Not to slight Nemo’s War at all, but I think Dawn of the Zeds just plain has more going on. More narrative, more special asymmetric abilities, more weird little mechanics and different directions things can go. Nemo’s War expresses its theme beautifully, but it’s much more about the core gameplay loop and the differences more to do with the objective you choose emphasizing different parts of that loop.
At least from my minimal experience with the two. And I don’t know about you, Tom, but I prefer more stuff going on.
I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Apocrypha is played in chapters, each consisting of nine missions that can be played in any order. You don’t necessarily have to beat the first one, then the second one, then the third one. I say this is “supposedly” true of all the chapters because I haven’t played them all. Some of them have really funky structures and for all I know, there might be some with missions in a set order.
As for the character progression, it’s not at all like Pathfinder. The characters progress by building their decks of course, but they don’t level up in the usual RPG way.
Does that answer your question or am I misunderstanding what you think my objection should be?
I’ve had Fields of Arle on my mind lately as a game I should pick up. There’s something about Uwe Rosenberg games that is nice to pull out on a Wintery day and spend a quiet afternoon contemplating a developing economy. I have Feast for Odin and Caverna already in my well stocked boardgame cabinets. Also Patchwork but the less said of that, the better! Is there a compelling reason to get Fields of Arle having owned the base game and expansions for Feast for Odin and Caverna, beyond the noteworthy cutesy stickers on cow sentiment? My local gamestore has a copy of it plus the Tea and Trade expansion… I could also get Ora Et Labora too. Help me @tomchick . I have money I can spend to support small local business. Justify for me Fields of Arle and its point soup that I saw time and again in reference to it. Don’t make me put it in as a review request… Wait, that might be a good thing. Something you like, plus you get to talk about it more.
Great list, Tom! And so glad you’re back on the site and feeling better.
As a life-long solitaire gamer, I’m always curious to see what other people like playing alone. Here’s my top-ten to further the conversation:
1. Lord of the Rings: The Card Game 2. Eldritch Horror 3. Mage Knight 4. Spirit Island 5. Tapestry 6. Unicornus Knights 7. Nemo’s War: 2nd ed 8. Paper Tales (Beyond the Gates expansion) 9. Lord of the Rings (Knizia) 10. Pandemic: Fall of Rome
So, we tried Apocrypha last night. I think our response was largely negative. Most of that due to the designer’s decision to load up every card with arcane symbols and jargon each with very specific meanings (that have to be looked up), and all of the keywords (that have their own 5-page glossary) each of which must be parsed and analyzed in relation to each other arcane keyword and symbol on all the other cards in play. It makes SotM and LotR LCG look like Candyland.
I assume after 5 or 6 games it gets easier as you memorize the jargon and the common interactions, but how many people get that far?
On the plus, we really did dig the setting and backstory. We actually read out some of the lore, which basically never happens. I doubt I’ll ever convince the other players to play it again, but I may try to solo a few more missions and see if I can make heads or tails out of the cruft they’ve layered over the game.
Do you think the game would be better experienced as a solitaire game first and foremost? In my experience complex games seem doubly so for every additional person involved in the playthrough.
Played, no. I did load it up and it looks like a pretty nice table with at least the introductory setup solidly scripted. On the other hand, it lacks the expansions they Kickstarted later as far as I can tell, whereas there is an unofficial DotZ table that has all three and is still on the workshop, which also has setup scripting. As someone who owns both the physical game and the DLC, I feel no moral qualms about using that instead. YMMV.
My main problem with the Pathfinder card game was that the character development was basically nothing. Maybe you’d get to replace one of your weapons with a very slightly better weapon. But more often it was just a matter of “which 5 of these 7 things in this category which are all basically the same should I keep?” I never got a sense of my character getting better, or leveling up, or getting cool magic items, or whatever. I don’t know if Apocrypha is different on that score.
I’ve been playing a fair amount of 7th Continent solitaire lately. I know it has mixed reviews, but I’ve been having a good time with it. It can be a bit frustrating though, with having to search the entire (very large) world for clues.
Character development in PACG is more about feats, though most of them are still incremental (a plus to this type of check, or having one more card in a given character) - it’s power feats that can make a big difference - suddenly you can reduce damage by displaying cards, or explore extra when you acquire certain types of card, or put things back on top of your deck after playing them, or…
Apocrypha doesn’t have that, it has “memory fragments” that you acquire. Through the adventures I’ve played, they’re fleeting and give a one time bonus, but I gather you can get permanent ones later. I’m sure Tom has a better sense of what’s out there, having played more of it.
The game doesn’t strike as being all that complex once you make your way through the unnecessary obfuscation. It’s really just draw a card from the deck, respond to it, repeat. But there is a LOT of stuff to keep track of, and keeping the states of 3 characters in your head all the time would be a challenge.
Course the seat position aid system struck me as pretty silly, thematically speaking. Why does it matter to the game rules where I’m sitting in the real world? Surely the board position of my character would make more sense.
Me too, since I kinda sorta bought it and am waiting for Fed Ex to deliver it some day.
The game doesn’t strike as being all that complex once you make your way through the unnecessary obfuscation. It’s really just draw a card from the deck, respond to it, repeat. But there is a LOT of stuff to keep track of, and keeping the states of 3 characters in your head all the time would be a challenge.
Based in the one video I’ve watched, that seems right on the money. I will have to research or come up with some way for me to keep track of those characters because I am prone to forgetting small details like status effects or whatever halfway through a turn.
Course the seat position aid system struck me as pretty silly, thematically speaking. Why does it matter to the game rules where I’m sitting in the real world? Surely the board position of my character would make more sense.
Maybe the game would be better served by ignoring the seating positioning and just using the board positioning. I won’t know till I try it on my own sometime soon, but I expect there’s nothing I could come up with that hasn’t already been done better by other players. I look forward to trying.
I’m glad someone still thinks of this game fondly, because while Pandemic clearly broke the co-op genre wide open, Knizia’s LotR was the first strike of the hammer within the 2000s boardgaming renaissance.
For a light, quick solitaire game, I quite like the solo mode of Era: Medieval Age. It’s a fun score-chase with a wide range of strategic paths, and you can bang out a game in 15 minutes once you have the rules down.
That said, Era is the very definition of a plastic boondoggle, and I would never, ever recommend paying full price just for the solo mode.
Ora Et Labora is weird. It seems really charming, but I get halfway through and realize I have no idea what I’m doing. There’s a very specific economy lurking in the cards, and until you know that economy, you’re almost flying blind. But I love how you expand your lands and build villages and mess around with all the resources. It’s ultimately kind of nuts, though, like Feast for Odin. I also love Feast for Odin, but man is that game crazy. You’re doing all this wacky Viking stuff one moment, whaling and hunting and digging ore from mountains and landing on Greenland, but then – bam! – you’re agonizing over a Tetris optimization puzzle. The least Viking thing ever. Packing, basically. And Caverna! Do you have the Forgotten Folk stuff? Wacky. Caverna has so many little bits and pieces and resources and different rooms you can build and then your dwarfs go on an adventure, which is like picking from a menu what prize you’ll be having today. “I think I’ll try the lumber with a side of sheep.”
Fields of Arle is the opposite of those Rosenberg games. It’s the opposite of nuts or crazy. It’s serene and focused and specific and it never feels like it’s running away from you.
