Played solo games of Dungeon Alliance and Hexplore It over the weekend.
Dungeon Alliance is a keeper. I had a blast with it. I dove straight in and played the full game with quests and it’s surprisingly intuitive for a Mage Knight player. That’s because this is pretty much a streamlined version of that game.
I was a little worried going in because most of the cards are just +1 this or +2 that, without much intricacy to them. But like Mage Knight, it’s less about the card you play as it is about managing what you have. Even disacarding is an agonizing choice as you may not need a card this round, but you can’t stop thinking about how great it would be for the next one.
Everything just works in this one. I will say that for solo play, the quests are a necessity. Otherwise it’s just a beat your high score game, and I’m not a fan of that.
Hexplore It I’m still not sure about. It has some great ideas, and there’s plenty of depth to be had. But it also seems kind of simplistic at the same time. Power ups just give you generic bonuses and gear is non existent in many ways (you just get to increase the value of your various stats without any associated real world reasoning to it).
Still, there’s a ton of content so I may need to just give it more time. I will say that it reminds me of Shadows of Malice in many ways. I kind of wanted to break that out after an hour with Hexplore It.
Word of warning to those interested in Hexplore It. My cards and boards are warping heavily after 24 hours outside the box. The stuff can most likely be flattened out again by putting them back in the box and placing something heavy on it to increase the pressure. But I haven’t seen this level of warping in game components since Space Hulk 3rd edition.