Calico by Kevin Russ is the first physical board game that I purchased since the COVID-19 pandemic ended my in-person gaming group in March 2020. It’s also the first game I’ve purchased since I launched MeepleandtheMoose.com and started playing my physical games solo. I purchased Calico not only because I was drawn in by the cozy cat aesthetic and endearing art by Beth Sobel, but because I knew the brain bending puzzle of fitting together the best quilt is a challenge that inspires excitement in my little gamer heart.
Coconut is the most comfortable cardboard kitten I’ve seen all day
Thanks to Covid-19, I’ve only had the opportunity to play Calico at 1 and 2 players. I plan on returning to this game once I’ve had the opportunity to play it more with larger groups of people. For now, I’m just so excited to share my thoughts that I don’t want to delay this post any further.
Calico, as I mentioned in my Top 100 post, is a cerebral tile laying puzzle game. In Calico you are given 7 different ways to earn points with the sneaky insinuation that if you’re a competent quilter, you’ll be able to achieve glory in every facet of the game. It’s all a bundle of lies! In Calico, you must first accept that you will not be able to score all the point and the only way that you’ll be able to survive is by picking and choosing which of the goals and objectives you’ll focus on in any given game.
Components
Calico’s components are bright, vibrant, and high quality. Each of the four player boards are dual layered, which helps keep your tiles in place. The tiles come in 6 different patterns and 6 different colours, with 3 copies of each. The cat scoring cards are adorned with artistic renditions of actual cats (you can read their biographies in the back of the rulebook). Associated with these cat scoring cards are miniature tokens of each cat that will dot your player board if you can satisfy that cat’s very specific desires. The cloth tile bag is thick and sturdy, with plenty of space to shuffle the tiles within. Speaking of those tiles, they’re very thick and have a linen finish. The game box cover and some of the tokens have a spot UV coating that will shine if you catch the light just right. The production of this game has left nothing to be desired.
How to Play
The gameplay of Calico is very straight forward. When you begin the game you have a empty player board that you’ll fill with your hopes, dreams, and regrets. Each player starts with 2 tiles in their hand, and 3 more tiles in an offer row. On your turn, you’ll place one of the tiles from your hand anywhere on your board. Then, you’ll take one of the tiles from the offer row, place it in your hand, and refill the offer row. Every turn proceeds in that exact fashion until the boards are full and you’re left with your head in your hands contemplating how everything fell apart so quickly.
Calico Set up for 1 player. More players just get their own boards with the same scoring tiles in the centre
Allow me to speak about each of the scoring opportunities separately, starting with colour coordination. If you are able to stitch together 3 tiles of the same colour, then congratulations! You just earned yourself a button in that colour, which is worth 3 points! If you’re able to earn at least one button for each of the 6 different colours, you’ll be awarded with a rainbow button which itself is worth 3 points.
Each game of Calico will have 3 different cats displayed to the side. To lure those cats onto your board you’ll need to match their requested shape with one of the two requested pattern tiles. Coconut might just want 5 tiles of the same pattern touching each other, while Misty wants a 4 tiles arranged in a cross and no other arrangements will satisfy Misty’s fickle nature. Each of the cats you draw to your board will grant you certain amount of points; the easiest kittens will bestow a piddly 3 points per feline laying cozily on your quilt, while the most demanding cats will award up to 11 points, which should make you purr with glee as you place your awarded cat token on your quilt.
Hey I got a button! This game won’t be so bad!
There are also 3 objective tiles on your board. While every player will have the same 3 objectives, each player is free to slot them into the objective spots on your player board in whichever order you wish. These objectives ask you to surround them with a certain set of colours and patterns. A pattern asking for AA-BB-CC will want 3 sets of 2 different colours or patterns. If you can satisfy the requirements in either colour or pattern, you’ll get the lower number of points (usually somewhere between 5 and 10). If you can pull off the super-human feat of satisfying both colours and patterns… well, along with bragging rights and a slow applause from myself, you’ll earn slightly more points (generally between 10 and 15).
