Legendary Kingdoms – Part 1

Legendary Kingdoms – Part 2

More Parts to Come

What Is Legendary Kingdoms

Legendary Kingdoms is a solo, though you could do it cooperatively, RPG system. In this system you are using a choose your own adventure type of game play with skill checks. And there are multiple books in the Legendary Kingdoms. The choices you make progress the story in different ways. And while sometimes you are limited, you also hit very open world points. But that’s the basics of the system.

How To Play

Legendary Kingdoms is a game where there isn’t really a “winner” so to speak. It is an open world story driven solo or multiplayer choose your own adventure RPG, in case you skipped the section above.

Characters

To start off you start with a group of four characters in your party. I am not sure if it is possible to add more characters as you go. But it is possible to have your characters die if you are reckless in battles.

Characters use several different stats. There is fighting, stealth, lore, survival and charisma as well as hit points. These stats generally range from 1 to 5 when you start the game. It is possible during the game that they might increase. But it is not a common thing and it is driven by story. It is not an RPG system where you gain experience and level up.

Checks

The main crux of the game play is split into two parts. Story, which I’ll talk about next, and checks. When you do anything in the game you complete checks. This is even the case when you are in combat, though combat checks do behave slightly differently at times.

The basics of a check are fairly simple. They are either group checks, so a check for everyone, or an individual check. A group check you will use the stats of two of the four characters versus just one for the individual. The game often doesn’t tell you what a check might be before you make it, so you need to pick your character(s) somewhat blindly based on context.

Then you roll dice. You roll dice equal to the stat being checked against. In combat you check to see how many succeed and you get that many hits and damage dealt to an enemy which is determined by the enemy’s defense. In a skill check there is a set target number you want to match or beat like in combat. But in a skill check you want to get a certain number of success to pass.

There is a bit more for combat, but I won’t go into it here.

Story

The other large element is the story in the game. Like I said, this is a choose your own adventure style of game. By that I mean, you start with a passage, read that, make a decision and go to another passage to read from. It is interrupted by combats or skill checks, but generally it is reading one part of the story or another.

What I Don’t Like

So what is it about the game that might not work for me? I think the biggest thing I note in the game is the luck factor. Yes, the better a skill is the more dice you roll. That is a nice thing int he game, it is less swinging than maybe rolling a D20 and adding a modifier. Especially because it is the value on every individual die that matters. But it is still a luck game. In Legendary Kingdoms there is not much if any die mitigation so it is just a roll.

What I Like

Firstly, I like how simple the system is to play. When I want to get the game out, I grab some dice and start playing. Yes, you need a game sheet to use, but it is not overly complex to track that. And the checks are simple to follow as well.

Speaking of checks, I like how combat is just a bit more complex, but not too complex. If combat were as simple as it is for a skill check, it might feel way to lucky. But I like how you have armor and that armor might block attacks. And I like that as characters you get to go first and then the enemies go. There is no initiative system it is just nice and simple that way.

Another thing that stands out to me is that the writing is solid or slightly better than that. With a choose your own adventure it is very possible that it could be too generic because you don’t know how someone is getting to a situation. This one is just enough on rails that they can create a bigger story. Now it is at the point where I am in an open world point, so I want to know how the story is going to go. But I like the story a lot thus far, and I think there is some good interesting writing and plot happening.

Who Is Legendary Kingdoms For?

This is tough one to say. I think people who like a good RPG might enjoy this game. In particular maybe a video game RPG player who is looking for a way to spend less screen time. It is going to give you that RPG itch but not be too much. And it is something for an RPG fan who maybe wants to play more but can’t work it into their schedule. This is a game that is easily playable in an evening for thirty minutes and then putting it down and picking it up again.

Thoughts and Grades on Legendary Kingdoms

This game is a blast to play. Is it perfect, no, I wish there was maybe a way to add a bonus to a roll from time to time, just for those really important ones. And maybe it is the case where there might be a spell that’ll do that eventually. So there is a bunch of luck when it comes to rolling. And combat, like most RPG’s, is always a bit more time than the story. But those both are minor negatives to me.

The positives far outweigh both of those parts to me. I think that the game play is fast and fun. And I love the story elements to it. The decision of do you go further into the water or out, it is interesting. Do you spend more time pushing for treasures but potentially risking something? That is what you want from a good choose your own adventure style of game. And unlike the choose your own adventure books you might have read growing up, this one is logical. You can guess what might come next.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A
Strategy (out of 10): 5
Luck (out of 10): 7

Oh, and if you made it down here, leave a comment as to what direction I should go in the story.

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It was pretty obvious before Gen Con that one of the biggest games there was going to be Ace of Spades from Devir Games. This is a solo or two player boss battling poker card game. Why was it obvious, a fun horror western theme. You beat monsters with poker hands, Balatro style. And Devir is a popular company. Turns out that you could pre-order it as well, which I did and it came during Gen Con for me. Which means, it was maybe easier to get online than at Gen Con. But is Ace of Spades worth the hype?

