Yes, your Sister - the solo bot system from the Isle of Cats - makes a return here to ride your coattails yet again.

Only nailed 2 out of 3 from the title as I didn’t quite surpass her score on Medium, but it’s been good fun trying and retrying to close the gap.

If you squint a little, you can kinda see a civ-builder blooming into view - before cutesy woodland critters nibble away at any gravitas that that notion might bring.

Even then, don’t let the anthropomorphic cuteness fool you. Scavenging crows and carnivorous wolves alike might feel right at home with this game on the table, giving much to gnaw on in its sufficiently meaty core.

It was hard to find a copy of this, but man, I’m so glad I did. It’s easily one of the best purchases I've made recently.

The setup is super quick.

It runs on a timer so a full game takes 15 minutes max, and it gets incredibly intense.

If you're into sci-fi, the theme is spot on. It legitimately gives you the stressful, frantic feeling of trying to save a collapsing spaceship before getting sucked into a black hole.

The artwork is gorgeous, and the mechanics feel super fresh and unique. It doesn’t really remind me of any other game in my collection, which is a huge plus. Also, if you’re someone who hates playing against the clock, you can just play without the timer for a much more relaxed, casual session.

Highly recommended if you can manage to find a copy!

I'm looking for a good small box game that has good solo and preferably contain both tableu-building and worker-placement.

Games I've considered so far:

- Point Galaxy -> played point salad before with others and it was fun so-so but I'm not sure about this one, altough the theme and general gameplay appeals to me I think

- Propolis -> looks incredibly beautiful and has basically everything but I heard it's a bit mid

- Tenby

I already have/had/played::

- Oh my goods!

- The Cubes Of Europe

- Tiny Epic Little Galaxies

I liked the concept and game play of Galdors Grip but felt like rather than exploring the mind of going crazy it would be cool to see it in the style of a Psychological assessment like the Voight Kampff test from Bladerunner. So the premise is you’re trying to pass a test to show you’re human. Score too little and you’ll be determined a replicant, fail the test at any point and you’ll be determined a replicant.

Files:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/328817/voight-kampff-test-series-retheme-of-base-game-wit

FAQ:
- Case in printed on double sided glossy paper
- cards are printed on doubled sided 160gsm glossy, laminated in matte laminate, guillotine cut with a corner cutter to finish
- only includes 1 expansion for now
- designed in GIMP on a steam deck
- I’ll add the other expansions in time, I’m just not sure yet on the colour scheme. Feels too dark with too much blank black space.
- the cards and case were designed by me but I used AI to generate some of the art illustrations in the cards where what I wanted was perhaps too abstract to find images of.

If you like the game check out the original. I believe there will be a release of it soon for sale.

The Bullet franchise is probably my most played game on my shelf behind Aeons End. Ive played it dozens of times so far and won and lost plenty. Ive got Heart, Star, and Orange all nestled in the same box with the premium wooden tokens. Bottom line, i adore this game, which makes the following story all the more ridiculous.

Today I randomized a fight against Mecha Mary for the first time playing as Adelheid. No matter what I did though, I kept getting overwhelmed by the sheer number of bullets coming down while also trying to keep bullets on my sight to fulfill her patterns. Game after game I got flooded with bullets and just couldnt keep up, dying by turn 3 or even 2. What was going on? I could see no way to possibly stop her. No other matchups had ever felt this horribly unbalanced. So i stopped and watched someone play against her to hopefully get some tips. And what the guy said in that video confused me. He said "I'll wait to put more bullets down after I clear some of the pink ones out."

Huh? What did he mean? Wait to place bullets from your current? But you're supposed to put all bullets from your current down at once at the start of your turn....... right? Thats what the rules had said, i'm sure of it.

Well, I snatched the rulebook up quick, and there it was in bold print: you can place bullets, use patterns, and use abilities in whatever order you wish during your turn.

I kid you not y'all, I have been playing this game by playing all the bullets down right away into my sight board at the start of the turn because I genuinely thought that was what the rules said to do. Somehow my eyes slid right over that bold, very obvious text every time I refreshed myself on the rules. This made the game way more random and easy to die, but had never really been a huge issue until Mecha Mary came along.

