Tag: story

Tales Of The Arabian Nights: 40th Anniversary Edition Review: There’s a Solo Mode??? And If You Squint … A Cooperative Mode???

Tales of the The Arabian Nights is a game I both hate and love. When it’s at its worst, it’s random with banal crap happening to you that you have almost no control over; it’s long and tedious. At its best, it creates some of the most memorable stories (with laughter and tears) on game nights that you’ll remember forever. It’s the best of times that I remember, and so that’s why I chose to back the 40th edition on Gamefound (see above) when it came out.

The original edition of Tales of the Arabian Nights (see above) got quite a bit of play back in my playgroups in Las Cruces. And at first, I hated it. It seemed so random; things would just happen to you!! If you were “lucky” (if you had the right skill at the right time), … things would just go your way. But, if you were unlucky, your entire story became a slog as you failed check after check. If, however, you just realize this is an adventure that “just happens to you”, and you just enjoy it for what it is, you can really have a good time. But ya, you could still have a very bad game. And it could still suck.

BUT in order for this to be a good experience, everyone has to know what they are getting into, and how random this, and how you just “gotta grin and bear it” sometimes. If you play with someone who is too serious, or who get aggravated by random stuff, or who just think “this is unfair” … you will not have a good time. Everyone has to be in on the joke. And you kinda have to be in the mood for it. That one person who doesn’t enjoy this will bring this game down very quickly. So, in some ways, this is a very brittle game because one player can easily ruin it. But if you get the right group, with the right frame of mind, with the right mood, with the right sense of humor, this can be a magical Arabian Night!

Does It Need An App?

So, this is a storybook game with a great physical storybook (see above and below). You read lots and lots of flowery text to each other.

I remember when we used to play the original version of Tales of Arabian Nights, and we’d all say “Ah, I think this game would so much better if it had an App. These books are huge! It’s so hard to remember how to look stuff up! And there’s some fiddliness! It would be better as an App!” Sure, an App could make looking up the text simpler. Sure, an App could handle the fiddliness. Sure, an App might make this easier to haul around if there were no books. But now, after reflecting back to the original version and the new version: it’s better with the books.

The books invest people into the game; people have to dig into the book and get involved! It’s a commitment to consult the grid and find the right entry! The person on your left and the person on your right are helping you look-up things in physical books! You make the choices, but everyone is staying involved! There’s a certain sweat equity in looking up and reading passages from a book;“This had better be good, darn it, because I am doing some work to make sure it moves forward!” You are invested because you are making the choices, and your neighbors are invested because they are consulting grids and charts! Everyone is invested in your ridiculous story!

It’s the physical investment in books and charts that makes this game magic. That’s the magic word; invested. You are physically and mentally and emotionally invested.

Don’t get me wrong; some of my favorite storybook games have Apps: Forgotten Waters, Freelancers, Wandering Galaxy are all excellent storybook games that take great advantage of the electronic genre with voice acting, dynamically generated content, and constantly improving stories!

Yet, Plaid Hat games did go out of their way to make physical copies of their storybooks (see above). Why? Because there is a certain magic to the physical books.

Solo Mode

Crazily enough, they made a solo mode for this game. Whaaaaat? Let’s be 100% clear here: the original Tales of the Arabian Nights did not have a solo mode! And it seems weird to have a solo mode because the fun of the multi-player game is the shared reading and shared experiences in this world. But, I think the randomness of the base game is just too much for a solo player. In the multi-player game, we can laugh at the stupid and random things that happen to each other (“Remember the time that Efreet enslaved you? That was hilarious!” “Yes It was!” ), but somehow that seems less fun in a solo mode.

So, PlayToZ wrote some solo adventures and added it to the box! The solo adventures come in their own booklet (see above) with about 15+ directed adventures. Note my use of the word directed—you still explore this world, but there’s a real underlying and scripted story that unfolds for each adventure in the game. To be clear, there are still plenty of random moments (as you still take some turns like the original game), but about half of the game is a story that’s really unfolding (from the Solo Tales book) and the other half of the game are the silly and random stuff from the base game (from the main Storybook).

My first adventure felt like I was playing a novel! The writing seemed quite good and the story was engaging! This was more like a Choose Your Own Adventures tale with real story and real writing!

The only problem with the solo mode is that the stories are limited: there are only 15+ adventures in the Solo Storybook (see above). Sure, that’s probably enough for most people, but it can limit replayability. The good news is that the story path you take does change if you make different choices, so you can play an episode again and get a different story line, a different timeline. Anyways, after 15+ stories, I will probably forget them and so I could start over. If you have an eidetic memory, you won’t be able to play the stories over without some repeats.

I am shocked this has a solo mode. But it really works well.