How To Play Ace of Spades

Like I said this game is a boss battling game. Each round you face off against a different boss and it doesn’t give you breaks. To beat a boss you need to play out poker hands. Each hand must have five cards played, when solo, from a hand of eight cards. Each hand is going to do an amount of damage, and face cards and aces increase the damage.

When you defeat a boss, you get a special power from them. Some powers are one time, but every third boss is going to give you ongoing power. An example of a power would be that all your hearts count as diamonds for a hand. Or for an ongoing ability that every time you play a straight it deals more damage, or when you play a queen it does more damage.

Eventually you reach the main boss and if you defeat him you win. Or I should say, that’s what could happen. If you lose at any point in time to a boss, aka you can’t beat them in a certain number of hands, you lose the game and need to restart.

Hands and Discards

One element of this game to keep track of is how hands and discards work. Each boss you need to defeat in a certain number of hands. Also you gain a specific number of discards per boss. So if you have a bad hand, you can discard cards from it and redraw up.

But discard also does something else. In this game you don’t reshuffle until you’ve beat a villain, that every third bad guy. Or you can use a discard to shuffle your played and discard cards back into the deck. This element is important when facing off against bosses with more health because you run through the deck faster. But it uses up an ability to set-up your deck.

What Doesn’t Work

There are two things that I think people might not like about this. Firstly is the you lose to a boss you lose the game. I could see house ruling it, if you don’t want to reshuffle, that you lose a life and can continue and you get one life. But, that said, it is very easy to say, well, I lost and just reset the boss deck and reshuffle the playing cards. That is a minimal difference in time.

The other is the luck in the game. Now, there are things that you do to help with the luck. But if you don’t like a bit of luck, you may find that it doesn’t work for you. It is luck in what you draw. And that is compounded, though becomes strategic in another way, by the fact you must play five card hands. So even if you play three of a kind you might be breaking up a future hand.

What Works

This is a really easy to learn game. I sat down and was up and running within a few minutes. It is all about playing poker hands and even if you don’t know poker they give you that poker hand information right on the game board.

It is also a quick game. I plan on streaming it soon, but I’d expect to get through a few runs to see if I can win. And that should probably be a hour or less to get through with three runs. Mainly because each run is pretty fast even if you get a ways.

Next, I like the powers you can get in the game. All of theme feel great to use. But none of them seem like they are game breaking. In fact, while the game gives you four cards for each level, they are all pretty similar. It is a deck of cards, so often times it is just for a suit that it makes it better. But there is this great tension of only using the power when you need it as things get harder and harder to take on.

The components in the game are nice as well. The deck of cards is great. And the dashboard you use is really nice. Like I said it has poker hands on there and how much damage they do, and reminders for how much damage face cards and aces do. Plus it is set-up so you can keep track of the enemies health on there as well as how many hands you have left and how many discards/reshuffles you have left.

Who is Ace of Spades For?

Now, I will caveat this by saying, I think it’ll work well with two. I have only played Ace of Spades solo. But it is a strong solo game, so I think this is a good game for someone who enjoys Balatro and board games. It is not as complex as Balatro but it makes it easier to play. Much like Slay the Spire is easier to play and scaled down numbers as a board game. So for the solo gamer in your life, this is probably a good game.

Final Thoughts and Grade on Ace of Spades

There is a lot that I like about the game. It is easy to get to the table, it is easy to learn and it is easy to play. Now I saw it is easy to play, I mean it isn’t fiddly. This is a tough game. And they give you ways to make it tougher and easier. I expect when I stream it that I’ll demonstrate it on normal and easy. In easy you don’t need to play a hand of five cards, it can be less.

Overall, I think this is a very good game and a very good solo game. It’s what I want from a solo game. The challenge is interesting, the tension is there and it isn’t a table hog. My one complaint might be that I wish there was more variety in the characters you go up against. Each level is pretty similar. I didn’t mention it but villains have something that they are strong against. Like spades, or queens, for example. That is a fun twist.

I wish that they had created more variety in that. For example, maybe a boss that is strong against spades but then is weak against queens or something interesting like that, so it might feel like more of a puzzle as you play it out. And not so much more of a puzzle, but more variety in what you face off against. And the same could be said for the abilities. Still that is a minor complaint and is ripe for expansion packs.

Have you tried Ace of Spades?

My Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: B-
Strategy (out of 10): 6
Luck (out of 10): 7

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How To Play Imhotep

Imhotep is a pretty simple game to play. On your turn you take one of three actions. You either add a stone from your quarry to a ship. You sail a ship to one of the locations. Or you gather more stone so it is ready for you to use. That’s it, the three actions that you do, and you do them over six rounds until all four ships have sailed to locations.

When you sail a boat you go to one of those different locations. But you can’t sail a boat unless it has enough stones on it. And you can sail any boat. You don’t need stones to be on the boat to sail it. So let’s talk about the locations you can sail to.

Locations

The main part of the game are the five locations. Each one of them is going to give you something different to do, but generally it’s about placing your cubes and scoring points. There is one that is different that we’ll get to, and how each scores points is different.

