ReignOnU wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 2:40 pm
So these are like D&D or some kind of solo RPG board game?
With 2 young daughters, my board game experience is limited to Candyland, Guess Who, throwing a burrito and a card game about Tacos, Cats and Pizza. I feel relieved when they ask to play War.
Most of the games have a solo options - it's a big part of what I look for if I'm going to invest money in it since I can't be planning to have people over all the time.
I'd say they're not too D&D like - no need to have someone that runs the game for you or a large group to really enjoy.
Some games are basic 1 v 1 fun games (those also tend to be easier to set-up/put-away). A lot of card/dice mechanics in those usually.
Many are hand/resource management - to take actions you have to use some kind of resource and you're limited on how many actions you can take in a turn by that.
Most of the games are generally co-operative, which means you can always play them solo even if more than one character is needed to balance the game (you can just play both characters). A lot would be called "Dungeon Crawl" style. There's a map, there's your characters, there's the enemy. Game AI/random cards/some other facet controls where the enemies move and what they do (some even have an app that does it) and you're making your character decisions based on whatever the goal of that mission/scenario are. In a lot of those your character grows and changes over time (new equipment, abilities, etc). So that's a little D&D like, but not to the point where you're role-playing.
I'd say my favorites have been Dice Throne (have all their releases) - think Yahtzee dice rolling but you're trying for combinations that unlock actions that damage your opponent (and there's cards that manipulate/change the results as well); Marvel United - co-operative hand management (card) and board state management (you're rescuing civilians, defeating "thugs", and fighting some main enemy); Marvel Champions - card game with hand management, resource usage, and managing game state (trying to reduce enemy hit points but also have to prevent them from completing their goal through mitigating their actions); and Gloomhaven - dungeon crawl, your hand of cards is your action pool and the "time-limit" on the scenario (when you're out of cards you lose so you have limited actions you can take to complete your objectives), multiple character types and roles they fulfill.
My 8 year old can play and understands Marvel United. After that we have to change some rules to simplify things, but we're slowly expanding to where things can be more complicated.
And there is a lot on these shelves I haven't gotten enough time to play to really get into - LotR: Journey's in Middle Earth; Sleeping Gods; Great Wall; Tainted Grail; Stars of Akarios; and many more. They're something of a long term investment for future fun - and board game resale market is ok if I want to get rid of them in the future (especially so since many of these were kickstarter exclusive and/or hard to get a retail).