Game Review: Friday by Friedemann Friese

Friday: A Solo Adventure design by Friedemann Friese and published by Rio Grande Games

Robinson Crusoe shipwrecks on your island and he's in bad shape. The player, as Friday, helps Crusoe deal with the island hazards, building up his abilities. Crusoe will need those skills, because pirate ships are coming. It will be the end for Crusoe in that either he will escape the island or will die fighting the pirates. If he doesn't die before even getting to that point! 

This game is a solo, card-driven challenge. The player starts with a deck of eighteen basic Crusoe ability cards. These cards are very basic, mostly the "weak" and "distracted" ones seen below. The number in the upper left is the fighting value (so 0s and -1s are bad).

Starting cards

Some cards have a special ability in the middle under Robinson's portrait. Above, the only special power is the +2 life on the "eating" card. The player starts with twenty life tokens (the game comes with two extra, so a maximum of twenty-two) and uses the tokens to pay for drawing extra cards or being defeated by a hazard.

Life tokens (maybe there are supposed to be leaves?)

The player draws two hazard cards from the hazard deck and chooses one to fight (the other hazard goes in a hazard discard pile). Each hazard lets the player draw a number of free cards to fight the hazard. The number is in white on the middle left. 

Hazard card samples

On the middle right is the number of fighting points needed to defeat the card. The numbers are listed in three different colors to signify the round the player is in. The first round is green. Once the hazard deck runs out, the player shuffles the undefeated hazard cards into a new draw deck and has to use the yellow numbers. After running out again, the final round is red, a hard challenge before facing the pirates.

The player draws free cards hoping to get enough fighting points to beat the hazard. The player can pay a life point to draw an extra card, doing this as many times as wanted (the player can also stop drawing free cards early if so desired). If the points are equal to or greater than the hazard number, then the hazard card is turned upside down and added to the player's discard pile. As a new Robinson card, it has a better point number and maybe other powers, e.g. to add extra life tokens, to exchange a played card for the top card of the deck, to destroy a played card, or to copy the power of another card.

The good side of the hazard cards

The player may not get enough fighting points, in which case the player pays the difference between the fighting points and the hazard value in life tokens. In the top right of the Robinson cards there's a life token symbol. For every token paid for failing, the player can also eliminate played cards from their deck, i.e. they don't go in the discard pile. So losing can be a strategic choice--the 0s and -1s are usually removed in the first round when the player fails hazards. The undefeated hazard goes back in the hazard discard pile.

Once the Robinson deck runs out, the discard pile (defeated hazard cards and Robinson cards) are reshuffled. The player also has to add one of the aging cards, which introduce new negative effects to their draw deck.

Aging card samples

The aging cards are divided into normal (the brown hair on the lower half of the card) and difficult (the white hair). If the aging deck runs out before the game is done, Robinson dies of old age. Note also that the top right corner shows two life tokens, requiring two life tokens to remove the card from play.

If and when the player makes it through three rounds of the hazard deck, then two of the pirate ship cards attack. The player can choose which one to fight first, but both must be fought to escape the island.

Some of the possible pirate ships

The pirates have the same set up as the hazards, a number of free draws in white and a fight value in red. Some pirates have special abilities that change the the conditions. Hopefully the player has plenty of life tokens and cards that let them draw extra cards to make the big numbers.

The game is a little complicated at first play, though it speeds up quickly as the player gets more familiar with the cards. Balancing wins and losses with life points is a tricky decision. Sometimes paying to draw extra cards is worth it; sometimes paying the defeat cost is worth getting rid of bad cards. But then the player goes through their Robinson deck quicker, adding more aging cards.

At the end, the player can calculate their score by adding up fighting points, life tokens, and bonuses if the pirates are defeated. Values for aging cards and remaining hazards are subtracted. 

On my first game, I almost made it to the pirate round. The second time I made it to the pirate ships but was unable to defeat either ship (after losing to one ship, I tried the other one just for fun, if you can call losing 51 points to the pirates' 61 fun!). The third game I didn't make it to the boats. The fourth game I defeated the pirates with a final score of 61. Wohoo! The fifth game was another double pirate defeat with a final score of 50. The game offers different levels of difficulty, starting with the second level where the player draws a random aging card at the start. I might be ready to try it!

My first victory!

Each game takes less than half an hour, so playing multiple times in one night is easy (or squeezing a play in here or there). The game comes with boards for the hazard deck, the Robinson deck, and the aging deck, so it takes up more space than you would expect, but the game is still playable on a desk or small table. I found the learning curve not too hard. The decision-making around when to fail and when to succeed has the right level of difficulty. Sometimes the drawn cards make it easy to decide, sometimes you have to decide if you want to push your luck or hope to draw more cards that can be discarded. The difficulty ramps up as you get stronger cards in your deck, so the game comes to a nice crescendo with the pirate fights. I enjoy the game and it's nice to have a solo game that has some variety and plays quickly without a lot of set-up.

Recommended--this is a fun solo game with a small learning curve and a lot of replayability.