When playing the solo mode, the only salient difference from the multiplayer game is how the offer tiles behave. First you imagine a conveyer belt and visualize the direction the tiles will move in. During your turn you are free to take any of the 3 tiles available. Once you’ve claimed your tile, the remaining tile furthest to the ‘end’ of the conveyer belt is flung into a proverbial furnace, never to be seen again. The final tile is spared such a cruel fate, but it moves to the end of the conveyer belt and two new tiles populate the row. That’s the extent of the differences between the multiplayer game, and playing the game on your own.
I call this board state: The River of Dread
Near the back of the rulebook there is a list of achievements laid out that chart your progress toward becoming a Calico master! The achievements dare you to win a normal game while exceeding 60, 70, or even the insane 80 point threshold. Can you win the game without collecting buttons? Can you get the elusive rainbow button? Can you do it all while standing on one foot while rubbing your cats belly and tapping your head? Both my wife and I really like this feature, as it gives us something to work towards, and amps up the replayability of the game.
Another feature that Calico offers is a list of scenarios. The game suggests 10 set-ups and asks you to accomplish a specific set of tasks. The first scenario requires you to earn a rainbow button and exceed 58 points. The next challenge has requires that you collect 5 cats tokens and exceed 59 points.
Well well well… If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.
I found the scenarios a wonderful reason to play Calico on my own. Considering the title of my Journal is “I am not a Solo Gamer, I shouldn’t have to reiterate how I rarely play board games on my own. I had this thought when I playedSagrada solo and the challenge of that game was just to exceed the sum of the undrafted die. Simple score attack solo games do not excite me, and perhaps because of that I have not returned to Sagrada’s solo mode since.
I very much enjoy the design of Calico‘s scenario challenges. I like that each scenario has been tested and calibrated to test my quilting skills, and, while it cannot account for the randomness of the tiles that come out of the bag (No, I don’t need a third green polka-dot tile, thankyouverymuch), at the start of each game I do feel the challenge is beatable if the tiles fall right and I play well.
It’s not the prettiest quilt, but my cats seem to like it
Review
Let’s get down to brass tacks. Playing Calico is a very simple affair. Each turn requires only three decisions and at the start of the game when your board is full of opportunity and promise, you’ll happily place tiles somewhat arbitrarily, perhaps chasing a short term goal like getting 3 colours together. As the free spaces start to dwindle and the need for specific tiles rises, you’ll quickly find yourself making concessions and saying “it’s fine if I don’t achieve both colours and patterns for that one objective. It’s fine if I don’t get all 6 buttons and achieve that rainbow button. It’s fine if I only get one cat token on my board. It’s fine if I only achieve one of my three goals…” This amount of negotiating with yourself and being forced to compromise when the wrong tiles come out of the bag is what elevates Calico from a neat puzzle to a fun game.
So, the production is fantastic, the puzzle is great, the aesthetic is wonderful. What’s the downside? Calico has almost no player interaction. If you look across the table and see your friend has sewn a perfectly colour coordinated and patterned quilt, there’s nothing you can do to affect them. The most you can do to affect your opponents is take the tile they may want or need, but then you better hope that you can use that tile, otherwise it’ll be taking up one of the two tiles in your hand and hurt you more than you hurt them. It really can feel like the whole game comes down to the last few tiles that get pulled from the bag. When you’re down to the last four spaces and you are needing a tile that is a specific colour and/or shape, your heart can drop when the next tile that gets pulled is the absolutely wrong one. It’s doubly frustrating when you see your opponent say “I just need a yellow stripes!” and then get it. Smug bastards.
Not a bad sized box
If you can accept that you won’t be able to complete all of the scoring objectives in a single game, I think you’ll find Calico is an enjoyable game. If you’re hoping for a game that has lots (or any) player interaction, Calico is not the game for you. Personally, I love Calico, and I can’t wait to introduce it to my family and friends. I know the production of the components, the art direction, and the deeper than expected gameplay will have my loved ones asking to set it up and play it again and again!
I’ve said before that I am not a solo gamer. Playing board games by myself was something I did as a wee lad living in a small village in northern Manitoba where there was no one around who wanted to play games with me. Since then, I have grown up, moved to a place where there is more than one street, and vetted a pretty fantastic friend group with whom I regularly play board games. Needless to say, I’ve never felt the need or draw to explore the world of single player board games.
