One Day at a Thyme -- Solo Journaling TTRPG -- Review and actual play

I mentioned in my post yesterday, that I was thinking about trying a solo journaling ttrpg. I'm doing just that. For my first game, I wanted something easy with no rules overhead. I chose a game called, One Day at a Thyme by Jei D. Marcade. You can find One Day at a Thyme on Itch.io.

The game promises a cozy experience and asks you to create a homey little cottage. The text asks a few questions about the cottage to help you to fill in some details. It's an interesting way to begin, because focusing on where you live informs your surroundings and the kinds of things that will happen there. 

The only random prompt for your cottage, will provide you with the cottage's location. I rolled, "swamp" which I admit I didn't feel too good about. I considered rolling again, but ultimately decided against it. I'm so glad, I stuck with swamp. I ended up being really happy with the story that I made.

I wrote about my homey little cottage as instructed by the rules. This first step is vital. When you begin your story having a solid foundation will really help you build everything that comes after.

Story prompts are created using two parts, an Experience and a Detail. The Experience is rolled using a six-sided die and only includes three types, although as you will see below, some types include multiple options.

Details, come in one of four varieties based on card suit. 

• Clubs: Activities
• Diamonds: Items
• Hearts: Neighbors
• Spades: Events

Players roll a six-sided die to determine how many total Details they should use to define their day. I rolled four. That means that once I had interpreted and resolved the results of four card flips combined with four rolls of the dice, that would complete my Journal entries for a single day.

The rules recommend that you give each entry a date and it suggests that you can keep playing until every card in your deck of cards has been used. I wrote quite a lot and I can't imagine keeping at this until I have used up every card. However, I am really enjoying the experience and I believe that I want to keep at it until I have told a story that fills an entire week.

The actual play below is only my first day, which I have assigned the simple date of Monday. Also, I did not write this in Journal format. It is in more of a story format. I'm also not sure that I interpreted the prompts precisely as I should have. But the great thing about solo TTRPGs is that they are yours to interpret however you wish. In the end, I was really happy with the results.

This single day of role-play journaling filled a good portion of an entire day in real time. I can see easily losing myself in Journaling Solo TTRPGs and I am glad that I chose, "One Day at a Thyme by Jei D. Marcade" for my first experience. It's only 3 pages long and everything works well. You are probably going to get the best experience if you are fairly creative and enjoy writing, but I think that applies to most entries in this genre of TTRPGs.

Below is a report of my first day playing: One Day at a Thyme.

SETUP (Page 1)
Location of my homey little cottage
[3] Swamp

I live in the Sweet Water swamp. The residents here all try their best to live in harmony with nature. We use rafts to travel from place to place and our homes are on stilts to keep everything dry.

The path to my home is only accessible by raft. The ground is wet and covered in lilypads. Little yellow frogs hop all around in my front yard. They are plentiful and not at all shy. I like when the little frogs hop on me. It tickles.

My homey little cottage is made of wood and moss. It is up on wooden stilts to keep it out of the water. A rope ladder leads from the surface of the swamp below to my front door. It's kind of like living in a tree house, which makes me feel a little like a child. I like that feeling. It makes everything about my homey little cottage seem a bit more fun.

My front door faces east and so the windows in the front room catch the morning sun as it peeks through the forest canopy high above. Before you get to my door however you must first climb the rope onto my front porch. My porch is a wide wooden platform protected by a roof. The roof is supported by log columns made from the trunks of red maple trees. There's a little porch swing here and I often enjoy spending my time sitting on the porch, swinging and listening to the musical chirps of the little frogs and inhaling the fragrance of the swamp lilies which are plentiful and give Sweet Water Swamp its name.

Inside my cottage the main room has a large window facing east and next to that window is a wooden rocking chair covered in a thick soft cushion the color of a deep red wine. In the center of the room is an iron pot bellied stove. I use the stove for cooking and to keep the cottage warm when the air grows cold outside.

On the opposite side of the stove directly across from the rocking chair is a medium sized round table and four chairs. It's my dining room / gaming room. Most of the walls in the rest of the cabin are covered in wooden shelves and these shelves are filled with all manner of board games.

