RAF: The Battle of Britain 1940

Rating: 6

I relish designer John Butterfield's D-Day at Omaha Beach and Ambush! games, but not RAF: The Battle of Britain, which I purchased for the cleaned up version of the original system.

This is an intricately designed resource management type of war simulation with tons of luck and about as few choices as games like B-17: Queen of the Skies and Silent Victory. The "map" is almost irrelevant and could have been yet another section of boxes to move pieces into or out of and the combat is highly abstract, which doesn't help bring the theme forward.

If you're looking for a solitaire simulation for 30 step turns that will require many chart lookups and few decisions, this is for you. If you want a nice solitaire wargame design with a lot of choices, check out the other Butterfield titles I mentioned as well as Thunderbolt: Apache Leader and Warfighter (both by DVG) and Target: Iran, Zulus on the Ramparts, and Vikings: Scourge of the North (all by Joseph Miranda).

The 7th Continent

Rating: 5.5

7th continent feels like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, plus a ton of card sorting to slow things down and make it less fun than that kind of solo experience. Ultimately, the playing is largely that of resource management and card sorting, and while the mystery/fog element is neat, the inconsistent art isn't appealing to me--some illustrations are roughly drawn while others resemble 90s computer models. The play style of "go everywhere, do everything, and the clues will eventually be found" also seems laborious rather than adventurous. And having the positive and negative outcomes shown on the cards before a decision is made really spoils the narrative bit by bit. 

This gameplay is somehow both too linear and too open in that it requires specific things to be done in a massive system. The adventuring feels set up for right and wrong paths to achieve certain goals rather than a truly open story that I can live out with my character.
It's as if somebody is whispering "Keep to the script" when I wanna explore. Perdition's Mouth doesn't do this. Mage Knight doesn't do this. Even oldies like Barbarian Prince and rogue like Citadel of Blood don't do this.
It's a respectable and admirable achievement, but the play felt tedious very early on each time I played.

Zombicide: Black Plague

Rating: 5

This zombie chopfest is a bit better as solitaire, but proved tedious as a two player game, where my girlfriend and I had to handle three character a piece. For a game that plays 1-6--and solitaire--it's frustrating that the scenarios are almost all balanced for six characters. This certainly makes it appear more like a wargame, BUT without the tactical complexity of a good wargame or the spaciousness of a good wargame or the scale of a good wargame. The line of sight rules and the manner in which zombie groups split are equally annoying design elements.

Essentially, Zombicide: Black Plague is the 1980s Gauntlet video game with plastic toys: chop! chop! chop! run, run, run; chop! chop! chop! pick stuff up; chop! chop! chop!

I gave this thing away after two tedious two person games.

I suppose the theme, profusion of toys, and constant action make Zombicide popular in some circle--like this site--but why should I ever play this thing when Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift is on my shelf? Interesting maps, varied terrains, great characters, fantastic monsters, interesting wounds, great miniatures...basically, PM:AR is a similar experience to Z:BP, but with a TON of depth and EVERYTHING (including the maps and art) done better and with more originality. And for fighting against a massive, overwhelming systems, there's the great solitaire wargame D-Day at Omaha Beach. And for fun adventuring and far better fantasy battle mechanics, Runebound 3rd Edition is a winner.

Cuba Libre

Rating: 5

My rating would likely be a little or a lot higher if I played Cuba Libre as a multiplayer game, but as a solitaire game, this thing was a chore to learn and play. 95% of the time I spent interpreting the instructions for the 3 different opposing factions and tallying points rather than playing. The fact that every single solitaire video I watched had the players get something wrong during almost every turn shows the many ambiguities and untidy clerical duties that are required by Cuba Libre's solitaire "programing". (And I play ASLSK, Mage Knight, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Cave Evil, Perdition's Mouth, and many other games that are considered far heavier.)

There are some clever ideas aqui en Cuba (eg. the guerillas going underground, the base building, the casino skims), and the components are very well made, but it was advertised as having a solitaire design, which for me did not work out. "Play" required so many different (and unclear) flow charts for the 3 AIs that the solo mode seemed like an abstruse add-on to what is likely a pretty good 4 player game design.

So I'll put an asterisk next to my critical review, which was from the perspective of somebody who was looking for a rich solitaire wargame (favorites include: D-Day at Omaha Beach, Thunderbolt Apache Leader, Ambush!, Warfighter WWII, and Zulus on the Ramparts!, etc.), but found an unclear, patchwork AI system that was all work and no play.

Friday

Rating: 4.5

Meh. I'm not sure why the designer calls this Friday, when the story doesn't remotely reflect the Robinson Crusoe narrative. And why is the player a territorial and misplaced "Friday" facilitator instead of just Robinson Crusoe? This gripe wouldn't really matter, but I do think this disconnect mirrors the chief problem of the game, which is that it has no depth and is wholly numerical.

Never once did I feel any sense of adventure or place in this game, where I got progressively better as I learned to better count cards and weigh the odds of garnering requisite numbers. So basically this is like a regular playing card game (poker or blackjack or solitaire) with some special abilities, some goofy artwork, and zero world building. It's hard to imagine players even bothering the read the one word flavor text after a game or two--it's simply lifeless ornamentation.

I am a fan adventure fiction, the Robinson Crusoe novel, and solitaire adventure games (Perdition's Mouth, Mage Knight, Warhammer Quest ACG, Citadel of Blood, etc.), but by the fourth game of "Solitaire: The Numerical Card Game (with Pictures)," I realized that I would be giving this thing away. Too themeless and numerical to even be a gateway game, but perhaps thrilling for the Dominion crowd (though that at least broke ground for better games). Time wouldn't pass faster for any castaway stuck with this.