What if you held a convention for no one to come?

I enthusiastically follow ButtonShy and I was surprised when I saw a BGG listing for a game series called ShyCon that I’d never heard of. I wondered if it was designed to be a convention you could hold in your living room or by yourself.

Spoiler: it’s none of those things. It’s the goodie bag for ShyCon, Button Shy’s convention. That, despite paying so much attention to the company, I didn’t know existed lol

My intitial impressions have still stuck with me. Including wondering how they would even work as a concept.

I mean, how would a convention in your living room be any different than a regular game night? Have a computer set up in the corner to simulate the dealer hall by people shopping online in between games?

Now, a solitaire convention. That’s actually something I’ve participated in. Gen Can’t was essentially that. 

I first found out about GenCan’t from its 2017 Roll and Write contest where every game had to have a solitaire option or even just be a solitaire. I also participated one year in the mass Karuba game. And I’m sure there have been plenty of online conventions I’ve never heard of.

Honestly, when I first discovered BSW many years ago, it felt like I had discovered an online convention.

So, what would a physical product look like that was designed to be some kind of solitaire convention? 

First of all, it would need some kind of online connection. A way for everyone to be able to plug-in, albeit possibly not at the same time. It would need solitaire games that have scores, so people could compare how well they did with other people. And I think it would be also good to have a Take It Easy style-game so the developers could post a series of moves and attendance could have an experience like the Karuba one mentioned earlier.

Honest, I think a collection of three to five games would be a good number to keep it manageable. I don’t want to actually organize anything but it would be an interesting thought experiment.

And I’m sure it’s already been done.

I like ROVE’s children better than I like ROVE

 I tried out ROVE (Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer) when it first came out because, quite frankly, Button Shy has had a very good track record for me when it comes to solitaire games. 

And I was left with two impressions. First, it was a terribly clever design. Second, I did not grok it. A game can be good and I cannot enjoy it and both those statements can be true.

In ROVE, you are trying to rearrange six module cards into different patterns and each card has its own kind of movement. (It was pointed out to me that Chess clearly influenced ROVE’s design, which turned out to be obvious when someone else pointed it out) You pay for action points by playing move cards and you try and complete seven patterns (the move and pattern cards do double duty), as well as have access to one-shot special powers on each of the module cards.

And don’t get me wrong, I think it is a good game but I am profoundly bad at it. I am so very bad at parsing it. 

I did back the Kickstarter for Rove’s two sister games, ROVE JR and Aqua ROVE, but I was in no hurry to try them out since ROVE hadn’t been engaging for me. However, when I finally did, I found both of them clicked for me much better.

Both games remove the chess-like element of each module having its own kind of movement. In JR, every module moves the same and in Aqua, the movement cards dictate how the modules will move. For whatever reason, that is much easier for me to understand. 

There are other differences. JR uses only four modules. Aqua’s patterns include requiring specific modules in specific positions. Every flavor of ROVE is distinct. I can see the value in owning all of them (of course, since I just buy the PnP files, the cost is minimal)

I can’t say that JR and Aqua have fired the original ROVE for me… because I wasn’t playing it. If anything, my enjoyment of them makes it more likely for me to revisit ROVE. 

Still, Aqua ROVE and, if I’m to be honest, ROVE JR in particular are games I want to keep playing.

In Curse of Dragons, Mysticana ups its game

Curse of Dragons was actually the second Mysticana game I learned because I was part of its playtest forum. But approaching it again after learning Cave of Djinns, Wild Magic and Harbingers, I have a different perspective.

Mysticana is a game system that is designed to use small expansions to create new games. This is a tried and true formula. I mean, chips + cards

= poker. The basic Mysticana deck consists of six ranks in three suits and the suits have a rock-paper-scissors relationship. And, to be honest, I have been surprised and happy with what Mysticana has offered. 

