A solo endeavor

❓ Do you play solo? What is your favorite solo game?

Legacy of Yu is a solo-only game from Garphill Games . It is set in ancient China, and your job is to build a series of canals to redirect the flooding 🌊 water of the Yellow River while also fending off attacking barbarian 👹 tribes at the same time. It is a euro with a fully-resettable campaign system. As you win or lose games you might remove or unlock cards and read some story snippets. Your campaign lasts until you have won or lost 7 games, which could be up to 13 games!

Every round starts off with a harvest 🧺 phase where you get resources. As you construct buildings and tuck in some townsfolk cards your income will improve, so there is some engine building. The meat of the game takes place in the action phase. You use your hand of townsfolk cards to generate resources - cards are multi-use, which is something that I always love in games. 🥰 There is also deckbuilding, as you will add additional townsfolk cards to your deck. This is essential, as every time your deck is empty and you have to reshuffle your discard pile, the flood marker is moved forward. If it reaches an incomplete canal card, you lose! So you are in a race to complete all 6 canals! 🏃

With the construction of canals, more and more barbarian cards enter the game each round. These formidable adversaries must be vanquished by deploying the appropriate meeples, otherwise they attack you after the action phase. If you ever have 7 barbarian cards above the board you also lose! ☠️

As you build canals, you reveal slots where you can place buildings. There are 3 types of buildings, each with their own benefit. However, due to limited spaces, compromises have to be made. 🧐 You really have to pick townsfolk and buildings in a way so you ensure a nice spread of resources in each game. Too much of one type can lead to disaster - though with each built canal you also get new ways to exchange resources.

I love how the difficulty ramps up with every round, but you get stronger too. After each win or lose, new gameplay elements are introduced to make your life harder or easier. Stay tuned for more ;)