Obelisks

The Obelisks will be the first location that I talk about. When you sail to that location you add your stones to your obelisk as do your opponents. Whomever at the end of the game has the most stones on their obelisk is going to score the most points, and then fewer points as you go down in height.

Tomb

Next up there is the Tomb. The tomb scores at the end of the game and you score for your areas in the tomb. The larger the area that more points it’s going to score for as scoring scales. And each of your areas is going to score separately at the end of the game. Stones for the tomb and the rest of them are always placed in the order they come off the boat, front to back.

Temple

Then we have the Temple. The temple scores each round. And you score points for each of your cubes visible from the top. Depending on player count the temple is longer and offers more scoring each round that way. Once the temple reaches it maximum length for the player count, you start a second row.

Pyramid

After the temple is going to be Pyramid. The pyramid is built up throughout the game. You start with a three by three base level. Then as you move up it goes to two by two and then a single one on top. Each of the spots has a specific value associated with it. And if more stones are brought to the pyramid than can be placed, each extra stone scores a single point.

Market

Finally there is the Market. The Market doesn’t give you points directly. In the market you gain cards. The cards might give you a special action, bonus scoring for a location, an immediate affect, or set collection scoring. The two scoring you just keep by you for the end of the game. The action will take place instead of your main action. And the immediate affect is, well, immediate.

After six rounds are played the total scoring is tallied. And the player with the most points is going to win the game. I’m sure that there are tiebreakers as well, but you can figure those out when and if you need them.

What Doesn’t Work

I do think there is one flaw that can happen in the game. The game can get stuck in a rut if players aren’t being a bit daring. What do I mean by that? It is probably to your advantage to fill up a boat before sailing it. Because that’s going to limit the number of cubes you can get out. If everyone does that, though, then the game can become stale. Yes, it matters where you end up with your stone still, but it loses some of the fun of the game.

I have only played a game where this became an issue. And I think that is because once a player starts doing it, all other players need to follow suit at least somewhat. Otherwise the one player is potentially going to run away with the stone advantage. Now, you can also stick them in spots, especially just giving them the most stones on the obelisk, but it does make the game less fun.

What Works

So that is a flaw with the game up there. But otherwise I really think the game can sing when played as it’s meant to be played. The game works really well when players are sailing boats early, either to optimize their scoring or the hurt others. And that’s the great cat and mouse of the game. You play a single stone into a boat that holds a single stone, I might sail that to the spot that is least useful for you. It really works best when you get in the other people’s way.

I also like how all of the scoring is different. Each location is going to give you some solid points throughout or at the end of the game. And the scoring you can get from the market, like a point for every three stones in the temple, for example, helps you formulate a strategy because those bonus points can help a lot. It also means that your strategy can be different every game if you want.

Next up, I think the game nails the game speed of play and game length. You feel like you get to do a bunch Imhotep. But it always feels like you want to do just a bit more. Especially when you see a partially filled ship sail, I always wish I could have gotten one more stone on it. But turns go fast, and the game with six rounds lets you do a lot and really optimize some scoring.

Who is Imhotep For?

I think this is a good game for a lot of people. Mainly because it is simple to learn what to do in the game. Then as you play you get to explore more scoring options and challenges of the game. And because there isn’t a ton of variety in the game, it’s going to be one that is easy for people to pull back out and play again.

Final Thoughts on Imhotep

I very much enjoy this game. In fact I picked up a copy of it. And when I can find the New Dynasty Expansion for it I will. The downside is that the expansion is not easy to come by so it’s not that cheap. And the most reasonable priced ones that I found on eBay didn’t ship to the US, to bummer for me.

But that is it that got me to buy the game? I think it’s the different scoring mechanisms. Each of them really does give you a great new way to play the game. And while they are fixed, so I’m a little bit worried that it might become stale over time, it is an easy to play and table game. It falls into that category of a game that I’ll like to pull off the shelf once or twice a year when I don’t know what else to play and I want to a puzzle to get to that is going to be different each time.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: B
Strategy Level (out of 10): 6
Luck Level (out of 10): 4

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How To Play Lucky Numbers

Lucky Numbers is a pretty simple game where your goal is to get both your rows and columns into descending order. All players play with a four by four grid. At the start of the game, four numbers are seeded from the top left corner and work diagonally down to the bottom right.

From that point on, you draw a face down clover tile and place it in your board. Or you take a face up clover tile and place it on your board. That is how turns work. Your goal is to get those columns and rows both into descending order. Whoever is the first to complete that wins the game.

What Doesn’t Work?

The game is lucky. I expect you guessed that with a name like Lucky Numbers. But Lucky Numbers is a very lucky game. I draw a tile and I get what I want, that is great. You draw a tile and you don’t, that is unfortunate. And if I draw a one and already have one, well, that means the next person is getting their ideal top left clover. So you may set up another player on your turn.

What Works?

Firstly the speed of the game is great. Now for the sake of Lucky Numbers this is not the ideal first thing to talk about. But Lucky Numbers is a filler game. And as a filler game, I want it to play quickly and it really does. A turn is simple and generally you just draw a face down tile.

