My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria – The Fake Pain
DIY roleplaying game adventure
For someone who claims the official, child-friendly Halloween adventure is too scary to ever play again, her own improvisations can get pretty dark, this one involving child poltergeist attacks, but I helped steer it towards the conventional happy ending. She'd be happy enough just playing with the toys, so we're lucky I'm on hand to remind her about character traits and dice rolls and keep myself interested, aren't we?
My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria – Wind or Blood / Mystery of History
DIY roleplaying game adventures
After only a little persuasion to try out some dice-randomised food festival antics while we were in town, courtesy of The Games-Master's Book of More Random Encounters (an oddly appropriate eyeball-meatball food cart and unnecessarily brutal tattooing), the young GM had us explore the classic dilemma: wind or blood? She got to tell a story with plenty of dice stuff along the way, and Draculaura added a new spell to her page, inspired by Final Fantasy's limit breaks.
Our next session took things into the third dimension as we tried to scale and dig under a seemingly infinite wall, likely inspired by Minecraft, but keeping things on brand and finding creative uses for our stock spells and skills. I don't need to bother planning these outings any more.
Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?
2000 / Sega Dreamcast emulator game / 1-4 players
***
AEG Black Box 2015: Pretense
2015 / Deduction card meta game / 2-12 players
**
This secret role "game" played in the background while you all play proper games (or just go about your day) is a fun concept with underwhelming execution. We only found a few options in the deck that were really relevant for our lives and habits, and the fact that everyone will quickly learn what these are (which even seems to be encouraged by the superfluous tokens) seems to ruin most of the fun. It didn't take us long to start setting our own personalised traps on scrap paper that proved more entertaining.
It doesn't take long to work out the solo puzzle, so fortunately, as ever, they provide some extra challenges to expand your... what was the pasted-on theme again? Ah, theme park. Of course.
An only slightly annoying hard mode that adds more parks and more things to think about, while also bringing out the theme a little more, which was sorely needed. It's a keeper.
Family Fun **
Maybe I'll eventually master the game enough to enjoy these ironically-titled torturous obstacles, but for now, they turn an occasionally patience-testing finale into a frustrating ordeal.
2025 / Solo card game / 1 player
***
I may not have needed another rotating spatial puzzle, but at least it's not another -Opolis game, and an economical print-and-play to boot, though I was slightly disappointed that the theme park theme doesn't really come through at all as you try to efficiently line up icons to form randomly differentiated grids.
It became clear fairly quickly that playing well involves careful clinical analysis to ensure you're only reserving optimal cards, but I prefer to enjoy the rides and struggle through the mess I've made at the end.
1993 / Fencing board game / 2 players
**
Maybe this fencing simulator loses too much vital flavour when playing against yourself using random five-suited cards rather than properly themed ones and a cribbage board rather than shaped figures, but there didn't seem to be much to it. But I'll always give games a go when I can make them myself, and at least it was quick.
2022 / Drawing game / 2-4 players
**
Extrapolating preliminary lines and shapes into pictures isn't the most fun drawing game in our repertoire. We only tried it once.
Gloom of Kilforth: Encounters
2018 / Roleplaying card/board game expansion / 1-4 players
****
Loads more cards to extend the life of your cards-based sagas, plus new character options, some of which (Halfling and Druid) have joined my daughter's favourites in our tamer take on the game. I thought I'd have to do without until a bundle showed up on eBay at a tempting price, so I traded in the old set and got more optimised upgrades than were advertised or really desired...
2018 / Deckbuilding card game expansion pack / 2-4 players
****
Oh, look, it's the missing combinations from the United dual-faction sets, which they cheekily made a Kickstarter exclusive you couldn't buy from shops. I didn't expect to ever have these until an eBay seller accepted my insultingly low offer for their unwanted Kickstarter bundle that must have been sitting around for the best part of a decade, so this rarity worked out as one of my cheapest Star Realms purchases ever. The lesson is, just be patient and tight and everything works out in the end.
Hm? Oh, yeah, the cards are pretty good. More of the same.
2021 / Bag building card game expansion / 1 player
**
Resold
An essential expansion if you want to convert the doomed solo mission into a competitive space duel, but it offers very little for players who aren't interested in doing that. It came with my second-hand base game, but it wasn't worth keeping for a few extra cards.
2020 / Bag-building card game / 1 player
***
Resold
It wasn't my first cubes-based solo space game, but it was my first bag-building game, and this novelty and the vintage space art persuaded me to keep coming back for more punishment for a while. I liked how it all worked, but less that there didn't seem to be any possibility of winning without investing in expansions that retroactively balance the difficulty, which is a bit cheeky.
Star Trek: Star Realms – Borg – Invasion (DIY Solo Mode)
2025 / Deckbuilding card game variant / 1 player
***
Getting to play as the Borg and assimilating your friends and family could be fun, but the solo mode felt like more hassle than it was worth compared to the alternatives (even if I wasn't substituting spare authority trackers and non-ship/base trade cards for the components), and even a bit annoying. The drones are basically Fluxx zombies, but even less amusing.
2015 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players
****
A creepy church and its cursed basement were supposed to test our patience and stretch our session length a little, but the fearless/foolish young hero made such a racket that the slimy and spooky baddies came to us and saved us the hassle of exploring. That also gave me an idea for the convenient resolution I hadn't worked out ahead of time.
