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Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Review

Sat, 25 May 2024 12:00:00 GMT

TLDR: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a worthy successor to Jet Set Radio Future (JSRF) though it does suffer from some minor issues.that could be improved/fixed in a sequel or DLC. While some other issues could have already been fixed in updates as I waited to play the game four months after release.

Firstly, the movement mechanics are great with the addition of leaning into corners feeling super satisfying. Pulling off combos and learning the best ways to navigate across the levels is fun and often distracted me from whatever goal I was actually supposed to be doing. There are three types of equipment with skates, skateboards and bicycles to use, though from what I could tell they behave exactly the same. But each of these need to be used to access certain areas and rooms in levels, forcing you to use a variety.

This brings me onto the most consistent minor issue with the lack of tutorials on a few small mechanics that I didn’t discover organically. There is a special high jump that you can only use if you unequip your movement equipment which is only required once to access a single graffiti spot on a later level. I only discovered this jump after looking up a video on getting to that graffiti with many commenters also saying they had no idea it existed. The next mechanic which wasn’t explained was the aforementioned equipment specific areas which were never directly introduced or referenced in conversations. The bike areas are obvious due to the big symbol on the doors which stand out on the levels, so I discovered these early on. But the skateboard specific areas are unmarked fire hydrants that you can spin on top to access higher areas, even though there are non-interactive fire hydrants on some levels. The skate areas are reinforced glass on the floors that have to be skated on to destroy. I feel that both of these issues could have been easily fixed with extra conversations introducing them during the other tutorials.

This brings me onto the story and levels which are the most middling aspects of the game. The story is certainly serviceable but didn’t have any characters or themes that really interested me and mainly acts as a reason to get you to the next level. As you navigate the levels you encounter the different crews that control each level and beat them by covering their graffiti and winning score battles.This is the main gameplay loop during the story progression, though you may want to explore the level further to 100% complete the graffiti or collect more equipment/character skins and music. Each level has about 20 to 30 of these spread around in difficult to reach or hidden areas, so a lot of my hours were spent searching high and low for these. There is a huge amount of characters available that you unlock from the story and side challenges, meaning you will certainly have a character design you will like. Most characters also have four skins which are palette swaps. Swapping skins is done via portable toilets placed around the levels and are essential as they clear all police heat you currently have, which gets gained from doing graffiti. As the police heat level increases, more difficult enemies will attempt to arrest you, starting from normal policemen to snipers, mechs and more. While I understand that police were part of Jet Set Radio’s DNA and that most people will want some challenge while completing the levels, I found that police were just annoying rather than an actual threat as I would just head to the nearest toilet to clear the heat making it more of a time-wasting nuisance than challenge.

Going back to the story there are also a few boss battles fighting police and a few unique enemies that are almost as awkward as there were over 20 years ago in JSRF. I really feel that this area could have been improved upon after so many years to reflect on how awkward boss battles relying on precision skating can be, especially with a camera that I only felt interfered with my gameplay during these battles. Completing this story only took me about 13 hours with another 14 hours spent doing achievements and collectables, along with gaining characters that I had missed earlier.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is the graffiti mechanic which requires drawing a pattern by joining dots, with more complex patterns on larger graffiti walls. You unlock additional graffiti as you explore giving more variety, though I often just drew a random pattern. There’s not much else to that mechanic but the graffiti has been drawn by many different artists with most looking great with only a few pieces looking a bit ugly.

The music doesn’t quite hit the same level as JSRF but there are many great tracks and artists I have now discovered from this game. You can choose which tracks and mixtapes to play via the phone UI which has other features including a minimap and camera.

I only had a few minor bugs from getting stuck on geometry that I was eventually able to free myself from, with no crashes and generally good performance apart from a few stutters.

There is a taxi mechanic to make it easier to move directly between levels, but I found this annoying as you need to interact with the taxi sign to unlock it for this map. I didn’t realise this until I finished the story and needed to use the taxis, to find I hadn’t unlocked them on any level. The location of the taxi signs on each level is also a bit weird with some being in good central locations while others being awkward such as the Pyramid Island location higher up in the level. I think many levels would have benefited from at least two taxi locations spread across the map, along with a quick teleport button back to the hideout.

Finally I do want to discuss the level design as I do find some areas and specific levels lacking in a good skating flow that I found in the best JSRF levels. The hideout felt great to skate around, but the first level of Versum hill feels awkwardly designed for a skating game as it features a large open hill with steps that limit the sections you can easily skate and combo. It also has areas with transitions and corridors structured in a way to prevent combos between each section of the level. Millenium mall has some good smaller rooms with good verticality but is focused around a huge open area with skating focused around the edges, this results in an area with limited player expression as you only have limited paths to go follow. Based on the use of the mech enemy as a repeated boss, I think they designed these open areas due to issues with enemy AI and model sizes which really counters the freedom of choosing your own path and combos while navigating. The later Pyramid Island level is a lot better as you can jump between many fences and rails instead of following the set paths, though it also includes an unnecessary combo preventing transition to access the higher section of the level when coming from the lower section. The Mattan level I think is the worst offender of the restrictive maps with little to no verticality and branching paths, even though it has so much theming potential as a neon lit area full of nightlife. While Brink Terminal is my favourite level due to the interconnections between the areas of the map with transitions only needed for a few minor sections of the level. Though that level borrows a lot from the Shibuya Terminal level in JSRF. I do think there were uninteresting levels in JSRF, but the higher level count there helped provide a greater number of memorable maps that felt great to navigate.

Conclusion

The Royal Limited Review

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 12:00:00 GMT

I reviewed the print and play version from PNP Arcade for $3.

I made many Button Shy Games from the 2023 Black Friday sales with The Royal Limited and Food Chain Island quickly becoming my favourite.

Official Description

TThe Royal Limited is a solo game about building your train and filling it up with passengers and VIPs before the train departs. Use cards from your hand to add new cars and place passengers to occupy them. Match symbols and colors to ensure everyone aboard is satisfied, especially the VIPs! Make the most of your line and see if you can live up to the grand expectations of The Royal Limited.

Components

Another Button Shy Game with good production value with the standard 18 cards. These represent train carriages and the passengers on them, with dual sided VIP cards acting as a key objective, finally a four sided turn timer card is used to count down towards scoring.

CARD PICS

Gameplay

The Royal Limited is a solo game themed around building a filling a 1960’s English train with passengers. Your aim is to use as many cards as possible within the train so that at best you have zero unused cards, though I certainly found that difficult.

SETUP

To set up you shuffle the train cards into a deck, set the turn timer to green and randomly pick two VIP cards. The VIPs act as the main source of variety with additional complexity in how the two of them might interfere or combo with each other similarly to the ‘opolis games’ scoring cards.

FIRST TURN

Starting the first turn involves drawing 5 cards from the train deck, this turn will continue until you can no longer place any cards from your hand or a train carriage ability cannot be achieved, resulting in the next turn being triggered. Placing a train carriage requires discarding a number of cards from your hand equal to the train carriage value. Adjacent carriages must be different colours and numbers, with carriages only getting added to the right side.

PASSENGER

Placing a passenger requires an empty carriage with the same colour and/or number. But doing so triggers the ability of that carriage, which can be good or bad. Generally the higher value carriages have benefits while the low value carriages will punish you by discard cards from your hand or similar negatives. Some may even trigger adjacent carriages, letting you build combos if you think that far ahead. These mechanics provide good decisions as evaluating the tradeoff using low cost carriages now might make passenger placement easier now, but hurt you long-term.

VIP PLACEMENT

While filling empty carriages with passengers is important to get the best score, focusing on planning your VIP placement is best. Due to them requiring specific requirements such as adjacent passenger values or colours. Getting these placed requires good planning and sometimes luck if you don't know which cards are left in the deck. Maybe your VIP needs to be placed between even value passengers but you already used most of your even numbers in earlier turns, or a VIP needs to be placed in the middle carriage but you had to fill it with a passenger due to a carriage ability. This mechanic is definitely where the best puzzle satisfaction comes from. With ten VIPs and only two chosen at once, there is decent variety though many of the VIP requirements aren’t particularly interesting and just odd/even flipped versions of themselves. Hopefully they can expand on the VIP requirements in the future expansions.

When you are unable to play cards from your hand and cannot play a VIP then the train timer is turned 90 degrees, this acts as your turn timer over four turns. When it hits the train leaving the station marker the last turn begins with the scoring triggering after.

