Games played in May | Solitaire Times

In May a two Kickstarters arrived. No Kickstarters for 6 months and then two in one week 😳

- Architects of the West Kingdom: Works of Wonder - together with the collector box. Garphill Games makes nice compact boxes but they're not suited to hold expansions. I like the six new automata players. Looks like they did some nice re-balancing in that area. When I played the base game with the included automatons I thought it was ok but now the game clicks better in my head and I enjoy it much more.

- Ark Nova - Not a fan of the included solo variant so I tried ARNO which is an unofficial solo variant. One play so far but this might work better for me. Variable number of turns before breaks and more rotation of cards. I'm going to try ARNO a few times more.

- Forgotten Depths - a dungeon crawler in 3 acts where you have to build the dungeon yourself (and don't mess it up) and of course some encounters and monster bashing 😆 The artwork is unique and gorgeous with some nice combination of mechanisms. It's a one man production who pored all his love into it and it shows so I'm always a bit more forgiving (the box size and insert are overdone). It's those projects I like to back. That said, it's a fun game and enjoy playing it.

- Machina Arcana - this is a game that was on my list for a very long time. And out of the blue, JW offered me to buy his 2nd edition copy for a generous price together with the 3rd edition upgrade pack. So THANK YOU JW !!! 💛 I did my research and knew the 2nd edition rulebook has a reputation so I immediately went with the 3rd edition rulebook. I still had several questions on certain effect combinations but that is just how it works with these type of games. I enjoyed my 2 plays so far and can't wait to play it more.

- ROVE: Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer - continues to be a nice spatial puzzle game and looking forward to assemble the expansions I just received as PnP.

Comments (13)

Jun 12, 2022

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I'm glad you enjoyed your plays of Machina Arcana. I think it's a great atmospheric dungeon crawler/puzzler. Also, I may have spent the money already. Twice. 😁 I'm not a fan of fan modes that "fix" a commercial game. But then again, for me the solo mode of Ark Nova was good enough. It was the game that fell short. I've been told not to buy Architects, but rather Paladins (?) for solo. I'm interested in your thoughts on the new bots.

Wouter Cordewiner

Jul 02, 2022

Replying to

I must say that Machina Arcana has been in my head the last few weeks which is always a good indication 😀

On Ark Nova, yes I agree on the not "fix" a (commercial) game. Not sure why I get triggered by the solo mode in this game, but I want to have the experience I have when playing it with 2 players even though it's basically multiplayer solitaire.

On Architects, maybe try to play someone else's copy of Architects or Paladins first. I haven't played Paladins myself. The Architects bots, both for the base game and the expansion, have an automata deck and in general are there to interact with the player. Eg they will block certain spaces, capture your workers and go for the cathedral.