Every Mysticana expansion/game has consisted of six cards so far. In Curse of Dragons, those six cards are five dragons and a reference card that I’ve found quite helpful. Each dragon has three bits of mechanical info on it: its difficulty ranking, its hoard/attack effect and the card sequence you need to make to defeat it.

You fight three dragons in every game. While it can be random, the fact that they have a difficulty rating means you can curate how tough you want your game to be. After you select your dragons, you draw a hand of three. One of those cards immediately goes to the hoard. More on the hoard later.

You have four actions you can take. Draw a card. If the value of your hand is fifteen or bigger, you bust. More on that later. Summon: if you have at least three of a suit, you can deploy one of those cards for free. Rescue, if you have at least three of a suit, you can discard one to get pull a card from the hoard that’s a weaker element.

And deploy. Deploy is the main action of the game. You play cards next to dragons to build up a pattern to defeat them. (And they all have specific requirements) The cards must be in ascending or descending order. And you have to discard their value or greater to place them. But you do get to do a bonus action, depending on their suit. Water lets you add a card from the discard pile to the dragons. Fire lets you discard cards beside one dragon. Wood lets you rearrange all the cards of a single rank.

Remember how I’d get back to hoard? The hoard is a separate stack that is how the game puts the hurt on you. When you bust, each dragon gets to use its hoard effect, forcing you to add a card from your hand to the hoard. The hoard being fifteen or higher automatically makes you lose.

From my perspective, since I’m not quite sure what order Mysticana games came out, Curse of Dragons represents a jump in both depth and complexity. It is meaningfully more difficult than, for example, Cave of Djinns, which I think was the first solitaire expansion. 

There is a lot going on, given its small scale. Four different types of actions, plus three types of bonus actions. The decision tree starts to build up as you play. Gameplay isn’t complicated but there’s a lot to keep track of in a fifteen minute game.

The hoard definitely adds good tension to the game. Managing the hoard can be more important than managing the dragons because it’s the game losing condition. The hoard is your AI opponent playing by its own rules.

Curse of Dragon is fun and interesting. At least for me, it’s a tough game to beat but I enjoy trying. I don’t know what the end goal of the Mysticana system is but Curse of Dragons indicates ambitious plans.

Hyperstar Run and the Art of Button Mashing

 Hyperstar Run is the eighth game by Scott Almes in Button Shy's Simply Solo series, a collection of solitaire games where every game consists of eighteen cards and no other components. And I remember when I was worried there might not be a third game in the series lol

(Transparency Disclosure: I got to be part of the play testing forum Hyperstar Run)

Hyperstar Run is a love letter to an earlier era of video gaming. It is also very much a love letter to button mashing, which might be the same thing. You are trying to complete the last level of a game and you only have four lives to do it. 

Other than your avatar card, which is used to track where you are and how many lives you have left, and two equipment cards, all the cards follow the same format of being a level card. They have a button symbol, two or three challenges that you need button symbols to overcome, and they might have a special power.

You get a hand of the two equipment cards and three level cards. You then create the level by making a line of cards, facedown. The longer the line, the greater the difficulty.  Your goal is to make it the end of the line before you run out of lives.

The core mechanic is simple. You place your avatar at the start of the line, turned to their current number of lives. Cards under the avatar is over are flipped over and stay flipped over. You play cards that match the symbols of one of the challenges on the card to move to the next card. Equipment cards have two symbols. When you can't move any further (and you haven't won), you take your cards back and add the first card in the line to your hand. Move your avatar down a life and start over.

Now, you do not have enough cards to win the game if that was all there was to it. Scott Almes is a clever guy, though, so he's given you some clever tools to work with.

First off, cards that you have completed also count as buttons. You can move them down, so they look like they've been pushed, to use them. They get reset when the level resets. Second, combos. If you use matching symbols to beat a challenge and the next card can be beat with the same matching symbols, you automatically beat that card. If the next card can be beat with the same matching symbols, you can keep on chaining the combo.

