Lunch time solo

Lunch this week is R.A.V.E.L. a solo puzzle game by Daniel McKinley. In this compact game,  your task is to manipulate eight dice within a grid to unlock the surrounding cog cards, each offering effects that you use to further influence the puzzle.  Remove all the cogs you win, but if you can’t go, then you lose.  With its simple rules yet quite deep puzzle elements, R.A.V.E.L. offers an engaging puzzle just right for a spot of lunch.

How it plays

Set up is very easy, place the dice grid on the table. Decide if you’re going to play with the standard or advanced cards and take the appropriate set. Shuffle the cards and place, facedown, a pile of four cards around the grid. Fill the grid with dice, randomly choosing each and rolling it before placing it. Take 8 ‘tinker’ tokens then turn the top card of each pile face up. You’re ready to go.

Each turn you can do one of two things. Tinker is when you use 1 or 2 tinker tokens. Use 1 to swap two dice that are orthogonally adjacent, while using 2 allows you to determine the number showing on one of the die. Unlock is the action you take when you have fulfilled the condition on one of the cog cards. This basically means the three dice next to that card do what the cards wants. In the example below the card requires the three dice to have a combined value of more than 14. Since it is 15 (6+3+6) the cog is fulfilled,

As a reward you get to do the reward at the bottom of the card, in this case swap two dice. Rewards are immediate and cannot be saved, after taking you then reveal the next face down card in the cog pile. Thankfully all the cards are described in the instructions so the iconography doesn’t really get in the way even in a first game. If you manage to unlock all the cards you win – which is not as easy as I first thought it might be!

Good for lunch

It most certainly is. It ticks all my lunchtime boxes – it’s small so portable, easy and quick to set up, the box says it plays in 10 minutes though it’s played a little longer for me. Maybe I think too long about my turns – but then again that is part of the joy of trying to solve the puzzle. My lunchtime games tend to be a puzzle that needs solving, and this game gives a really engaging mental workout. With two sets of cards to play with and the randomness of the starting dice and card piles there is a lot replayability. My only criticism is I have no idea why they decided to give it the full name – Rare Artefact Vertiginous Enigmatic Logical!

Lunch this week is Escape from the Moon  by Hiroshi Kawamura. It is a solo deck-building card game with a sci-fi theme.  In the game you take on the role of the only surviving astronaut and you’re trying to escape after being left on a moon base. Time is ticking and there is only so much you can do before the oxygen runs out.  Not only is oxygen disappearing fast but the base you’re on is failing, limiting what you can do. 

How it plays

In the game you basically have two types of action – move or search.  You need to use these two actions to plot your way through the base, activate the necessary escape pod locations and then escape.  You do this by playing and discarding cards from your hand. The game is made up of a number of small sets of cards, with each set doing something different.  There are 8 oxygen cards which on the one hand give you the oxygen you need to keep playing, but on the other, introduce potential handicaps to your success.  Then there are eleven sector cards to which you add an oxygen to create the base.  This is done by shuffling the cards and creating a 4 x 3 grid (a random grid is one way to make sure each game is different.)  

Additionally there are 8 cards that make up your starting deck, and cards that represent various things such as the start and end point.  You begin with 5 cards in hand which power your move and search.  

Discard a card to move the number of the card, typically one or two, and use that to move to the appropriate space in the base. Once on a space you can search it, to do this you need to be able to at least match the number on the base segment card. If it’s a 4 you need to be able to generate 4, if it’s a 12 then you need 12.  You don’t have to do this is one go  i.e. you can lay cards down then pick up more but doing this pretty much prevents you from moving until the search is complete.  When you play a card for a search you have to ‘pay’ for it by discarding the required number of cards (the number in red on the  card). When your search is successful you get to turn over the card and have the option to add it to your cards, aside from more cards to play with,  each will give you an extra skill i.e. one card  can, in certain circumstances, be used to add 5 to a search. Alternatively you can use the card to upgrade one of your existing cards.

At some point all this moving and searching will empty you draw pile, at this point you’ll need to refresh by adding the discarded cards (unshuffled) plus deplete one of your oxygen cards. When that card reaches your hand it will reveal an event, and block a space in your hand. To escape and, therefore, win you need to successful search the two 12 locations and then get to the exit before meeting the value of that card to escape. Do that, you win and you see how well you did by counting the points on the cards in you deck. Run out of oxygen or find yourself unable to play a card then I am afraid the moon base becomes your place of eternal rest.

Good for lunch
As with many of my lunch games, it’s a very portable game in box it’s quite small and even smaller if you just take the cards. Set up is quick, the box gives a playtime of around 20 minutes but most games I have played haven’t lasted that long regardless of success or failure. There are some inbuilt elements that aid replayability – each game you remove unseen oxygen thus you don’t know which event has been removed, you can increase difficulty by starting with fewer oxygen, and increasing the values needed to escape, and as mentioned earlier there are the varying formations of the base. The game also comes with some scenarios to be completed. It’s definitely a fun puzzle to solve, but I did find after a few plays the game came a little rote, for example I know I am going to need the AI assistant as soon as possible, so ultimately the game lacks a bit of depth. Then again do you really need depth to accompany your lunch?