Solo Chronicles – Widget Ridge

One of the best parts of the board gaming experience is finding a fun group of people with whom to play! Sometimes, though, coordinating a game night is easier said than done. We all must occasionally forego the group experience and face the world as the Lonely Only. But fear not! The world of solo-play is a vast and exciting realm! What follows is a chronicle of my journey into the solo-playing world – notes on gameplay, mechanics, rules, difficulty, and overall experience with solo variations of commonly multiplayer games! I hope this will provide some insight as you continue to grow your collection, or explore your already owned games!

Welcome to Widget Ridge – a thriving city of science with a steampunk atmosphere. The city is bustling with activity, as it celebrates the annual Festival of Three Churches. Everyone gathers en masse in the Faraday Square to get a glimpse of all the new and strange scientific devices on display, created by the students of the Three Churches. Suddenly, commotion erupts – the automaton statue of Lord Covington (first mayor of Widget Ridge) has somehow been activated, and is rampaging throughout the city. Act quickly to diffuse this situation, and prove your engineering prowess to the Church Elders, before someone else can claim the glory!

DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS.  -L

Widget Ridge is a game of deck building in which players are trying to be the first to amass 100 Spark (victory points). To setup, each player receives a hand of 10 starter cards, as well as 2 Spark Tracker cards. Shuffle the Marketplace Deck, and draw the top 6 cards to be the starting Marketplace. Depending on how many players are playing, draw a set number of cards from your Draw deck into your hand. You are now ready to begin! Widget Ridge works like your standard deck-building game. You use cards from your personal deck to buy better/stronger cards from the Marketplace, play cards into your Workshop (tableau), and utilize any special abilities of your played cards to increase your personal score, manipulate cards in play, affect opponents’ cards, etc. Once a player has reached 100 Spark, they are declared the winner!

As a solo game, there are a few differences in play. Your ultimate goal is still to amass 100 Spark, but you must now do so before the Lord Covington statue overloads and explodes! Setup is the same, making sure that you shuffle and set aside the deck of starter cards for the AI opponent (I’ll call it the Boss). The solo game is played in 2 phases: the Mechanical Bison Stampede, and the Lord Covington phase. Both of these phases are played similarly – you take your turn as normal, drawing and playing cards and activating abilities as you would in a multiplayer game, and then the Boss will act.

When the Boss acts during the Bison phase, you first discard and refill the entire Marketplace row. Then draw the top card of the Boss starter deck, and the starter number on the bottom left-hand side of the card will correspond to the ability table on the Boss card. Perform that ability, and then the turn moves back to you. You defeat the Bison once you reach a certain amount of Spark. Once all 3 Bison are defeated, you move on to the next phase. Conversely, if the Marketplace deck runs out of cards during this phase, you lose! The Lord Covington phase is almost identical, just played in reverse. You first draw the top card from the starter deck and resolve its corresponding ability on the Boss card. Then Lord Covington destroys a number of cards from the Marketplace equal to the number of cards in his discard pile. You must amass 100 Spark before all 10 cards of Lord Covington’s starter deck are drawn, otherwise you lose!

So how does Widget Ridge play as a solo game? Honestly, I have some mixed feelings about it. I love deck-building games, and the steampunk aspect brings a unique twist to a standard mechanic. One thing that I love about this game is that cards played into your Workshop can connect to each other. When strategizing what cards to buy and play, you have to look at not only their individual actions, but the actions they provide when connected and chained together. To take even that to the next level, the cards all have differing symbols for connection, so not every card can connect to every other card! So not only do you have to strategize abilities you want, but you have to make sure that the cards you’ve bought can be connected together in the first place. If you get a really powerful combo going, it could result in earning tons of Spark on your turn! Some card abilities trigger immediately when played, some only when they are connected to other cards, and the Full Construct ability only when you have a complete chain of 3 cards. And with the ability to remove/replace cards in your Workshop, you can adjust your Full Construct ability as the game progresses – you aren’t just stuck with an ability that maybe isn’t as great as you originally thought it would be.

The only negative I have regarding Widget Ridge as a solo game is that it feels a little bit imbalanced. In a multiplayer game, depending on your cards in play, you are interacting with and affecting your opponents, which in turn could put you ahead. In a solo game, the Boss has no hand of cards, no tableau, nothing. So there are some powers that really are of no use in a solo game. The Boss has some powerful abilities that can affect your turns, but you aren’t able to take those sorts of actions against the Boss. It feels more like a race to 100 Spark instead of the more strategic game you see with other players. Not that it makes a solo game unplayable, it just makes it a little trickier to strategize.

Overall, I enjoy Widget Ridge. The artwork fits the theme, the cards are of decent quality, and although it’s a standard deck-builder, the ability to connect and chain cards together takes it to the next level. I would not say it is a go-to for me when looking for a solo game – it has its challenges, but still is engaging and entertaining throughout. If you haven’t checked out Widget Ridge, I would definitely recommend it! I would probably just aim for a 2+ player game instead of solo!