Cursed!?, a little solo game from Goblin Hour Games, likely not one that you’ve ever heard of. It didn’t have a big Kickstarter nor a Gen Con or Essen Spiel release. But for a solo gamer, Cursed!? is one of those games that plays in a small area, fast time, and comes in a tiny box. So, is Cursed!? going to be the right solo game for you?

How To Play Cursed!?

In Cursed!? you’ve been cursed by a witch and you need to get her some souls before that curse will be lifted. If you can’t get her eight souls, you die. So, in this game, you are attempting to defeat monsters to get those eight souls.

To defeat monsters, you try and draw weapons from the top of the deck to hit the monsters number exactly. If you are under, you lose cards from the deck as damage. If you go over, you lose that card from your total and still take damage.

But don’t worry, it’s not all luck of the draw, you get items. You start with one and killing some monsters let’s you get another one. And the items on a 180 degree turn of the monster cards. So cards you’ve used for weapons, also on the monster cards, can now become the items that help you. If you get eight souls, you win the game.

What Doesn’t Work?

Cursed!? is a small push your luck game. Sometimes you will get luckier than other times. So if you really don’t like push your luck, this is going to be an easy game to avoid. Is this a negative of the game that it is a push your luck game, not really. The game is what is says it is, but if you don’t like push your luck, yes, it’s a negative for you and one you should avoid.

The one other negative that I have is that the game doesn’t give you many items. The mitigation of a bad draw or some manipulation is low in this game. Again, this ties into it being a push your luck game and really wanting to lean into that. I almost wish that more monsters gave you items and that the items weren’t as good. The items are great, when you get them, it’s just a matter of when you get them. And some items definitely seem to be better than others.

What Works?

Cursed!? is meant to pack a fun experience into a mint tin, think Altoids size, and I think it hits that small/compact nature well. I’ll save my final thoughts on fun until later. But it’s a small game with a very small footprint and a very fast play time. It’s one of those, pull out the game and play it in five minutes of downtime sort of experiences. It’s up there with games like Orchard, Grove, and Sprawlopolis for that, though a much smaller area needed to play than Sprawlopolis.

I also like that the game focused on a single area. This is a push your luck game. As I said, a negative for some people, but it knows it has a mint tin to play with and doesn’t try and add anything more. You could use a cube and a life tracker card instead of losing cards, but then you’d lose out on the variety of monsters, items and weapons because you’d have fewer cards. So I like that it’s all done off of the same deck of cards.

The items also add to the fun of the game. It makes you feel powerful at times. And I think it’d be cool to get more items. But, like I said, I think you’d need to limit the power of those items more. And I think that sometimes having that lots of power is fun, and it can push you over the edge sometime. It’s also one of those that you don’t want to keep the items too long because if it goes wrong it can go very wrong.

Who Is It For?

The solo gamer who is looking for more games that play in a small time. I think it’s as simple as that, if you don’t like solo games, it’s solo only. If you want only big solo games, it’s a pass. Overall, it’s going to be for that solo gamer, actually, get it for a holiday stocking stuffer, it’d be perfect.

Final Thoughts on Cursed!?

This is a fun game, it’s a small game, and it is a fast game. So for what I wanted it to do, it really does. And I think it’s not so light that you can’t play it again and again. Is it like Grove or Orchard where I play it a hundred times in a month, I’m not sure on that. But it is up there with ones that are so fast and simple that I can take them anywhere.

My Grade: B
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: B

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