I enjoy as well the puzzle aspect of the game. It reminds me of something like Rack-o, but this is being done over both rows and columns. So there is a familiar aspect to the puzzle. But it is also more than the classic game. I think that is a nice addition to it. And limiting the numbers to 1 to 20 (once in the pool per player) is a nice touch as well. Because with Rack-o you may search for one of three numbers out of 100. Here you play with a much smaller range.

The final element that I want to talk about is when you replace a number you have. I think that is where some of the choice or observance of the game comes in. Mainly, I want to put out a tile you don’t want to use. So I need to think about what I want to do for sure. Because sometimes I might give you the win if I am not careful. So maybe I need to press my luck versus take a face up tile. Or maybe hold off on swapping out a tile until I complete the rest of my board. This could be a negative in a two player game, but only if players don’t plan well.

Who Is Lucky Numbers For?

I think this is a game for people who want a filler. But not your traditional game night filler. I think it’s more of a game for people who want a filler game and play casually. It falls into the camp of games that are easy to teach my parents. They understand Rack-o. Or it is going to be a game that I can play with my kid while he is pretty young. There is no element of the game that is too complex. So it is a wide reaching game, just maybe not a heavier game night filler.

Final Thoughts on Lucky Numbers

I think Lucky Numbers is a fun game. And I see why people generally enjoy it. I also understand why people generally don’t talk about it. Lucky Numbers isn’t going to be anyone’s favorite game on Board Game Geek. But I expect a lot of people will enjoy it for what it is.

Is the game very lucky yes. But it doesn’t hide that fact. Nor is it going to be a thinky game. But if you expect it to be a Rack-o variant that offers more than Rack-o does in terms of blocking people and puzzling out what numbers are still available or not, it is better. It is just not going to be anything more than that. And it is one of those games where it is fine it isn’t anything more. Because sometimes a game should just be simple.

There is a solo mode as well that I want to play. Which is basically set-up the board and see if you can solve a swapping puzzle in the number of turns suggested. I expect that, unless my family loves the game, I’ll play through some of those and move on from the game. But that’s just because I’ll gladly play it but won’t suggest it.

My Grade: C+
Casual Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C-

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How To Play River Valley Glassworks

How To Win

In River Valley Glassworks you try and collect the most glass, or really glass in the best columns to score the most points. Scoring is done in both rows and columns. When you score a column you score your two highest columns, and if there is a tie, the ones further left, because they give fewer points. And for rows, you score each row that starts on the left edge and then as far right as you can until you hit a gap. That’s mainly it for scoring, you might end up with negative tiles, but how you do that, we’ll talk about as I go through how you play.

Your Actions

On your turn you place one tile from your bag onto the river. When you place the tile you place it on the tile with the matching shape. The only way to break this rule is place out two matching shapes onto any location. Basically, two for one for a wild resource. Then you take the glass from either of the adjacent river sections. You place those pieces onto your scoring board. Each new color goes in a new column, and a repeated color goes to the next highest available row for that column.

When you are down to one glass piece tile or out of glass piece tiles you take four of the five glass pieces from the lake. That’s your other option and then you continue playing as normal. And you keep track of your glass pieces until you get up to 17 on your board or someone else does. Then everyone completes the round and there is one more round after that.

One thing you need to be aware of is filling columns and rows. It is good to do because you gain more points. However, if you take a piece of glass you can’t place, that goes into your trash area. Your trash counts for negative three points at the end of the game.

What Doesn’t Work?

I find that most of the game works for me. I think there is one element that is trickier to remember. That is keeping track of the stones. They give you a nice spot to tick that up, but it is trickier to remember. So it is something that only works so well. It’s not a major negative. But I think it is a piece that is easy to forget. So when you play River Valley Glassworks, it’s a rule to be aware of.

The other rule to be aware of, and again not a major negative, is the row scoring. I try and explain the row scoring at least twice. Why, because it rarely gets understood the first time. Or it is rarely understood until you play a few stones out. Maybe that is the best way, don’t teach the rule until everyone has taken two turns. For some people that is going to work. For other people, they want to know it right away.

What I Like

River Valley Glassworks is good for me because it is a simple game. I wrote out the actions and that is it for them. There is not a more complex action that I skipped. You either play out glass or you take glass from the lake. And then as you place on your board, that part is simple as well. So I love how easy it is to teach and play the game, besides the rule for scoring rows.

To go with that, River Valley Glassworks is a fast playing game. This is definitely because of limited options. But once you know what to do, you just figure out your best play and go for it. Sometimes it might require a little math in your head, but never too much. And the number of options is small enough that no single turn is going to take too long. And the longest turns happen at the end of the game in those last two rounds when you know it will end soon and you want to get as many points as you can.

I also appreciate the balance of luck and strategy. Some of it is that you get lucky with what is one the river sections. But there is some thought and strategy as to how you place it on your board. Certain colors of glass are less common. So I want those earlier because the more common are better later. Why, because they give you more points if you get a taller column. But at the same time, you want them earlier because that might mean you get more rows filled in. So it’s a nice balance of figuring out your strategy for that game and the luck of the glass.