Cue the pandemic. The world shut down, and so did in-person gaming. Although my group quickly adopted Tabletop Simulator so we did not have to survive the pandemic without ANY board games, it just hasn’t been the same. I’ve missed the tactile experience of moving meeples, placing game tiles, and holding a hand of cards. To fill this aching need in my soul, I decided to explore the solo modes in the games that I already own, and to my amazement, I kind of liked some of them.
After I wrote about Paperback and posted it on my Twitter, designer Tim Fowers reached out to me and offered to give me a preview of his latest game, a fully solo experience called Paperback Adventures. I leapt at the chance.
Adventuring Basics
I’ve already written aboutPaperback at length, and if you know how the word building in that game works, you’re already halfway through learning how to play Paperback Adventures. The other half of the rule load comes from understanding how manage the AI enemy and the round structure, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
In Paperback Adventures you begin by choosing one of two asymmetric characters; the rogue Damsel, or the robot, Ex Machina. Each character has their own starting deck of 10 cards, plus a deck of 50 cards, some of which that may make their way into your deck over the course of the game. Each character has 3 sets of 2 core items. These items change how you interact with the ‘boons’ that you accumulate on yourself, and the ‘hexes’ you’ll inflict on your opponent. Each set of these core items will drastically change how to approach each combat and any future upgrades you may get. In addition, each character starts with 2 items unique to them that offers even more options during a combat, and one wild letter card that is essential when it comes to making words.
Once you have your deck and all your items, it’s time to embark on your adventure. Paperback Adventures is broken up into 3 books. Each book features 2 regular enemies and 1 boss that must be overcome. Each enemy you face will provide you with a vowel card that can be used in each of your words. On each of your turns, you’ll draw 4 cards and decide what word you want to make out of the letters the deck has decided to give you, including the wild card and the vowel the enemy is providing if you wish. Each of your letter cards has symbols along the left and right edges, these symbols provide attack, blocks, and mana (which is needed to use your items). In addition to all that, every card has an ability that can be triggered if the letter is the top card of the word.
Top card of the word? What does that even mean? Well, when you decide on what word you want to play, you also need to decide if you’re going to ‘splay’ your cards left or right (splaying is laying your letter cards in a line, showing only the left or right half of each card). Once you’ve splayed, the one card that doesn’t have anything covering it will trigger it’s ability. Then, you’ll count up all the symbols on the left or right sides of your letters, apply any hits you’ve accumulated, then perform the enemy’s action which varies depending on the enemy you’re facing. Assuming that neither of you have died after trading blows, your top letter card (the card which power you activated) moves into a ‘fatigue’ pile, and the rest of your cards go into the discard (except for your wild and the vowel provided by the enemy, those are available to you every turn). You advance the enemy action marker (so you don’t lose track of what they’ll do on the next round), then draw a new hand of 4 cards. As per expected deck building rules, if you need to draw a card, but can’t, shuffle your discard and keep going.
Once you knock the enemy’s health down to 0, they become stunned for the rest of that turn. You flip over their card, reset their health to it’s new value, and prepare for the second half of the battle. The enemy will now have different or stronger abilities for the rest of the combat. Assuming you’re able to overcome the challenge presented by the enemies second side, you’ll be rewarded with riches beyond your imagination. Just kidding, but you do get some rewards for surviving each encounter.
After each encounter you’ll draw a card from a basic rewards deck that will offer some bonuses. Perhaps you’ll be offered new letter cards from your character’s deck that you can use to replace existing ones in your deck (hopefully stumbling upon a wonderful synergy that you’ll be able to exploit to crush the upcoming enemies). You may upgrade cards that are already in your deck (more on this in a minute), obtain new items, find macguffins that offer you special abilities, and perhaps take some penalty cards that feature hard to play letters, no attack or block symbols, and often some drawback for not playing them in a word on the turn that you draw it.
After you’ve reaped the fruits of your combat, you set up the next enemy, steel yourself for the challenges ahead, and press on.