Third, some cards have special powers. If you are over a card with a special power, you can flip a card in your hand so its 'facedown' to use that power. You can later discard that card to activate another special power. The special powers let you rearrange the row or make it easier to beat challenges.

While the individual actions in Hyperstar Run are very simple, the actual game comes from figuring how to make them efficient. I particularly like how it is a hand management game where the board is part of the hand you are managing. I've seen it done before but this is still a very good use of the idea.

While the core idea of the game being rearranging the line to be able to maximize combos and buttons is pretty obvious, you still get to experience the sense of discovery as you reveal the cards in the line. You use lives to set up your end run.

I also like how thematic the game feels. While my video game jam is more Animal Crossing or Professor Layton, I do think that Hyperstar Run captures not just the idea of platforming but the idea of button mashing. Which is pretty funny but, hey, its also fun.

My least favorite thing about the game, of all things, is how much table space the row takes up and. since you push buttons down, I don't like to make it two layers of rows. And I admit that that is a pretty petty gripe.

I am solidly in the target demographic for the Simply Solo series. I've enjoyed almost all of them. Hyperstar Run may not be my favorite but I'm happy to have it in the series.

Couple of highlights of 2024

 I’ve pondered doing some kind of summary of the last year. You know, it’s the kind of thing that is human nature to do. But that can get pedantic and boring.

So I’ve decided to just mention two high lights for me in my gaming life: discovering Postmark Games and joining ButtonShy’s play testing forum.

Postmark Games has a small but robust library of games. I started playing their games in January and I keep going back to them. I can’t even decide which one is my favorite.

However, what really puts them over the top for me is that they are the perfect publisher to recommend to folks who might be scared of Print and Play. Possibly because they’ve seen how it’s become an obsession for me. Not only are they good games but they are easy to make. Just print out one or two pages and you are good to go. No other construction necessary. Just add dice and pencils.

Later on, folks can learn about ButtonShy and Hammer Dice and PnP Arcade and DicePen and…

While I am not a stranger to play testing but ButtonShy’s playtesting forum was still a big experience for me. It became a major focus for my gaming time for a while and I really enjoyed the community. 

Part of it is the idea of giving back to the hobby. Part of it is seeing part of the process of development. But the community was really rewarding.

I can’t find the time to focus on playtesting all the time but I am sure I will keep doing it.

My September Gaming

 September ended up being a more involved gaming time than I had expected. A lot of that was because of continuing to take part in Button Shy’s play testing forum.

I learned:

Everest 1924

FantasyForm 

Evil Lab: Monstrous Monster Mixer

Race Day

It Was This Big

Tumblin Thru Time

Converge

Rake & Roll

A Simple Life

Evil Lab: Tetra Terror

I went into September with the goal of finally playing It Was This Big. Which I did do. And it wasn’t a bad experience. It’s a silly bit of fun but there is some fun.

However, play testing had me learn FantasyForm and Converge so I could test expansions. The play test for Converge’s expansion hasn’t been released yet but I wanted to start getting in plays so I could be ready. And both of those games are a lot heavier than It Was This Big.

Of the two, I am currently more taken by FantssyForm. The theme and mechanics are a bit of a wonky marriage. It’s largely a market management game where you basically buy damage on your opponents. But it’s still fun stuff. Converge, I’m actually making the other two decks so I can examine the system more.

(I do think Converge stretches the definition of ButtonShy’s definition of a wallet game. It isn’t three 18-card games. It is one 54-card game, not counting the six-card solitaire module. I plan on making and trying the other 36 cards in October)

I always try to learn at least one Roll and Write every month. I learned four different ones in September. The best one was A Simple Life, which I’ve been meaning to try for a while. It legitimately captures of feel of a farming video game (in a good way)

All in all, a surprisingly rich and varied month.

My June gaming

 June was a different kind of month for me because a lot of what I learned were design contest entries or play test prototypes. Which, in many ways, are very similar. 