A single doorway opposite the dining table in the north wall of the large main room leads to my bedroom. From here I can see my small black cat, "Clawdette" sleeping on the bed.

PLAY (Page 2) How many cards you draw for this day. [4]
Before turning over each card, roll to see what kind of experience you had: [2], [4], [2], [2]
     [2] Mystery, Dilemma, or Conflict
     [4] An unexpected encounter
     [2] Mystery, Dilemma, or Conflict
     [2] Mystery, Dilemma, or Conflict

Card #1 (Page 3) [5D]
My Journal - Entry One - Monday
(Experience: Mystery - Item: Hand Drawn Map)

As I wake up on this unusually sunny Monday morning. I scratch Clawdette behind her ears and wish her a good morning as I make my way into the main room of my house. The pot bellied stove in the middle of the room is always warm. I keep a low ember going to combat the humidity of living in the swamp. I collect board games, and humidity is the bane of all things cardboard.

On the stove are a stove top coffee pot, a copper bottom pan, and a cast iron skillet. I take the coffee pot and carry it through my bedroom to the bathroom. The only running water in my homey little cottage is in the bathroom. The cottage doesn't have a proper kitchen, but I get by just fine. I like my little house. It is "intimate." 

I fill the pot with water and then take the basket out and fill it with coffee, which I keep on one of the few shelves in the house not dedicated to board games. Once the basket is filled, I return it to the stem inside the coffee pot and close the lid. I place the pyroceram coffee pot on top of the stove and stoke the embers to bring up the heat. I add a piece of wood that sits inside by the front door. Soon, I will have coffee.

As I wait, I rock in my chair and play on my phone. (Oh, did you think that I live in a fantasy world without technology?) I don't, but I have chosen this quiet life for myself. I use my phone to play games, to chat, to watch videos and to order board games. Most of my games are solo or two player games. I have a friend nearby who will often come to play with me.

Today as I wait for my coffee to brew, I watch some board game video reviews. I am interested in a two-player game called: Duel for Cardia. Maybe I will order it some day. As the video that I am watching comes to a close, the smell of fresh brewed coffee fills my nostrils. 

I go to pour myself some coffee, but first I remove the internal stem and basket from the inside of the pot carefully with a pot holder and place them on top of the stove. Later, I will dispose of the grounds in my trashcan, which is inside a cute little box / end table thingy sitting next to the shelves that I have designated as my pantry.

As I am doing this, I notice that the chirping of the little yellow frogs outside has increased considerably. This usually means that I am about to have a visitor. They are my own little warning system. I turn, a hot cup of coffee in hand, waiting for the knock on the door that I am sure is about to come. I don't move away from the stove. What if they want coffee?

The knock doesn't come, and after a moment the chirps of the frogs die down. Did someone come? Did I have a delivery? I hadn't ordered any new board games and wasn't expecting anything, but I went out to the front porch to check.

I don't see anyone or anything. The little yellow frogs chirp a happy greeting at me and I smile at them as I take a sip of my coffee. Then I notice that my front porch swing is moving. It can sometimes move in the wind, but that usually requires quite the breeze. Something (or someone) must have bumped into it.

I look over at the swing and notice a folded piece of parchment paper sitting in the seat. A first sized round stone sits on top of the parchment serving as a paper weight to keep the paper from blowing away. It seems someone has left me a written message. Why write me a letter? Why not just knock on the door?

I walk over to the parchment paper and take it. I sit on the porch swing, sitting the stone beside me as I unfold the paper. The paper as it turns out is rather large. Really large, and not a letter at all, but a map. It's a hand drawn map of the swamp where I live scrawled on brown parchment in black ink. The ink strokes make me think that the map was drawn with a fine brush and no modern writing utensil.

Who left this? Why did they leave it? Why didn't they knock on my door to talk to me about this unusual gift? What was I meant to do with it? Was this map intended to lead me somewhere? I had so many questions and no answers.

Card #2 (Page 3) [9S]
My Journal - Entry Two - Monday
(Experience: An unexpected encounter - Event: Find something that’s been lost / hidden for years)

As I examine the map, I see my house clearly, and all the neighbors' homes. I see the market where I sometimes work stocking shelves, or where I sell the soft shell crabs that I collect after it rains. Much of the surrounding area is included in remarkable detail, trees and other terrain features that normally wouldn't be included on a map.