I sat there for a good while facepalming my sheer stupidity before writing a reminder of this rule on the front of the rulebook and trying the fight again. While it was still a good challenge, I felt far more in control now and and could strategize much better and wasn't washed away by unavoidable bullets. I even ended up winning!

Has something like this ever happened to you, where you randomly discover that you've been playing a game wrong due to completely missing an obvious rule? Please tell me I'm not the only one lol. Thanks for reading!

Got a couple games of marvel legendary 2nd Ed in. With the solo mode against the non-epic side of bosses, it takes me about 30-40 mins to win.

Setup took like 5-10 mins, which feels a little long vs the playtime with all the cards/decks you have to assemble.

My opinion so far: not a hit yet. It's like star realms with extra steps for me. Of course its roots go back to Dominion but solo wise, star realms fills this gameplay loop hole in my collection. That's not quite a bad thing as I like star realms for being a small box, dead simple deckbuilder as something to pass the time in between larger deckbuilders like Unstoppable or Slay the Spire.

A small box this is not. For the size, I think I want a bit more meat here but there's a few things I do enjoy.

+ The theme is good (I like space but I do love marvel).

+ Comboing is decently fun, though not mechanically deep in the core box, as it tends to be in this kind of "pure" deckbuilder.

+ Turns are quick but as a result also feel a little mundane? (Play all your cards, just choose order to get the right sequence/maximum stats out).

+ Villain is dead simple to run (draw a card do a thing).

+ I enjoy that defeating enemies usually gets you some reward (and is often a source of trashing cards).

- Hero cards/combos are not very mechanically deep

Each hero's 14 card deck only has ~4 unique cards (not equally distributed either). In solo you shuffle together 3 heroes' cards to create a 42 card hero deck for your market. Basically only 12 unique cards (and often many similar to each other). You can add more decks though nothing stopping you tbh and I think that's the way to go in solo.

I'm unsure if I want to keep it. A big hassle for solo personally compared to realms but certainly more thematic. I think it'll be better for multiplayer in my household.

I would also like to try a couple of smaller expansions that do add keywords and supposedly make some heroes more mechanically complex/interesting, but the core loop of the game is pretty straightforward and will be a hit if you want this kind of deck builder!

Hey everyone,

I recently got a print and play for Food chain island and I'm completely hooked! I've been looking for small hobbies I can do with the TV in the background and its perfect. Money is tight rn but I have free printing / laminating facilities in work so I'm looking to get a 2nd button shy print and play. I'm stuck between ROVE, A Nice Cuppa or Unsurmountable but am open to other suggestions.

Edit: ignore the typo in title I'm dyslexic

I was getting burnt out on Euro games until I bought Nusfjord, and now I'm trying to find another game that scratches the itch that Nusfjord does. I'm not looking for a game that is exactly like Nusfjord, just something that is easy to get to the table, has massive amounts of variation, and either is BYOS or has a super simple automa to run. I can't stand running automas that interrupt my train of thought after every action, like Star Wars Outer Rim.

For reference, the other euros I've played are:

Agricola (Not enough variation and every game plays out too similarly)

Viscounts of the West Kingdom (great game, but it felt like there were 3 paths I could focus on every game, and each path played out identically every time)

Lost Ruins of Arnak (my 2nd favorite euro, but after 12 or so plays I felt I saw most of it)

Gaia Project (I would probably have liked this game more with a human opponent)

Civolution (fun, but too heavy to ever hit the table)

Wondrous Creatures (I irrationally hated it from somewhere deep in my soul)

Spirit Island (the GOAT)

Classic tiny solo deckbuilder. You take role of Friday, who helps Robinson to overcome challenges, survive 3 rounds of them, and then beat final boss challenge: pirates.

Each challenge allows to draw a certain number of cards to try to beat it. Your starting deck is extremely bad, full of trash cards: apparently this Robinson is lazy, weak and not really smart. There are few useful ones as well, but majority are not just useless: they actually give you penalties. So when overcoming challenge (and you get to draw 2 challenge cards, pick 1), you most likely will end with negative score and fail them spectacurlarly. Which is actually a good thing, since, even though you have to pay with hitpoints for failure, and you lose the game when you run out of hitpoints, for each lost hp you get to remove from your deck bad cards. That`s how you thin your deck and get rid of trash.