Who Is This For?

I think that this is a great family game and a great filler game. Because of the ease to teach the game, it can come to the table fast. And there is basically no language in the game that you need to worry about. So as long as a kid can understand the scoring, they can play the game. What I want to do soon is try this as a soli game and see how that goes. Because it’s easy to get to the table and a lot of fun to play with all sorts of different groups.

Final Thoughts on River Valley Glassworks

I enjoy this game because it is that balance of luck and strategy. You certainly can plan to go one direction in the game, rows of columns and find that you pivot part way through because things weren’t going your way. But if things really seem like they aren’t, that’s okay. The game is fast and you just play it again. It’s nice for being a filler that way, or one that you might play multiple times in an evening.

I want to explore the solo mode still as well. I think that it will be one that I stream maybe next Wednesday (8/21/24) on Malts and Meeples. Because I want to know if it’s as fun, or if it’s less fun, because I can see it going either way.

And while I expect it won’t be for some people because of the luck. I think that a lot of people will enjoy it. And with the nice tactile nature of the game, this is one that should be popular. The question will be, is it a game that will break into the masses. Because it has that mass appeal to it, I think, which a lot of more hobby board games, or especially crowdfunding board games, tend to miss.

My Grade: B+
Casual Grade: A
Gamer Grade: C+

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How to Play Strike

Strike is a very simple game, where you are rolling dice and trying to get matches. But the numbers on the dice go from 2 through 6. The 1 is a strike, if you roll that, the die is gone forever from the game. If you are the last person standing with dice, you win the game.

The first person in the game, or if anyone rolls dice and clears out the dice tray, has to roll all of their dice. Otherwise you can push your luck by rolling any number of dice at a time to see if you get matches. If you do, you take the matches. If you don’t, you can either stop, leaving the dice you rolled in the tray or you can push your luck and roll in more dice trying to get a match. And that is the game, very simple and fast.

What Doesn’t Work?

Now, I say that the game is fast, and having played it a handful of times now, it consistently is. Because you can roll and strike and lose dice means that the pool is always dwindling of total number of dice. It is possible that it’d take a while to play because you are just rolling a die, getting a match, and no one is really building up a big dice pool.

It is also possible that your very first roll of the game that you are out. In a five player game you have five dice, there is no guarantee you get a pair. Even in a two player game with a lot more dice, there is no guarantee. You get enough strikes you are just out of the game.

What Works?

Now, I said that the game could go on for a while or you could just be out of the game, both are true. But the game works well and counters both of those, generally, by having great speed to the game. Turns are fast, you are invested in each roll of the dice, and it works that way. So through a handful of games I have yet to see the game take too long

It also reminds me of Icecool or PitchCar where you get excited when someone has a crazy roll. So it is a good group game that way where it’s less about winning and losing than it is about the fun of the game. Especially in something that is luck heavy you want to have people excited during the game.

Who Is It For?

I think this is a good filler game for a game group that is okay with randomness. Strike is just randomness as you play it. You roll your dice, you can knock into other dice and change their faces and you hope to get a match. There is no dice mitigation or anything like that. So if you want strategy or control, Strike will not be for you. If you are fine with some random dice chucking and a quick fun time, Strike works well.

I also think on the luck side that even if you don’t have deep strategy players it might not work. There are some people who will get frustrated by the fact it is random. So when the dice are rolled it feels like, because it is, that the game is deciding for them. The question with Strike is if you can handle losing because of a bad die roll or not?

Final Thoughts on Strike

I really enjoy when I play Strike. It gives some good laughs when someone rolls a handful of dice and it fails. It also gives great moments when someone rolls 3 dice and manages to clear the dice tray. Or when you bump a die and now the die you rolled and the die match.

And even the moments where you roll 6 dice and you come out with one match or no matches, those are fun. Because you know it is just random as you go. At the same time, and I talk about this in the who it is for, it does limit the game. Sore losers or people who want so much strategy, it won’t work for them. But if you can embrace the absurd it is a fun time.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: B+

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Why Might Dice Be Bad?

Dice add randomness to a game, that in and of itself isn’t inherently a bad thing. But where hobby board gamers often run into an issue with dice is when you can’t mitigate them. Let me explain that a bit more. In Monopoly when you roll the dice you move whatever amount you rolled. It could be two places, it could be twelve spaces. If twelve spaces ends with you on someone else’s property, there is nothing you can do to stop that.

Now, dice mitigation would say something like, pay $50 to the bank and roll the dice again, you must use that next roll. Or it might be something like pay $100 to the bank and increase or decrease the value of one of your dice by one. There is a cost, but it gives you more control over the dice.

So, the most common thing for hobby gamers is that they don’t like that a die roll can determine everything. In Monopoly, a bad roll or two could bankrupt you without you having choice over that. In Catan the statistically more probable numbers might not get rolled as often, it’s just the luck of the dice.

But Are They Bad?

I don’t think that rolling dice in a game is a bad thing. I don’t even think that sometimes just rolling a die and that being your result is a bad thing. Would I still play Catan? Yes, even though I might roll a three every time and give you resources, I would play it.