FINISH + SCORING

Winning requires having only a few points left at the end of the game.Points are gained by having VIP cards, discarded cards and empty carriages. Having different remaining points will give a different score level with 0 points being the best. I found it very difficult to get 0 points and would often still lose with 3 or 4 points in some plays. But this meant that there were difficult decisions in potentially leaving unused cards to go into discard after a turn but later bring them back via an ability.

Murder On Board Expansion

MURDER CARDS

While this expansion only includes three new cards I was surprised at how much complexity it adds. The game is set up as normal but now you have a detective card that will travel between train carriages based on the value of passengers you place. Reminding me a lot of the programming style gameplay in Fishing Lessons. You also put the undiscovered victim card with the left VIP and the undiscovered murderer with the right VIP. These are your objectives to reach with the detective as you must first place and reach the victim with the detective while still playing the standard rules. This discovers the murder victim, letting you now discover the murderer by again placing the other VIP and moving the detective to that train carriage. While using this expansion the standard scoring rules apply but to win you must discover the victim and murderer in order, otherwise you lose.

MURDER START

MURDER FIND VICTIM

MURDER FIND MURDERER

This expansion really upped the complexity and requires a lot of forethought as you need to plan both the standard placement mechanics and the detective’s movement. Many times I got stuck with carriage values that made the detective’s movements in the last two turns impossible due to overuse of identical value cards earlier in the game. I highly recommend this expansion for this complexity boost and good use of theming that makes it seem designed from the start the game’s inception rather than the mediocre content expansions often released for Button Shy Games.

Second Line Expansion

SECOND LINE CARDS

This expansion includes four new train carriage cards as you now need to build a second train alongside your first. It keeps it simple by increasing the number of drawn cards per turn to 6 and requiring both trains be at most one card length difference in length to win at the end of the game. It also introduces wild train carriages and passengers that have no value. I think this adds some complexity but lacks the imagination of the Murder On Board expansion, but it seems worth it to add additional replayability after ten to twenty plays of the base game.

SECOND LINE FINISH

Conclusion

Battle Card Review

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 12:00:00 GMT

I bought Battle Card from Postmark Games for £4.

I was initially hesitant in trying Battle Card after reading about the lack of player agency, but after trying their free Market Garden map which acts as an introduction to the series I was pleasantly surprised by a simple yet effective simulation of historical battles.

Official Description

Take on iconic battles and campaigns of the Second World War in this collection of micro solitaire wargames. Each game is played on a single map with scenario specific rules that allow players to face some of the unique challenges and struggles of that particular battle.

Components

Battle Card is the newest game series from Postmark Games and is solo only. The first series currently consists of 4 maps at time of review with another map coming in the future. The maps cover battles within the Second World War with each of these sharing common mechanics along with unique mechanics and rules based on the events of that battle such as reinforcements, air support or weather.

Each map is available for print and play only with A4 and US letter versions. To play you also need a selection of coloured dice, ideally with two separate colours to indicate the sides of the battles. Eleven dice are required to play all of the maps.

An additional map based on Market Garden is available for free and is recommended to learn how their game system works. The following paid maps each increase in complexity with more dice and mechanics to utilise.

Market Garden map after setup

Gameplay

Winning a map normally requires capturing or retreating to a certain location, sometimes defeating a number of enemies is also an option. While losing involves reaching a certain number of turns or losing your units, this makes every decision have a big impact.

Battle Card Malayan map early in the game

Units are represented on the map as dice with their values indicating their strength. The combat can differ slightly between maps but the core mechanic is that you roll a dice for each unit as they attack or defend against the closest enemy. The result of the rolled die matches a combat result on the map’s combat table, with different outcomes depending on which unit has a dice value advantage. Often you are given the options to advance or withdraw units, this becomes one of the most impactful choices you make as you strategically reposition to get the best combat advantage. After the combat actions there are often mechanics for weather or reinforcements depending on the map to spice up each game.

Battle Card Malayan map late into the game

I think at this point it's best to address the player agency problem that is often the main discussion about this game. While yes this isn’t a full war simulation due to the size and low complexity of the game, I would identify the aim of the game as to understand what actions had to be completed within the actual historical battle to win. I found that after losing or winning a map I knew what actions had resulted in the outcomes of the battle. Though this presents this issue of that once you win a map you know how to repeat that win with only a few potential differences based on the randomness of the dice rolls.

While the difficulty and complexity increases in each map if playing in release order. I found that the third and fourth maps had a much higher chance of being ruined during to bad luck at the beginning with any attempts to recover being near impossible due to the early loss of units.

The fourth map was recently released at time of review with the final map in series 1 being released in the future, but Postmark Games rarely communicates the status of upcoming content outside of vague messages in their Discord server.

Each map also includes historical notes explaining the history of the battle and how the objective of this map was influenced by the battle's events.

Conclusion

Waypoints Review

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Bought Waypoints directly from Postmark Games for £4.

Waypoints was my first roll and write which has certainly set a high bar for the next games that I try, a perfect combination of theming, art and meaningful decisions.

Official Description

Battle the elements in Waypoints as you hike through a landscape of mountains, valleys, lakes, and woodlands. Climb vast summits or take to the rivers, marking your route and recording your experiences as you go.

Components

Waypoints like others from Postmark Games are only available for print and play. Currently you get access to three maps each with their own mechanics and achievements, with more planned for the future without additional cost. You can either write directly on the printed sheets or laminate them, though I prefer keeping the sheets to look back on in the future. Any number of players can play, though you will need a sheet for each player.

Gameplay

As the name suggests, Waypoints is a roll and write about exploring a map while visiting waypoints. Waypoints can be the top of mountains, animals, campfires, and more; with each providing various scores and functional benefits.

Each game starts with randomly selecting a special scoring condition for this game that adds some extra points based on your actions. The mechanics and scoring can differ between the current two maps, but the core mechanics stay the same. With each game consisting of four hikes each ending with a scoring goal you choose from the journal, while all other scoring is completed at the end of the game.

Each hike involves rolling a die and following the weather condition at that spot on the hike weather tracker until you reach the end of that tracker. These weather conditions limit how many contour and grid lines you can cross on that turn, this means that planning is essential. With many hills, mountains and rivers impacting your routes as you need to start at the previous waypoint and end on a new waypoint within that distance.

The topographical map is effective thematically and makes deciding your routes interesting as many rolls can have many options. Though you can get stuck due to bad planning such as being on the top of a hill or mountain without a glider or coat while bad weather limits your movement.

To negate the impact of weather you can use a water bottle to add an extra line movement to your turn. Water can be gained from lakes and completing each of the four hike earns two, so keeping a good supply of water available becomes a great decision with a push your luck element where you might use more water now to risk requiring good weather in the next few turns.

In each hike you can decide which journal to score. This lets you plan your scoring as you may know that you will use a kayak or explore a flatter area within this hike. Ending at a campfire also doubles this journal score making it valuable in your final score.

Once all four hikes are complete you total up your scores and compare who got highest. As you can see below the scores can vary depending on your luck with weather and whether you make some bad choices.

Maps

Map 1 "Whistling Water National Park" is the map that has been shown above and includes lakes, mountains, hills, rivers and forests. Use gliders to move from mountains to nearby waypoints and kayaks to navigate the rivers (not quite sure how hiking to bears gives you a kayak).

Map 2 "Burning Rock Canyon" has a large canyon along the middle which severely restricts movement between the top and bottom sections. This time sun is also a concern as you need to seek shade while hiking during extremely hot weather. Hot springs replacement mountains, but instead you score based on the number of lines crossed to reach the spring in that turn. Cablecars can also be used to navigate the canyon. The differences in additional mechanics and scoring really demonstrate how great of a system this game is, with gameplay meshing well with the map themes.

Map 3 "The Great Western Coast" was released the day after this review was originally published. This map features coasts with islands that can be reached with minimal movement via ferries. As the largest difference with this map is that sea gridlines cost 2 movement to cross making planning your island exploration important.

Modes

Waypoints can technically be played with any number of players. In multiplayer you share the rolls so it is up to player decisions to see who gets the best score. While iIn the solo mode you can do a high score, but the variability of the dice rolling means your scores won’t exactly be balanced between games. In this mode there is an additional challenge of needing to end your hikes on a new campfire on 3 out of the four hikes. While on hard mode you need to finish on all 5. This makes planning your route super important, as not having a coat while being far away from the nearest campfire can be a disaster on the first map.

Achievements

Each map has a list of 10 achievements that can be completed during the game, these add extra replayability with additional goals for you to complete instead of just aiming for higher scores.

Conclusion

Colostle Review

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 12:00:00 GMT

I bought the digital version of Colostle from the official store for £8.

I had yet to find a solo journaling game that really worked for me, until I tried Colostle.

