Rio Grande Games Friday - Solo Deck Building Adventure Survival Game

This is a great alternative to Solitaire, my usual go-to card game for one. The idea is that you are Friday, and you are trying to train Robinson Crusoe to get off the island. You start with a hand of cards that represent Robinson's skills/state of mind, and over time you'll want to evolve his skills and mindset by building a stronger deck. You take two cards off of the encounter deck, and choose which encounter you want to send Robinson on (basing your decision on the required skill/mindset level to successfully beat the encounter). Then you flip over the number of cards allowed from that encounter card, and see how Robinson's skill/state of mind value compares to the requirements of the encounter. If you fall short, you can pay a life point to bring out another card and try to succeed (you can keep doing this if you want), or you can pay the difference in life points, and for each life point you are forced to discard, you can trash a card from your deck. If you pass the encounter, you get to keep the card, which on the lower half is a new Robinson skill/state of mind level (representing what he learned from surviving that encounter's adventure, and another crucial factor in determining which encounter you choose to have him attempt). There are a lot of factors in play. You need to run through the encounter deck at three different levels. Green (easy), yellow (medium), red (hard). The numeric value required to complete the encounters increases with every increase in difficulty level. So the first time through, you might think it's great to try to fail as many as possible to thin your deck of those bad -1 and 0 value cards, but then you'll have more encounters to face at those increased difficulty levels. Conversely, if you try to win as many encounters in the early round as possible, you may not get to trash as many cards as you like, leaving you with a lot of duds coming out in those harder levels. You also need to consider your life points, as when they run out, you instantly lose the game. So sometimes you fail a lot of encounters and cut cards, then realize you are dangerously low on life. Thankfully, many cards you gain from passing encounters along the way give you special actions, like +1 or +2 life points, +1 or +2 cards, destroy/trash a card, -1 to the encounter's pass level, etc. So those are also a consideration when you decide which encounter to go up against, as you can see at the bottom what skill/state of mind you'll gain from passing. On top of all of this, every time your deck runs out and you need to shuffle your discard pile and cycle through again, you add an aging card, which represents the passage of time on the island and how it wears on Robinson. These are tougher to remove from your deck, as you need to discard two life points to rid of them or use a trashing card. If you survive making it through all three difficulty phases of the encounters, you go up against two different pirate ships you must defeat. So essentially, you are not only building a deck to go up against encounters, you are building a deck that will defeat the pirate ships at the end. If you reach the needed level, Robinson makes it off the island. If not, well, he doesn't. I love the challenge of this game. It took me several tries to win, and I'm still on beginner's mode after 16 plays. There are additional difficulty levels to keep the game interesting as you get more experienced. There is obviously luck involved, but it certainly requires a good balance of all those aforementioned factors. If you're looking for a quick strategy game to play on your own, this is an excellent choice.

This game is highly recommended. I spend most of my game-time playing solo, so I was pleased to see that this little box contained a "solo adventure" and also that many reviews indicated that it was quite challenging. I will confirm that this game is not for the faint of heart. It took me several plays to beat the first of the four difficulties indicated in the instructions. With a little experience, however, I was able to figure out a strategy that seems to work well in most cases and I have been very successful with achieving victory even on the fourth difficulty level. If you want to know that strategy, you can find it easily on-line, and my experience has been that the general principals of the most common strategy found on-line will help you prevail. Bad news if you want a perpetual challenge, but good news if you want a winnable game that doesn't beat you up 9 out of 10 tries and make you feel despondent. More good news - you can always start with fewer life points of modify the card sets to create ever increasing levels of difficulty. There is certainly a point where luck of the draw will start to be more important than strategy as you design brutal challenges to combat your own success, but I am finding that playing the game just a wee bit harder than the fourth scenario in the instructions provides a good level of difficulty. If you like to play solo, this is an essential purchase. It is sleek in its design, engaging to play, has high replayability due to the potential to fine tune the difficulty) and it is a reasonably inexpensive game. PS. The components are not elaborate, but they are well made. I have played my set 20 times without any fatigue at all. I am careful with my game components, but all but the most careless people should find this set lasting for years and years.

This game is easy to setup, easy to tear down and the game itself is a very small size. This makes it a perfect travel game. The gameplay itself is easy to learn but incredibly tough to beat. You would lose nine times out of ten but you will come back for more. The game lacks variety but that doesn’t mean it is bad. This is why it is the perfect game to play as a filler. Keep in mind that it is solo only.

I was looking for a few single player board/card games and glad I came across Friday. I definitely enjoy playing the game, but there are a few downsides others may find annoying. None of the items below are deal breakers for me and I would still recommend the game, especially at the price, but wanted to mention them in case they would be deal breakers for others. -It can be difficult to remember all of the various rules, but it does get easier over time if you don't mind referring to the instruction booklet regularly. There are also plenty of instructional videos on the internet to get an idea of what you are getting in to before you buy. -You have to pay attention as you play, because you could be battling hazards according to the green phase on the hazard card and forget you are now in the yellow phase. Not a big deal of course, but there are other games I've played where you can play more casually without having to pay as much attention. -The replay-ability may be lower than some other games as the cards are what they are and there are no expansion sets (that I know of), so would probably want other games in your rotation to take a break from this one from time to time. -It definitely isn't an easy game, so may not be good for people who hate losing more than they win.

