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.

Really enjoyed this game. It's a solo game that is easy to set up. Use your resources to deal with threats and defeat the pirates in the end. One downside: it becomes hard at times to keep track of everything. Would have been nice if there was a system or maybe tokens to give you some visual aid as to what card you used on what...etc.

I was looking for a 1-player game that was easy to set up. Many games these days seem to take around 5-minutes just to set up. I'm pretty sure I can set this up in under a minute, plus it is a nice travel size.This game reminds me of the childhood game we played called War, although this game is more complex (this is still an easy game). This game is pretty easy to learn and play. It is for one player only, so in that sense, it's similar to solitaire. You draw two cards and decide which one you want to go up against. If you draw enough points from your hand, you win that card. If you lose, you can get rid of some of your lower cards to get them out of your playing deck.So the battle deck (or whatever you want to call it), you go through it first on an easy level, then the moderate level, then the difficult level. Any cards you win out of it become part of your Robinson deck, to hopefully make it easier to win more cards. But the challenge is, each level takes about double the points to win the card. If you get through the battle deck three times, you then battle two pirate ships.If you always go for the lowest battle card, you'll probably lose the game every time. I lost the first couple of times I played, then developed a better strategy. Now I almost always get through the battle deck three times. If I lose it's against a difficult pirate card. There are several pirate cards and some are definitely more difficult than others.I've found the best strategy to win is, the first time you go through your Robinson deck (I think it's about 18 cards), choose battle cards that are easy to win, so cards with a 0 or a 1 and try to get rid of as many negative cards as you can. Once you've gone through your 18 Robinson cards the first time, there are still cards in the battle deck and you're still playing at the green (easy) level. So you shuffle your Robinson cards (and hopefully, you've lost some of your negative cards and gained some cards with more points), and on your next time through the Robinson deck, take on the more difficult challenge cards, even if you have to spend a few lives to win cards with higher numbers. Also, make sure to read the benefits you will get by winning those cards. Some cards will give you extra lives when played, others allow you to get rid of one of your negative or 0-rated cards without spending a life, others will copy another card's benefits, etc. Some cards do have negative benefits. If you have those in your Robinson deck you will want to try to get rid of them.