Then I see it. There's a little hut on one edge of the map that I have never known about before. I've lived here for a few years now. I am well liked and social with my neighbors. No one has ever made mention of this place. Now, I am incredibly curious.

Clawdette has come out and joined me on the porch. She is batting playfully at the loose edges of the map and purring. 

"What do you think, Clawdette?" I ask her. "Are you ready to go on an adventure?"

Clawdette likes riding with me on the raft and visiting neighbors. Sometimes, during dry spells, she will jump around on the lily pads chasing frogs, but mostly she sticks to the porch and the cottage. She doesn't like getting her paws wet.

I climb down the rope ladder and spin myself around to set foot on my raft which lives under my house, which is suspended some 7 feet above the level of the swamp. Less in the rainy season. The raft is very stable underfoot. Lying across it is a long pole. I use the pole to push myself out to the front of my home.

Clawdette jumps down as soon as the raft comes into view. As I push the raft out across my front "yard," dozens of little yellow frogs jump around on the raft to join us. Clawette chases and bats at the frogs playfully, but she doesn't actually catch any. I don't think that she wants to. She tried to eat one once and quickly spat it out. These frogs apparently don't taste very pleasant.

We travel through our little village. I nod and smile and greet the neighbors that I encounter on the way. I stop at the market and ask beautiful, dark haired Julie, who owns the shop, about the map and the unknown hut at the edge of the map. The market is also the post office for Sweet Water Hamlet. As the official postmaster, Julie knows the swamp better than anyone.

Julie informs me that there is no such hut and that she does not believe that there has ever been anything but more and more swamp at the location shown on the map. I am disappointed at this revelation, but I am still determined to visit the location for myself. The quest is the quest.

Once I have left the immediate surrounds of the central Hamlet, there's not much to see or hear except the natural beauty of the swamp and the chirping of the frogs. Out here, the frogs don't jump onto my raft like the ones at my house. These jump away. Clawdette and I are after all, strangers here.

As we finally approach the area marked on the map, I do indeed discover a small hut. The hut isn't on stilts like many of the homes here in the swamp. It sits on a solitary mound of dry earth that manages to sit just above the surface of the water line. The placement of such a structure doesn't seem tenable, but I don't see stains on the walls to indicate that the place has ever flooded.

"Why would Hannah tell me that this place didn't exist?"

Card #3 (Page 3) [10H]
My Journal - Entry Three - Monday
(Experience: Dilemma - Neighbors: Voice issuing from a massive urn)

The edge of my raft stops at the bank of the mound of earth and I walk out onto solid ground. With some effort, I pull my raft in far enough that I don't have to worry about it floating out into the middle of the bog. Then, I approach the hut, Clawdette close by at my heels.

The hut is clearly old, the wood is faded and there are cobwebs covering its exterior. The door to the hut is closed, but the handle works and I am able to push it open, disturbing the network of spiderwebs that cover it as I do so. I duck through the entrance created by the open door getting spiderwebs all over me despite my best efforts.

Whatever is inside the room is ignored until I can free myself and my clothing of every last web. I hate spiderwebs. Eventually, I rid myself of the various strands of ick and am able to take a look around. Clawdette sits beside me taking a bath, obviously anxious to rid herself of any errant webbing that I may have cast in her direction.

The hut appears just as disused on the inside, although I should mention that while everything seems faded by the passing of time, and certainly cobwebs are a big part of the decorum, nothing here is in disrepair. There are no holes in the walls, or cracks, or peeling paint. Everything is in very good condition despite its apparent age.

I have been avoiding the one key feature of the room. Well, perhaps not "avoiding," more like "saving the best for last." In the center of this little hut, which is empty except for myself and Clawdette, there sits the room's only feature, and it is a prominent one.

In the center of the room is a massive porcelain vase or maybe urn? (I'm not sure that I know the difference.) The urn is quite large, I would guess five feet tall. Its porcelain surface is decorated in a style which I assume might be consistent with artifacts found in ancient Egypt. What on earth is it doing here?

