Blog Archives
Alone Time: Darkness Returns Twice
When you’re a force for righteousness like myself, there’s nothing quite so satisfying as driving a holy relic through the eye socket of a foul necromancer. Ah! The splash of his brain-ichor, cold and rancid, soaking the cuff of my tunic!
There are very few games that provide necromancer-slaying goodness quite so well as Darkest Night, one of my favorite solo and co-op games from last year. Its first expansion, With an Inner Light, which added the incentive of quests to get you roaming the map more and just hanging out in the mountains and forest less, was too.
So the question: are the two newest expansions for Darkest Night, On Shifting Winds and From the Abyss, as good as we’ve come to expect from Victory Point Games?
Alone Time: Suboptimal Moves
I don’t make suboptimal moves on purpose. Okay, that’s a lie. If I’m teaching a game, or a friend seems like they need a win, or the current best move will just piss off everyone at the table, then sure, I’ll intentionally make a less-than-ideal move now and then. Just to keep things breezy. But not when I’m playing solo games, because nobody will get angry because I’m winning or store a grudge for next game or flip my handcrafted game table. When I’m playing alone, there’s simply no reason to take any move other than the best one I can see at any given moment.
That is, until I played Freedom: The Underground Railroad. Let me explain.
Alone Time: Beyond Arkham
It’s incredible to me how often board games imitate life. And I’m not just talking about how they have rules, smell best when they’re new, work fine whether played solo or as a team, and tend to be about trains a lot more often than we’d like. Sure, all of those things are pearly nuggets of truth, nested into board games to remind us of our mortality, but I’m not talking about those. Oh no, not at all.
Rather, I’m talking about how board games warn us about the return of the old things. Because not letting our planet get transformed into a chew-toy is pretty dang important, don’t you think? Anyway, what follows is a series of letters from one of my ancestors, one Leo Anderson, which happen to correspond exactly with some of the things that can happen in Eldritch Horror. Chills. Up my spine. Brrr.
Best Week 2013: Alone / Co-Op Time
“What’s this Best Week all about, sir?” I was asked last week by the orphan pulling my rickshaw through the fictional streets of Malgudi. I considered not answering, as talk shortened his breath and subsequently lengthened the journey, but some Christian nook of my heart compelled me to tell him anyway. Perhaps it is because I believe all peoples everywhere should know about Best Week. It is, after all, the most joyous five days of the year, in which all the best board games are compiled, considered, and listed. And everyone loves lists.
Today, on the very first day of Best Week 2013, we’re going to examine the five best solo and cooperative games of the year. There are some natural limitations — I cannot, for instance, award the title of “Best Solo / Co-Op Game of 2013” to a game I haven’t played, and there are one or two games that didn’t come out in 2013 at all. So okay, it’s subjective. But I’d love to hear your input, dear readers, for Best Week is not only about my favorite games — it’s also about yours.
Addendum Time: With an Inner Light
For this month’s issue of Alone Time, I covered a stellar little game called Darkest Night from Victory Point Games, the “Little Game Company That Could” (no really, that’s their actual self-designated nickname) (no, really, would I lie to you about that?). Well, as much as I loved Darkest Night, now I have to retract some of my praise — because however good it is, I’m never going to play it again… unless I’m also using With an Inner Light, which takes a fabulous game and makes it even fabulous-er.
How does With an Inner Light manage such a makeover? Good question! Let’s find out together.
Alone Time: Keep It Secret, Keep It Safe
Remember that scene in the second The Lord of the Rings movie where Frodo, Sam, and Gollum ran out from under their marsh-bush to shoot arrows at the passing Nazgûl and its fell steed so they could do battle? Yeah, me neither. Because instead, they cowered under that bush and shat their britches and hoped they wouldn’t have to do any fighting at all.
Most fantasy games don’t operate that way. Instead of sneaking about, their heroes barrel in with nocked arrows and raised swords, even though any halfway decent dark lord would seize the opportunity to fit them for some shallow graves. Not so in Darkest Night from Victory Point Games. The theme of this one-to-four-player co-op is familiar in one sense — a necromancer is polluting the kingdom, etc., etc. — but this time, your valiant heroes are going to be creeping around on their bellies and praying they don’t attract too much attention, because if they do, the necromancer is going to mosey over and put some serious hurt on their noble bottoms.
Alone Time: Aether Captain Todd
By a show of hands, is anyone getting tired of me highlighting the work of Todd Sanders?
If you raised your hand, too bad! If you didn’t, good, because we’re not done yet! Seeing as how all of Todd’s games are free in spite of being surprisingly good, you’re crazy to not want more. And more we’ll get — although we’ve already looked at most of the games in the Shadows Upon Lassadar series, Todd’s got an entire second universe under his belt. It’s the steam-driven floaty world of “Aether Captains,” and while I won’t be going over every single title (after all, there’s a whole bunch of them: Aether Captains, Capek Golems, Clockwork Cabal, Dread Supremacy, Pirates and Traders, The Search, Triad, Triad 2, and Compass and Empire) (those games entitled “Triad”? Those are three games apiece), today we’ll be taking a look at three of them.
Buckle your steam-seatbelts, because on page two, we’re talking about the original Aether Captains, one of Todd’s earliest designs.
Alone Time: Three Sieges
The ever-prolific Todd Sanders is something of a patron saint for us solo-flying boardgamers, which is why I’ve minted a series of collectible totems you can carry in your pocket. Just incant Todd’s name three times (in the dark, looking into a mirror, gnawing a sprig of Conium maculatum between your molars) (please don’t swallow) and rub the totem betwixt pinkie and the back of your thumb to have one of Todd’s solo games teleported directly to your location — okay, okay, I didn’t get around to finishing them. Turns out black magic is harder than the manuals made out.
Instead, I’ve previously covered a couple titles from his Shadows Upon Lassadar series here on Alone Time, and I recently finished playing the entire second Lassadar trilogy. So you’re in luck, because I’m ready to tell you about not one, not two, but three solo games (because trilogy apparently means three. Huh!).
Buckle up! On page two, we’re talking about the Siege At Dalnish.
Alone Time: Robin Crusoe
Ahoy there! I’m filling in for Dan today. He told me that this “Alone Time” thing is a series about boardgames you can play by yourself, and there’s none better qualified to tell you about the solitary life than I, Robin Crusoe, of York, mariner, who lived one and ten days, all alone on an uninhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; having been cast on shore by shipwreck, wherein all the men perished (ha!), with an account how I was at last strangely delivered by pirates. It’s pretty damn gripping, really.
Before we begin my amazing tale, Dan left me some notes to share with you. Let’s see here… something about an Ignacy Trzewiczek, who made a game about a convoy that Dan liked… best cooperative and solo game of the year… something like that. Sorry, the ink got damp on my last adventure. Sounds like it was boring anyway.
With that dull stuff out of the way, let’s talk about my adventure!
Alone Time: Solopelago
Greetings, fellow lonely boardgamers! Now now, before you wind your typewriters for the composition of strongly-worded letters (in my imagination, your typewriters are electric but powered by treadle), I realize this issue of Alone Time is over a month late. Worse yet, the content isn’t even original — I talked about the rather-fantastic Archipelago a mere couple weeks ago, and here I am caught on repeat.
Still, this is an experience any self-respecting solo boardgamer ought to know about, because it turns out that one of the freshest recent multiplayer boardgames is also one of the freshest recent solo games to hit the market. Once you pick up the Solo Expansion, anyway.
SPACE-BIFF! 