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Cosmic Run: Regeneration
Cosmic Run: Regeneration
2018 | Dice Game, Racing, Space
One of the best parts of the board gaming experience is finding a fun group of people with whom to play! Sometimes, though, coordinating a game night is easier said than done. We all must occasionally forego the group experience and face the world as the Lonely Only. But fear not! The world of solo-play is a vast and exciting realm! What follows is a chronicle of my journey into the solo-playing world – notes on gameplay, mechanics, rules, difficulty, and overall experience with solo variations of commonly multiplayer games! I hope this will provide some insight as you continue to grow your collection, or explore your already owned games!

Space – the Final Frontier. Well, not anymore. You’re living in the year 2123, and space travel is not a novel idea. In fact, Earth has become uninhabitable, and the human race must find a new planet to call home! You and your team of explorers have taken to the galaxies to find a suitable replacement for the future of mankind. By befriending aliens and outmaneuvering rival explorers, your team will be credited with the discovery of new colonies on these distant planets. It’s a literal Space Race, so kick on that hyper-drive and take to the stars!

Cosmic Run: Regeneration is a competitive or cooperative dice-rolling game in which players are racing to earn the most victory points by being the first to discover new planets. It’s a Yahtzee-style push-your-luck game where you must roll certain sets of identical dice to advance your ships on the individual planet tracks. Dice can also be used to ‘hire’ aliens or find crystals, which can give you special abilities once per game. The planets must be discovered in a timely manner, though, because passing meteors could cause damage to, or even completely destroy, these planets – this is space, after all. Players earn victory points in three ways – by being the first to discover a planet, based on their position on a planet’s track if they are not the first to discover it, or by retiring sets of aliens. The player with the most victory points once all 6 planets are discovered is the winner! When playing solo, the game is played essentially the same way, with some minor differences. If the solo player discovers all 6 planets before any one is destroyed or before the meteor deck runs out, they win! However, if even a single planet is destroyed or they are not all discovered before the meteor deck runs out, the solo player loses.

I enjoy playing Cosmic Run: Regeneration as a solo game because it’s simple, but not easy. You’re just rolling dice, but you need a strategy. Do you try to advance quickly on the easiest tracks, or do you commit dice to more difficult tracks and hope that the dice rolls will be on your side? Be careful – once you commit a die to a certain track, it cannot be moved. I’ve played so many games where I commit dice to Planet 2 (2-of-a-kind) and end up rolling 3 more of the same number that could’ve been used on Planet 5 (5-of-a-kind) if I’d just committed them there in the first place! A lot of the game is dependent on the luck of the roll, but I feel like you still need a solid strategy to be successful. There’s a good balance between the two – I still feel like I’m in control of the game even though I can’t control how the dice will roll.

The one main difference between solo and group play is that the solo player is allowed to spend VPs to create ‘forcefields’ around planets. This is because in group play if a planet is destroyed, players score points for their track progress, and the game continues. For the solo player, however, if a planet is destroyed, the game is over. When playing solo, I can choose to spend either 5 or 10 VPs to create a forcefield around either 1 or all planets to protect them from meteors for one turn. Without this option in solo play, it would be impossible to win. The first 4 cards of the meteor deck are guaranteed to hit 4 different planets, so right off the bat you are starting at kind of a disadvantage. Each planet only takes 3 hits to be destroyed, so depending on how well the meteor deck is shuffled, the game would be over quickly if I weren’t able to create forcefields. It all comes back to strategy – you have to decide when to spend those VPs and what planets need protecting at any given point in the game.

That being said, scoring VPs is not really easy in solo play. To score points for a planet, you have to physically reach the planet surface – and that can take a while depending on how well you are rolling. You can hire/retire aliens for VPs, but alien cards have a die cost, so if you are hiring aliens all the time, those are dice you are not using to advance on planet tracks. And each turn, planets get closer to destruction if you don’t advance on their tracks fast enough. You can earn VPs when you land on a VP token space – you do not pick up the token if you pass it, you must land exactly on it. So all in all, you can’t afford to protect every planet every turn. You have to strategize carefully about how to risk your hard-earned VPs. The most frustrating thing is when I pay VPs to protect a planet that isn’t even the one that gets hit! 5 VPs gone that I usually can’t get back in a single turn. But that’s all part of the push-your-luck isn’t it? There’s no reward without risk, and sometimes it’s better to be safe than sorry. I’m usually not a very risky game player, but in this game I have to be. Playing it safe is not an option when I’m racing against the meteor deck.