The decorations present a definite cat theme. The central figure on the vase / urn is a bare breasted woman with the head of a cat. I am guessing that she is a representation of the Egyptian goddess, Bast. Bast was the patron of cats, which the peoples of ancient Egypt revered as holy. (I think all of this is true. I didn't take out my phone to check any of the actual facts. So, don't take me at my word. If you are curious, look it up yourself.) 

The urn certainly seems to be cat friendly, Clawdette is walking circles around its base, rubbing against it and purring. As I attempt to look inside the urn, I hear a voice. "Come."

The voice is wispy and hollow. It's like the wind, but it definitely spoke. Then I hear it again. "Come." The voice came from inside the urn. I'm sure of it. I try to peek inside the urn to see the source of the voice. "Come."

"Come where?" I ask the urn feeling foolish. "Come how? I'm already here!"

"Come."

What do I do now?

I look around and Clawdette is gone. "Clawdeeette." I call, trying not to panic. "Clawdeeeettte!" I look outside; she isn't there. I look around the hut, not that there is any place to go in here … except.

"Wel-Come."

I look inside the urn. Now instead of the empty porcelain interior that I saw before there's a thick black swirling smoke. "Clawdette!" I scream. Now, I am panicking!!

Card #4 (Page 3) [7S]
My Journal - Entry Four - Monday
(Experience: Conflict - Event: Thunderstorm)

I plunge my arm into the urn, into the black smoke. The smoke is hot and thick … and I feel something solid. It's Clawdette! I grab her and drag her out of the urn. She's okay!

No sooner do I get Clawdette free of the urn than I hear a terrifying clap of thunder. Clawdette leaps into my arms and clings to me. She hates thunder. I want to examine the urn, further. I want to study it, but I'll get Clawdette away from it and to safety first.

I turn toward the door and see water pouring in under the crack. "Oh, no. Oh, no!" I rush outside. The rain is pounding. I tuck Clawdette under my jacket to try to keep her dry, but I don't think that it's going to do any good. As I feared, with the little "island" under water, my raft has drifted out into the middle of the bog.

I wade out to try to retrieve my raft. I chance a look behind me at the little hut. It is now half submerged under the water and through the open door, a long tendril of thick black smoke is pursuing me!

I climb onto the raft keeping Clawdette under my jacket. This isn't easy. I'm now up to my armpits in water and the storm is raging, pelting me hard with water. As I get on the raft, the tendril of smoke pulls at me grabbing me by the leg. Its touch is hot. It burns.

"You're not getting Clawdette!" I scream. Clawdette is still safe and hiding beneath my coat. She doesn't make a sound and she doesn't move. She just holds on to me. Her claws in me hurt, but it's a good hurt. It means that she's still there, that she's safe.

I kick at the smoke as I use my pole to push us away from the hut. As difficult as it makes things, the storm is a blessing. As the water level rises, the smoke gets weaker and weaker. Eventually we are free and I see the top of the hut disappear beneath the rising water. No sooner has the hut vanished from view than the storm stops as mysteriously as it began.

Clawdette and I are soaked. We eventually make it back to the safety of our homey little cottage.

(End of Journal entries for Monday.)

January Update 2026

The month is almost over and it's been a month since my last blog post. I figure that I need to write something. I want to stay active here, even if just for myself. So this update is just going to be some random thoughts. 

Julie (my wife) and I love Plur1bus. It is an awesome show - almost a zombie apocalypse, but with a really unique twist. The first season is on Apple TV streaming service and I highly recommend it.

I am trying to get out of my funk and find some people to role-play with. I still can't really travel, and even if I could, 17 inches of snow on the ground outside is a substantial barrier. So, I reached out to one of the  local DM's and asked if I could join a game remotely and he agreed.

I joined his Legend In The Mist campaign. They had only played (I think) twice before. I was able to jump right in, and I had a really good time. So, there's that.

I've also been playing a play-by-post narrative only role-play with AI. I'm using the Game Master bot at https://perchance.org/ai-character-chat. It's completely free, and the results are frankly, almost frightening - they're so good. It's provided a welcome distraction as I struggle with a bit of New Years depression.