But I get why some gamers don’t like it. I generally do not want to play a game where dice determine everything. Monopoly, what you roll determines how well you do. I’d play it, but it wouldn’t be a high choice. Mainly because the decisions outside of do you buy a property or not, there aren’t that many. And generally you buy the property.

Most often though, hobby gamers want to have more control over dice rolls and there are a lot of good examples of games like that. Dice are not going away from games. It is often more about fairness in how you use the dice.

Hobby Games Examples

Let’s talk about a few games that use dice differently. I want to explain how different games might do this. And I think there is a good variety of ways and they often give some really interesting choices.

Ganz Schon Clever

Ganz Schon Clever is a roll and write. Roll and write games often try and deal with the randomness by giving everyone the same randomness. If I roll something, we all fill that in on our board. Ganz Schon Clever gives even more control than that.

When you roll and pick a die to use in Ganz Schon Clever, every die with a lesser value gets set on a silver platter. Your opponents will pick one die from that platter. To go along with that, you do that three times. So if I pick a 4 the first time and put two dice on the platter and roll again, I have eliminated dice that I can use. So yes, the dice rolls are random, but I pick what options I leave open for myself and what I give to you.

Dice Throne

Dice Throne is a head to head die combat game where you upgrade your character and can manipulate the dice. The character that you are using, generally, has upgrade slots. Before you roll for attack, you can pay for upgrades that might give you a better attack or, might give you more die combinations that work to attack with. That is one way you can mitigate a really bad roll, make those rolls harder to happen.

But you also have cards that allow you to change die values or reroll dice. They all cost combat points, the upgrades and the cards to change die faces, so that is the cost you pay to get more control. And I like the variety of ways you can change dice. You might get to reroll dice up to two times. You might be able to change a die to a six, or match another die, or increase or decrease a value by one. So there is a lot of versatility.

Plus, in Dice Throne, some of those cards work on my dice only. But sometimes, I can change the value of one of your dice. So I get a little control over what you roll as well. It adds to the strategy of do I want to play defensively a ruin your plan, or do I want to save it for a big hit?

Dice Forge

Dice Forge gives you control over you dice in a completely different way than anything else I’ve mentioned. You actually customize your dice in Dice Forge. Everyone starts off with dice that are the same. You roll your dice every turn, even your opponents, and you can buy cards for points or dice face one your turn. That then allows you to customize your die rolling engine.

Now, there isn’t anything that you can do to change your roll. But you are the one who built your dice the way that they are. If you still have rolls that go poorly, it probably means you need to upgrade your dice more and focus less on cards. If every roll is good, now you flip your focus, or at least every roll is better, and start buying cards.

Mansions of Madness

Mansions of Madness is a fairly basic way to mitigate dice. When you are doing checks there are success, there are almost successes and there are misses. When you roll and get say a success, two almost successes, and a miss, you can spend clue tokens. That turns the partial successes into fully successes.

So Do You Avoid Dice?

I think that some players have a really strong aversion to dice. They see a die getting rolled and they think that they roll poorly so it isn’t a game for them. I guess that could beg the question if some people roll poorly or not. I don’t think that players actually do or it does even out in the end.

Yes, it might not feel like that when a roll and the end of the game causes you to fall just short. Or maybe it is Dice Throne and I get my ultimate and you can’t do anything about it. But dice aren’t bad for most gamers. And your rolls aren’t bad, no matter what it feels like.

The hobby gamer who should avoid dice are the gamers who want perfect information. What do I mean by that? Precisely what it sounds like, you know all that information. You know how everything will interact and there is little to no variability. It is about building your engine more efficiently than the other person. Or making the smarter moves in an abstract game. Chess is an example, you know all of your moves, you know all your opponents possible moves. If you need that, dice definitely aren’t for you.

Final Thoughts

This last bit is going to be more about what I like. Because I do like a little randomness in my games. I think that it can help keep the game fresh when it isn’t so much of a puzzle or a game where all the moves are available to see every turn. I like to react versus plan twelve steps ahead in a game.

So I like that I can save up in Dice Throne either to stop you from getting ultimate, if need be, or to shoot for one of my own. It makes for a more interesting decision making space for me. It is some of why I prefer Ascension to Dominion. With Dominion, yes shuffling is random, but it is more of a fixed puzzle in each game, versus Ascension which is more reactionary, like responding to a die roll.

That said, I am not going to go out of my way to find a random game. Something like Monopoly where you roll a die and then see what happens. That is not interesting to me. Like I said, I would probably play Monopoly if someone really wanted to, but I know I wouldn’t seek it out. So there is an element of control I want, but I don’t need that perfect control.

Oathsworn

I want to finish up by talking about Oathsworn to kind of demonstrate some of what I mean. In Oathsworn to make an attack or do a check you either roll dice, or draw cards. The cards give you the same randomness that the dice do. So if you roll dice you might get a 0, 1, or 2, let’s say. And the cards also have several 0’s, several 1’s and several 2’s. But the deck doesn’t reshuffle. So you can card count and either know that you’ve seen most of the 0’s so drawing cards and pushing luck that way is great. Or it might not have had any 0’s drawn so it’s cold.

