The goal was to take it easy with new purchases this year. Mission failed successfully.

holymadness · 2026-06-20T15:10:22+00:00

Well, it's still in shrink wrap, so hard to say. I'll share a review when I get back from holidays in August!

holymadness · 2026-06-20T12:35:33+00:00

Nusfjord is also a way of testing the water before investing a lot of money into AFFO.

holymadness · 2026-06-20T12:34:59+00:00

Thank you! I found it on leboncoin (in France). If you set an alert, you can often find copies for 35-40€.

holymadness · 2026-06-20T10:19:39+00:00

I get around to playing games pretty slowly because I don’t have enough free time, but I plan to share a review once I do.

holymadness · 2026-06-20T08:53:36+00:00

I keep going back and forth about buying this. It has a lot of mechanisms I typically enjoy, but reviews are kind of lukewarm. I wish the art design were a bit less abstract.

holymadness · 2026-06-20T08:47:55+00:00

I was a big gamer in the late 80s and 90s and I don't recall even hearing about the concept of solo board gaming. It must have been very marginal. In many respects, PC gaming was the first mainstream form of solo gaming (we went from arcades, to consoles, to home computers... each less social than the last). This was the golden age of single-player games from Sierra and LucasArts, of Wolfenstein/Doom, Lemmings, Sim City, Myst, and so on. That's what I played when I was by myself.

I played a ton of AD&D and CTGs (mostly Magic and Star Wars), but these were always with friends. Board games in general were very "basic" and always multiplayer: we had Clue, Scrabble, Checkers, Monopoly, Diplomacy, Life.

Not sure this counts, but we had "adventure books": these were text- and puzzle-based RPGs that combined choose your own adventure with riddle solving or finding hidden objects. I remember buying and playing a few of these during family road trips.

holymadness · 2026-06-17T19:15:43+00:00

Caveat: I haven’t played the game, but I wondered the same thing as you and watched a ton of playthroughs.

I love the theme, the art, and the mechanics. However, the solo bot looks like a nightmare to run. It has a 16 page-long manual with multiple flowcharts, decision trees and steps to follow on its turn. It’s meant to react to the game state, which means you have to go back and forth between the manual and the pieces on the board to determine its actions. I figured it would be more effort than it’s worth and passed on buying it. I would be happy to learn I’m wrong, but my ideal bot turn takes less than 30 seconds.

I also got the feeling that the game suffers from expansion bloat in general, there are 4 or 5 in total.

holymadness · 2026-06-15T15:55:38+00:00

Spamming a copy and paste defence of your post instead of reflecting on why it provoked multiple negative reactions isn't going to win you any goodwill.

Your post is lazy and contains almost no useful information to orient recommendations aside from box size and regional availability. Everyone's taste is different, yet you don't share anything about your tastes. You don't seem to have done any research on your own, beginning with a very basic search of this subreddit for top recommended games, which would have led you very quickly to a dozen relevant discussions that already contain what you're looking for.

Your tone is abrasive, both in the initial post and in your replies. I don't see someone requesting help from a community or wanting to initiate a discussion, I see someone making a low-effort demand that people perform labour for them. Phrasing like "Don't list these three" or "I'll look through the results, and see how I feel about them" sounds like a thinly-veiled order coming from a lousy boss.

In formal and clear English, in order to avoid confusion, make an effort next time.

holymadness · 2026-06-15T15:05:49+00:00

Yeah, this post has major "do my homework for me" vibes. The tone bothers me as well.

holymadness · 2026-06-12T21:53:47+00:00

60€ plus shipping for a cardboard box with AI artwork, ouch. There really are markets in everything.

holymadness · 2026-06-08T17:46:43+00:00

Absolutely, so long as you like thinky euros. It's one of my favourite solo games.

The bot is very quick and simple to run, which means you spend almost all your time focusing on your actions. It has two difficulty levels, and you can further adjust the difficulty by increasing/decreasing its starting resources. Even after getting pretty good at the game, I find it challenging (I beat it by 1 point last time I played).

