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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.
Alone Time: Cthulhu Yahtzee
In last month’s installment of Alone Time, I mentioned that the Lord of the Rings Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games was very possibly the only solo game a fella would ever need. And perhaps you thought to yourself, “What if I don’t want to design decks and buy more quests? Also, I hate hobbits.” If that’s the case, today we’re going to talk about two different editions of another game from FFG. It’s Elder Sign, and it’s much more self-contained, has a lot more dice, and doesn’t have quite as high a barrier to entry. And anyway, what could be more anti-hobbit than H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos?
Alone Time: Not Jackson’s Hobbit
Although it’s highlighted some pretty exciting adventure games, today Alone Time is going to outdo itself — and not only by talking about itself in the third person; rather, by introducing you to The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games! More than being merely a great two-player game (and theoretically more, though more than two makes it as boggy as the Dead Marshes in late April — pardon me, Thrimidge by Shire reckoning), TLotR:TCG is also an absolutely fantastic solo game. What’s more, it’s so expansive that it blurs the line between game and hobby.
(Half) Alone Time: Sorrow of Salilth
The beleaguered city of Salilth.
First Light. We wake to cold and to sound of screams outside the gates of Salilth. Jewel of the cities of Lassadar, home of our citadel and one of the great centers of the Council of Wardens, is surrounded. It is the time we have feared would arrive — the Grayking is come. We Wardens have prepared as best we as are able but will it be enough? I seems we are to be the first to meet openly with he who was once our brightest promise.
With an intro like that, we know immediately we’re looking at another entry in the Shadows Upon Lassadar series by Todd Sanders. I talked about the first one a couple weeks back, and found it to be both an excellent example of solo boardgaming and completely free. Except for the price of ink and paper, of course. Oh, and scissors! You’ll need those too. As for the two questions that are undoubtedly hanging precariously from the edge of your tongue — whether Sorrow of Salilth is also free, and also wonderful — well, the answers lie below.
Alone Time: Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire
Have you ever wanted to play a solo science fiction board game about running a galaxy-spanning super-empire that’s more Asimov than Herbert or Lucas? And carefully sheltering it from alien invaders, power-hungry usurpers, and squabbling offshoot empires? Or observing the rise of cults that worship your emperor as omniscient, sweeping galactic enlightenment movements, or the appearance of a future-predicting Institute?
And would you like that game to have tight, enjoyable, and logical rules?
Because if you answered yes to that last question, Struggle for the Galactic Empire is not for you. All that other stuff is in there though.