I have one role-play set in Stardew Valley and the residents of Pelican Town, and another set in the DC Universe in Metropolis. I have an original character called Parsec. I didn't create the character prior to the role-play. I went in blind and let the AI help me tell my origin story. It worked great.

My success with PerchanceAI has me thinking about Solo Journaling RPGs. I think that I might enjoy them if I can find the right one.

No new RPG design work to report. I just haven't felt the motivation. However, if I do get into Journaling, I think that Little Colony could be redesigned as a Journaling game. So, I do have that bouncing around in the back of my mind.

Regards,

Jeff

Streamlined Superheroes

Streamlined Superheroes is a rules-lite superhero TTRPG by John Fredericks published by Sharp Mountain games. The PDF is available on DriveThru and the print version of the game can be found on Amazon. Streamlined Superheroes takes the “if it’s not broke – don’t fix it” approach to game design. Everything here is familiar. Players roll a d20 + Attribute to succeed vs a default difficulty number of 10. Then they roll damage. The damage (called effect) is subtracted from HP.

Dice rolled for effect are variable, and this is where powers come in. A hero might have super strength of d10. Then when rolling to do damage they would roll a d10. But that’s not all. What if one of your powers was Investigative Reporter? No problem. Everything works the same way. If you were trying to find a clue at a crime scene, the hidden clue might have its own HP – referred to as Hit Points when it’s a hero or a villain’s life force, but referred to as Hurdle Points when it’s an obstacle to be overcome like an avalanche or a ticking time bomb.

(Can I just say that I think the term, "Hurdle Points" is so clever!)

The GM can use Hurdle Points to establish the time and effort a character must place into completing a task. But, what if you don’t really want to use Hurdle Points for a certain thing? That’s cool. Roll the effect die any way. If the task roll succeeds then the Effect Die is still consulted in combination. Any result on the Effect Die of 6 or greater provides a boon. In the case of the investigation roll above, perhaps the character gleans some additional information from the clue that they found.

Heroes are defined by four attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Charisma. The names are familiar and no time is wasted explaining how these work. They are what you would expect. The four attributes are assigned ratings from the array: 0, 1, 2, and 3. Then four powers/skills are chosen. The game recommends three powers and one skill but any combination is possible. These are assigned effect die sizes from the array: d6, d8, d10, d12. That’s it. Character done.

Having 0 in an Attribute isn't bad. It's average, normal, ordinary. It means no bonus is applied and there's nothing special to talk about. Likewise, the default normal Effect Die is the d4, and it's use is assumed when a character isn't employing a defined power or skill.

Physical weapons or other devices like Green Arrow’s Bow or Captain America’s Shield are also powers, but they constitute a weakness for the character because they might be taken away. A hero can have one weakness. If you take a weakness, then you get one additional power or skill with an Effect Die value of d6.

Armor just adds its effect die value to your HP, but there are alternative rules for using your armor power to make soak rolls to avoid damage. There are also roll for entanglement type powers that use their effect die as Hurdle Points that the entanglement target must overcome in order to break free. It’s all very intuitive and just ... easy.

Advancement is Milestone based and allows players to improve an Effect Die or increase an Attribute Ranking by +1. Attributes cap at 8 and Effect Dice cap at d12, but there are alternative rules for allowing an Effect Die to go as high as d20 by increasing in increments of +2.

Everything that Streamlined Superheroes does is intuitive. The game works at an almost instinctual level. Players can jump in and start playing this with no prior knowledge of the game and learn what they need to know at the table. This is one of those games that is just playable.

The rules are super clean and easy to read and use, and the author John Fredericks even does his own illustrations. The game also has a few pieces of public domain comic book art. These pieces are well chosen and nice, but I much prefer John’s own artwork. I think his drawings add a charm and flavor to the entire presentation that pushes Streamlined Superheroes from great game to unbelievably great game.

I love Streamlined Superheroes. I can just see myself playing this one, and I can’t wait to get it to the table.

Superhero Fun Review

I’m going to review some rules-lite superhero TTRPG games that I think are really good. The first one that I want to talk about is Superhero Fun by Jerry Joe Seltzer. I spoke about this game way back in 2013, but that review is gone – plus this game is worth another look.

