Adaman is a good but not to my taste

 When I decided that I needed to revisit the Decktet with a focus on solitaire games, I knew that my starting place was going to be Adaman, It is one of the earliest Decktet games, developed by the same guy who developed the Decktet itself, P.D. Magnus. Now, I had played it before, about twelve years ago. On the one hand, I remembered almost nothing about the game. On the other hand, I did remember playing it, which is still something.

The Decktet is broken down into two groups, the basic deck, which uses ranks like conventional deck of cards; and the extended deck, which has Tarot-like trumps. The deck has six suits but most of the cards have more than one suit on them, All of the cards have Tarot-like artwork, not unlike what you might expect if Pamala Smith had been possessed by Sir John Tennial while he was on a laudanum bender. Adaman, at least as it was originally designed, only uses the basic deck. The cards are also broken down into subcategories, indicated by the artwork. Your goal in Adaman is to discard/score/claim the eleven personage cards, ie, the cards that have 'people' on them.

The theme of Adaman is that you are one of the heirs to the throne and are building up power via palace intrigue. Gameplay takes place in three rows that can only be five cards long. The bottom row is resources, which functions as your hand. The middle row is the market and the top row is the palace. 

Shuffle up the basic cards. Deal out five to the market. Then deal out five to the resource row. However, if you deal a personage to the resource card, you move it to the palace row and deal a replacement card. So, the market can have any card in it. Resources cannot have any personages. The palace can only be personages.

Gameplay goes as follows. You discard cards from resources to claim cards from the market or palace. The discarded cards have to equal or be more than the rank of the claimed card and each card has to share suit with the claimed card. If you claim a personage, add it to your scoring pile. If it's any other card, put it in the resource row. Deal out cards to fill in any gaps in the market or resources and keep going.

You win if you score all eleven personages. You lose if you have to add a sixth card to the palace or you run out of moves.

All right. I would honestly describe Adaman as "just okay', at least for me. Mechanically, it definitely works. In fact, I'm finding it to actually be a tough game to beat. The royal cards, which are rank ten and have only one suit, are particularly tricky and help make the game interesting. However, there wasn't anything that really made the game sparkle for me. It doesn't have a hook, at least not for me. Adaman feels like a solitaire game for a regular deck of cards that has been adjusted for the Decktet. (In fact, that game may be Portraits)

There is a caveat. If you view Adaman as an introduction to the Decktet and a way to familiarize yourself with the cards, Adaman does an excellent job of doing that. It gets you used to the idea of a card having more than one suit and which cards are which. Another one of the early Decktet games, Bharg, was a two-player rummy game that felt like it had a similar goal and Adaman does it better. It forces you to examine the cards more closely and it makes use of the artwork. I feel no need to go back to Bharg while I still like there's some fun left in Adaman.

Now, on the third hand, I decided to revisit the Decktet because I've been playing a lot of Mysticana games. And the direct comparison to Adaman is Nine Perils, which also functions as an introduction to the core concepts of the deck. And that is a game I go back to a lot. In fact, I usually play a game of it as a warm-up before playing other Mysticana games.  Adaman doesn't have that kind of umph.

Adaman represents, more than some other Decktet games, using the game system like a regular deck of cards. Which isn't a bad thing. The standard deck of cards has to be one of the most, if not the most, successful gaming system in history. (Now someone will argue with me using dice as a counterexample) 

Adaman is a solid, good game but it's not why I like the Decktet.