Gary Kressner

I’ve had this game for awhile, and while it turned out to be a bit clunky in my experience with other players, I recently gave it a shot playing solo. Let me tell you that I was pleasantly surprised at the results!

After watching Tragic the Blathering’s intensely informative, and very entertaining play-through on YouTube, I was sufficiently prepared to give this one a solo play on my own.

To break down this review into bite-sized chunks, let me proceed with the following random categories:

ATMOSPHERE: Top Notch.
I love the way they used photography, rather than hand-drawn art on the components to convey the theme of gothic horror, combined with B-movie cheese to pull you into the game world. As a result, I find myself reading component flavor text in this game much more than others.

RULES: Fiddly.
That being said, as with Arkham Horror, the rewards for digging in and learning the rules of the game are well worth the effort, as your solo gaming experience will be rewarded in full. Incidentally, I post handy compact 2-Sided Reference Sheets for this, and many other games on BoardGameGeek, should you wish to save yourself some pain.

CHALLENGE: Test You, This Will!
I am about six hours into this game, and the battle has for the first time become personal. My three investigators went up against the Scarecrow a bit too soon, had him down to 4 wounds, and the last investigator decided upon escape as the better part of wisdom. Playing with the ‘Endurance of Evil’ option has now caused the Scarecrow to gain 4 permanent additional wounds, which will make the next encounter even more difficult. Worse yet, my investigators poured every last resource into taking this brute down, and so must painstakingly build back up to re-engage! Fortunately the ShadowTrack is still less than halfway progressed, so I think there is still hope for me to prevail, despite my previous debacle. There is no putting this thing away now!

COMPONENT QUALITY: Perfection.
As good, if not better than FFG. I have no idea how an underdog like Flying Frog pulled this off without blowing their budget. As other game companies become inspired to follow suit, I really believe this wonderful hobby of ours will continue to grow and gather the attention of onlookers, who become drawn to the art and class of such worthy intellectual pastimes as these. *Adjusts his spectacles*

RECOMMENDATIONS: One Expansion.
After watching Tragic’s play-through, and experiencing my own, I think the best solo experience is to use the base game with one expansion. One expansion adds enough to make things interesting, while keeping the extra rules somewhat manageable. One expansion also makes for a decent-sized map, which is not so expansive as to hinder your ability to cover the board, and, you hopefully won’t need a separate table to hold all of the location decks!

FINAL ANALYSIS: Arkham-Clunky Coop, Arkham-Stellar Solo.
I cite Arkham Horror merely to give you some perspective regarding my own personal biases concerning Cooperative, versus Solo gaming experiences. I was amazed to see this game come alive on my table, and consume me for so many enjoyable evenings! In fact, the only reason I am writing this review is to get a break from the action, and take a deep breath before plunging on into the final rounds!