abilities, or flanking (see below), you may need much better!  It’s like having a baseline of hits, and you choose (by having focus, or flanking) if you need to do better!  I really like this system!   I usually dislike the randomness of dice, but how it’s done here works for me!

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Easy-to-Read! The components are well-labelled, bright, and have very easy-to-discern icons!  This game is very intuitive and easy to read!

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The Components!  The components (even if you don’t get the miniatures ) are fantastic!!  The dual-book system solves the spiral middle problem, the cards are linen finished, the dice are clear and beautiful, and the cardboard components are well-done … just overall the components are a joy!

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Cooperation and Agency!  The game has many many ways to encourage cooperation, but still allow each character to have their own agency.   The card choice mechanism is very intense and full of choice; players are allowed to coordinate if they like (there are no silly communication limits)!!  Players must decide who goes after what!   Players must decide if it makes sense to flank!  But, you can’t really Alpha Player the game because each deck is so different, and frankly, each character is so involved (in a good way) to run!  Players will have intense agency on their turn to operate their character, while still having to work together to come up with a plan!  And that flanking mechanism I think really encourages finer cooperation: it’s so good to gain advantage, you just need to!

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Loot 2.0!  In some ways, Tidal Blades 2 feels like it should be called Gloomhaven 2.0.   One of the things we house ruled in Gloomhaven was the Loot Rule (see discussion here: Top Seven House Rule for Cooperative Games).  Basically, stopping to pick up  loot  takes you out of the flow as you have to stop and use actual resources to do that.  The nice thing in Tidal Blades 2 is that you can a free action every turn to “interact” with one item!  So, maybe you can’t pick up three pieces of fruit or five rewards, but you can move by something and pick it up without needing to spend one of your precious actions.  Granted, you may still have to spend movement, but usually a reward (when you kill an enemy) comes out right next to you, and you just pick it up!  We enjoyed this free interaction SO MUCH more than Loot in Gloomhaven!

What I Didn’t Like

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Wait, What Am I Unfolding?  I love story in my games (it’s why I like Astro Knights: Eternity better than the original … it has a compelling story!!), but the story and the writing here feels … forced and a little turgid.   And I like story!   But it felt like Tidal Blades 2 were trying to hard to have their own “surfer-techno” lingo, and it just didn’t work for me.   I tended to just skim over the exposition and head straight into the scenarios.

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Enemy Movement:  As easy as the monsters are to set-up and operate, the AI for the monsters movement is a little weak.  There’s some nonsense about “clockwise heading north” in the case of ties, but the description in the text and the picture don’t match (for me anyways).   In the end, the final rule for specifying things is done using “Fastest Initiative”: the character with the fastest initiative is the tie-breaker … that tended to be my goto rule!  Many times, that was the tie-breaker (when it was really unclear) for us because it just make things easier.  Otherwise, the enemy movement phase becomes an overwrought “look at all possibilities”, which isn’t fun.  Gloomhaven did a better job at specifying the enemy AI, but at the cost of more rules.

The AI basically works, but if you focus too much on it, the game can become overwrought.  I worry that zealots for rules will make playing this less fun as you spend the entire game getting the AI rules “just right”.  And that’s fine if that’s what you want, but I think most people won’t love that.  Just play the game; it’s good!

Bases didn’t Work? Some of the mutant bases didn’t quite work: the miniature just kind of “slipped” out the base: see the video above.  It wasn’t all the mutant bases, and most of them worked, but it was weird that some of them didn’t work!

Reactions

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Rich: This is probably a Top Ten Game of the year, both solo and cooperatively! I am keeping my solo campaign alive as I still venture cooperatively with my friends!  There is just so much to like!  This feels like the next evolution of Gloomhaven!  This is a 9.5/10 for me. I just wish the AI was better and the story was better: that’s what keeps it from a 10/10.
Sara: I really liked it! Let’s keep on playing it!  It’s probably a 7 for me!
Andrew: Ya! Let’s keep playing it! A 6.5 or 7 for me!
Teresa: I loved the minis and how the game worked, 7 or 8 for me! It was like a better Gloomhaven, and not nearly as dark!

Conclusion

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Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders is a fantastic game!  I still am not quite sure what we are unfolding (I think we are unfolding space and time), but there are so many things to love in this campaign miniatures skirmish game!   The components are first-class, the miniatures are stellar, the cards are easy-to-read and intuitive, the combat system has so many great choices, the leveling up is fun, and the campaign is really interesting! In some ways, Tidal Blades 2 is the next evolution of Gloomhaven as Tidal Blades 2  evolves the map book ideas, the Loot rules, and the combat with the row/column mechanism!

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The card “activate column/row” mechanism works so well, that I think it elevates the game significantly.  It’s such a unique mechanism and makes the player feel like they can do so much! I expect to see this mechanism in upcoming games because it just works so well.

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This is a 9.5/10 for me, with my group rating in highly with 7s and 8s as well. This will make our Top 10 Solo Games of 2024 and the Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024!