Review – How this game made me feel
I have not had a run where I’ve beaten all 3 books in a row yet. Only once I got as far as the boss in Book 2’s. Too many penalty cards and inopportune card draws sank my character. Paperback Adventures is a “roguelike” game; you always start from the same static and weak position. As you play the game, you gain random benefits and just might come across an incredible combo that breaks the game apart, while on your very next play of the game you’ll find yourself begging for mercy in the first encounter due to some terribly unlucky circumstances. The randomness is what makes a game like this so addicting. When you finally do win, you feel vindicated; powerful; unstoppable.
Paperback Adventures utilizes randomness in a satisfying way. By placing you into a situation with your hand of cards and perfect knowledge of what your enemy is going to do, it’s entirely up to you to decide how you want to tackle the challenge. You’ll weigh the costs and benefits of attacking vs blocking, and decide if you’re willing to take the 3 damage now in exchange for a big hit on the enemy, or if you should just bide your time, hoping your next hand will bring you the cards you need to bring home the victory.
It’s important to note that you can’t stay defensive forever, or even for very long. Because you have to fatigue a card out of your deck every turn, every encounter is on a timer. After half a dozen turns your deck is down to just 4 cards, which means you’re drawing your entire deck for your hand! The knowledge that each turn from that moment on will be drastically weaker propels you forward, encouraging haste as you to take a hit on the chin to frantically lunge for the kill before your deck becomes too weak.
I found the AI opponent and game system as a whole very easy to maintain. The round to round upkeep was quick, simple, and got me back to making interesting decisions quickly, rather than bogging me down with upkeep and game maintenance. The decisions that went into this design were obviously careful and deliberate. Tim Fowers has crafted an experience that is satisfying and sticks in my head like a catchy tune so I’m musing about it during the moments where I’m not playing this game.
A really neat feature that Fowers used for this design is the use of card sleeves to facilitate upgrades to the cards. Each card in your deck comes sleeved. When one of the letters in your deck gets upgraded, you take the card out of your deck and flip it around, showing off the upgraded abilities on the back, and place it back in its sleeve. Each card has a note on the bottom of the card telling you what the upgraded ability will be, so you don’t need to pull all the cards out of their sleeves to decide which one you’ll want to use. I have only played this game on Tabletop Simulator, so I cannot attest to the physical quality of the experience, but I do applaud Fowers for his creative genius when it comes to innovative design.
Final Thoughts
I really like Paperback Adventures. Were I younger, I’d say I “like like” Paperback Adventures. It’s the kind of game that lived rent free in my mind for days following my first couple plays, which is always a good sign. It’s challenging, entertaining, and it utilizes a theme that I truly enjoy. Having said all of that, I admit that I am biased. I love deck builders, I love word games, and I really enjoy Tim Fowers’ designs. For people who share my tastes, this is an excellent design.
All in all, I really enjoyed my plays of Paperback Adventures. Playing through the entire 3 book campaign in one sitting may be a tall order, as each book takes between 60 and 90 minutes. It’s easy to ‘save’ your progress after a combat and jump back in when you have more time. I’m absolutely looking forward to getting my hands on a physical copy and really diving into the adventure, probably dragging my friends into it with me, playing cooperatively. When I tell my friends about this game, I don’t say “It’s pretty good for a solo game”, as if it’s simply understood that solo games are somehow inherently inferior. I tell them that Paperback Adventures is an excellent game.
Bullet♥︎ exploded into into my life from seemingly nowhere and consumed my soul for nearly 3 weeks. I was drawn in by the promise of fast paced shoot-em-up (SHMUP) action and a gorgeous anime aesthetic. What I got instead was a compelling puzzle game where the player manipulates sliding discs to match patterns while learning how to best use each heroine’s abilities to defeat the multitude of bosses.