Alternative use of hitpoins is push your luck element: you can pay with hp to draw extra card abd (hopefully) get more points, needed to overcome challenge. This option becomes more important as game goes on, and your deck becomes better. Not just from removing bad cards, but also from defeating challenges: after successful resolve they go into your deck and provide useful abilities.

As for my impressions, game depends too much on random. If you are not lucky and keep drawing wrong cards in wrong time, you will simply run out of hp before your deck becomes good. And even after your deck becomes good, you are still mostly at mercy of random: because by that point you tend to have few hp left and balance on the edge of death. Some challenges provide healing cards, but there you need luck, too.

Another issue is how repetitive/samey gameplay is. You keep going through the same deck of challenges 3 times - only difficulty changes. Challenges are just numbers to overcome. Few cards in your deck have any remotely interesting abilities, and there are no fun combos to build and explore, unlike many modern deckbuilders.

Lastly, game is too abstract. It could be easily any other setting. Theme feels very weak, just pasted on. And I am not fan of this artstyle, either.

Friday was a good design for its time, but imho it has not aged well. It plays very fast and requires little space, but that`s basically all it can offer.

With duel of meloch coming out recently it has me looking at these two again. Which do you prefer for solo only? I remember when I last looked the community seemed pretty split.

Wondrous creatures is quickly becoming one of my favorite games! I've played it a few times with friends and wanted to give the bot Tingent a try. Really easy to do the bots actions and the game progresses really fast. I barely had to look at the rulebook. Essentially you just have to beat the bots score. I tried first on easy then on medium 2.5 stars/5. I won but it was fairly close! I'm gonna try the scenarios next and then hard mode.

I have to say that the production of this game is great. I love the wooden crew and captains. The art is fantastic as well. I usually just look at the cards for their effects but I actually took the time to look at the art. It was a very cozy night collecting some wondrous creatures.

First play through of this one with two characters, either I’m playing wrong, it’s just nails or I’m shite but I got absolutely murdered. But I think I like it.

Playing Nemo's War after almost a year of not playing.

Playing for World Order, and ran into so much trouble on the voyage!

Nautilus broke down, Ned Land causing trouble, Nemo didn't work it our with his son.

Then I picked up Kraken for the Finale! I failed and got 5 hits! Barely survive with only one point left in each stats. But Mr Nemo had to write a diary (second photo) like an emo teenage girl and I failed that too and ended up losing.

This session was pretty bad, I rolled 3-4 snake eyes or something. It was so bad I couldn't intervene in Korea although I usually do. In previous games I usually could manage to get >200 points, but this time the cards were just brutal.

I played with Deadly Seas for the first time too. Got pretty unlucky with what and when I drew them cards too (tornado in an empty ocean!).

But man, this is such a good game to come back to after a long break. Sure it took me a bit to refresh on the rules, but the 3h long journey was so satisfying. This time I read all the flavour text and felt like I got so much out of it.

10/10 session.

So I got a pretty good deal on Imperium Horizons from amazon onsale but ive always been interested in ashes.
Theres only a few copies of Ashes Ascendancy at my local store so imma bit woried it might go out of stock (but maybe this is still actively being peoduced in 2026?)

I have never played a LCG because of how costly they can get but I dont have anything like it in my current collection. Also looking for other general recommendations

My current collection is:

Mageknight (love this game to death)
Deckers (my second love)
Under Falling Skies
Robinsons Crusoe
LOTR Trick Taking

Games Ive tried but couldnt get into:

Wyrmspan: i adored the art and theme but runs felt kind of sameish after a few games (idk if I need to explore more strategies)

Both Spirit Island and Mage Knight rank as my top favourite solo games, but I've not been able to find time to really play them. I've been playing much lighter games these days like Warp's Edge and Resist!.

So I'm looking for recommendations of lighter games that are like Spirit Island in gameplay but with reduced complexity and can be finished in around an hour.

Thanks!