Official Description

Colostle is a rulebook and setting for an adventure in the impossible roomlands of the Colostle, a castle so huge that whole continents, oceans and mountain ranges sit within its rooms. Use a standard deck of playing cards and check your draws against prompts and rules in the book to see what you discover on your adventures, and then write of your exploits and legend in a journal.

Components

Playing Colostle requires any journal and a deck of generic playing cards, though using their custom card deck is more thematic. I preferred this as you receive a printable deck after buying the digital version with simple yet expressive art. The rulebook is available as a PDF or physical book directly from the official site but it might be available with quicker delivery from other sites.

Colostle playing cards

World

The key to any roleplaying game is the setting and themes of the game, though many can feel derivative. But Colostle hits it perfectly here, you live in a huge room within a massive castle that seems almost endless. Within each room there can be many biomes containing mountains, oceans, forests, cities and much more. Huge doors and passageways provide connections between the rooms, with a map showing a layout of the canon rooms within the world. The rest of the game is mostly traditional High fantasy with some magic and creatures such as goblins. But Colostle also introduces chess rooks that acts as automatons wondering the rooms and potentially even fighting you, these can be as large as buildings. I found these really helped cement the game's setting especially as I played as a the followed class which has a small rook known as a rookling acting as pet and ally on your adventures.

Official art showing the setting and characters representing each class

Gameplay

Gameplay involves exploration potentially followed by a combat phase depending on the result of the exploration such as if you decide to attack or evade an enemy. This is a continuous loop until you decide to finish or your character is killed. Your overarching goal for your journey is generally based upon your character’s calling which is randomly chosen or decided upon during character creation. This gives a general aim, though it isn’t always relevant during every exploration phase.

Character sheet with their example of how a journal entry might look

The class you pick adds a theming to your character and helps build your backstory. But also changes how many cards you can draw during exploration and combat. A high exploration class will have more things happen during exploration such as locations, events, people etc. You are free to interpret the cards however you like in any order, such as a village being attacked by a rook or a village inside of a rook. This helps guide the gameplay while letting you use your imagination. Each card has tables describing what they mean with different impacts depending on the card colour.

Exploration table example

Some cards might have additional cards drawn, such as types items you might pickup. This results in some exploration phases being fairly simple while others could have a complex chain of events. For example during one exploration my character was caught and imprisoned in a goblin village in a deep valley as massive rooks fought nearby, resulting in a medium rook being scared into rampaging through the valley destroying the village and damaging our cage. This injured my character with an exploration wound but helped us escape into a complex network of tunnels that the goblins had been exploring.

Example of how a exploration phase card draw might look like

Combat is fairly simple, which may put off players expecting more complex and challenging combat. First you create the opponent which might be another person or a rook, these each have their own smaller tables to generate how they fight. Enemies will draw a certain number of cards based on their strength and size then you draw cards based on your combat score. Next you need to play one of your cards to counter the next card the enemy plays, this is ideally of a higher card value to win that combat. If you lose combat you take a wound against your exploration or combat score. You continue to fight until the opponent has used all of their cards.

To win against the opponent you need to win a majority of the attacks. If either of your scores reaches zero then that character has been killed. This does add some danger to your adventures, but I generally found it easy to heal wounds and avoid combat during exploration if a fight felt like it would be dangerous such as fighting against massive rook.

Example of a combat encounter against a medium rook as a character with four combat score, they would win but take a wound in the process

Throughout your adventures you will find many rooms with various biomes and locations. Including villages, cities, oceans and whatever your mind can come up with. Cities provide shops, the hunters guild, homes and many useful amenities. The exploration tables for the cards are the same regardless of biome and location unless you are exploring the oceans which have their own set of tables and encounters. I think the lack of biome specific encounters is one of the few problems with the base game but is improved upon by new biomes and encounter tables in the expansions.

Your journey continues until you complete your calling and decide to finish your character there or your character becomes lost due to having enough wounds to reduce a exploration or combat score to zero. This means your time spent on a single character will likely go on for many hours, compared to a shorter experience in games such as Notorious. Colostle doesn't have an action mode like Notorious but your game length will mainly depend on how long you spend writing as I can often write at least an A4 page for a single exploration phase.

So far this is the only solo RPG that I’ve been able to get into. I think its mainly due to the focus on world-building without complicated mechanics, letting your imagination run wild based on simple prompts from your cards. It's often like solving a puzzle of your creation when connecting the cards, with no wrong option.

Settlements

Most locations your come across on your adventures won't provide any mechanical benefits apart from cities. There are no pre-designed cities in the base game but there are various tables to help design the city. Working out the placement of locations and amenities such as merchants, taverns, hunting guild, homes you can buy. As you adventure you will collect treasures that can be traded in for items at merchants or saved up to purchase a home. Homes not only provide a place for your character to rest for healing wounds but also enables fast traveling back to the city instead of relying on luck during exploration to find a city card. While the items from merchants provide roleplaying and mechanic driven benefits to aid in exploration and combat.

Example of an item available from a merchant

Battlements

The book tries to keep the Battlements as a spoilers as it is meant for later in the game game, so I'll keep any details brief here. The Battlements acts as a new biome with a much higher difficulty so adventuring up there is dangerous and requires exploring for sometime before you will be able to travel there.

Roomlands Expansion

Official photo of a spread of the Roomlands Expansion describing a new biome

Roomlands is the first of many expansions, but will be covered in a separate review. It adds new classes, locations, a named city and a guided story. It is a great addition but I would recommend playing some of the base game first before picking this up.

Jobs Expansions

Official photo of the job decks

Three jobs are currently available via separate job decks available to buy or print. These jobs don’t impact your class but add unique mechanics for cartography, inventing and researching. These will spice up your adventure but again I would recommend playing some of the base game first before picking this up.

Colostle Patreon

There is a patreon available for £2 a month, with monthly posts adding new art, locations and all kinds of content to aid in your Colostle adventure. This content is often part of the next expansion so it acts as a way to see what is coming up while being in bite sized pieces. There is also a Discord channel open for the everyone where you can ask questions or talk with other players.

Multiplayer

While the base game does not support multiplayer, the Roomlands Expansion includes a 2-player module that I have yet to try.

Conclusion

Doom Machine Review

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 12:00:00 GMT

I bought Doom Machine from PNParcade PNP Arcade for $5.

Nathan Meunier really impressed me with Mindburners: Into The Void so when Doom Machine went on sale on PNPArcade I knew I needed to pick it up.

Official Description

Doom Machine is an intense pressure-cooker card and dice mint tin solo game experience that fits in your pocket. Face off against an ever-evolving, ever-growing machine of death and destruction! Find and defeat the doom core before humanity is annihilated.

Components

Components are tin sized cards in a tin with dice and tracking cubes for the physical edition. While the print and play has options for tin or poker sized cards. For print and play you will need 20 d6 dice along with three tracking cubes to track attributes.

Doom Machine physical edition components

Gameplay

The aim of Doom Machine is to uncover the doom core and destroy it. But you need to survive as each part of the doom machine attacks you until the core is uncovered, letting you destroy it.

Starting layout with three random machine cards active

To do this you roll dice and place them to attack the active parts of the machine, while defending yourself to avoid running out of health. This means that deciding which part to attack is your main strategic choice as some parts might do more damage in the short or long term, others can also give good or bad impacts when destroyed. Each machine part requires different combinations of dice, one might require a single die of a specific number, while another might require doubles.

Due to this being a dice chucker there of course has to be a mechanic to reduce randomness. You have a choice at the start of each turn after rolling your dice to reroll some dice or modify dice to an adjacent value. The amount of dice you can impact depends on if you play the normal or hard mode. This also gives a great push your luck element as rerolling dice in the aim to get a value you want adds further risk.

Player attribute card with the reroll abilities on the bottom right

Meanwhile you also need to assign dice to shields to defend from incoming damage. Luckily the game makes it easy to calculate incoming damage as it is always predictable from the next action listed on active machine part tracks. Some parts will deal defined damage numbers while others will base it on the current level of sentience and power as tracked on the machine card. This results in a more impactful choices in the later game.

Seven point shield through the usage of two dice

Each machine part has a yellow die representing its health, once that reaches zero the machine part is removed from the game with its destruction effect activated. If you already have less than 10 dice you also can take the die from the machine part and add it into your pool. This gives a great sense of progression as more dice opens more opportunities, though you can only get up to 10 dice.