Base Game

So, this is a cooperative games blog, but the base game, the game everyone knows and loves, is not cooperative; it’s competitive! Tales of the Arabian Nights is a competitive game about who can get the right glory and destiny (two kinds of victory points) and make it back to Baghdad! “But Rich, you can’t talk about games that aren’t cooperative! That’s off brand for you!! You only talk about cooperative games! And sometime solo games!”

Ah, but there’s two issues here I want to address;

  1. The game is cooperative in the sense in that you are having a shared experience and working together to read the adventures out of the book.
  2. With the advent of the solo adventures, you can make this game truly cooperative by playing team solo: play the solo mode as a group pretending to be the solo player!

Granted, the base game actually has a lot of take-that mechanisms (“Choose a reaction for your opponent!“ “If you have a disease, you can give it to others!”), so I have to admit it’s not really cooperative. Okay, you got me there. But the reading of the storybook gives you that shared experience which feels like a cooperative game.

But the team solo is truly cooperative! You can play through the solo adventures as a team! The solo mode is a little clunky, as the solo player has to choose reactions, look-up in the grid, find the storybook entry, read it to himself, then “pretend” not to see too much on the page (so he doesn’t cheat). With a group of friends playing team solo, all this maintenance (like the base game) can be shared.

So, ya. The team solo is totally a fake thing that’s not in the game; it’s a house rule we made up. But it really works as a cooperative game.

The Base Competitive Game

Like I said, I love and hate the base game. And me and my friends played a competitive game of Tales of Arabian Nights the way it should be played … and I loved it and hated it.

I love it because I loved all the shared mechanisms, the cooperation, the interaction as everyone stays involved. See a 3-Player game above: everyone is involved in reading , listening, and consulting.

And yet, I still kinda hated it. The randomness from the original game is still there if you play the competitive game. It’s still goofy, it’s still fun, you still have to be in the right state of mind, and I still loved it, but I still kinda hated the randomness of the base game. I would maybe give the base competitive game a 6 or 7/10 … it’s very random. But still fun.

Team Solo!

We played as Team Solo one night! All 4 of us playing the solo mode as a group! What happened was that we simply played the game like the solo game, but the books and active player would rotate through everybody. I thought the game would be more cooperative, but what ended up happening was more that the active player tended to make “the choice” and we’d just say “I don’t know if that’s a good idea …” or “That sounds great!”

But, like I’ve said so many times in this review, just the act of consulting charts and reading books is very cooperative! So, instead of inflecting disease upon our fellows, we participate in the shared story … with one person being in the hot seat every turn “making decisions”.

I personally prefer Team Solo mode much more than the base competitive game, but some of my friends actually prefer the base competitive game (“because there are more choices”). So, I had more fun this week (Team Solo!) and Andrew and Teresa had more fun last week (competitive mode). In fact, Teresa likes Tales of Arthurian Knights better in the cooperative mode!

I think the team solo works for a cooperative mode (I liked it), but Tales of Arthurian Knights (see review here) is a stronger cooperative game.

Conclusion

So, this 40th edition of the game is really nice. The base game essentially feels the same as the original Tales of the Arabian Nights! If you play in the original mode, this still feels like the original game. Like I said, it’s a game I both love and hate. If you have a group in the right mood with the right sense of humor, the crazy and random things that happen to you can be hilarious! It can also be very brittle: a single player who isn’t getting it can bring down an entire game, or too many random events can just make the game feel unfun.

The solo mode is probably the most surprising addition to the game, partly because it works so well! It takes the base gameplay and adds direction and true story to the game, giving the solo player a very satisfying experience! I was also very impressed by the writing in the solo mode stories!

But, if you squint, you can also make this a cooperative game! The team solo idea works reasonably well; we tried it out one game and were happy with the gameplay. If you want Tales of Arabian Nights to be a truly cooperative game, you can do it!! Just play the solo mode as team solo … but it wasn’t everyone’s favorite way to play.

If you think you will hate the basic ideas (reading from storybooks to each other, suffering random effects as you play, even in the solo and cooperative mode), you will hate this; you know you. But if this idea of a storybook game with crazy things and lots of reading appeals to you, I think you can have some amazing experiences! And if your group is looking for a little more story, a little more cohesion, a little more cooperation, the solo mode can bring it … for both the solo player or team solo.

9 out of 10 for me for everything this does for solo! This is a fantastic production! I love it! Just be aware of what this is; you may hate it. I honestly would give this a 7/10 if it were only the original base game, but the new solo mode really expands the ways you can play the game! Solo! Cooperative! Competitive! And I liked the cooperative mode of team solo, but my friends still like the original competitive mode better.. as broken and random as that can be.

