| 👨👩👧👦 | Players: 1 |
| ⏳ | Time: 15 mins |
| 🎂 | Ages: 10+ |
| ⚙️ | Mechanisms: Solo/Solitaire |
I’ve been playing a lot of solo games, and one that’s hitting my table a lot is Cavern Shuffle from Gravy Boat Games.
Cavern Shuffle is a solo dungeon crawl inspired card game that utilizes Solitaire mechanics. Your adventuring party consists of 4 different classes of adventurers, representing each of the 4 ‘suits’: Cleric, Rogue, Barbarian, and Ranger. In true dungeon crawl style, you must overcome a variety of Encounters and Obstacles, including a big bad – the Minotaur.
While Cavern Shuffle is solidly a Solitaire game, there are a few additions to the rules that really spice up the game, make it more challenging, and immerse you in the dungeon crawl theme:
Cards played to the party area (known as foundation in Solitaire) become the strength of each adventurer, and combine to create your party’s total strength. Moving cards to the party area causes the Minotaur to move to the next row, blocking your path and ability to play or move cards there. Obstacles and Encounters are scattered throughout the cards. To defeat them, an individual adventurer or the party (respectively) must have reached a minimum level of strength. Loot found while navigating the dungeon can be used to aid a hero or the party in overcoming Obstacles and Encounters. The game is won as soon as the party defeats the Minotaur, unlike in classic Solitaire, where all cards must be moved to the foundation.
By using Solitaire as its core structure, Gravy Boat Games has made Cavern Shuffle very easy to learn. Players need only to adapt to the additional elements of the game if they’re already familiar with Solitaire. Just as with Solitaire, there is a strong luck factor, and it’s easy (and common) to find yourself in a position where it is impossible to win. Despite this, it plays so quickly that I found myself going back for game after game; I was convinced that I just needed one more game to achieve the win. And after doing that many times, I eventually did.
I really love the theme of Cavern Shuffle, and it’s a great little game to get out and play when I’ve got a few minutes spare. Of course, now that I’ve defeated the dungeon, I’m already thinking that it would be fun to make it even harder. (Dear reader, it would seem that the author has delusions of grandeur. She has conquered the dungeon exactly ONCE, and will likely lose many more times; she does not need it to be harder.) Let me be clear, though, Cavern Shuffle doesn’t need anything more; it’s already a great game. In truth, I think I just enjoy the game so much that I want even more of it. If an expansion is ever released though, I’d love to see class abilities for each adventurer and some additional Encounters/Obstacles that could be rotated each game to increase the variability and difficulty.
Overall, Cavern Shuffle is a great choice for anyone who loves playing solo card games and wants a bit of an extra challenge. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go prove to myself that I’ve got what it takes to defeat the dungeon… again.
You can see this post on Instagram here and here. For further information about Cavern Shuffle, check out the publisher’s website.
The Boardgame Detective 