Two sixes assigned to the Thought Siphon machine card, this card only accepts both those values to deal one damage to it

After assigning your dice to machine parts and shields, the machine phase begins. This starts with each active machine part starting from the left having its dice moved to the next action on the track. This action is immediately triggered causing the impact described on the card key due to each card using the same icons but with different impacts. If the dice moves off the end of the track it is moved back to the start. Once each part has been activated a new card is drawn from the machine deck and is added to the left edge of the part row. This part isn’t activated in the current turn so is only assigned a die with the next turn started after.

Defending against three damage from the Thought Siphon, the other two cards are doing other effects this turn

This predictability is great as it focuses the randomness on the dice and the potential interactions between each dice part. For example a machine part might trigger healing adjacent parts when it reaches one of its actions, so you might focus on destroying that part. Then the next part that gets drawn is a card that triggers adjacent parts multiple times, resulting in them speeding through their actions quicker. This results in you constantly having to adapt as new cards get added and others get destroyed.

The Extinction Collider card was added to the machine cards, this will activate like the other cards next turn

Reaching The End

Turns continue as described until the doom machine card is added to the row. As this is your goal you will win if you defeat the core, but you don’t need to defeat all other active parts. Letting you choose between continuing a slow burn or risking it to quickly kill the core. This is especially dangerous due to the high level of sentience and power that the machine has by this point of the game. With cards utilising those levels now being able to deal huge amounts of damage.

At the end of the game with the Doom Core card active with four health left, the max of ten dice are now available to use from defeated machine cards

This is certainly a difficult game, though it only took a few attempts to win the game on normal mode. Hard mode on the other hand continues to elude me as this mode includes all machine parts in one game along with a more limited amount of re-rolls and modifiers allowed on each turn. But this has given me a great goal to aim for.

Hard mode player attribute card with fewer abilities available

Conclusion

Mindburners: Into the Void Review (Solo Mode)

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:12:03 GMT

I reviewed the Print and Play version available from PNP Arcade for $4.50.

Tableau builders are one of my favourite genres and Mindburners: Into the Void has cemented its place as one of my go-tos. This was also my first Nathan Meunier games and have since started collecting more due to the impression this one left one me.

Official Description

Mindburners: Into the Void is a strategic cyber-occult card drafting and arrangement game for 1-2 players. Loaded up with experimental gear and thrust into the swirling chaos beyond against your will, you must equip and optimize your limited void-tech and outperform your adversary.

Components

Mindburners: Into the Void consists of 18 cards, each containing great art and theming along with a suit, base value, symbols, binary value, basic ability and install ability. It is print and play only exclusively on PNP Arcade with no print on demand copies available.

It can be played with 1-2 players with this review focusing on the solo AI, though the game is very similar in both.

First Draft

During the game you build a tableau of five cards which then get scored after both drafts have been completed. The player with the highest score wins.

The solo mode is similar to the 2 player mode but with the AI always taking the first turn in the first draft. The solo mode consists of two drafts followed by the equipping and re-ordering phase then scoring.

First five drafted cards

To start you shuffle the deck and draw five cards keeping them facedown. Then give one to start the AI’s tableau.

First player card choice with four choices after the bot take one

Next you can look at the drawn cards and pick one to add to your tableau. After adding your card, you then flip the drawn cards facedown and shuffle them. Then again giving a random card to the AI’s tableau.

First player card added into the tableau

These steps are continued until all five of the drawn cards are in the tableaus. Resulting in the AI having three cards in their tableau while you have two cards.

End of the first draft

By this point you should have a good idea of what tableau combos you are aiming for and thinking about what cards the AI has.

Second Draft

The second draft is the same as the first draft with the change being that you get to choose the first card. This continues until you and the AI’s tableaus have five cards each.

Player's first choice in the second draft

Once all cards have been assigned you will next need to think about how to maximise the score with your cards.

End of the second draft

Ordering and Installing Cards

In the solo mode the AI cards are flipped over once both drafts have been completed, with AI scoring completed before you can configure your tableau.

After re-ordering the tableau cards

Next, you can freely reorder your tableau to take advantage of abilities and binary combinations. This feels great due to the amount of scoring options on each card. With the basic abilities combining well with the card suites, binary and symbols.

Install two tableau card

Along with reordering you then need to choose two cards to install. An installed card gains additional points based upon its scoring criteria in the bottom white section of the card. This criteria can be impacted by another of the other card mechanics, allowing for some combos.

I did feel that the installed card criteria was often less interesting than the basic abilities. With one card having a fixed additional score meaning it didn't have any way to combo with other cards.

Scoring

Scoring has a slight change compared 2 player to accommodate that the AI cannot place cards effectively. This does make it harder than 2 player, but I found that even if I got similar scores between multiple games, the AI score would fluctuate a lot. Making it feel less satisfying to get the win as I didn’t feel like I earned it. With it being more based on the randomness of the AI than any of my choices. Though to get a good score you really have to get good drafts to maximise the basic abilities with installed cards giving you the extra edge needed to win.

Conclusion

Iron Helm Review

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 12:12:03 GMT

I reviewed the Print and Play version available from PNP Arcade for $5.

Coming from a video game heavy background I've found dungeon crawling board games often have too much busy work making me less likely to get them out. Iron Helm on the other hand uses a small set of card decks where games often end at just the right length, making it one of my most played and favourite games.

Official Description

Iron Helm is a solo-play dungeon crawler in which you play as a hero in search of one last major score before finally hanging up the sword and retiring. Iron Helm uses a draw two, pick one mechanic, that has the player draw two cards from the dungeon deck, reveal one, and then decide to either resolve the revealed card, or take their chances with the unknown. Players will start the game with some coin that they can spend to equip themselves for the adventure. Once inside the dungeon they will encounter nasty foes, discover treasures, unlock plot cards, and ultimately face a dungeon boss. Along the way you will learn new skills and upgrade your character with new items. You will have to manage your health and energy levels, while trying to avoid hazards like getting poisoned or lost in the labyrinth.

Components

The print and play version mostly consists of making cards along with a few types of tokens to track attributes. Though you can print out the card trackers from Board Game Geek with your own cubes to track, I preferred this to making all the tokens (I still had to make blessing tokens as there is no alternative). I recommend printing out the player mat if you get this version to make it easier to track which weapons are equipped compared to those in your inventory. I didn't see a need in printing the gameplay mat. If you play this version you will need to have two d12 and at least three d6 dice, along with small euro cubes if you use the tracking cards.

Iron Helm physical edition

The Game Crafter physical edition comes with all the base game cards, along with tokens and dice in a box with dividers and is large enough to fit some expansions. I think this version is expensive for what it is ($54.99 at time of review) especially compared to traditionally published games due to how The Game Crafter works. It is even more expensive if you live outside the USA due to taxes and shipping, so be careful as many people have mentioned how expensive the game is with all costs considered.

Iron Helm player mats

The Game Crafter also separately sells game and player mats to make laying out the game easier and more thematic. I don't think this is essential but I did like using a printed player mat in my printed version.

Gameplay

Start of dungeon exploration after setup

Iron Helm aims to give a dungeon crawler experience with character progression, narrative events, and random encounters in a relatively small package compared to larger dungeon crawl games.

Available player characters in the base game

First you pick one of the four base game characters and start with the skills and trappings assigned to that character, along with tracking the starting health, energy, and rations listed on the character card. Each character plays differently as archetypal fantasy classes with the biggest impact being the main type of skills the character can upgrade with. Though any character can upgrade with any skill, just at a higher cost. This gives a good amount of variation; though some skills seemed more consistently useful compared to others that required rarer events to be useful.

Tracking cards at the beginning of the game

I used the printed tracking cards from BGG instead of using tokens as this felt cleaner and quicker to use. Most actions are going to involve tracking these character attributes, including gold, rations, poison, health, and energy (used to attack).

Two facedown dungeon cards two choose from

Next you start exploring the dungeon which consists of turns encountering the many surprises within the dungeon. At the first step of each turn you play two facedown dungeon cards from the top of the deck.

Flipping the first dungeon card

Then pick one and flip it face up, if you don't like the first card then you can push your luck and pick the other card. But you cannot go back to the first card if you choose to do this and have to take the second effect on the card.

Flipping and selecting the second dungeon card option

Dungeon cards will often have 2 effects, with the activated effect depending on which order the card was picked with the second effect being more impactful regardless of whether it provides a benefit or negative. Avoiding the first card you picked can be disastrous if you flip over a skirmish or poison trap as the second card. This gives great push your luck gameplay, where you might avoid a dangerous encounter to end up in a worse encounter on the other card. Though remembering which cards you have already discarded in the dungeon level can help judge if flipping over the second card is worth it.