To me that is a fascinating decision point of when you would push your luck with dice or with cards. The dice are always going to be more random. So on a fresh shuffle of cards, you might be able to get higher using the dice. But t here is also a better chance that you’ll bust and the check or attack will fail. It takes a push your luck mechanic and gives it so much more to be interested in the decision.

So to end on a question, do you like dice in games? And do you feel like you have good or bad luck rolling dice in games?

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I have held off on getting many purely solo games. While I find it fun to play games while streaming, I generally want to share the games that I love with other people. Solo gaming can do that if you literally share the whole game with someone so they can play it, But it gives a different experience, one that isn’t shared. And that keeps me from buying many of them. But the small game, A Gentle Rain, looked too interesting, so I picked it up, which you can read about in my latest Point or Order.

A Gentle Rain

The Game

This game is extremely simple. You have a stack of tiles and you flip them over one at a time. You lay them out on the table matching sides of flowers. Eventually in your pond you get so you have four in a square. Then you place one of the matching flower discs on that corner and continue. Your goal is to get all 8 discs out, but that is easier said than done. All the flowers on the sides must match, so will you get the right tile to be able to place and complete a square. Thus far my best is seven, twice, and worst is four.

What I Don’t Like

There are two things that stand out as things people might not like. Firstly, is this a game or an activity. Well, all games are activities, so is this a game? I would say yes, but it isn’t a game like we think of when we think of bigger games. That actually leads into the second thing, the amount of luck. When I think of a big game, I want some luck, but some choice. This gives you some choice, but it’s mainly luck. Do you flip the right tile at the right time? I can see people calling this an activity because of that.

What I Like

Personally, it doesn’t bother me either way if it’s an activity or a game. A Gentle Rain is a very relaxing and fun time. It gives me just enough of that itch for playing something that I really enjoy it. It is like Onirim but easier to get to the table in terms of how I feel when I play it. I don’t think either offers me massive amounts of choices, but there is just enough that keeps it interesting.

The game is also very fast. It says it plays in 15 minutes, I think that might be long. I believe that my one play, most recent, probably took 10 minutes, and this a great thing. I like that it goes fast because there are two types of solo games I want. Sometimes I want a big experience, but more often than not, I want a solo game that fills in 10-15 minutes of time. That game I can play when I want to clear my head for just a little bit, and A Gentle Rain gives me that option.

And while I do call this game simple and lucky, there are some choices. You don’t complete a square of four cards all that often. So you need to plan or think about how you are putting out tiles to create options for yourself. Now, you don’t use most of them, but you can at least try. I feel like there is a little bit to think about, but because it is solo there is no pressure on you to think about it. That, again, goes back to that mind clearing sort of experience for the game that I really like.

Final Thoughts

This game, I don’t think it’ll be for everyone. I like it, but for a lot of gamers, it is going to be too simple. For non-gamers, they are going to look at it and wonder why you’d want to play solo. However, if you are like me and playing a game helps stretch your brain in a different way and reset kind of what you are doing or how you are thinking, A Gentle Rain is really interesting.

Like I said, Onirim gives me a bit of the same feel, but A Gentle Rain is simpler and faster. With Onirim there is a lot of shuffling, which I don’t mind, but adds to the time. A Gentle Rain doesn’t have that, you grab a tile and get going. Now the one advantage Onirim does have is play size, as A Gentle Rain grows some. All of that said, I might prefer A Gentle Rain to Onirim which is saying something as Onirim has generally been in my Top 50 games.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: D+
Casual Grade: B-

So, I am updating how I do this grading at the end. I have always strived to put it in such a way that people can see if it works for them. That’s been an overall grade, the gamer grade, and casual grade. The only change is it now doesn’t have that overall grade, it has “My Grade” instead. Generally the “Overall Grade” has been my grade, but acting like that was a balance of both the gamer and casual grade didn’t work that well. Just a small tweak, but should make things clearer.

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Pros

• Look of the game
• Weight of the Game
• Price
• Pretty Pretty Dice

Cons

• Luck factor

The Page

This is a company that understands how kickstarter works, and they’ve done a good job on their game page. They have nice images and the game really pops visually when looking at it. I like that the how to play is at the top of the page, I only wish there was a little bit more detail than the rules prototype link and a link to a video. It talks about how the caskets can benefit the players in multiple ways, but doesn’t say more than that. Otherwise, everything is laid out really well and looks interesting to me.

The Game

The game itself, like I said, I have a general idea of how to play it, and it looks like a game that would be one that would work well for my gaming group. There’s some push your luck, it seems fairly light, so I think that all would work well.

Visually, as I keep on saying, this pops on the table, so I think people would be interested in it for that reason as well. And kind of like with food, you consume board games first on their looks a lot of the time, and this one looks like a feast.