Cosmic Run: Regeneration is a game of strategy with some healthy helpings of luck and risk-taking. You need a solid strategy, but one that is flexible enough to adapt to your dice rolls on any given turn. No game is a guaranteed win – if I win it’s usually at the last possible second. This game is easy to play, but not necessarily easy to win and that’s what keeps me coming back to play. Even as a solo game, it’s engaging and I think it’s pretty fun too!

https://purplephoenixgames.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/solo-chronicles-cosmic-run-regeneration/
  
Maniac (2013)
Maniac (2013)
2013 | Horror
Psychologically damaged lead (2 more)
Lots of blood and gore
Disturbing to the viewer
A helluva good slasher flick
This review is for the original movie. Not the tamed down, all be it good remake starring Elijah Wood.
I watched this after the remake. And it blew me away with its originality and disturbing actors portrayal of the lead.
If you like being freaked out by performance. Than this movie is for you.
In 1980, we were just being introduced to a massive amount of slice and dice horror films. And this one ranks as one of the best
  
Show all 3 comments.
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Scott Tostik (389 KP) Feb 8, 2018

i know, this is one of my first reviews when I was still figuring out how to use the system... I should fix it really...lol

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Dean (6925 KP) Feb 8, 2018

You can add new movie titles just by name and release year if it's not on already.

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Calinor (0 KP) rated Yahtzee in Tabletop Games

Mar 23, 2018  
Yahtzee
Yahtzee
1956 | Dice Game
Nervous anticipation of what you're going to get. (0 more)
Player is completely at fates whim. (0 more)
Solo game with friends.
Yahtzee can be a fun game, but it's completely random and the player has no way to mitigate this. It's more of a solo game, even if you're playing with other people. It can bog down sometimes when someone cannot make up their mind about where to place there dice, or which to reroll. In a game that leaves the player with no way to control or mitigate chance, when the game bogs down it can feel insufferable.
  
Takenoko
Takenoko
2011 | Animals, Environmental, Farming, Territory Building
Simple Mechanics (0 more)
Luck based (0 more)
Very simple game about Gardeners and Pandas
It's a pretty little game, simple and easy to learn and teach. I personally wish it could play with more players. this game has the depth of a deeper party game. I've not yet tried the expansion. That said the components are wonderful. My only complaints are that it's easier to get some card completed than others and the points awarded don't reflect how easy some are to do. Plus it's luck based with the dice rolls to get done hat you want to do sometimes.
  
Making Bad Situations Worse
Making Bad Situations Worse
2018 | Adult, Card Game, Humor
different scenarios, humor, adult content, entertainment (0 more)
Hilarious
Before New Years, I had never heard of this game. While at a friend's house, they brought it out and absolute hilarity ensued. The content is original and definitely adult oriented. The judge draws a card, rolls the dice and selects the scenario on the card that goes with the coinciding number. You choose from the cards in your hand to make the situation worse and the person who drew the card picks the winner. The judge changes each turn. I would definitely play this game again with a group of friends.
  
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The Marinated Meeple (1848 KP) Jan 2, 2019

Sounds like a cards against humanity clone... Glad to hear you enjoyed it.

Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds
2015 | Entertainment, Science Fiction
Great cooperative game (4 more)
Very thematic
Great expanions
Awesome minitures
Easy to set up
Sometimes a bit to easy (0 more)
Thunderbirds are go!
Thunderbirds is a great cooperative game that has elements of Pandemic and X-Com.

Players take on the role of international rescue and work to prevent disaters occuring around the world (and in space) Meanwhile the Hood works to sabotage the players.

Players move vehicles and character's around the board to bring the right equipment into play and then try to resolve the disasters with a dice role.

There are sevral difficulty levels and the expaniosns work well together.
  
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