Review Friday

Hello there,

Welcome to my second review for my beloved readers whom I believe at the moment has risen by one. Thank you so much for visiting this page. Now Lets talk about Friday ( No. No. Not that debacle of a song that gets stuck in your head. *shrugs*).

Game Title: Friday
Designer: Friedemann Friese
Publisher: Rio Grande Games (2011) - Actually according to BGG theres a few publishers. Who knew?
Player Count: 1 player
Time: 25 minutes
BGG Rating: 267

In Friday, you are Friday (who knew right) who is trying to help Robinson Crusoe who decided to crash your awesome island which is filled with wild animals, cannibals and the ever need to discover the island Yes those are the situations that the game will pit you against. Who knew exploring somewhere new could be so dangerous. Right? At the end of the game, if you are able to help Robinson Crusoe to defeat the 2 pirates who decided to way anchor and hide their treasure here, you win the game.

The set up of the game is quite simple. Put aside the phase cards, shuffle the pirate cards and draw 2 cards, set up the three storage boards with the necessary cards (Robinson cards,Hazard cards and Aging cards) and take 20 life counters. In the box they have included a supplementary sheet that is very useful. It shows exactly how to set up and what to put aside. I applaud it.

Moving on with the game play. There are basically summed up to the following steps:

1. Draw two cards from the Hazard deck. Choose one, discard the other.
2. Fight against the hazard. Draw up to the number of cards allowed on the Hazard card. Try to beat the number base on the current phase. If any of the cards you drew have special abilities activate them.
3. Resolve the fight. If the card power that is drawn is equal or higher you have won and put the card in your discard pile. If you lose (be it on purpose or just a really bad draw), you lose as much life tokens as stated in the Hazard card.
4. If there are more then 1 card in the Hazard pile, you start back at 1. If not, the next phase (The phases are green, yellow and red) begins with you taking 2 cards from top of the Aging Deck and shuffle them in the Hazard deck. Then start from 1.
5. After the last 2 cards in the last phase, the final showdown with pirates begin. From the two that was used in set up, you choose to duel one at a time. Fighting them is exactly the same as facing the Hazard cards. You MUST defeat the maybe drunken pirates, if not its Dave Jones locker for you and Robinson.

Firstly, full disclosure, I have not read the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Thus, I can not say how close this games resembles the events in the books. After a few times of playing this game, it is clear to me that it isn't as easy as I thought it would. I have played a number of deck building games whereby you get to buy cards from a market. Limiting the options of card to get by two for each round and having to get the card by trying to card count your deck presents a challenge in to itself. This game wants you to manage pushing your luck. You'll be thinking since -1 card has come out, I might not get another one for a while, should  be going after this card or do I want to play safe with a card I can beat. Mind you, the first few games did not take 30 minutes. The replay-ability of this game is quite high, you have 10 pirate cards, and 11 ageing cards that ensure that you have a varied gaming experience every time the game hits the table. The components are what it needs to be there is nothing fancy about that.

I do have a couple of issues with the game. I am not a fan of the artwork. I know. I know. Some of you are going to hate me on this but isn't it subjective. I'm a fan of artwork that are a lot more crisp or clean (not entirely sure that is the right description). I do understand that its suppose to represents a lighter tone, and I do know some people would love it. To each their own. Another thing that bugged me was the game length. I know it said on the box 25 minutes, but for a solo game like this, I feel like it should have been made a lot simpler. Don't get me wrong, most of the time is spent on small decision making. I would have liked it a lot more if was a lot shorter in game length. I also didn't like that i had three storage boards, I mean it just felt like it was everywhere. I understand that the main reason is to ensure that the game would still fit in the box, but I believe it would be a whole lot easier to set up if the board was one piece.

Conclusion

I believe that if you love card games, deck building and want one game you can play by yourself that is not solitaire on your computer (kids will never know how cool it was to complete that), then this is one game for you. If you have friends who always come to your board game meetings, then just borrow from the friend who I mentioned earlier.

8/10