Isle of Night

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gyXiyQ

Publisher Intro:   You’ve heard tales of a mysterious island filled with treasures and wonders, but it appears only at night. With your loyal hound at your side, you row at dusk toward the island, eager to uncover its secrets and confront its dangers.  In Isle of Night, two to five players explore an island represented by a deck of cards. On your turn, draw cards from the deck and choose one type of card to keep. Any unclaimed cards remain from turn to turn, creating a growing pool of choices and a greater sense of tension. Some cards allow you to manipulate the point value of different types of cards, encouraging strategic shifts in play and exciting, memorable moments.  Isle of Night can fit in your jacket pocket and takes around 20 minutes to play.

How obtained: Played with review copy provided by publisher

Card Types: Beetles, Butterflies, Spiders, Dragons, Serpents, Treasure Chests, Conch Horns, Lanterns, Cursed Rings, Scrolls, Spears, Swords, Magic Staffs, Locations (each of these is classed as a unique type) 

Ratings:

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y (the game)
• Neutral.
• Not for me…
• So unbelievably not for me… Dale Y (the rules)

Setup:  Pick an island card which then dictates how you will place the score cards (chosen randomly). Shuffle the huge explore deck and figure out who is going first.  On a turn, draw 3 cards from the deck and place them on the table, laying like cards with others of that type.  Then, claim all cards of that type.  If that card has a “when claimed” action, do that as well.  Note that location cards are all unique.

Age: 8+

Artwork: The artwork of the cards is quite thematic, and there is a nice adventurous feel to everything.  I do wish that the cards were indexed; there is simply no way to stack the cards in your area while still being able to see the scoring icons, magic icons and card text.  

Scoring cards: As the game goes, you might use Conch Horns to exchange the positions of scoring cards.  You can use Scroll cards to lock/unlock a scoring card into place.

Choosing Cursed Rings: Unlike all other cards, you do not need to take all the Cursed Rings, you can take just one if you like.

Designer: Dustin Dowdle

Strategy: Oftentimes the decision is made simple because of the sheer number of a certain card type available. Even if an icon is near the bottom of the scorechart, don’t forget that you can still try to move it up the chart later in the game.  Most of the icons will simply score based on their chart position.  The Magic Icons only reward the player with the most.  Unsurprisingly, the rules offer no guidance on what happens if there is a tie for most.

Players: 2-5

Game End: Whenever a player takes the (N+3)th Lantern card, the game immediately ends.  Players calculate their scores based on the icons collected and the values for those icons given their location in the scoring grid.  

Winning: We assume the player with the most points wins, but the rules actually don’t say.  No freaking idea if there is a tie-breaker.

Limit on Cursed Rings: at most you can have three in your hand

Publisher: Red Raven Games

Table Hog: The game is a serious table hog. You’ll need room for the scoring card pyramid as well as a central area for all of the cards on offer.  And, as noted elsewhere in this “review” (see: Artwork), the cards are not well designed for stacking, so you might end up with all your cards lying next to each other in a humongous tableau.

Rules: Well, I’m admittedly becoming a big fan of Red Raven releases, and this is why I’m now working through the back catalog- but this older title has one of the worst rulebooks that I’ve ever come across.  The rules are in no order, it’s just a glossary.  Not even in alphabetical order.  Just some titles and then definitions.  It sort of tells you how to play in the Turns section.  But then, later changes some of the rules in the Cursed Ring definition a few pages later.  Hell, it doesn’t even actually tell you that the player with the most points wins (or actually any sort of win condition).   It’s truly a mess, and had I not been taught the game by someone at the Red Raven booth at Gen Con, umm, this part of the review would be even more scathing than it is now.  

Reviewer Impression: Despite those rules, it’s a clever enough set collection game. And, it’s quick to play, so that’s another thing in its favor.  Simply add 3 cards to the table, pick one type to collect and move on.  There are lots of little decisions to be made, but nothing that’s going to cause AP.  

Cursed Ring: Note there are new rules if you have a Cursed Ring. You draw 3 cards, then discard one from your hand and draw any card from the center. Then put the 3 cards in the center and draw one type like usual.