Superhero Fun is a genuine hidden gem. You won’t find any other reviews for it out there, (at least I couldn’t) and that’s a real shame. The game uses a d6 dice pool system in the Westend Games model originally created by Greg Costikyan for Star Wars back in 1987, and everything fits on just six pages.

The six pages begins with a character sheet that includes rules for character creation. Characters are defined by four core attributes which the game calls the “Big 4 Stats”. These are: Brawn, Agility, Mind, and Charm. Players have 8 dice to assign to these with a maximum of 3 dice for any single attribute. The Big 4 Stats are fixed after character creation. Only a players “abilities” will improve during play.

Abilities are like skills. Each of the Big 4 Stats has six abilities listed beneath it except for Agility which has five. Players assign 12 dice between all of these Abilities, again with a maximum of 3 dice for any single Ability. All of this information is on the character sheet on page one.

The next two pages are super powers. Players can spend some of their creation dice to buy super powers. A super power costs 2 dice and changes the rules in some way. For example: “Bulky” adds 1 die to your Brawn stat and changes the max for that stat from 3 to 4. Following the super power list are some example limitations. Limiting a power changes the cost for buying the power from 2 dice to 1.

Pages four and five look more closely at the specific abilities and give examples of their use at differing difficulties to help the GM to set difficulty numbers based on what a player wants to do. Page six is an overview of the rules, all conveniently located on one page.

Every odd page has a copyright that reads: ©2010 jerry@seltzerpop.com - No rights reserved. Use however you want.

Jerry Joe Seltzer is an illustrator of children's books and author of D&D 5E supplements. Seltzerpop.com doesn’t exist anymore, and Superhero Fun is a game that you can only find if you really look for it. The PDF is housed on wikipedia commons. Jerry has a website if you want to take a look at other things that this incredible creator has produced for the TTRPG community.

Give Superhero Fun a quick look. It’s free. It’s only six pages. And I think It’s really awesome! What have you got to lose?

Favorite Game for December 24th

#1 Creature Caravan

Creature Caravan is by artist designer Ryan Laukat founder of Red Raven Games. Ryan is known for his incredible illustration work and for narrative games like Near & Far and Sleeping Gods. Creature Caravan is designed by Ryan but it's not a narrative game. Creature Caravan is an engine building dice placement card game.

Creature Caravan features a central board that's just a map divided into spaces that players are trying to traverse from one side to the other like pawns across a chess board. The further you move your little caravan piece across this map the more points you will get at game's end. At the end of each turn your caravan pitches a little tent where you have stopped. When you run out of tents, the game ends and points are totaled.

Movement is accomplished by placing dice on your player board into spaces that represent the terrain type that you want your caravan to enter. Clear terrain made up of green grass can be entered easily with almost any die, but things like mountains or water will require dice of higher values to enter.

In addition to movement you can also place dice to generate currency and to draw cards. You can have any number of cards in your hand, but if you want to play the cards down in front of you, that will require you to spend the aforementioned currency. There are three kinds of currency: food, gold, and supplies. Different cards will require different combinations of these.

The cards represent all manner of creatures and vehicles that will join your Creature Caravan. All of these cards feature Ryan's whimsical artwork and every card is unique. Some cards will score points depending on other cards that you have in your caravan providing a set collection challenge to the game. Many cards will provide new places to put the dice that you have rolled granting you more and better actions.

You may also need to place dice to fight enemies that endanger your caravan. Oh, yeah. Some spaces on the board contain enemies: Ember Zombies that will plague your caravan if you pass through their square. Defeating them will gain you points at the end of the game, but allowing them to harass your caravan unchecked will cost you points.

The combat is a cool thing, but it's not vital. I think Julie completely ignored the zombies in our last game, and she still won. The game is relaxing escapism in the best possible way. I called Explorers of the North Sea "board game comfort food." I think that goes double for Creature Caravan. I love this game. In fact, Creature Caravan is officially my #1 favorite game. 

Favorite Game for December 23rd

#2 Vantage

There are a bunch of RPG-In-A-Box style games out there. Vantage isn't one of these, but it looks like one. There are a bunch of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style games out there. Vantage isn't one of these either, but it looks like one. Vantage is best described as a mix of these two styles of games.