Adelheid, one of the eight playable heroines
Bullet♥︎ is a game that offers numerous play modes. You can play the head-to-head mode, which is designed for multiple players to battle to the death; the score attack mode that lets players see how long they can survive when their neighbours aren’t trying to kill them; or you can explore the co-op/solo option, the boss battle mode. Bullet♥︎ is designed so that players learn the head-to-head mode rules first, as that forms the foundation for the rest of the play styles.Bullet♥︎’s head-to-head mode begins with a real-time 3 minute timer dictating when a round ends. During each round players put a certain number of discs (called bullets) into their own bags and start the timer. As soon as the timer starts ticking, they’re free to furiously pull bullets out of their bags, one at a time, and place them on their board (players’ boards are referred to as their ‘sight’) according to the colour and number depicted on the bullet.
Each bullet colour has its own lane, and the number on the disc tells you how many spaces down your board the bullet must be placed, skipping over any spots that already have a bullet occupying them. Players can be as quick or slow as they want when pulling bullets out of their bag, and can spend energy freely to use their heroine’s skills to manipulate the bullets that are already in their sight. The goal is to utilize pattern cards to remove bullets from their board and send them off to an opponent. However, if the timer runs out and they still have bullets remaining in their bag, the bullets must be drawn and placed in the sight with no opportunity to manipulate or clear them. If a bullet ever hits the bottom row of the sight, the player loses 1 hit point, and if they run out of hit points, they’re out of the game.
Three of Mariel’s patterns. Each character has up to 10 different patterns.
At the end of a round, every bullet players have managed to clear from their sights gets put into the bag of the player to their left. As as the rounds proceed, more and more bullets get added to everyone’s bag from the supply. The game continues until there is only one player left standing. While this is supposed to feel like a victory, proving your superiority over your friends, in reality it feels like the winner is just the person who was able to tread water the longest. The head-to-head mode helped me to learn the fundamental rules of Bullet♥︎, but I’ve spend the vast majority of my time with this game in the solo or co-op mode, the boss battle!
The Intensity track adds bullets to every players bag at the start of each round
Every character in Bullet♥︎ has a boss mode that presents you with a wildly different challenge to overcome. The boss battle mode plays very similarly to the head-to-head mode, except all of the bullets coming into your bag are dictated by the current level of the boss, and how far you’ve broken down their shields. As you continue to send bullets and break the boss’ shields, the number of bullets that will get added to your bag each turn usually increases.
In addition to the multitude of bullets that you have to deal with, the boss has a pattern of their own that you must match in the end of the round, or suffer their penalty. In the case of Adelheid, your bullets are turned upside-down, which can make them difficult to use in your patterns. If you happen to break one of Adelheid’s shields while you have face-down bullets, the face-down bullets will automatically hit you.
Adelheid, how could you turn against us? We trusted you!
Each character and boss is wildly asymmetric in nature, to a degree that I didn’t think was possible when I first learned the Bullet♥︎ system. Playing different characters can feel like an entirely different game because the ways they interact with their boards is so diverse. To compound on that, every boss presents you with a fully different challenge, which drastically increases the replayability. Some bosses are a cakewalk to defeat when using a specific character, but feel completely insurmountable when using the other characters. It’s incredibly fun to explore each of the characters and change your strategies depending how they play off each of the bosses.
The boss battle mode does away with the real time aspect. This allows you to slow down and puzzle out exactly how you want to approach each wave of bullets as they enter your sight. I understand why you wouldn’t want to use a timer during this mode, considering the additional cognitive load of running the AI and ensuring that you’re not going to trigger an effect that will deal 4 damage to you in a single move. However, it does remove the action-packed, fasted paced nature the game promised to emulate.
I love Bullet♥︎, and whole-heartedly recommend playing it. I’ll be the first to admit my biases; I love the anime asthetic, I’m an avid gamer (even if SHMUPs aren’t my genre of choice), and I love puzzle games. Bullet♥︎ checks each one of those boxes. The publisher, Level 99 Games, has also released a soundtrack of 3 minute long character themes that you can listen to via Spotify while you play the game, which is a wonderful addition to the experience.
One of the major downsides of me playing Bullet♥︎ 40+ times over the last month is that when I return to in-person gaming and I introduce my friends to this game, I’m sure I’ll wipe the floor with them. There isn’t anything to assist new players against veterans, other than making the veteran use a character they’re unfamiliar with, but who knows if even that will be enough slow me down. I did have some success when introducing this game to a new player by playing 3 co-op rounds of the boss battle mode first, and then moving into the head-to-head battle. This way the other player has SOME familiarity with the system. Still, it’s hard to close the gulf separating our experience levels when I have dozens of plays under my belt.