Miseries of the Night

Mysticana - Nine Perils

Casinopolis (prototype)

Dice Fishing D6

Guards & Goblins (2024 9-Card Contest)

The Star Speaker (2024 9-Card Contest)

Simply Solo #8 (prototype)

My Evil Lab

Design contest entries were one of my entry points into PnP so that was a return to form. On the other hand, being more serious about being in play test groups is new. I’m hoping to keep doing that but I will have to see what life holds. I momentarily have a little more free time but that won’t last. 

I have also noticed that I am getting into the habit of starting each month by learning a really quick, simple game just to make sure that I actually learn something. This month, it was Miseries

of the Night. Shockingly not Dice Fishing D6, which is easily the simplest and lightest game I’ve played all year.

But really, the real value of my game learning this June was playing games that were still in progress, still experimental in some ways. And giving my feedback in some cases. It’s a different side of gaming, one that I didn’t discover for quite a while.

I don’t know what July will be like. For one thing, I don’t know how often Button Shy asks for play testers lol

But June was rewarding.

Button Shy and playtesting

 Perhaps the biggest highlight of my June gaming was being part of the play testing group for Casinopolis.

As I understand it, I am allowed to discuss the game. I am just not allowed to give out the files. However, in order to be safe and courteous, all I will say is that it is definitely part of the greater Sprawlopolis family but is mechanically distinct as well. And jolly god fun.

(I do plan on posting a proper review when the game gets kickstarted)

This was not my first rodeo play testing a game but it was my first time play testing with Button Shy. And I am definitely planning on continuing to participate in their program.

Part of that is because I’m going to be buying these games anyways so it’s fun to both get a preview and contribute. A way to give back. The community is also quite nice, but I have had good luck with nice board gaming communities, on and off line. (When I first began my transition from only RPGs to board games too, I was amazed at how much friendlier I found board gamers to be)

But, frankly, the biggest reason is how accessible Button Shy has made the process. The hardest part was joining their discord server. Button Shy made it easy to find and sign up for the projects.

My gaming life has changed a lot over the years. For a variety of reasons, mostly moving to different cities, I don’t have a regular group. However, gaming finds a way. And this has been a fun way.

The Last Lighthouse - Tower Defense and Nameless Horror

 The Last Lighthouse is the sixth game in Scott Almes’ Simply Solo series. As someone who has stumbled into Print and Play, solitaire, and Button Shy, the Simply Solo series is one that I eagerly look forward to every new entry.

The game consists of eighteen cards (which I have been told is how many cards fit on one professional printer’s sheet) Two of them are your light house and a way to keep track of its health. The rest are duo-purpose monster/trap cards. Monsters are trying to destroy your lighthouses and traps are how you destroy monsters. 

The game consists of a queue leading to the light house. Monsters get added from the deck and you add traps from your hand. Monsters attack your lighthouse and your traps. Traps attack monsters.

Here are the two really clever bits. Both traps and monsters have special abilities that either go off when placed or when defeated. And managing special powers are a big part of the game. And, after your initial hand, you don’t draw any more cards. The only way you get more traps in your hand is by defeating monsters and getting those cards.

I hadn’t thought of The Last Lighthouse as a tower defense game until I saw other folks use that description. Trying to protect a lighthouse against a column of monsters? By Jove, it is totally a tower defense game!

My first two plays of the Last Ligjthouse were terrible experiences. That was because I got a rule seriously wrong. I had assumed that traps were one use and got discarded after taking out a monster. Even at easy level, that made winning neigh impossible. Then I realized that traps stick around until destroyed by monsters or the tide.

After I got that straightened out, the game got a lot better. In fact, I think that the mechanics are a treat. Games get tight quickly and there’s room for clever moves.

