Re: The #1 Solitaire Boardgame of all time, Apocrypha
Whew. Since posting 6 or so hours ago that my box arrived, I finally had the time to:
- Eat & thoroughly wash my hands
- Open the base game
- Talk to family on the phone while I impatiently tried to convince them I was listening, while really I was longingly reading through the included manual and storybook.
- Run through the basic tutorial mission along with the development team in their Youtube Tutorial series.
- Break down and sort the rest of the base game’s contents.
- Select and set up my very first mission, Candlepoint: In Cold Blood solo w/ 4 Saints
- Play through one character’s turn
- Burn out a light bulb in my gaming room.
- Roll my eyes in the dark.
- Get another bulb and take a short break on my sofa before heading back in.
And here I am.
So far I’m finding the time I spent this week watching tutorial and gameplay videos to be invaluable. The literal literal tone of the instructions, and the cards, symbols, and keywords seem much more intuitive to me after having done so than I could ever imagine them being had I not already heard several times over (in this very thread in addition to the videos) what to expect. The entire concept of Omens, Saint’s Nexuses, Halos, Fragments, and True Threats vs Archetypes vs Gifts & Threats are also much more relatable to me.
I can already tell this is a game I will enjoy quite a bit. The artwork and lore are right up my alley. I dig the tone and the modern horror setting. And I love the stories behind the missions I’ve glanced at so far.
My only issue right now is table space. I’m playing on a smaller footprint than I would like, and it’s making each Saint’s deck, hand, discard pile, and portrait card & bury pile a game of careful manipulation to play with without screwing up another Saint next to it. AND THIS IS WITHOUT ANY HALOS. I don’t know what I’m going to do once I’m wielding fragment halos. I might just have to get a different (wider) table to play at.
One other quibble I have is that the base game has 10 possible Saint’s to choose and play, but it only came with 6 plastic stands for their avatar tokens. WTF. If I have to slide the base off and on each time I swap characters I’m expecting the cardboard avatar tokens to get obliterated. One of my first orders of business will be getting more of those plastic stands.