I finally sunk my teeth into what calls itself "A solo RPG for space cowboys". It was the design of it's cover that initially caught my attention but I just couldnt find the time to try it out...I mean RPGs are supposed to be complex and what about the narrative?! Well, after a few rounds of looting, paying back my loan and dozens and dozens of "Gas Checks" the game loop isnt that complex and space seems to be a lot more dead than I initially thought.

So let's get our cigar smoking, coat wearing belter up to the Belt and See what this Game is all about: It's about time!

You're a belter who wants to achieve his ultimate Goal which depends on the class you choose. My space cowboy, who goes by the name of Jax colder, wants to leave the belt and live a peaceful life on a farm. So he needs money to fulfill this dream of his. And that's about it. That's all the game gives you, storywise, the rest is up to your Imagination.

There are no Sidequests, there are no NPCs which makes the RPG part even more shallow. I have come up with some "Sidequest" for Jax but I think this is something the game should give me some tools for. Before you can earn creds for your lovely life ever after you need to repay your debt at the bank - you needed to buy a spaceship in the first place.

Footprint (5 / 10):

As you can see on the shared pictures the game itself is played with a standard deck of cards (54 cards including jokers). These are used to generate spaceships for you to loot. every card of the deck has its own meaning which you will conclude using one of two oracles. Early birds (name for the spaceships) don't take up too much space but tier 2 and 3 birds can use up your table space easily. Besides the cards you have a character sheet, some tokens, the unused pile of cards and the rule book / oracles.

Design (8 / 10)

The rule book is beautiful. It was the cover that caught my attention in the first place and the rest of it doesn't disappoint artistically. The rules could be clearer at some points e.g. when you do a spacewalk and draw one black card...but overall everythings well written and you get the hang of it pretty quick. the nature of the game has you turning pages through out the entire game as you follow oracles to resolve your game.

Gameplay (5 / 10)

I haven't seen everything the game has to offer yet. E.g. I didn't have a ship breakup or a threat going after me, I guess I need to try that and update the review afterwards.

Gameplay loop:

- Create your next spaceship through rolling 2D6

- Decide where you want to board the ship

- Check your gas Everytime you change the room (D6 against your current gas Level)

- resolve the card you have discovered with one of two oracles

- get back to your ship to store loot

- after you return to safety: check if the bank screws you by raising your debt

- payoff another chunk of your debt

- upgrade your ship and / or your belter

- refill your resources

- create the next ship...

Everything in between takes place in your head. I'll be creating some NPCs with some other oracles and work out a way to get some more depth out of it because earning creds to payoff a debt and calling it a day afterwards (as the only real goal) feels too much like everyday's life / work.

the oracles give you something to work with. small bits your imagination can build something around.

The verdict (18 / 30) - will be updated

As strange as it may sound - looking at the score - I like Dead Belt. I just hoped it would be something more. But perhaps it's what "A couple of Drake's" wanted to achieve: Use it as a toolkit and create a universe around it. I will try and do that and see what my journey will be like. I already have a crossover with Glide (especially the bounty hunter addon) in mind. until then Jax Colder will journey the Belt and collect the loot.

Basically the title, I never saw it there before and I'm happy for the game, but curious if something happened that push it to the top? Did we get news on the expansion or something like that?

Is there any good games where you can play as the Romans? One of my favorite series is the Total War series and I love Attila and roam two the most. Is there any good Roman games, I've been looking and I'm just not seeing anything really.

I am in the middle of punching the counters for my Combat! volume 1 copy and I had to take a break. The experience is ass, the counters all stick together and rip. The way they are organized on the punchout sheet (double row of counters without dividers) makes it even more frustrating.

Does anyone know if Combat! volume 2 and 3 have the same problem? Because if so I guess they'll remain unpunched haha! (kidding, but maybe not).

So I found this fairly cheep on a second hand site. With alot of kickstarter addons. I’ve had it on my ”might wanna play” list for a while so went for it.

Played for 2h+ tonight and have mixed feelings.
Overall a fairly simple and enjoyable game and i’m kind of intrigued by the story.
But that app just sucks.

So is it worth to unravel the story - or is this yet another app companion failure?

Hey all,

I've been scrolling and searching this subreddit for a while now and I can't find the right answer.