Most of my issues with the game are actually about the theming. In particular, with the term traps. Because traps implies a one-shot item and the traps are functionally work just like monsters, only on your side. A term like drone or automaton would have made a lot more sense.

I also wish traps had more theming.  The monsters don’t have names but they get creepy imagery. And being nameless may make them more dreadful. Traps don’t get a name or a picture, just numbers. It’s a level of abstraction that pulls away from the theming. 

That said, the mechanics carry the game and mechanics are the real deciding factor.

After a really bad first impression, The Last Ligjthouse is really growing on me. After I got the rules straight, it fits the Simply Solo mission statement. Easy to set up, doesn’t take too long to play while still having some meat on its bones. It went from ‘why am I playing this’ to ‘this is coming out on the regular’

So what is a foundation deck?

 Button Shy’s June Kickstarter is Mysticana: A Foundation Deck. I haven’t finished making a copy of the demo version but I did want to get some thoughts out before the Kickstarter ends.

(And, yes, I can make a functional copy with a regular deck of cards. However, let’s be honest, artwork does make a difference in how a game feels. Also, the built-in rock-paper-scissors of Mysticana’s element system is a good visual shorthand)

So, what is a foundation deck? That just sounds like a way of saying a game system that you can try and copywrite. Well, it turns out a foundation deck is a subset of game systems. 

A game system is a set of components that you can use to play multiple games with. A standard deck of cards is the most quintessential example that I can think of. Even the most conservative estimates say there are over a thousand games you can play with the regular deck of cards.

A foundation deck is a game system where you add additional cards for different games. Some games just require the base deck but you can modify the deck with other cards for specific games.

This isn’t a new concept. Looney Labs Looney Pyramids is totally a foundation system. Almost all its games (at least the good ones) add things like boards and dice or other stuff. And I think there’s nothing wrong with that. Yeah, the purity of a game system that uses a core set of components is appealing but purity tests are just for gate keeping.

What I think will make or break Mysticana is whether or not it has a killer app. If a game system has one really good game, one that people want to play, then it will have legs. A game system can survive having plenty of meh games as long as it has one good one. Poker is a great example of a game system’s killer app, although the standard deck of cards has a whole bunch of them. (Being around for centuries helps with that)

And I don’t know the answer to that yet. It’s not even a decision I can come to. It will end up being a community call.

I was very pleased that the designer diary explicitly mentions the Decktet as a major influence. A six-suited deck with multi-suited cards, the Decktet remains one of the most flexible game system decks I have found that isn’t just a modified standard deck. And it’s killer app, Magnate, requires additional components so it’s a foundation deck too.

Don’t lose sight of prototypes

 Over the last several years, I’ve not only explored solitaire gaming and print and play gaming, something that I would have never thought of doing at one point in my life, I also started looking into the world of prototypes, mostly through design contests. While I don’t think I’m going to discover the next big thing before other folks, I do think it gives me a look into how weird and experimental games can be.

However, as work and other life stuff (but mostly work) got busier and busier, I was spending less time looking at design contests and other prototypes. Oh, I’d still make sure to download files but most of my gaming and crafting was spent on files that I bought from publishers, which isn’t a guarantee of quality but does increase the likelihood of play testing lol.

So I’ve decided I need to take a couple steps to make sure I don’t lose sight of all the weird and wonderful experiments out there.

Over the last couple years, I’ve really only been paying attention to Roll and Write design contests, they tend to be easier to construct and it feels like a surprising number of them are closer to being formally published than other design categories. Plus, they tend to be solitaire friendly. But I’ve designed to take a closer look at the 2024 9-Card, nano game design contest, That used to be my favorite design contest. While they are small, there’s still plenty of room for quirky ideas. I’ve started printing out some of them.

I am also joining Button Shy’s play testing discord group. Not quite the same thing, particularly since I’ll be playing testing games that I will go on to actual buy later on. I guess it’s a way of giving back to the community.