The dungeon encounters can be enemies, merchants, campsites and many others with positive or negative impacts. This means you never know what will be behind the card. Certain skills and items can modify some of the encounters nullifying or reducing their negative impacts on you. If you encounter an enemy, then you start combat which must be completed before you can continue exploring the dungeon.

Combat with a two health zombie that has an extra health due to ambush card adding the dungeon level as health

Enemy health scales based upon the dungeon level and whether it is a skirmish or ambush card, this does mean the game gets harder further into the dungeon. Though the damage is consistent which can mean you can take large amounts of damage early on especially with tougher enemies. Combat is dice based with your damage modified by equipment and skills. This leads into my main issue of the combat being too basic with equipment and skills only allowing for re-rolls or modifiers. Offensive potions can be used instead of using energy to attack or you can attack for one damage without spending energy. Thought I didn't find any of these combat options particularly compelling as it mostly felt like trying to trade blows with the enemy as quick as possible with limited strategy. Though as combat is only a part of the gameplay I didn't find it a deal breaker.

Each enemy also has an additional effect such as trading resources to avoid combat or other impacts if the enemy hits you. This gives extra flavour to the encounters and encourages being cautious with resources as they may be useful in other ways. Such as using rations to avoiding fighting wolves or giving gold to avoid fighting an ogre.

These encounter turns continue until you reach the end of the dungeon deck or reach ten plot points on your discarded plot cards. You then shuffle the dungeon deck, increase the dungeon level, lose a ration if available and increase your poison if high enough. This means you need to keep resources available as running out will be dangerous. The dungeon level impacts combat, making it more dangerous as you delve deeper, working great with the dungeon theming. Though you won't see any new content deeper in the dungeon, I do wish more of these small card based dungeon crawlers such as One Deck Dungeon would have additional encounters that only get added after each dungeon level.

Example of a plot card that provides the chance to heal and gamble, while also providing two plot points

After completing the other parts of the dungeon level completion, you then draw a plot card from the plot deck. These plot cards give choices with many possible impacts. Each plot card has a point value, once you have discarded enough plot cards to sum ten or more points you then encounter the boss. The dungeon tracker card is used to track which level of the dungeon you are on. One issue I had as that the plot card values are inconsistent, so bad luck with the cards can make the game drag on. Making your chances of having enough health and energy to combat the boss less likely.

Example of a morality impacting plot card

Some plot cards impact or use the player's morality to give different options or effects. This helps feel like you are actually roleplaying within this world, while being a small additional mechanic. Having high morality generally gives better long term impacts if you draw a plot card that uses your morality level, but choosing a morality lowering option often helps you keep alive. Though I did have many games where I had drawn a plot card that used morality before I had actually had a chance to lower or increase my morality, often making that plot card have little impact.

The morality issues listed are improved upon in the The Howling Abyss Dungeon Deck expansion which replaces the base game dungeon deck with additional complexity and better usage of morality.

Example of a blessing token with a generic blessing side and an extra health on the other

Blessing tokens can be gained during the dungeon and are placed with your player face down so that you do not know what is on the other side. During combat you can discard a blessing token to reroll a single combat roll. But if you keep tokens until you reach the boss, you can flip the tokens over and gain their effects. This can be healing, additional energy or removing poison. I found the healing from these very important, especially if I got unlucky with health potions draws from the potion deck after getting enemy encounter rewards or buying from the merchant.

Stacks of each enemy type I killed during this dungeon

The boss is picked based upon the most common enemy type you fought during the dungeon. Bosses are just enemies with higher stats so combat is played as normal. Knowing which enemies you encountered during the dungeon can help you prepare weapons and items that gain benefits when fighting the expected boss enemy type. Such as potions that deal increased damage to undead enemies.

Lich boss which was triggered due to the most defeated enemy type being undead

I generally found the game quite hard with enemies and bosses able to inflict large amounts of damage in a single hit. With it being easy to run out of energy if you get too aggressive with attacks. So I would often get skills to could avoid skirmishes or risk choosing the second dungeon card as otherwise I would end up with low health by the time I got to the boss, with limited opportunities to heal up.

Lich boss with low health and dealing 9 damage to the player

The example above shows the end of a boss fight in a game I lost. Where the boss only had 2 health left but it made a counterstrike that dealt 9 damage (5 from dice difference added with 4 Lich base damage) which killed me. As there are no campaign/legacy systems without the adventure expansions, if you die nothing is carried over across games. So losing to unexpectedly very high damage right at the end can feel anticlimactic.

Game End

If you kill a boss you can end the game there and score based upon what you achieved, with thematic home flavour text given based on the score boundaries. There are expansions available that you play after completing a dungeon while keeping the same character as before allowing for campaign gameplay. As these are available via Print and Play, I was printing adventure expansions once I completed the game with the previous expansion.

I always like games with clear win/loss game ends, especially when you are building a character within a world. Having an additional score gives extra replayability by making a difference between games that you just managed to scrape a win compared to a win where everything thing went right for you.

Expansions

Iron helm has many small expansions of which I've each reviewed below. I would recommend trying the base game first then slowly building a collection of the expansions if going the printed route, though playing with all expansions at once does cause some bloat in mechanics and things to track.

Loot and Lore

New cards in the Loot and Lore pack

The Loot and Lore pack adds new characters, plot cards, enemies and items. This is combined with a base game to expand its content. I found this really improved the variety as it is always applied to the base game. I would heavily recommend getting this expansion once you have played and enjoyed your first few games of Iron Helm.

Adventure Expansions

Additional adventure expansions are also available to add campaign gameplay. These adventures are brought into the game after completing the base game and previous adventure expansions. Each adventure has a new boss, enemies, character and items. These help give more variety and seemed to have a slightly higher difficulty, though I do wish there was more to the experience between dungeons during a campaign. As you only reset attributes and have the opportunity to buy trappings. I would have liked more events to help build the narrative as you only get a small sentence of flavour text when starting the next dungeon. These expansions works well in print and play as you can just buy and print them after completing a previous dungeon.

Iron Chest Expansion

There is also the Iron Chest expansion which combines multiple features into a larger expansion set. This adds a new adventure pack, affliction and environment mechanics, artifact items and mercenaries. Each expansion can be applied to the game on their own or combined to make a much more complex experience.

The adventure pack is the only level 4 adventure and acts as the final dungeon of the adventure. This is just a slightly more difficult adventure pack with nothing significantly different from the other adventure packs.

Afflictions are gained during the dungeon and apply mostly negative impacts against your character, though they can be removed by using health potions and antidotes. These do make the game harder but add extra flavour and consequences for your actions. I found this an interesting mechanic adding danger to gaining poison on when fighting certain enemies.

Additional mini-boss enemies are added to the plot and enemy decks with benefits such as additional plot points and blessings for defeating them. These do increase difficulty but add additional tension when drawing cards from their decks.

Environments are drawn at the start of each dungeon level and add various changes to the dungeon encounter cards with positive and negative impacts. These help give variety to each dungeon level as the base game doesn't do much to differentiate between each subsequent level in the dungeon outside of higher enemy health. These do make the game slightly harder but you can take advantage of the positive benefits the environment might give, such as extra gold or rations. While thematically the design of these environments can clash with the theming of the adventure pack, I found this a good addition to the game but you do have to pay more attention to how the environment impacts your current action due to the lack of formatting on the environment card for its impacts.

Mercenaries can be hired for a few gold and each have different benefits for bringing them along on your adventure. But each time a mercenary's specific event happens they lose morale, represented by a d6 die placed on the mercenary card. If they reach zero morale the mercenary is discarded, but you can pay one gold to increase their morale by one. So conserving gold can be helpful when bringing them along. This mostly makes the game easier but not significantly as their benefits are often only helpful in certain dungeons and scenarios.

Artifacts are powerful items that can only be gained by discarding blessing tokens you have earned during a dungeon. These can make more complex character builds compared to the base and adventure pack items but the random drawing from the deck does mean you may get an artifact that doesn't work well with your planned build.

Random encounters in between each dungeon level are added by new encounter cards with two for each dungeon difficulty. These encounters can be positive or negative but you will have some idea of what will be ahead unless the encounter uses a dice roll. These help add to the theming and flavour of exploring a dungeon which I felt lacking in the base game.

Overall this expansion is fairly essential when you start wanting additional variety and greater difficulty. This difficulty is mostly fairly done and doesn't feel cheap. My only complaint with this expansion is when printing and playing the random encounter cards are not poker sized like the normal cards so may not fit in your current storage solution. I printed them at 65% scale to fit them in my deck boxes with the rest of the game's cards, they are still legible but do look off compared to the rest of the game's art.