Like an RPG-In-A-Box style game, players have a character and character advancement. Like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style game, game play is about paging through a story to see what happens. Both of these experiences however, are ... reduced ... distilled. Vantage takes a little from both of these ideas and blends them together to create something that is (at least for me) greater than the sum of its parts.

Each player has a character card and a location card. On the location cards are actions that the character you "control" can take. You choose an action, and read from a book to see what happens. You might have tokens and other cards that represent things your character is good at, which can suggest a certain course of action to you. Once you have taken an action at a location it is time to move on to the next location to take a new action.

Actions require payment in resources to achieve. These resources are represented by tokens and dice rolls. You can place the dice on cards that you have acquired during play or pay the resource cost on a central board. However, you don't want to use the central board if you can help it, because those resources are finite, and once they are gone your adventure is over.

Vantage is a game of discovery. The fun is in both exploring the environment and in observing what your character is going to do next. You don't so much "control" your character as you "follow them around." The choices that you make aren't clearly defined. 

Frequently, when you select a course of action, what follows is nothing like what you were expecting. This seems to be the norm rather than the exception. For this reason, Vantage isn't going to be for everyone. Players have to be willing to relinquish a certain amount of control and just allow the game to entertain them. 

The game itself is mostly cards and a handful of tokens. There are "story books" but the entries are very brief. This isn't a narrative heavy game. Vantage gives you a taste of what's happening and wants you to create the details in your own imagination. The story entries are also available in app form that makes accessing them with your phone fast and easy.

Vantage is also single-session. Each game is unique and self contained. Players are not tied to a long term campaign. Set-Up is quick and each session plays in a few hours. Some experiences will be better than others. The first time I played, I wasn't sure that I liked Vantage. Once I figured out the kind of experience that the game was offering and leaned into that ... Well, Vantage is currently my 2nd favorite game of all time.

I don't know if Vantage will stay so high on my list, and I know that it isn't for everyone. Julie likes it. I really like it. It's a "big box" style adventure game in a regular sized box that I can get to my table and play. To me that makes Vantage kind of miraculous.

Favorite Game for December 22nd

#3 Stardew Valley: The Board Game

This game is based on the popular computer game of the same name. In the game you are doing all the same things that you do in Stardew Valley: The Computer Game. You are wandering around foraging for resources, going to the mines to dig for ore, working on the farm tending crops or caring for animals. You are going to town to meet people and make new friends. You are going to the local fishing spots to try to catch fish.

  

  

All of it. If you can do it in the computer game, you are doing it in the board game. This is a cooperative game. You have a community center that you are trying to rebuild by completing certain objectives. You also have some goals that you are trying to accomplish that were left for you by your grandfather. You have to accomplish all of this by the end of the year in order to win the game.

This game is very random. Your objectives are random. Success in the mines or fishing is determined by rolling dice, and then by drawing a random token from a bag. Everything is crazy random. Your goal is to just push through and do the best that you can. However, there is no guarantee of success.

  

  

Stardew Valley: The Board Game is one of those immersive experiences that I was talking about. You get lost in its world, doing its things. If you worry too much about actually winning the game, you might get frustrated. 

Julie and I haven't won this one yet, but we played recently and were only one objective away from a victory. I was so happy with that. I don't think that Julie was. Some of the objectives seem impossible, and the random stuff has to go your way just perfectly if you are to win.

  

  

So what? All that random stuff is fun. I like the experience of playing the game. Playing Stardew Valley: The Board Game is so immersive for me. If it was a competitive experience, then it wouldn't be good. All that random would not be fair to anyone. But, because it's cooperative and everyone is experiencing the fickle hand of fate together, I don't mind so much.

Favorite Game for December 21st

#4 Star Trek: Captain's Chair

Star Trek Captain's Chair is a deck building card game. In it players are each one of Star Trek's iconic Captains, commanding the crew of their star ship. This is all done with cards. Each Captain has not only a unique deck of cards representing themselves and their crew, but also a unique market of cards with which to build their deck. There's also a central market that all players may pull cards from. 

