Solus:Lost

Great Solo game

This is a great solo game. I have a few playthroughs under my belt, and have won once, and lost twice. I purchased the kit that comes with the plastic tokens and the extra pilots and ships, but haven't tried them yet.

Almost great. The rough finish on the cards triggers something in my brain that's like a butter knife on a chalkboard. They scrape together, don't slide well, and feel cheap in the hands. I played 11 sessions with the booklet open and following along before I finally won my first game. The first round I was dead within a few draws, and I figured that was a fluke. Did a more thorough shuffle and got a few more draws before dying again. After 5 fast back to back losses, even with checking every mechanic against the booklet, I was starting to see balance issues. The Homelink cards abilities aren't very exciting, and the Destabilizer and Hypernova Core artifacts are way too strong; the game is nearly impossible to win without them and nearly impossible to lose once you have one of them. Both makes the game trivial and the excitement is gone. At this point, if I'm lucky enough to even be able kill two Overlords without getting one of those 2 artifacts I just quit. What keeps me playing is the atmosphere. I find myself reading all the words on the cards even when I've basically memorized them, and I love imagining being out there in the void trying to get home. I just wish the actual gameplay was up to that same standard. I bought the starter pack with the pilot and ship booster and the fancy damage tokens. I love the tokens, but so far I've only played with one of the pilots. I really wanted to love the original game and to play that a while before incorporating the booster, but the game was so difficult the majority of the time that I had to find another pilot and ship combo to try to smooth that out a bit.

Such a fun game

Bought this out of a whim: I am pleasantly surprised how much I enjoy this game. Easy to learn mechanics and challenging at the same time.