Howling Abyss Dungeon Deck

New cards in the Howling Abyss Dungeon Deck

After initially writing this review the The Howling Abyss Dungeon Deck expansion became available for print and play. This expansion adds a new 18 card deck as an alternative to the base game's dungeon deck. This deck mostly contains the same ideas and encounters from that original deck but with additional complexity and impacts, which I felt were different enough to be interesting. Greater use of dice rolls and additional choices on the cards enhanced the push your luck as cards with negative impacts can have the chance to be even more dangerous. Some negative cards also have small positive impacts such as discarding rations but also gaining a potion. This means there are fewer moments where a playthrough can feel over due to a single dungeon card. The art on these cards are also more complex than the base game's art while keeping the original theme.

My favourite addition in this expansion are the new dungeon cards with completely new mechanics, these are mostly focused on the use of the character's morality. This gives the morality system a much needed improvement as it has limited use in the base game outside of scoring and a few specific cards. Having low morality when using this deck is now much more risky due to the Archangel card which makes you gain or lose health depending on morality.

I recommend this expansion once you've gotten too used to base game's dungeon deck, though I do wish most of the card changes would be applied to the original deck in a new edition of the base game.

Conclusion

Fishing Lessons Review

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 12:12:03 GMT

I reviewed the print and play version from PNP Arcade for $3 (I got it on sale for only $2).

Initially I wasn't sure about Fishing Lessons as I find games with programming mechanics a bit artificial with a painted on theme. But this one pleasantly surprised me and has become a go to game when I want a more complex yet small puzzle to solve.

Official Description

It’s been a year since Leland Williams passed on. A year later, his family remembers his humor, warmth and – especially – his love of fishing. You play a member of his family going out on a solo fishing trip. With a specific sporting goal in mind, you’ll recall lessons and memories from Leland. If you piece together the lessons in just the right order, you’ll have a great day on the lake!

Components

Fishing Lessons consists of 18 cards like other Button Shy Games, with the physical edition coming in a wallet. Three cards are double sided character cards, with each character having a backstory and a unique gameplay goal. Seven cards are fish cards with one side having identical lake art and the other side having a unique combination of two fish. Each fish has a name and a coloured letter which is used in the character goals. The final eight cards are lesson cards that each describe two actions you character must take during the activation step if played.

Double sided character cards with their goals at the bottom

The art for the fish, characters and lake look great, but I felt that the font and goal letters looked out of place compared to the art style used elsewhere. Additionally the use of white boxes on the character cards seemed out of place and unfinished when in contrast to other Button Shy Games.

Gameplay

Starting setup with the character in the middle of the lake

Fishing lessons is game about programming actions in a certain order over multiple turns to achieve the goal on your chosen character card. Though when you can check that you have achieved your goal depends on the difficulty you have chosen before starting the game. Your character goal either requires a certain number of fish symbols to be on the face up cards or a certain number of faceup fish cards within the lake. This lake consists of 7 lake cards that your character moves left and right over with no movement beyond the left and right lake cards.

First lesson card played with two actions to be completed from top to bottom

At the start of the game you shuffle the lesson deck and draw three cards as your starting deck. Then you play a lesson card from your deck into the lesson row below the lake cards, these will be the actions completed by your character during the fishing step. The lesson card can be placed next to or replacing an existing lesson card, if replaced then the old card is discard out of the game. This makes it possible to remove cards that might have been useful early on to find the correct fish but that became a hindrance later on.

End of actions after flipping the adjacent cards and moving one card to the right

The fishing step involves activating the lesson cards from left to right until all are activated. These cards each have 2 actions with the top action activated first, some actions may give you a choice on the number of spaces your character can move or which fishing action can be completed. Fishing actions will flip faceup or facedown lake cards depending on where the action specifies. Because these lessons will be brought across each turn you have to plan into the future as bad decisions can have a long lasting impact. Building these movement and fishing combos is very satisfying, especially early on where you still have some turns of leeway available and are still trying to which cards have the fish you want.

After another turn with a new lesson card added to the lesson row

After completing all actions the next turn begins and you draw a new lesson card into your hand, with the turn continuing as before. The game ends when you either complete your goal according to the difficulty mode goal checking timing and your character goal or when the lesson deck is empty and you have completed the current turn.

Later in the game with lesson cards replaced as the newer cards made it easier to attain the goal

I found the easy mode way too easy but good for the first game as a way to teach the mechanics. Medium felt more satisfying and seemed like the mode that best fit the theme of using the lessons to fish. While hard requires you to go through all turns until the lesson deck is empty. While this does prevent luck from making it easy to win on an early turn. I didn't enjoy having to keep going through turns, even though from a thematic perspective I have found and caught the fish.

Difficulty and challenge modifiers

The two difficulty modifiers can be used on any difficulty and both add restrictions. Night fishing limits the number of lesson cards that can be replaced to two. I liked this modifier as keeping the active lesson cards down to only two was a strategy I used a lot without this modifier. So it forced me to engage more with programming my turns better.

The Boat Ramp modifier was different to play with at first but is clever for combining the theme and mechanics well. This modifier makes the character card start at the leftmost lake card which acts as the side you must enter and exit the lake from. Then you must also finish at the goal while at the leftmost lake card. I found this much harder as you are often forced to make fishing actions while returning to the left so programming lessons requires even more thought.

These modifiers are great for adding more variety and complexity as you get better at the game. After a few games I found that playing on medium with Night Fishing and sometimes Boat ramp was the most fun for me. As I'm not always in the mood for a brain burning game when playing smaller games.

Expansions

At time of review only two expansions are currently available, Fabled Fish and Family Friends. Though more expansions are coming. I've yet to play these expansions, but I will update this review when I try them.

The Fabled Fish expansion adds four cards each with legendary fish that are added into the lake. One of these cards is added to the lake in each game, when revealed that fish has a special ability that is triggered.

The Family Friends expansion adds three new cards, with two being lessons cards that randomly replace lesson cards from the base game. With the third card being a double sided character card with new goals.

Conclusion

My Top Solo Ranking of Board Games

Sat, 27 May 2023 12:00:00 GMT

This is my top solo ranking of all board games along with a ranking of print and play games I have played as of 24th January 2024

This list includes games that have solo modes or require expansions to have a solo mode. But does not consider the multiplayer modes in any way. This list also mixes games regardless of size and complexity.

Top 20 Solo Games

Unsurmountable
Palm Island
Mindburners: Into The Void
Death Valley
ROVE: Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer
Maquis
Under Falling Skies
Galdor's Grip
Cartographers Heroes
Agropolis
Sprawlopolis
Naturopolis
Iron Helm
Dune Imperium
Star Wars: Outer Rim (Requires Unfinished Business expansion to be great solo)
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
Imperium: Legends + Classics
Spirit Island
Marvel Champions LCG
Arkham Horror LCG

Top 20 Print and Play Solo Games

At The Helm
Ragemore
SpaceShipped
Palm Island
Ugly Gryphon Inn
Skulls of Sedlec Requires expansion
Unsurmountable
The Royal Limited
Food Chain Island
Fishing Lessons
Mindburners: Into The Void
Doom Machine
Death Valley
ROVE: Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer
Maquis
Galdor's Grip
Agropolis
Sprawlopolis
Naturopolis
Iron Helm

My Review Methodology

Fri, 12 May 2023 19:00:00 GMT

While I use a an x out of 10 review system on BoardGameGeek, here I instead classify games as: Highly Recommended, Recommended, Pick up on Sale, Do Not Recommend. I also print and play games so for games that I have printed I will not review the quality of the components other than the art.

Highly Recommended: These are games I would recommend to nearly everyone regardless of price. Closest number rating would be 8-10/10.
Recommended: These are games I would recommend buying once you are satisfied with the highly recommended games. This may include games that I think are good but slightly overpriced. Closest number rating would be 7-8/10.
Pick up on Sale: These are games I would recommend picking up only on sale as they can be good experiences, but don't offer as good value or fun as recommended or highly recommended games. Closest number rating would be 6-7/10.
Do Not Recommend: These are games I would not recommend regardless of price, due to unfun or broken gameplay. Closest number rating would be 0-6/10.

My Solo Ranking of Button Shy Games

Tue, 09 May 2023 19:00:00 GMT

This is my solo ranking of Button Shy Games I have played as of January 24th 2024

This list includes any expansions for the game whether solo only or not as listing expansions would be too confusing. This includes solo only and solo mode games and does not consider the multiplayer modes in any way.