I don’t have the time or the focus to go as wild as I once did. But it’s good to see other people’s visions and ideas, some of which may be the shape of things to come.

Apropos of gaming with non-gamers

 Apropos of Movies is a game I hadn’t heard of until I saw it on PnP Arcade’s Black Friday sale. Which is slightly surprising because I tend to at least look at what Button Shy is doing. (If PnP micro games are of any interest to you, Button Shy is your jam)

Apropos of Movies is an 18-card party/social/trivia game that can be played solitaire. It pulls off the later by being a cooperative game that you are playing against a timer. The timer is the bad guy.

Sixteen of the cards are movie elements and the other two cards are a ‘Must Have’ and ‘Must Not Have’ 

Set down the ‘Must Have’ and ‘Must Not Have’ cards. You’ll be forming rows of cards beside them. Set the timer. Now, draw the first card and put it in the Must Have row. Figure out a move that fits. Draw the next card. If the first movie has that element, the second card goes in the Must Have row. If it doesn’t, put it in the Kust Not Have row. Now,’figure out a movie with the new restrictions.

And so it goes.

The game ends when you’ve either successfully played five to seven cards or the timer goes off. You lose if the timer goes off. 

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the mission statement of Apropos of Movies was ‘Make a game to play while waiting for your food at a restaurant… that you have to play with non-gamers’ Because, if that is the one thing this game is supposed to do, it delivers. Trivia/Party games aren’t really my jam but I _know_ people would eat Apropos of Movies alive and without ketchup.

I do like how you have to come up with your own answers. The game just supplies you with the questions. That means, with maybe a house rule or two, you could get a lot of mileage out of it.

If I am packing one social game for a trip, it’s going to be Flipword. But if I want to throw in a second game, Apropos of Movies is a good backup choice.

I have learned that there is another game in the Apropos family that is about boardgames. I’ve gotten the PDF files for that but I have a feeling that will actually be one I will end up playing solitaire.

River Wild: Build valleys for fantastic beasts

When I first looked at River Wild, the first game I thought of Dos Rios. Which is completely silly because, apart from being themed around rivers, the two games have nothing in common. That said, I think Dos Rios is a lost gem so good for River Wild for making me think of it.

The game that it should remind me of is an earlier Button Shy game, Insurmountable. Both are 18-card tile-laying game that don’t use any other components. However, one is about building a mountain up with special powers while the other is building down a river with special scoring. 

As I already mentioned, River Wild is a tile-laying game. Cards are placed landscape-style. While you have to respect orientation, the flip side of each card is a mirror so it’s not that big a restriction. You have a hand of thre cards and you are building a river system that is flowing downstream from the source. The river can (and must if you want to form valleys) fork but it can never flow upstream.

The goal of the game is to form valleys, which are also the only thing that gives you any points. I honestly think they look more like islands but the rules call them valleys.  Valley cards have ore of two different things on them: either mythical animals or scoring conditions. Scoring conditions are sets of mythical animals that have to be in that valley to count. More than that, you will get fewer points if it’s your biggest valley so building a giant valley isn’t an automatic strategy.

Okay. Because it’s an 18-card solitaire game with no other components from Button Shy, I can’t help but compare te River Wild to both Scott Almes Simply Solo series and Aramini’s own Sprawlopolis series. (Yes, Sprawlopolis and it’s many kin can be played multi-player but they work solitaire very well as well)  And honestly, I’d say it isn’t as strong as most of those games. (Sorry Ugly Gryphon Inn)

But that’s comparing it to what I feel is the cream of the crop. Sprawlopolis is largely considered one of the best micro games and the reason most people have even heard of Button Shy. It’s like saying someone isn’t LeBron James. It still leaves room for a game to be excellent.

One of River Wild’s greatest strengths is how tight the margins are. Aramini helpfully supplies a scoring chart and it takes some careful planning to do well by its standards. It is mechanically simple but still requires some real thinking.