The entirety of my experience with this game has been via Tabletop Simulator, which also gave me access to Bullet🍊, a 4 character expansion to the game, based off Orange_Juice games (Sora, Flying Red Barrel,SUGURI, and QP Shooting – Dangerous!!). This expansion adds even more asymmetric heroines and bosses to face off against, further expanding the matrix of play options available, and offering even more different ways to interact with this system.
While it does feel weird to recommend a physical product while having never put my own hands on it, the digital implementation allowed me to fall in love with the challenge presented within the box. As soon as this game lands in my FLGS, I know I’ll be picking it up.
3 – That Which Points was a tough nut to crack. Oh my elation when I finally knocked her ass to the curb
All above images ofBullet♥︎are screenshots of the Tabletop Simulator mod.
The question that comes up when I make the choice to play a solo game is ‘what differentiates a game from a puzzle’? I could also question why do we even play games in the first place, but I’m here to write, not to think.
I tried the Solo mode for Sagrada the other day, after saying I’d get around to it for years. It was always something that I knew I could do if I wanted, but I didn’t really feel like it just now.
I don’t know how to solo mode came into being for Sagrada, if the game was designed to be both solo-able, or if it was a kickstarter strech goal they hoped they’d never reach, but after playing it once, I can say that it doesn’t appear to have been given the same amount of time or thought as the multiplayer design.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a game designer, and making a game that is compelling for both multiple people to play competitively and solo would be quite the challenge, especially if the person sitting down to judge your work is professing from the start that he is ‘not a solo gamer’.
Sagrada’s solo mode follows the same basic gameplay from the competitive game. Pull out a number of die, put two into your window following all the restrictions, and try to get the highest score possible (according to amigoodat.games the average score is around 46. My own stats trend a little higher at 49.29, with the average winning score being 56.43. You can submit your amigoodat.games bug reports here).
Should you be able to beat a solo game the first time you play? Should it matter if you’ve played the multiplayer mode a couple dozen times? I played at the medium difficulty level and beat the goal score without much issue. But even if I cranked it up to the highest difficulty, it only would have added 2 more die to the target score, and removed 2 of the possible tools from me.
What sets the solo mode apart is instead of having other players scores to try and exceed, you’re trying to exceed the sum of all sum of the die you pass over throughout the game. With a difficulty scaling of +/- 4 scoring die and less tools to use, I found the solo mode to be a fine way to learn how the game plays, but not a compelling experience that would have me pulling the box off the shelf when I find myself craving some cardboard time.
One of the questions I found myself thinking after the fact is if it would have been more satisfying if I wasn’t trying to beat goal score, but rather trying to achieve the highest score possible and getting a ‘rank’ based upon the score threshold. Of course, that score would vary depending on the goal cards that are dealt at the beginning of the game and if the colours of die match the goals well.
I wonder if there would be a way to set up scenarios? Preconfigure specific goal cards and seed the bag with a certain number of each colour, then attribute a rank depending on your endgame score. I wonder how much more you’d have to change before this becomes less of a game to beat and becomes more of a puzzle to solve.
I recently heard a rumor of Sagrada Legacy, perhaps some of my thoughts and questions will be answered there.
P. S. I’m still upset about the amount of empty space in the box.
Artist: Nikoletta Vaszi, Naomi Robinson, Benjamin Shulman
Publisher: Gamelyn Games
Banana for scale
One of the games I spent over 100 hours on in my youth was Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. That game kicked off an addiction of an entire genre that I’ll hereby refer to as “Tactics” Other games in this Tactics genre that I loved: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Pokemon Conquest, XCOM, Into the Breach, Banner Saga, Fae Tactics, Fire Emblem (every English release to date)… you get the idea
Side note here, I’ve never been a fan of the Advanced Wars style of tactics games. I’ve tried a few Advanced War entries, as well as Wargroove and it just doesn’t jive with me. I think (speaking specifically about Wargroove because I played it most recently) the big problem is that the specific units don’t have any kind of growth. There’s no level ups, no managing equipment or spells that make the units unique to you. You don’t affect any change to make the units yours.