Again, I will come back to the how to play section, you get a general idea of how the game works, but it should have more information. We’re seeing a lot of what you can do, but not any of the why or why it matters. And there are some elements, like the “ofrenda” that are mentioned as something that can be used, but nothing more than that. Either do or don’t tell me what I component does or what an element is, don’t just toss it out there as it’s something but we won’t explain it like it feels.

Back or Brick

For me, this is a back. And I’ll probably do the one to get myself access to the pledge manager just to decide because I know there are a few more games I’m interested in this year. That said, what sells me on this game is their attention to detail with the artwork and how everything seems to tie correctly into the Mexican culture and they are very careful about that, but with all of that, they still created a fun game, it isn’t just a history or culture lesson. I think that the game group would enjoy the push your luck and manipulation of the caskets that seems to be in the game and it feels like while there is luck there’s also a fair amount of strategy.

How about for you, is this game a Back or a Brick?

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So, what is a Dungeon Crawl?

A dungeon crawl game is generally going to be a one versus many or game versus many sort of game where the players are going through a dungeon and clearing out the monsters in that dungeon while also trying to possibly complete additional objectives depending on the scenario that is given. Generally you’ll have your character, the monsters, and anything else important on a map and you’ll use in the scenario. Generally these sorts of games are going to have a fair amount of combat. This combat can be done through card play but very often Dungeon Crawl games are going to have you rolling a bunch of dice to see if you hit or how much damage you do. That will be how you defeat traps and sometimes you’ll use different skills for things like overcoming obstacles or disarming traps as well.

One thing to note is that when we say Dungeon Crawl, it doesn’t have to be a dungeon per se. There are games out there where you’re going through a mine in the old west or fighting through a lab to get some secret plans. Dungeon Crawl definitely comes from fantasy and RPG roots but it’s something that’s been placed onto a lot of different settings. The term really refers to the idea that you enter the scenario at one point, you fight the monsters or bad guys, and you complete the objective.

Dungeon Crawls also generally fall into the broad category of Ameritrash games. This means that most Dungeon Crawl games are going to have some higher level of luck to them. Most often this will be in combat where you are rolling dice to see if you hit or not. For some people this can be off putting because if they roll poorly they might not be able to do anything about it. But a lot of these games also have something known as dice mitigation. This basically means that you have ways to manipulate the dice, either by rerolling them to see if you improve your result or the ability to change the face of the dice. Also, I would say, a lot of these dungeon crawl games have moved away from a simple pass or fail on an attack. Yes, an attack might not hit, but even on a miss they generally try and supply some sort of benefit.

Let’s talk about some games that fall into the style:

Gateway Games

Mice and Mystics – Now this is one that I actually haven’t played but that I’m quite familiar with, and I think provides an interesting feel and a good introductory point for a dungeon crawler. This game is not a massive game like a lot of dungeon crawlers are and the theme is really targeted towards kids and families, which is ideal for a gateway game as that means that it is going to be rules lighter. In this game you play as a band of mice who are fighting off monsters and completing a storybook of quests and missions. This works well as well because everyone is working cooperatively together against the game.That means that for younger players or people who might not be following all the rules, it’ll be easy to help them mid game, just don’t end up taking their turn for them.

Medium Weight

Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition – Now, I think the 1st Edition is hard to find at this point so I probably don’t need to specify, but I still like to anyways. In this game it’s a more story immersive dungeon crawl as you are going to a location to complete a specific story driven element on the game. You’re trying to solve the mysterious goings on at a mansion, or people disappearing at the seaside, or maybe even there might be some time travel. But there is something going on. This is another fully cooperative game as there is an app that directs you in what you need to do for the monsters and how the board changes as you reveal new map tiles and explore finding cultists, monsters, or clues that you need to stop the disappearances or ritual. This game has more complex rules, though most of your actions are pretty simple, but the app with the game makes it so that it walks you through a lot of stuff that could be a potential downfall. It’s a really fun game with a lot of expansions and scenarios.

Heavy Weight

Gloomhaven – Now, I was tempted to put Gloomhaven as the medium weight game on my list. I do not think that it is highly complex, but compared to Mansions of Madness and Mice and Mystics, it is more complex and just because of the volume of stuff in Gloomhaven, it is way more intimidating. This one, unlike Mansions of Madness which is one off scenarios, is a massive campaign game as well as you go through scenarios which are intertwined together to create a massive story of monsters, mystery and destruction. In this one the combat is less random because you have a modifier deck that you are using. Yes, you could still hit your null and do no damage, but you can improve the odds of doing well as you level up your character.

There are a ton more Dungeon Crawl games out there, I mentioned wild west, Shadows of Brimstone, if that theme is more interesting, there’s Reichbusters about being a crack team going in and basically fighting Nazi zombies. Or you could play through missions in Star Wars: Imperial Assault around the events of the original trilogy or play as Gimli and Legolas in an adventure in Lord of the Rings: Journeys In Middle Earth. So there are Dungeon Crawls for everyone out there and some are very complex and have massive rule books, while others are more simple.

What is your favorite dungeon crawl game? Are there any that stand out to you as being better than the rest? If you haven’t played a Dungeon Crawl game, what’s keeping you from playing one?

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