If you want to only have one game by Steven Aramini, you got to go with Sprawlopolis (which is really three games and a bunch of expansions lol) But if you’re willing to have more than one, River Wild is a good game to get.

Very early impressions of Death Valley

I printed out the demo of Death Valley and cut the cards last year. And now I I’ve finally actually laminated and trimmed the cards. My expectation were a fairly rudimentary push-your-luck game with pretty art and a good theme. And damned if it didn’t surprise me by being better than that.

Death Valley is an 18-card game that can be played by one to two people. In it, you are traveling through Death Valley National Park, occasionally pausing to journal about your experiences. I’ve never have actually been to Death Valley National Park but I have family that has.

And the cards are not just beautiful but also informative. Each one describes locations or other features of the park. Since I haven’t been  there, I don’t know how accurate it is but I appreciate the effort if they’re fooling me.

Mechanically, there are three elements on the cards. Hazard symbols, along with a number of how many of that symbols are in the deck. Stars. And special powers.

In the game, you’re building up two lines of cards. The top line is the journey and the bottom line is the journal, made from cards moved down from the journey. If a hazard shows up three times between the two, you bust and your journey gets scrapped. 

 

And, trust me, I’m leaving out a lot. Still, a core concept is choosing between drawing the face-up card or a blind draw from the deck. 

And that’s what I thought the game was about. But when I actually tried it out, the special powers became a much, much bigger deal than I’d expected. The powers either give you ways to score points or special abilities. Their uses and interactions add a lot to the game.

Oh, and those stars? At the end of the game, you get points for them but ONLY if they are in your journey. The cards in your journal, the ones that won’t go away if you bust? Those stars are just pretty and worth nothing.

So, don’t underestimate the push your luck either.

I have barely started to try out the demo version of Death Valley but I’ve already printed out the finished version and the Panamint City expansion and cut the cards. I won’t wait nearly as long to finish the cards and give the game a proper write up.

Death Valley is an eighteen-card microgame. That is a niche that has become quite packed with games. (Buttonshy has helped that happen) I expected a decent game but Death Valley instead promises to be top notch.

Scott Almes gave the world a nifty solitaire game

Food Chain Island was one of those games that I learned about, printed out and made a copy and played within the same twenty-four hour period.  Yes, it helped that it was only eighteen cards without any other components and had a simple rule set but that’s still faster than my usual process.

It’s a Scott Almes design (quite possibly the simplest design I’ve seen from him by a fair margin) and the first of a new subsection of Button Shy’s Wallet line, Simply Solo. The idea behind the Simply Solo line is to make solitaire games that are easy to learn and have lots of replay value. Spoiler: Food Chain Island is a good start as far as that mission statement goes.

The base game consists of eighteen cards and no other components: sixteen numbered animal cards and two special action cards. The announced expansions will add more special action cards. The core concept of the game is that you lay out the numbered cards in a grid and bigger animals can move onto animals 1-3 numbers smaller than them and eat them. Your goal is to down to one to three stacks of cards, the fewer the better.

Of course, there’s a clever bit. Every animal has some kind of special effect that goes off after it eats something. It can be moving other cards, making the next move be diagonal and such. Sometimes it can be helpful and sometimes it can be a restriction. The polar bear, for instance, requires the next move NOT be with the polar bear. Honestly, in most cases, it’s up to you to arrange the board to make the special move an advantage. The extra cards let you do some kind of extra move.

Okay. First things first. No, there is absolutely nothing original in Food Chain Island. The basic structure of the game is Peg Solitaire, which is over three hundred years old. And probably thousands of games have special powers at this point. Food Chain Island isn’t going to be remembered as Scott Almes greatest game. (Tiny Epic Galaxies is AWESOME)

None of that matters because Food Chain Island delivers on the mission statement of being an accessible and enjoyable solitaire game that has plenty of replay value. The fact that you’ve seen all the mechanics before is actually a point in its favor. It’s easy to pick up AND it’s easy to keep on playing. 