It’s important to hold the high ground
Tiny Epic Tactics designed by Scott Almes and published by Gamelyn Games is a 1-4 player take on the tactics series. This entry in the Tiny Epic series is specifically designed to appeal to the gamer with a nostalgic feel for the aformentioned Tactics games. The main map is a scroll with 5 sturdy boxes stacked in various spots to create elevation. The rulebook has several modes of play (2-4 player competitve, 2 v 2 player team play 2-4 player free-for-all, 1 player solo adventure, and 2 player solo adventure. As I’ve only played the 1 player solo adventure, that’s what I’ll be focusing on here
To begin the game, you will have 4 characters to control, one from each of the 4 classes (warrior, rogue, mage, and beast). Variability here feels high as there are 8 options for each class, theoretically offering thousands of different combinations. Once your heroes are selected you set up 4 more (one of each class) as your opponents and leave the rest to the side (they can get subbed in if you successfully beat down the opposition).
8 characters for each class
You begin the game with the party split, two characters in each corner and 4 enemies randomly spawned in 3 spots closer to the middle of the board. On your turn you can do 3 actions that can be taken with up to 3 different characters. If you elect to use two actions with a single character, they’ll be put into a weakened state where they either need to not move next round, or lose two HP.
This mechanic makes it so you can’t just run up and attack in the same turn, but try and predict where your opponents will be so you can maximize your actions. it also prevents you from favoring one character too often, which you probably shouldn’t be doing if you want to win the solo game
The goal of the solo game is to explore 5 caverns, collect each of the crystals, and then fight your way through the final cavern to win the game. You lose if all 4 of your characters die, or if the game timer runs out. You start out with only 7 turns to get all of this done, but each time you defeat an enemy you regain 2 turns. This leads to a cost/benefit analysis in your head, trying to decide if it’s worth your time to spend the actions necessary to get the reward of time back on your side.
Gotta get them crystals
There are some times where you will need to knock your opponents off a cliff before you can enter the dungeons (the dungeons are the 3d terrain tiles flipped upside down), but this leads to one of the biggest challenge of the solo game. Getting everyone off the final box. When you kill an enemy character they are removed from the board. But the next turn you respawn them at one of the three spawn points with one of those spawn points being on the final dungeon. This would mean you need either to get lucky with the spawn point, kill the enemy with 2 ranged actions and one move into the dungeon, do a hit and run melee attack (either killing them or pushing them off the terrain, or lure the enemy off the box. In my (one) experience, this portion of the solo game grinds to a halt and just frustrates you against the RNG of the solo game.
The mechanics of Tiny Epic Tactics do manage to evoke feelings of the tactics games that I referenced before, but lacks any personalization beyond assembling your initial team. During the solo game I found my thought pattern following the same path that I would when playing a proper Tactics video game, such as considering elevation, or moving one character before another to take advantage of their positioning. That part of the game does feel good, but it also lacks depth. There is no character progression, no way to change the abilities of your characters, or modify the party composition to deal with changing situations.
The image quality on the boxes are much higher than the playmat
I do have a small complaint with how the dice are used in the game. Each attack uses the die in a different way. The Melee attack uses die to determine how far the target is pushed. The Ranged attack uses die to determine how many ammo has to be used before the attack is successful, and the magic uses the die to spend more mana to possibly do more damage (in my experience). This is a mild annoyance and the fact that I need to think “Is rolling dice good or bad for this action?” adds to the mental load of playing the game.
From someone who is not a Solo gamer, this solo mode felt fairly well done to the point where I will likely try to play it one more time. This time with a better understanding of what each attack does and if/when abilities could be useful. It did remind me that I’m not really a solo gamer, as a lot of the time I spent playing this on the table, I found myself thinking “I never did get around to playing Fell Seal”. It’s hard for a solo board game to make me want to play it instead of a video game, but I believe one day I’ll find the right solo system that will let me in on what makes solo gaming special.
Tiny Epic games don’t waste a lot of space in their boxes
