Rio Grande Games Friday

This is a great alternative to Solitaire, my usual go-to card game for one.The idea is that you are Friday, and you are trying to train Robinson Crusoe to get off the island. You start with a hand of cards that represent Robinson's skills/state of mind, and over time you'll want to evolve his skills and mindset by building a stronger deck. You take two cards off of the encounter deck, and choose which encounter you want to send Robinson on (basing your decision on the required skill/mindset level to successfully beat the encounter). Then you flip over the number of cards allowed from that encounter card, and see how Robinson's skill/state of mind value compares to the requirements of the encounter. If you fall short, you can pay a life point to bring out another card and try to succeed (you can keep doing this if you want), or you can pay the difference in life points, and for each life point you are forced to discard, you can trash a card from your deck. If you pass the encounter, you get to keep the card, which on the lower half is a new Robinson skill/state of mind level (representing what he learned from surviving that encounter's adventure, and another crucial factor in determining which encounter you choose to have him attempt).There are a lot of factors in play. You need to run through the encounter deck at three different levels. Green (easy), yellow (medium), red (hard). The numeric value required to complete the encounters increases with every increase in difficulty level. So the first time through, you might think it's great to try to fail as many as possible to thin your deck of those bad -1 and 0 value cards, but then you'll have more encounters to face at those increased difficulty levels. Conversely, if you try to win as many encounters in the early round as possible, you may not get to trash as many cards as you like, leaving you with a lot of duds coming out in those harder levels. You also need to consider your life points, as when they run out, you instantly lose the game. So sometimes you fail a lot of encounters and cut cards, then realize you are dangerously low on life. Thankfully, many cards you gain from passing encounters along the way give you special actions, like +1 or +2 life points, +1 or +2 cards, destroy/trash a card, -1 to the encounter's pass level, etc. So those are also a consideration when you decide which encounter to go up against, as you can see at the bottom what skill/state of mind you'll gain from passing. On top of all of this, every time your deck runs out and you need to shuffle your discard pile and cycle through again, you add an aging card, which represents the passage of time on the island and how it wears on Robinson. These are tougher to remove from your deck, as you need to discard two life points to rid of them or use a trashing card.If you survive making it through all three difficulty phases of the encounters, you go up against two different pirate ships you must defeat. So essentially, you are not only building a deck to go up against encounters, you are building a deck that will defeat the pirate ships at the end. If you reach the needed level, Robinson makes it off the island. If not, well, he doesn't.I love the challenge of this game. It took me several tries to win, and I'm still on beginner's mode after 16 plays. There are additional difficulty levels to keep the game interesting as you get more experienced. There is obviously luck involved, but it certainly requires a good balance of all those aforementioned factors.If you're looking for a quick strategy game to play on your own, this is an excellent choice.

This game is highly recommended. I spend most of my game-time playing solo, so I was pleased to see that this little box contained a "solo adventure" and also that many reviews indicated that it was quite challenging. I will confirm that this game is not for the faint of heart. It took me several plays to beat the first of the four difficulties indicated in the instructions. With a little experience, however, I was able to figure out a strategy that seems to work well in most cases and I have been very successful with achieving victory even on the fourth difficulty level.If you want to know that strategy, you can find it easily on-line, and my experience has been that the general principals of the most common strategy found on-line will help you prevail. Bad news if you want a perpetual challenge, but good news if you want a winnable game that doesn't beat you up 9 out of 10 tries and make you feel despondent. More good news - you can always start with fewer life points of modify the card sets to create ever increasing levels of difficulty. There is certainly a point where luck of the draw will start to be more important than strategy as you design brutal challenges to combat your own success, but I am finding that playing the game just a wee bit harder than the fourth scenario in the instructions provides a good level of difficulty.If you like to play solo, this is an essential purchase. It is sleek in its design, engaging to play, has high replayability due to the potential to fine tune the difficulty) and it is a reasonably inexpensive game.PS. The components are not elaborate, but they are well made. I have played my set 20 times without any fatigue at all. I am careful with my game components, but all but the most careless people should find this set lasting for years and years.

This is an excellent rules-light solo game. However, if you take a step back, you'll notice that this is just a version of a modern solitaire 52 card deck game with a new coat of paint.It's a great little game. but if you want to save some money, a search for "Isaludo" might get you a similar experience with the cards you already own.Still, as a published game, you kinda can't go wrong at this price. It's easy to learn, replayable, and super difficult to beat.