In Yogi, players are challenged to contort their bodies in unusual ways — ideally doing better than everyone else in their impersonation of a pretzel!Â
OK, after 24 different posts (25, if you count this), 44 different companies, and some number X (where X is large, I refuse to count) different boardgames, it’s time to tie all the posts together.
What follows is a list of all the posts. First a link to the page and the publishers located there. Then a list of the games covered. In the case of multiple companies in one post, each company gets its own carriage return (they’re in respective order…)
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Gen Con was once again sold out for all four days. Nearly 72.000 attendees and, despite some absences due to crazy economic conditions, more than 574 exhibiting companies. They keep building hotels in downtown Indy but the Con is using up pretty much all of the convention center so I don’t know where there is further room for growth. I suppose more and more things will keep spilling out into the hotels.
Here’s a short collection of things that didn’t fit elsewhere. We have hats, miniatures, some sort of Werewolf game, yet more Heroscape love, and obviously, Purdue University’s Department of Philosophy. Bet you didn’t see that coming.
Continue readingDale Yu: Microreviews of Three Button Shy Games: Aqua Rove, Death Valley, Adventurous
Sometimes even the familiar can be alien. As a ROVE (Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer) you are accustomed to the rigors of space, but the impenetrable darkness of the ocean depths is a brand-new challenge to confront.
Aqua ROVE is a standalone entry in the ROVE series. In this solo spatial puzzler, the player must complete missions by using their movement cards to align ROVE’s modules in the proper pattern. Each module has a unique one-time ability that can give ROVE a much-needed boost at a key moment. As ROVE travels further, efficient use of movement points and module abilities becomes paramount to achieve success. Continue reading
Discover the epic conclusion to the tragic tale of 80s musician and polar bear, Bobby McColdsnap, as he resurfaces for one final return rock tour across the North Pole. “His music has been dubbed ‘Arctic Wave’ which stirs up nostalgic memories of an 80s mix tape fed through a Panasonic boombox with its bass turned all the way up to avalanche!”
-J. Howard Jones, UnKut Magazine
Xylotar Unhinged is the expansion to the 2024 trick taking deduction card game, Xylotar. Unhinged introduces two expansions, which can be added separately or combined together for all the epic 80s ballad feels.
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Solo Gaming 2025: The First Eight Months
I’ve been writing these solo gaming reports since March of 2020… yes, early on in the pandemic. This new era of well-designed automata and solo modes for multiplayer games, coupled with excellent new solo game designs, is actually quite heartening to someone (me!) who finds something really satisfying about physically playing a game: shuffling cards, moving pieces, seeing it all spread out in front of you.
Solo gaming is now a decent-sized chunk of my gaming experiences – while I still play a lot of games with friends and family, 31% of my gaming in the first eight months of 2025 was solo. For comparison, the yearly total for 2024 was 31%, 2023 was 20%, 2022 was 22%, 2021 was 33%, 2020 was 19%, and 2019 was 6%. With both of my sons well-established in new locations (UT Chattanooga for the younger, Huntsville AL for the older) as well as the crazy pace of my work schedule, it certainly looks like this nearly 1/3 of my gaming is likely to settle in as solo play. And despite the humorous shirt I’m wearing in the collage above, I actually do like playing games with other people – I promise!
So, what follows are my thoughts on the fifty-six (56) different solo games I’ve played so far in 2025 – ordered by the number of times I’ve played them. (Note: this is not necessarily how much I like a particular game for solo play – for example, I think Voidfall is an excellent solo game design but I haven’t played it [yet!] in 2025.)
Quarters
Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread (37 plays – approx. playing time: 75 minutes)
2025 has been filled with a LOT of Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread. I waited for the Kickstarter to finally ship – and between production delays and personal issues for the designer (still praying for Cody & his family), the waiting was, as Tom Petty says, the hardest part.
And it was worth it. I’ve spent 53+ hours exploring Arydia and leveling up my two characters as they interact with the amazing world Far Off Games has created. I wrote a mash note of a review for the game here on the OG back in early March. I’m currently at the higher levels, chasing down unfinished quests and taking on the big adversaries as my heroes struggle to come back from exile.
You can probably guess that it’s a great solo game simply based on the number of hours/plays I’ve recorded. (By the way, each play is somewhere between 45 minutes & 2 hours – I have the luxury of leaving it set up in my game room.) The only thing missing in solo play is some of the cleverly written RPG-lite interaction with NPC characters – but the game still works like a charm.
I do need to note that Arydia has literally been one fifth of my solo plays this year… and that’s even with less plays of Arydia this summer.
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