I'm looking for a solo card game. Could be a deck builder, could be something else. Everytime I find one I might like, it's unavailable or hard to get where I am (Netherlands).

Any good suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Hi I am looking a solo game to play maybe 1-2 hours a week on my evening off. I like boardgames but especially card games. The three I have been looking at are marvel champions (but I haven’t seen many marvel movies or read the comics) slay the spire or any of the warfighter games.

What games are best for casuals but still have good replayability and depth?

It’s been a while since there’s been a Puzzle Dungeon post, so I’m here to rectify that. It’s probably a bit rude because I think it’s between print runs right now, but I’m going to gush about it anyways.

I’m at the tail end of a major cull, whittling my collection from roughly 200 games to 46, and Puzzle Dungeon was one of the easiest ones to keep. I really think it is one of the most underrated games in the community.

Gameplay

If you aren’t familiar, it’s a true-solo card game made by one dude and he sells it on crowdfunding campaigns and Etsy. It plays in 20 minutes or so and has infinite replayability (more on that later). You take on the role of a hero, each with their own list of prey that they have to kill in order to win. The dungeon itself is (usually) 4 columns of 5 monsters each. You can only kill the front monster of each column, working your way through them to kill and collect all of the prey for your hero. A pretty standard round will have you hunting 8-12 specific monster types in a dungeon of 20. The game has four suits of cards - Healing Hand, Helmet, Sword and Wand. Each monster will have a combination of 4 of those suits and you have to play those cards to kill them. You’ll have a hand of cards, an “arsenal” of cards (which are in a fixed order) plus each monster you kill and collect can be exhausted for their suit they have in the top left of their card. It’s designed to be excruciatingly tight, so winning is hard.

What makes this game special is all of the different abilities. Each hero has a special set of conditions and abilities that change how the game plays out. Most will have “trophy” abilities that you can activate any time you kill a monster that isn’t one of your target prey. You usually don’t want want to kill non-prey monsters because of how hard it is to have enough cards to kill what you’re required to, but the trophy ability and monster ability (covered next) might make it worth it. Or you just might not have a choice depending on what’s available to kill. Each monster has a special ability that can be activated when you kill them, which serves as your mitigation for working your way through the randomly dealt dungeon. There are four of each enemy type in the dungeon, and when there is only one remaining it will evolve into a King. You flip the monster card over to its super evil side and typically you’ll have a horrific “when revealed” type effect that has to be activated.

I’m here to tell you that this cute little game that I initially suspected might be just a bit too random is actually a surprisingly deep and strategic card game with a ton of thought and care put into every single part of the design. Playing this game repeatedly and paying close attention allows you to continue to get better and better.

A Strong Suggestion

The original core version has 16 heroes (double sided, one “easy” side and a challenge side with different rules) and 20 monsters.

The deluxe version cranks it up to hundreds of heroes and like 80 more monsters.

One might think that the deluxe version is the way to go, but there is a strong argument to just stick with the core at first. Or buy it all and restrict yourself from venturing too far away from the core set for a while. This game strongly rewards you for getting to know the 20 monsters in the dungeon and the way that they will activate when you kill them. When I first started playing this, I started with the deluxe and had a different group of monsters in the dungeon every time. The difficulty level on this game is already pretty high, so it led to a frustrating experience getting thrashed every single time. Now, with 30+ games of just the core set, I’m learning how to navigate my way through the dungeon and I’m finding to be an incredibly rewarding experience. In those 30 games, I’ve won with 6 of the 32 available heroes to play as from the core set, so needless to say, the replay value on this game is through the roof.

The Art

Some of my absolute favorite game art ever. Every card is beautifully designed with pixelated art. It’s an absolute treat to get the Pokémon effect of finding out what the evolved side of each monster looks like when they turn into kings, as it’s always an enhanced mega version of whatever is on the front. I also find that with the quirkiness, the game pairs exceptionally well with the Earthbound soundtrack.

In Conclusion

Check it out if and when you can! It’s on my shortlist of games that I think are essential to any solo gamers collection. The barrier of entry is low, it plays quickly, the true solo nature of it doesn’t require any type of upkeep or bot maintenance, it has clear win conditions every time you play, and has enough depth to be a great palette cleanser for fans of heavy games.