Tussie Mussie Requires expansion
Wildtails: A Pirate Legacy
Super Slopes
At The Helm
Ragemore
SpaceShipped
Fishing Lessons
Skulls of Sedlec Requires expansion
Ugly Gryphon Inn
Unsurmountable
The Royal Limited
Food Chain Island
Death Valley
ROVE: Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer
Agropolis
Sprawlopolis
Naturopolis

When to Buy New Games?

Sun, 07 May 2023 22:12:03 GMT

As someone new to the hobby I've found it difficult to decide when to buy new games. There are so many recommendations and "essential" games it can be very easy to quickly overbuy. Many people use monthly board game budgets but that results in the urge that you need to buy new games each month rather than actually limiting.

Personally I've tried to use satisfaction in my games to decide when it's ok to buy new games where I wait until I've got satisfaction equal to the game's value on over 75% of my games. This is probably around 15 to 20 plays of a £40-50 game where plays can take an hour or two. Though I have a different slightly different approach to print and play games due to the low costs, but I still try to play my previous printed games a few times before printing new games to experience as much as possible.

Living card games can complicate things as Arkham Horror The Card Game has expensive expansions with each one adding a replayable 10 to 15 hour campaign depending on the number of players. You will want to buy each campaign and hero expansion to keep exploring the theme and world but you will only get good value if you replay the campaigns. Because of this I plan to rotate my Arkham Horror campaigns so that I do get additional campaigns but replay older ones in the order I first played them in. Marvel Champions on the other hand has much cheaper expansions and a cheap £5-10 hero pack can add hours upon hours of content due to how you can configure all the game's modules.

Based upon my current experience I think having a board game purchase limit per month is ok as long as you avoid using that as a requirement to keep buying. Along with only buying games you know you will like without being too swayed by other's recommendations.

Sprawlopolis + Expansions Review (Solo Mode)

Mon, 01 May 2023 22:12:03 GMT

I reviewed the Quined Games version that I bought from Zatu Games. I then printed out the expansions from PNPArcade. This review primarily covers the solo mode as it's the recommended and most popular way to play according to the BoardGameGeek community.

Sprawlopolis is the first of the 'opolis' series and just from a few games you will quickly see how it became so popular. Simple mechanics with a ridiculous amount of choices to make results in a satisfying map builder.

Official Description

In Sprawlopolis, 1-4 players work together to build a new city from the ground up. Using only 18 cards and a variable scoring system, the game is never the same twice. Each turn, players will play 1 card from their hand to the growing city, trying to score as many points as possible.

Components

Sprawlopolis like other Button Shy Games, consists of 18 cards. With one side showing a set of four city blocks representing each of the four block types. Along with one or two roads that enter and exit the card on different sides. The other side has a unique scoring condition that is only active when draw as a scoring card at the start of the game. It also comes with scoring pad to help with scoring, though this isn't required.

Empty scoring pad with sections to help calculate the score

Gameplay

In the solo mode you shuffle the deck of cards and draw the top three to act as scoring cards. You use the scoring sides of these cards as your main scoring objective during gameplay. The scoring side includes the target score which get summed up across all active scoring cards to become your target score which if equalled or beaten by your own score then you win. These scoring conditions can sometimes work together well and make it easier or encourage opposite gameplay styles making it harder.

Three randomly selected score cards

Next you draw three cards from the deck to become your starter hand. This starts the main gameplay where you play a card from your hand and then draw a new card until all cards have been played. When you play a card it must be placed with an adjacent edge or partially/completely covering an played card (outside of the first turn). This means you slowly build up a city with a layout you choose based upon the randomness of the deck order and the scoring cards you drew. This is very simple to learn while feeling satisfying and giving a huge amount of possible options during gameplay. When you play cards you can also rotate them 180 degrees giving additional options especially when trying to connect roads or building larger groups.

Finished game with all cards used

Once all cards have been played you start scoring. This involves adding together the number of blocks within your largest group for each group type. Then you minus a score for each separate road, this encourages building a city that makes more thematic real sense with large connected roads and different sections of your city. Next you calculate your score for each active scoring card, this can involve getting adding or minusing points for certain block and road placements.

Once all of your scores have been summed you get your final score. This is then compared to the target score (sum of all active scoring card targets). This gives you a win/loss goal with additional aim of beating your personal best if you happen to have the same scoring cards as a previous game. The scoring makes it easy to see where you made bad decisions and try again with a new strategy. I've found the fascinating strategy wise as many players will approach the same scoring conditions in a completely different way, this is evident if you take part in the solo challenges mentioned further down.

Beaches Expansion

Beaches expansion cards

Beaches adds four cards that restrict the area you can build in by creating a horizontal or vertical limit that you cannot build past. This happens during the game by being placed immediately when draw from the deck, this can often ruin your plans and force you to adapt. But offsets this difficulty increase with an additional scoring card also pulled from the beaches cards that focuses on giving you points by achieving certain goals on blocks near the beaches. This is my favourite expansion as it works great thematically and mechanically.

Construction Zones Expansion

Construction Zones expansion cards

Construction Zones adds four cards that get played during gameplay when they get drawn into your hand. Each card contains a block with construction on, if this block is not covered by the end of the game you additional lose points. Like beaches you also offset this difficulty increase with a scoring card from this expansion. This didn't quite hit the same as Beaches as it felt more annoying than fun, along with not being visible at the end of the game if you covered all construction zones. While after the beaches expansion you can see how the restrictions forced you to adapt.

Point of Interest Expansion

Point of Interest expansion cards

Points of Interest adds a single card that you place first before starting gameplay. Both sides of the card has city blocks so you can choose which blocks would work best with your scoring conditions. The yellow bordered blocks are points of interest that will gain you a point per adjacent block of the same time. This encourages building a central group of the same block type. The expansion adds extra points making the game easier without additional complexity, but I still like sometimes using it because I feel that the game lacks the thematics of special buildings within the city.

Wrecktar Expansion

Wrecktar expansion cards

Wrecktar adds difficulty by including a single card that gets played when it gets added to the hand. This card covers the last card that was played and then reduces the final score if any commercial blocks are in the same row and column. If you avoid doing that you get 3 extra points. While having a Godzilla like creature attacking your city is a great idea, I felt that the mechanics were lacking. Instead I would have preferred additional cards with military blocks that must be placed in the same row and column to take Wrecktar down.

Interstate Expansion

Interstate expansion cards

Interstate is the most unique expansion, but works best in multiplayer where you can play versus another player building your own city on your side of the interstate. The interstate is built horizontally with four new cards between both players and includes roads that turn off onto your city. Each interstate card also includes half city blocks at opposite sides these cannot be covered but otherwise act as normal city blocks for scoring.

The issue in the solo mode is that you alternate between building each side of the city. Which I just didn't find fun as splitting up the playable cards limits the size and possible layouts of each side. This expansion does appear to be aimed at multiplayer though, while the others are more player count agnostic.

Other Expansions

I've yet to try the Roadworks expansions, but will update this review once I've done so. The combo expansions are also available to combine Sprawlopolis with Agropolis and Naturopolis. These give a huge amount of additional variety ontop of an already replayable game with from my experience a slightly harder experience.

Solo Challenges

The Button Shy Games' Discord runs regular solo challenges for many of their games. With the 'opolis series have their most active challenges. These require completing a game with specific scoring cards, often with the more complex and difficult challenges.

I've found these fun, though often difficult to play as the challenges mostly focus on the harder scoring card combinations. Each week has a new challenge from any 'opolis game or expansion though, so it is mainly aimed at those with larger 'opolis collections.

Conclusion

Galdor's Grip

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 22:12:03 GMT

Only available as print and play. But was easy to print and has crosshair markers. Any misalignment is the fault of my lazy duplex print and play method.

Official Description

Galdor's Grip is a solo fantasy card game played entirely in your hands. Cycle through the deck, utilizing player actions and card abilities to strategically manipulate the order and orientation of the cards. Complete scoring objectives to earn enough points (stars) required to win the game, while avoiding any situations that result in a loss.

Components

Base game has 18 cards with each expansion adding 6 additional cards. You combine the base and expansion cards to assemble a new deck for each game. The cards are extremely well produced for a free print and play game with fantastic art and iconography. As this is an in-hand game you need to choose the right sleeves or print and play method to make the cards easy to manipulate.

Each card has a name and art representing the obstacle or location.

// TODO Value showing the number of cards that will be moved from the top to the bottom of the deck Some cards can be flipped to get different effects or values

Gameplay

All cards are face down at the start. Then you flip over the top card and resolve any effects.

