Last night I continued on my playthrough of the solo Button Shy games. This time with At The Helm from Ted Heidersdorf. This is a hand management and deck building game of sailing the high seas and tackling the challenges that it throws at you. I say that, you really are trying to take down challenges that you select and there isn’t that exploration element that I made it sound like. But is At The Helm a good game in the Button Shy line-up of solo games?

How To Play At The Helm

At The Helm is a hand management and deck building game where you are trying to beat three challenges. Each challenge is going to want different symbols played out to beat it. Some want a lot of sails played in a single turn. Others want a lot of sails total but it isn’t turn based, or it could be attacks or money that they want as well.

To do this you need to play out cards from your hand of three cards. Every card does some different effect and some of them might do two different ones that you choose between. But a lot are going to give you that attack, sail, or purchase/money. As well as they give you health which you need in the game.

After you play one or two cards each turn you draw back up to three. If there is a broken heart symbol on the card you take a damage (or two from some). You might also lose health from triggers on the challenges you are going after. Such as the giant squid deals you a damage if you damage it with the harpoon.

Then, if you run out of cards, you automatically get a card from the market. Huzzah, free purchase, but once all the cards are gone and you need to reshuffle you lose the game. But if you defeat all three challenges, you win the game.

What Doesn’t Work

Variety is going to be my one negative for the game. I talked about how there is some variety in the game on the stream. But that mainly comes from changing up the challenges. I think that there are good deck building strategies, but those strategies never change, at least not much. So it’s about those challenges. I think I say this a lot about the Button Shy Games, but with only 18 cards, it limits what you do, so almost all of them you probably want an expansion for it to add more variety to the game.

What Works

Let’s talk two things that I generally mention either as a negative or positive. But the game is very fast, which is good, most Button Shy Games are. And for a small solo game, I want it to be that. But At The Helm is also a consistent footprint that isn’t too large. I like that it’s a fixed footprint as well. There are some that I’ve played where the footprint can vary considerably or be dynamic throughout the game.

The hand management aspect of the game works well. I like that determination of how many cards to play because the more you play each turn, the faster you get through your deck. But if you dig for specific cards, well, you likely will find that you end up in trouble because you aren’t fully optimizing what you do.

And I think adding cards to your deck in this game is interesting as well. I did call out that one element of the game is not obvious, and I missed it, because it’s tucked in part of the rules where it doesn’t make as much sense. Not a big negative, but I like how when you run out of cards to play you get to add in a card. That is a good countdown timer and it means that you don’t always need to buy cards.

Who Is At The Helm For?

I think that people who enjoy a good puzzle of a game are going to enjoy At The Helm. Now, I think it’s less of a puzzle game than some. This one is more about reacting to the cards you get in hand and balancing that line of healing up and spending time doing that, versus working on the challenges. So people who like that puzzle but also that hand management or deck building aspect of a game should enjoy this one. And this one is better than some for people who travel as well.

Final Thoughts on At The Helm

I enjoyed this game quite well. I think that it’s one that is easier to understand the rules than some. I do think that the rules needed that tiny bit of extra work. Mainly, where do you place certain key parts of the rules would make a lot of sense. I get that it’s probably a me issue because I should have read everything better. But I suspect there are a number of other players of the game who missed the adding purchased cards to the hand rule as well.

The game is fast, and I like the aesthetic of the game. I think that it works very well and it really does feel like a tightly designed game. The theme is just there enough through that aesthetic as well which is nice. I don’t love it when a game is just all mechanisms with a theme that could be anything. But, with At The Helm, I don’t think that it’s that.

And the game play is so fast and consistent in what you are doing, it feels less lucky than some of the other games. And it feels more like a game than a puzzle than some of the other solo games from Button Shy. For that reason, I do enjoy this one more, and while I suspect that an expansion or two would make it more playable in the long run with that variety, it works really well as it is.

My Grade: B+
Strategy: B+
Luck: C-

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