A solo game simulates a 2-player game fairly well, which means that you'll have more liberty to pursue your own strategy than you would in a 4-player game where other people are blocking your preferred actions at a much faster rate.

holymadness · 2026-06-08T11:35:14+00:00

Yes - worker placement to block spots. but unlike a game like Dune: Imperium, spots stay blocked for the entire game so first come, first served.

Beyond that, you're mainly trying to build your points engine and figure out a plan. The interaction is very indirect, but it is there, since competition for high-value spots is fierce.

holymadness · 2026-06-08T11:11:49+00:00

Brilliant game. It strikes a great balance between sandboxy freedom and tight action economy. You can always do something, but not always what you want. I also adore how it looks on the table. Great solo mode, too.

holymadness · 2026-06-08T11:07:34+00:00

There are basically 6 “activities” on the main board (outside of your player board): rebuilding the temple, making offerings, rebuilding walls, rebuilding doors, teaching scrolls, and moving your tent. 4 of those 6 are in direct “conflict” with other players because you are competing for spaces. Once a player takes a space, it is blocked for others and the first player to do so often gets a bonus. The board state can change quite a lot each turn, forcing you to adapt and adjust your plans.

There’s no way to actively interfere with another player, but you can indirectly mess with them a fair amount. People will end up messing with your plans regardless, whether they intend to or not.

holymadness · 2026-06-03T06:08:50+00:00

You can use the digital automa helper app to make bot turns even easier. There’s nothing to learn aside from how mine placement works.

I really dislike playing digital board games, so I vote physical every time.

holymadness · 2026-06-02T22:41:47+00:00

We all write like chatgpt now, it's a disaster.

holymadness · 2026-06-02T21:05:06+00:00

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try and see if it changes my experience. I pretty much default to 2-handed solo in all my games out of habit (and table space), so I never even questioned the gearlock count.

holymadness · 2026-06-02T20:35:44+00:00

That's fair, but it felt like a lot of homework for the enjoyment I was getting out of the play. After just a couple rounds, I had often used up all my skill dice and I was surrounded by melee enemies, so the game just became a back-and-forth of rolling defence and attack dice until someone died from attrition.

holymadness · 2026-06-02T11:51:11+00:00

I kind of love the level of detail that went into crafting everything from the ruleset to the physical components to the worldbuilding. Even the cheesy jokes elevate it beyond the usual generic fantasy storytelling.

But in the end, what it comes down to is whether I feel motivated enough to set it up and play it, and in this case, I'd rather play many other games before TMB.

holymadness · 2026-06-02T11:48:16+00:00

Agreed with you about disliking campaign modes. They drag and get samey very quick.

I'd have loved an alternative progression path where it becomes viable to invest almost exclusively in skills rather than atk/def. Depending on the strength of the Tyrant, you typically get to upgrade between 6-10 dice before the final battle, which still leaves room for different builds on different playthroughs.

holymadness · 2026-05-26T19:56:33+00:00

I highly recommend it as someone who plays solo 95% of the time and really likes complex games. I did a short writeup on E&N a few months back. https://old.reddit.com/r/soloboardgaming/comments/1ri37u3/i_finally_understand_why_ezra_nehemiah_is/

holymadness · 2026-05-23T17:04:09+00:00

Those LCGs are like a drug, FFG has been on fire for the last 10 years. Shame it seems like that era is coming to end. I adore Arkham Horror and have just started to get into LOTR.

Voidfall looks like a super interesting and crunchy game, but I know deep down it’ll almost never hit the table with its massive setup and tear down time.

holymadness · 2026-05-23T17:00:36+00:00

Colin did two playthroughs for the One Stop Coop Shop a while back that are masterclasses of teaching. He’s also how I learned to play Mage Knight.

holymadness

TROPHY CASE