Time: 10 minutes (on the box), in reality our games are closer to 15.

Reviewer’s conclusion: Once you figure out how to play, there’s a lot to explore here in Isle of Night.  Players can try to craft their strategy, but in the end, the one who draws the luckiest might be the winner.  In a short game like this, I find that a charming positive trait – it keeps everyone invested in the game as all have a chance to flip up the right set of cards on their turn to turn the tide in their favor.

Cursed Ring Issues:  There is some thought in our group that the Cursed Ring is overpowered, possibly broken, especially when obtained early in the game.  While there is a VP penalty for taking them, the powers they give the player to shape their tableau are far stronger than the penalty.  It is rare for anyone to win in our games without having at least one of these cards.

Caveat: Did you find this review hard to follow?  Welcome to the format of the rules in the game itself.  All the information is here, but organized suspiciously. But, once you get the hang of it, there really is a neat ten to fifteen minute game here.

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gyXiyQ

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‘OK, all joking aside, here is the review in the usual format:

Isle of Night

• Designer: Dustin Dowdle
• Publisher: Red Raven Games
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 10 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gyXiyQ
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

You’ve heard tales of a mysterious island filled with treasures and wonders, but it appears only at night. With your loyal hound at your side, you row at dusk toward the island, eager to uncover its secrets and confront its dangers.  In Isle of Night, two to five players explore an island represented by a deck of cards. On your turn, draw cards from the deck and choose one type of card to keep. Any unclaimed cards remain from turn to turn, creating a growing pool of choices and a greater sense of tension. Some cards allow you to manipulate the point value of different types of cards, encouraging strategic shifts in play and exciting, memorable moments.  Isle of Night can fit in your jacket pocket and takes around 20 minutes to play.

Pick an island card which then dictates how you will place the score cards (chosen randomly). Shuffle the huge explore deck and figure out who is going first.  On a turn, draw 3 cards from the deck and place them on the table, laying like cards with others of that type.  Then, claim all cards of that type (unless you’re taking cursed rings).  If that card has a “when claimed” action, do that as well.  Note that location cards are all unique.

As the game goes, you might use Conch Horns to exchange the positions of scoring cards.  You can use Scroll cards to lock/unlock a scoring card into place.

Whenever a player takes the (N+3)th Lantern card, the game immediately ends.  Players calculate their scores based on the icons collected and the values for those icons given their location in the scoring grid.  We assume the player with the most points wins, but the rules actually don’t say.  No freaking idea if there is a tie-breaker.

My thoughts on the game

Well, I’m admittedly becoming a big fan of Red Raven releases, and this is why I’m now working through the back catalog- but this older title has one of the worst rulebooks that I’ve ever come across.  The rules are in no order, it’s just a glossary.  Not even in alphabetical order.  Just some titles and then definitions.  It sort of tells you how to play in the Turns section.  But then, later changes some of the rules in the Cursed Ring definition a few pages later.  Hell, it doesn’t even actually tell you that the player with the most points wins. It’s truly a mess, and had I not been taught the game by someone at the Red Raven booth at Gen Con, umm, this part of the review would be even more scathing than it is now.  

Despite those rules, it’s a clever enough set collection game. And, it’s quick to play, so that’s another thing in its favor.  Simply add 3 cards to the table, pick one type to collect and move on.  There are lots of little decisions to be made, but nothing that’s going to cause AP.  

Oftentimes the decision is made simple because of the sheer number of a certain card type available. Even if an icon is near the bottom of the scorechart, don’t forget that you can still try to move it up the chart later in the game.  Most of the icons will simply score based on their chart position.  The Magic Icons only reward the player with the most.  Unsurprisingly, the rules offer no guidance on what happens if there is a tie for most.

Once you figure out how to play, there’s a lot to explore here in Isle of Night.  Players can try to craft their strategy, but in the end, the one who draws the luckiest might be the winner.  In a short game like this, I find that a charming positive trait – it keeps everyone invested in the game as all have a chance to flip up the right set of cards on their turn to turn the tide in their favor.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y (the game)
• Neutral.
• Not for me…
• So unbelievably not for me… Dale Y (the rules)

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gyXiyQ