ROTATE CAN CHOOSE TO MOVE VALUE OF TOP OR NEXT CARD IF FACEUP

Next you move the specified number of cards to the bottom of the deck based upon the value of the top card. You can move the top card anywhere within the segment of cards being moved which is the main choice you need to make to win. Bad card orders can mean you miss flipping over face down cards or visiting negative cards. Being able to view the face up cards in the deck makes it easy to plan ahead.

The aim is to get 9 stars by the end of the game, these stars are earnt by having face up cards with stars on the top side. Cards with stars often require achieving certain orders of cards within the deck.

You also have to avoid repeatedly have the figment of feragot cards at the top of the deck. If this happens to the same of these cards three times then you automatically lose. Though flipping over these cards twice can earn a star so you can push your luck. I often found it quite hard to get nine stars with my average being 5 or 6.

Expansions

Galdor's Grip has three expansions each containing 6 cards that can replace cards from the base game. This gives great replayability due to amount of possible card combinations. These expansions aren't required though, so I recommend printing out the base game first

Conclusion

Death Valley + Expansion Review (Solo Mode)

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 22:12:03 GMT

I reviewed the print and play version from PNP Arcade for $3.

While Death Valley doesn't have much of a connection to me over in the UK and some of the references to locations are unknown to me, the game still manages to ooze style and backs it up with a fantastic tableau builder.

Official Description

Death Valley is a pocket-sized, push-your-luck, tableau-building game for 1-2 players, with each traveler striving to assemble the best mix of cards in their journey and scrapbook in order to win the game. Designed by Kevin Ellenburg.

Components

Death valley like other Button Shy Games, consists of 18 cards though Death Valley only has one side with gameplay content. Each card has great art based on the real life aspect of Death Valley it represents along with the card name, number of stars (points), tableau ability, card type, and details on the real aspect of the card. The iconography is easy to identify and fits well into the rest of the graphic design and art.

Example of a card that belongs to the water suit with one scoring star

With the physical version it comes with a wallet to store the cards, while for my print and play version I assembled a tuckbox from BoardGameGeek.

Gameplay

Death valley comes with 2 multiplayer modes and a solo mode that is the focus of this review. The bot in the solo mode is easy to use and helps give the game a very consistent play length making it a great choice during work breaks.

Death Valley middle way through a match against the solo bot, with the bot's card above followed by the player's journey and scrapbook rows below

The game starts by shuffling the draw deck and playing the top card as a faceup desert card. In each turn you can choose between playing the top facedown card from the deck or the faceup desert card into your journey. Your journey contains cards you can score stars from but you have to be careful to avoid busting by having 3 cards of the same type. As busting causes you to clear your journey of cards and discard the busting card into your discard pile, lowering your potential score and potentially ruining your planned tableau combos.

The other option is to rest by moving a card from your journey into your scrapbook to keep it safe as they cannot be lost due to busting with the downside of scrapbook cards not scoring for stars. This gives great push your luck where busting can cause huge consequences. You can also hide journey cards when resting which plays into certain combos while allowing you to avoid busting by hiding cards with duplicated types. Though I did find this mechanic to be underutilised with limited scoring impact using card effects or only occasionally useful for busting.

Example of a hidden card below the Eureka Dunes card

The bot has a few possible actions with simple criteria for which one it completes, making it very easy to use. The bot will attempt to bust you, so you need to keep track of the bot's journey cards to know how many of each card type it has. This allows to work out how many cards of each type would still be available in the deck. I found this works quite well as it's just smart enough to be engaging without being complicated to handle.

The series of player and bot turns continues until only one card is faceup in the desert. This triggers the end of the game and scoring begins. The bot doesn't use the tableau mechanics of its card due to the potential placement issues that it wouldn't be able to achieve. Instead it gets points per star and the positive effect points listed in the tableau mechanics on each of the bot's cards. This is a problem I always have with these types of bots as it feels like a mechanic is being wasted though I understand it's a fundamental problem with adding bots onto multiplayer game mechanics.

The player scores by adding up the stars from their journey but not from their scrapbook, then calculates the scores from their tableau mechanics to get the final score. It also comes with two additional harder difficulty modifiers for the bot that utilise busting. I did find the bot scoring inconsistent as it can draw cards that have many stars or effect points without the negative impacts that the player would have to deal with if they had played that card in their journey.

Example of the end of game state, the bot's cards are on multiple rows to make the photo easier. The bot won due to player busts from the sun suit reducing cards in the journey row

Panamint City Expansion

Cards within the Panamint City expansion

Panamint City is sadly the only expansion for Death Valley, it includes 6 new cards across the card types in the base game. When using the expansion you switch out any number of base game cards with the expansion cards, this gives greater replayability than the base game as tableau combos are harder to predict. Some of these cards also work well with the scrapbook hiding mechanic which felt underutilised in the base game. I would recommend this expansion if you are still enjoying the base game after 10+ plays, as I enjoy randomly switching the expansion cards in and seeing how it impacts what tableau combos I aim for.

Solo Challenges

The Button Shy Games' Discord runs occasional solo challenges for Death Valley. With these challenges applying custom modifiers to how you play or complete the game giving additional difficulty. I've played a few of these challenges and found them a great way to experience the game differently.

Conclusion

Ragemore Review

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 22:12:03 GMT

I reviewed the print and play version from PNP Arcade for $3.

Official Description

Ragemore is an 18 card solo game where you will complete quests, while managing your hand and resources as you delve though the dark, fighting demons, all in a span of 10-15 minutes.

SpaceShipped Review

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 22:12:03 GMT

I reviewed the print and play version from PNP Arcade for $3.

Official Description

A solo space trading game of buying and selling resources, upgrading your ship, crew, and equipment, dealing with pirates, and making deals. A card game with over 30 random events, 4 types of ship, 4 sets of crew members, and 8 different pieces of equipment to install, all using only 18 cards packed neatly in a little wallet.

Components

SpaceShipped consists of 18 cards with 16 being multi-use and the other two being tracking cards. Each of the multi use cards has content on both sides. One side having the orbital encounter, planetside encounter and marketplace with the other side having an upgrade and resource. These are some of the most content rich cards I've seen in a Button Shy Game.

Gameplay

The aim of SpaceShipped is to buy two xeno crystals before your opponent takes them. This time limit encourages risky choices that balance between making enough credits and surviving into the next turn. To buy a xeno crystal you need 20 credits obtained by buying and selling resources without reaching 0 health which causes you to lose.

Encounter and marketplace row

Each turn consists of activating the effects of the current encounter cards going diagonally from the top left of the left card down to the bottom right of the right card. First you activate the orbital encounter of the left card which can be positive or negative, though you have no way to prepare for this encounter which you will see is a big negative for my enjoyment of the game. Next you have the planetside encounter of the middle card which acts the same as the orbital encounter. Though you have a turn to prepare as the encounter cards are shifted to the right after each card. With the right card being moved into the upgrade row and the rightmost resource card being flipped and added as the left card of the encounters. Being able to prepare for the planetside encounter is important as you often need to prepare shields or buy certain resources to avoid damage.

Next you can buy and sell from the marketplace and upgrade row. The right card in the encounter is the marketplace, this gives two turns to see what prices you can get in the future for buying and selling.

Upgrade row with a ship, crew and upgrade

The upgrades row will have an assortment of ships, crew and ship upgrades. Expensive ships will have more inventory slots which are important later as you need space to contain any resources and xeno crystals you have. This row also shifts to the right each turn with the rightmost card becoming the next resource card. This gives multiple turns to prepare to buy upgrades. Upgrades become very important in avoiding negative encounters and maximising profits.

The resource row has a wide assortment of resources available so you normally have opportunities to buy low and sell high, with the occasional turn where you don't have any profitable choices. Those turns are often a good opportunity to buy upgrades.

All of these mechanics come together well in giving a space merchant experience where you are hopping planet to planet buying and selling resources. The issues though comes from the randomness of each mechanic that when combined can ruin a game instantly. For example I had a turn with a 3 damage orbital encounter that I couldn't prepare for, followed by a 2 damage planetside encounter that could have only be mitigated if I had a resource that hadn't been available to buy at a decent price recently. Because you can only have a max of 3 health and 2 shields this means that one turn of bad luck can instantly end the game. The other effect of this means you can get really good combinations of turns with a profitable marketplace but it this ends up being unsatisfying as it is rarely due to any good choices you made.

Expansions

I've yet to try any of the four expansions but they each add new cards that replace cards from the base game. Adding more variety and difficulty.

Solo Challenges

The Button Shy Games' Discord runs occasional solo challenges for SpaceShipped. With these challenges applying custom modifiers to how you play or complete the game giving additional difficulty.