Food Chain Island reminds me a lot of one my favorite fidget games, Murderer’s Row, which has a very similar idea of reducing cards with special powers only in a straight line. Food Chain Island uses a two-dimensional space to work with.

Scott Almes didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. He took tried and true mechanics and applied them to make a game that I can’t play just once in a sitting. It’s not a deep or heavy game but it is explicitly not meant to be. If you like having little solitaire games to fidget with, Food Chain Island is a game to look at.

Finding your perfect city in Sprawlopolis

I have finally tried Sprawlopolis, last year’s shining star from Button Shy games. Took me long enough and my first impression is that it lives up the the hype.

Sprawlopolis is the spiritual sequel to Circle the Wagons. In addition to being by the same design team, they are both 18-card tile laying game where the flip side of the cards are the scoring conditions. The big difference is that Sprawlopolis is a cooperative game.

Which was not a selling point for me. I love Pandemic but, as a rule, cooperatives are not my cup of tea. (Watch is our child fall in love with them and I play nothing but until he goes to college) But I think that being a cooperative actually was better for the core concept.

Okay, in Sprawlopolis, you are city planners, working together to design a city. At the start of the game, shuffle the cards and draw three. Those will be the special scoring conditions for your game and you won’t be using the map side of those cards this time.

Something that is actually quite clever is that the scoring conditions don’t just tell you what you score or lose you extra points in the game. They also each have a number on them. The three numbers on your cards add up to the target number for that particular game. You have to score at least that many points to win.

Now, I’ve just played the solitaire rules, where I have a hand of three. With two to four players, you pass the hand around. Every one has a card but the active player has three. They pass the two cards they didn’t use and draw a new one. I like that a lot. It adds a lot of interaction to the game.

Each card has four quadrants (one in each of the four different colors), as well as some roads. Placement requires that at least one quadrant must share an edge an a quadrant on the board. You can overlap but you can’t tuck your card under.

After all the cards are placed, you get points for your largest area in each of the four colors, lose points for each stretch of road and go over the special scoring cards. If you meet the target number, you win!

You know, showing someone how to play the game using examples would be a lot easier than writing all that out :D

As you already know, I like Sprawlopolis a lot. Circle the Wagons is a solid game but Sprawlopolis takes the core ideas and makes a cleaner, more streamlined game. And being a cooperative helps that. You can have more players and you create a larger tableau. You have a variable scoring target as well as variable scoring. Sprawlopolis is a puzzle with a lot of permutations. It’s a great use of eighteen cards.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/251658/sprawlopolis. 

Milestones in my PnP life

There have been times when I feel like 2018 was when I started making PnP games but that’s balderdash. I’ve dabbled with print and play for many years. 

However, going through my notes, I can see how, since moving to Tucson, my interest in PnP really picked up. Yes, 2018 was something of a watershed year but I can see how that interest snowballed and what games and publishers were definite milestones.

Tiny Epic Defenders was a major one. Making the demo version during the Kickstarter was a big step for me as a crafter. Amusingly, it also convinced me to not back the game :D

The next major step for me was Button Shy games. Their pocket line of games gave me a wide variety of micro games to explore. They are easy enough to craft and enough of them are genuinely good enough to make them worth making.

Seriously, Button Shy opened a lot of doors for me, both in games to explore and ways of looking at both micro games and print and play games.

The last major milestone that really shook up my ideas and views was the 2017 GenCan’t Roll and Write Contest. I binged on Roll and Writes like I never had before and the best of them made me really reassess Roll and Writes as a genre. And the GenCan’t contest was also when my interest in solitaire gaming went beyond a mild interest and really snowballed.

Make no mistake. 2018 was a big year. I got a lot more serious and, more importantly, a lot more organized about print and play. It’s been a huge year for Print and Play for me but it didn’t come out of nowhere.