I've never seen a deck builder where every character has unique cards that are available only to them. This makes every character very thematic, and every character plays differently. In addition to the central market, there's a row of cards that are planets to explore. This is a sort of area control game. "Winning" a planet earns a player glory which are the victory points in the game. 

Glory tokens are placed on a chapter cards called Stardate cards. These act as a timer for the game. There are also missions that players can try to accomplish, and resources: Dilithium and Latinum that need to be managed. This is a fairly heavy game that has a lot going on, but everything is so thematic and intuitive that it doesn't feel heavy.

This is the newest game on my list and it premieres really high. Julie and I picked this one up during a recent visit to Ohio, and we've only played the game once. I think I like the game more than Julie does, but the Second Contact Expansion has Carol Freeman, Captain of the U.S.S. Cerritos from Star Trek: Lower Decks, and I think that will really win Julie over. (I love this game and will definitely get all of the expansions!)

Favorite Game for December 20th

#5 Chronicles of Frost

In Chronicles of Frost, players are adventurers in a fantasy world called Mistfall. The game is mostly made up of cards. There are location cards that create the world randomly as you explore, quest cards that give every player places to go and things to do, and ability cards that provide players with the resources that they need on their turn to perform actions.

  

  

This is a deck building game. There is a central market of 10 cards that come from two decks. There are 5 cards from the basic deck that cost 2 or 3 coins each, and there are 5 cards from the advanced deck that cost 4 or 5 coins each. When a card is purchased, it is immediately replaced.

Each player has a starter deck made up of 10 starter cards. These are unique to each character and they have the character's name on them. They provide the resources needed to perform actions. These resources are: movement, combat, investigation and wealth. 

  

  

Every card has a top and a bottom half. You gain the resources and effects from the top half of a card simply by playing that card. The bottom half of the ability cards need to be unlocked. This is done by using a skill token (all characters start with one) or by "pushing" your character, which requires you to take a little damage.

Location cards have a rest ability on them which is always something good, but these too have to be unlocked, by defeating the enemy on the location. Locations also have a discovery bonus which is gained by the player who first places the location. So, players are encouraged to explore.

  

  

Each player has two personal quests chosen at random. Once any player has completed both of these quests, which all require going to a particular location and spending some resources, the game end is triggered, and all other players get one more turn. Then, points are scored.

Chronicles of Frost is a "euro-style" adventure deck building game. Players choose where to go and which monsters to fight. Your character can't "die" and can always choose to forego their regular turn to return to the inn and heal up.

  

  

Mechanically, Chronicles of Frost is simple and streamlined. It plays in around 90 minutes at two players. Thematically, the quest cards are well written and immersive. (Don't skip reading them.) Physically, the game is just cards and tokens. It fits in a small box and occupies a tiny amount of shelf space.

This is the adventure game that I would create. Sadly, it flew way under the radar when it came out and the company that made it went out of business. Any time I mention this game, even to other board game hobbyists, they have never heard of it. This is a tragedy, because I love this game.

Favorite Game for December 19th

#6 Explorers of the North Sea

In Explorers of the North Sea, players are Vikings exploring a shared world and trying to gather wealth and resources better than their opponents. Players control the world that they are creating together. Each turn players draw and place tiles, and decide where they go and what their world looks like. Players select a tile from a few available and find someplace to fit it into the world like putting together the pieces of a puzzle.

Then players sail their little Viking ship, or walk their little Viking meeples overland to capture livestock or conquer settlements. Some tiles have enemy ships that you have to fight, but you can always choose to avoid these if you wish. The viking meeples and the little livestock meeples (sheeps, pigs, cows and chickens) actually sit inside your little viking boat, and once the boat is full it's time to go back to the mainland to unload.

  

  

Explorers of the North Sea is "board game comfort food" for me. I love placing the tiles to create the waters and the lands of the North Sea, and then sailing my little boat around. I get so involved in discovering and experiencing the world of Explorers of the North Sea that I often forget that I am playing a competitive game with scoring objectives. 

  

  

I don't think that I have ever actually won a game of Explorers of the North Sea. I think it speaks pretty highly of the game play experience, that Explorers of the North Sea, a game that I have never won, is my #6 favorite game of all time.