I've had this game a few months but not sure how many times I've played it but at least a couple dozen at the basic level and once at the highest level. I'm not really good at figuring out stuff by reading - guess it's impatience or laziness but this one I read through and still refer back to the instructions and realize I was doing something wrong! I'm not overly impressed with the artwork ( I tend to go for cutesy) but it does look nice and fits the theme. At first the setup seemed to take forever but I've gotten a lot faster. It does take up a bit of table space but it has 3 small square 'boards' marked for each deck. there are 22 life points that are good quality IMO - wood painted green - and lots of sorting cards at the end (as you win the hazards they mix in with the fighting cards since the other end of the card has a fightng value and/or special ability) and you have cards you destroy in another stack and some of these are the starting fighting cards and aging cards. To begin the game you need to shuffle the pirate cards and randomnly pick 2 that you will fight at the end(if you get that far!). you also separate the aging cards - the first level you can leave out one of the regular hazards cards but the others(and that one) you shuffle then you shuffle the 3 white haired ones(really bad ones) - these 3 white ones go under the regular aging cards and go on one board(I put mine to the left). the fighting cards are shuffled and put facedown on the middle board. Over on the right you shuffle the hazard cards. there are also 3 cards - green, yellow, and red that go by these so you can keep track of which level you're fighting. I found this a bit overwhelming at first but the more I've played I find it nice to lose myself in a game! I recently played the hardest level for the first time and ran out of lifepoints so many times - I was down to 2 or none while fighting the yellow and red hazards(got more from the special abiltiies fighting cards and promptly used them). I fought the pirates starting with no life points - won against the first but lost the 2nd - it was an exciting game!

I wanted to write this review because I finally beat this game at Level 1 and felt I should share the experience and lessons learned. Let me start by saying I bought this game about a year ago, played it constantly for about a month, and sort of gave up because I could never win. This was one of my first board games I bought before I got into the hobby. Fast forward to now after gaining a bit of board game experience and building a collection, I sat down one day and wanted to play a solo game, but nothing too heavy. The problem with a lot of board games that have a solo variant is that they can take 30 minutes to set up all by yourself. If you’re by yourself, wasting that much time can really drag on the experience. What’s great about Friday is that setup is quick, like 5 minutes even for someone who completely forgot how to play. So I set everything up and played how I used to play: kind of conservative at first, but ramping up so I could attempt to always win against hazards. That didn’t happen and I lost a lot of life early on, resulting in losing before I got to the pirates. So then I thought…what if I ALWAYS went for the powerful hazards instead of avoiding them? Go for the cannibals instead of the easy cards. I ended up winning! The game was actually a cakewalk despite the luck factor, which all solitaire games have a little bit of. And it makes sense thematically right? If you’re seeking adventure and you want to get strong, you’re not going to win by always playing it safe. You win by tackling problems head on and figuring out a way to beat them. Hoping my review helps some that are having trouble with this game or are on the fence about buying (BUY IT!). It is a fantastic solo experience and I can’t wait to move on to Level 2 and beyond.

Challengeling, I Love the story and the way to make the game more challenging as I progressed. Never The same twice.

Fun and challenging deck builder, you know if you can beat it early on if you are lucky after a couple of reshuffle of the Robinson deck

Me arrependi amargamente, pois baixei o app do jogo (beeeeeeem mais barato) e mesmo assim não consegui entender o jogo. Tudo em Alemão ou em inglês mas não explicativo. Tá lá guardado.

Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in an engaging solo game that takes 30 minutes or less to play. The game is easy to learn and presents just the right amount of challenge. When you lose (and you'll lose often), you feel compelled to set it up again and give it another go right away. When you finally earn a win, it feels like a real accomplishment. The game has 4 different levels of play, so you can ramp up the challenge when you start to feel confident in your strategy. There is an element of luck, as with most card games, but your success really depends on making smart decisions and deciding when to push your luck vs when to play it safe. With every loss you'll find yourself refining your strategy, so the whole experience is very rewarding. The components are of good quality, and the overall theme is humorous. One of the best solo gaming experiences out there. This is a real bargain at $20.

Good game, definitely buy for me if u want real solo experience for board game. But once you figure out how to play, could be boring as it's then more luck to keep you from winning unlike another opponent instead.

It took me a while to get used to the rules but once I did it was a great time! Highly reccomend the game, it's a great mix of luck and strategy and you can play for as long as you like! If, like me, you have the problem of too many board games not enough friends, I totally think this is a perfect game to play solo in those moments that nobody else will play a multiplayer game!

Juego sencillo para jugar en solitario. Muy fácil de aprender, no dependiente del idioma (el instructivo está en inglés pero pueden verse tutoriales en YouTube). Ocupa muy poco espacio en la mesa y no es necesario mucho tiempo para preparar cada partida. No es fácil ganarlo pero el juego en si es divertido. La caja es pequeña así que es fácil de llevar. Me parece un indispensable en la colección de cualquier persona que le gustan los juegos de mesa en solitario.