On Track to Be a King
When I first saw that Gale Force Nine was about to launch a crowdfunding campaign for The Adventures of Conan, I felt overly excited. I'm a (very mild) fan of Robert Howard's works and the 1982 movie stands among my favorites (despite its clumsiness). However, my enthusiasm withered almost entirely when I found out that there was no solo mode - and the designer was pretty categorical about it, stating most explicitly: "I don’t play solo board games. None of us in Future Pastimes do, and have no interest in it. Not to denigrate those who do. For me, the thing I absolutely love most about board gaming is the social aspect. I love sitting around a table and having a shared experience. I always equate board gaming with this element, so that’s what we design." I salute such honesty.
But today, the Gamefound campaign has launched, and, surprise! The Legend of Cimmeria add-on introduces a solo mode! O joy! It's time to read a rulebook!
So, what is the game about? First of all, it's all about Conan (which makes it weird that it wasn't a solo game to begin with). Conan moves around, slays his enemies, lives some days of high adventures - you know the drill. It's Conan, that's what he does. But there is also a Foe (who is never happier but by bothering Conan), and an Ally, who tags along and sends Conan in some fool's errands. The inclusion of these two characters makes the game a 2/3 players one by design, each one trying to rake in points faster than the others.
Wait - points? In an adventure game. Oh, yes, it's an adventure game of a special kind. With lots of dice. And lots of tracks. And lots of ways to make points. First, everyone has a dice pool - which can be extended by spending gold or moving far enough on some tracks. Each round, you begin with a Resource Phase where you roll your dice and try to match symbols on Plot cards - when you do, you get rewards and move further along on the Plot track.
Then, you roll the dice again and can spend to perform various actions on the board, like moving, gaining tokens, gold, whatever. Sometimes Conan will be forced into a fight - roll dice, match symbols. Sometimes Conan and the Foe may duel - they roll their dice and try to get more hit symbols than the other. You can unlock Encounters by matching the specific symbols on Encounter cards with your dice. This will trigger a third "Encounter phase" where... players roll their dice pool to match the unlocked Encounter card symbols. All of these rolling endeavors have various little rules variations, of course, but they still boil down to the same roll and match core. Oh, and did I mention that there are Adventure cards as well? To resolve an adventure... you roll dice and you match symbols. And at the end of the round, you can spend tokens to move along the Achievement track, which grants bonuses, and points. Just like Encounters, Adventures, duels, and fights, grant you points, and possibly bonuses.
The game ends when a player gets at the end of the plot track, or at the end of the achievement track, or when they hit a point threshold. Then the player with the most points wins. As for the solo mode, there is some simple Automa for the Foe, who will roll dice and act accordingly, depending on the results and the effects they trigger according to the card you draw for them - or something in that vein. This is all inferred from the two cards that are advertised for the solo add-on.
Oh but, wait, didn't the designer say they had no interest in a solo mode? So why does it exist at all? Well, for one, I appreciate the sincerity.
(But they elaborated on that and said they apparently found some excitement in developing the solo mode.)
Personal opinion: Is it an adventure game? Is it a dice game? Is it a point salad? Is it a euro game of optimizing every move and every dice roll in a tight race for victory points? Honestly, I have no idea. The rulebook left me very confused and without a good notion of what the game may feel like. Watching a few videos did not help in this regard. The "How to Play" Gamefound section only shows glaring pictures of the custom dice for each role.
This is one of these rare instances where reading the rulebook deprived me of all interest in a game I was initially to go big on. I don't really see the point of all of it. Sure, I like Conan, but not so much as being enthralled by seeing a half-naked guy on 50% of the cards. I also have issues with the Conanesque imagery.
It actually reminds me of two adventure games I parted with last year: The Witcher Old World, and Medieval: Jan Žižka. Both have you visiting various locations on the board, engaging in some encounters, and racing for points - the latter even has a growing dice pool and boils down to matching symbols to fulfill events. I want more in adventure games - a sense of exploration, a strong component of character progression.
I'm afraid it's a pass.
This campaign is a quite amazing fail.
They had a less than 5% conversion rate from followers to backers (compare with 20% for CMON's God of War, a more typical rate), and have gathered only 85k with 300 backers so far, despite the famous IP.
As a comparison, the Kickstarter for The Tower of the Elephant, despite the amateurishness of it, was backed by 1,200 people.