If you just want a good cooperative storybook game, Tales of Arthurian Knights is better. For a more directed solo game, Tales of Arabian Nights is better. For the competitive game, I think whichever theme appeals to you is probably better.

Crime Unfolds: How Do You Express That?

Welcome back to Detective Month!  Last week, we looked at the storybook cyber-noir detective game of LA-1!  This week, we take a look at the Escape Room game of Crime Unfolds!  A Pop-Up Escape Game 3D: Immersive Crime Game!

Every few months, my friends Charlie and Allison and I get together to play games … usually Escape Room games! They are my Escape Room buddies! This month, we are trying out the Crime Unfolds cooperative Escape Room game! Nominally, we are detectives solving a crime!

We’ll discuss our first impressions and thoughts on the Crime Unfolds system. It also brings up a few questions to ask yourself about Escape Room games. Why do you like them? Or maybe … Why do you dislike them?

Requires an App

Crime Unfolds requires an app!   That is maybe the first thing you should know.  Some people love Apps with their Escape Room games, and some people don’t.  It’s really not clear by looking at the book that this requires an App.  It’s not a big deal, as Charlie went and got one real quick.

There are 6 cases interspersed in this game.  We started with case 1.  We also, like many escape room games, started with lots of “random stuff we know will be useful later”.

 

Solve The Puzzle vs. Express the Answer

Over the course of one night. Charlie and Allison and Richie embarked on the first case!  It’s supposed to take an hour … it took us more than two hours.  And we are experienced Escape Roomers?? What Gives?

The problem we had over and over was not “how we do we solve the puzzle” but “how do you express the solution”?  We easily solved a bunch of the puzzles, but inputting into the app was the main hurtle!

For example: At one point, we had “shifted” away from a screen that had the arrows for directionality, so we thought we had to express NSEW via UP/DOWN or North/South/East/West using letters on the command line?  We lost at least 15 minutes … when we realized the App had those arrows in another screen.  It was very frustrating!  We had solved the puzzle, but the app had made is less than intuitive to enter.

We were pretty frustrated after this game, but after thinking about it overnight, I have come to realize that most puzzle games are like this!  You have to do two things:

  1. Solve the puzzle
  2. Express The Solution

Solving the puzzle is usually the funner part, and some games make it very easy to express the solution.  We loved Doomensions (see our review here), as expressing the solution was easy; it always took the same form as a 3 or 4 digit code.    Here in Crime Unfolds, the solution expressed itself in so many different ways! Sometimes it was interacting with some widgets on the app!  Sometimes it was saying the right thing at the command line interface!  Sometimes it pressing the right buttons!  

Our frustration with Crime Unfolds was how to express the solution!  Many times during the game, we felt like we solved the puzzle, but couldn’t move forward because the solution wasn’t expressed in the way we expected it!

After cogitating on this some more, I realized this expressing the solution can be just as interesting as solving the puzzle!  To express your solution, you have to change your perspective!! What’s the best way to express this solution?  What’s the most thematic way to express this solution?  What’s the perspective of the player in the game?  All of these contribute to different ways to express the solution.   To be fair, sometimes the expression of the solution is poorly done, and that’s just a frustration of this genre.  I think if you reset your thinking that expressing the solution is part of the puzzle, then it can less frustrating. I realize how hard it can be to do in the heat of the moment, so it’s easy to say this. 

To enjoy Crime Unfolds, you will absolutely have to enjoy thinking about new ways to express a solution to a puzzle.

 

Pop-Up Cool!  But You Need A Magnifying Glass!

One of things that was very cool about Crime Unfolds was the pop-up scenes that came out of the book!  It turns out 6 rooms in the book, and you take a turns visiting some of these rooms in each case.  They look really cool!  See above!

Unfortunately, some of the text/symbols on the board are hard to read!  At one point, Charlie went and got his “fine work” magnifying glasses/helmet!  We also used our phones to zoom in so we could see things!  

The pop-up stuff works well, but be aware that you may have to really zoom on the board.  There is just a little bit of “Where’s Waldo” and “I can barely see that” in this game.

 

Conclusion

Did we like Crime Unfolds?  Yes and no.  We only played one case, but we think it is fairly representative of what this game is.  The pop-up system works and has a very “toy” and “fun” factor to it; that was something we definitely liked.   We liked solving the puzzles but found expressing the solutions frustrating.  I think, upon further reflection, that if you go into the game knowing expression the solutions is PART of the puzzle, that might help make that more enjoyable.   

I hope I can talk Charlie and Allison into playing more cases from this book; I think there’s some fun puzzles here, but I hope we can just get over the frustrations when expressing the puzzle solutions.

 

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.