Everyday is Friday
Robinson Crusoe is a bumbling buffoon. There, I said it. And if you've played the solo deck building game called "Friday," you're nodding your head in agreement right now. Me? I've played it enough times to know that Robinson can barely hold his own drool in his mouth, much less survive on a deserted island without our help. But while Robinson himself may be completely and utterly moronic, this solo deck building card game is nothing short of brilliant.
In "Friday," you play as a man appropriately named Friday. You are stuck on an island with your pal, Robinson Crusoe. You are tasked with keeping him alive, which is easier said than done as again, Robinson is a complete dunce. For one, he has no attention span. And when he's not chasing butterflies, he's often simply too weak to contribute anything.
All of Robinson's shortcomings are represented by a starting deck of cards, each with a numerical value and possibly an ability. For instance, a card could give some food to Robinson, which is represented by green tokens. If you ever run out of these green tokens, Robinson is toast. So it's a good idea to manage these well.
One each turn, you draw two cards from an encounter deck, and decide which adventure you want to pursue. On one side of the card is the adventure, while on the opposite side is what bonuses you will get if you pass said adventure, and therefore add it to your own discard pile. For instance, you might have a choice between a simple jaunt to your raft to grab some supplies or facing some wild animals. The raft jaunt takes zero to defeat, so you could easily pass this adventure and add it to your deck. But, you only get to draw one card for this adventure, and there are a lot of -1 cards in that Robinson deck. But, it's still the safe bet. The wild animals, however, would certainly be a lot harder to defeat, despite the fact that you get to draw more cards. But the numerical value and bonus you receive are much better for your deck.
Well, early on in the game, this would seem like an easy decision. Just do the easy thing and get a card in your deck. But that's where the beauty of this game comes in. Let's say you choose the wild animals, which again cost 5 points to defeat. You draw your four cards, and don't come close to defeating the animals with only 2 points. You could draw a new card for a cost of -1 life token. Or, you could actually purposely take the loss.
When you lose an adventure, you pay -1 life token for each point difference between the card defeat cost and your point total. In this case, we'd pay -3 life tokens. BUT, that gives us the opportunity to trash cards that have been played from the game. In the upper left corner, you can see a leaf value. Starter deck cards cost 1 point to get rid of. Some of the more advanced aging cards (which we'll get into later) cost 2 points to get rid of. So in our case, we could trash three of the starter deck cards and take the loss, also returning 3 life tokens to the pool. Now, we would also have to discard the adventure card, as we didn't defeat it. But we also get to make our deck much stronger in the process.
It's these decisions that make Friday so great. Do you want to thin out your deck early? And if so, are you thinning it out too much? Because once you get through your starter deck, you're going to have to add an Aging card to your deck. These are cards showing how Robinson gets even more moronic the longer you stay on the island. Their effects are usually very bad. Luckily, there are cards in the adventure deck you can earn to trash bad cards, or discard them for something else, etc.
The game will also advance in difficulty as you progress through the adventure deck. Once empty, you have to reshuffle the adventures. But this time as you draw, you will be on the harder yellow difficulty, which requires more points to defeat.
And finally, if you make it all the way through the red difficulty, you will face two impending pirate ships. There are numerous pirate ships included in the game, assuring a different experience each time. I believe the manual has you flip this face up so you can see what you're going to face. But to me, the theme works better if I turn them face down, and only flip them once I reach that portion of the game. It's like you can see the pirate ships on the horizon, but you don't know what you're really dealing with until they get close enough for combat.
I absolutely love Friday. Yes, it is a score beating game, meaning that you're going to be trying to beat your high score when you play. Normally I'm not huge on that style of game, but in this case, I adore it. Trying to beat my high score is tremendous fun. Of course, it will take a while before you're even in a position to beat your high score, as you're going to die, and you're going to die a lot. This is not an easy game. And when playing on the hard difficulty, I've only won one time. But man, that one time was oh so fulfilling.
I highly recommend Friday if you're into solo experiences. With very little setup and breakdown time, this is something you can toss into a carry on and enjoy anywhere you go.
In "Friday," you play as a man appropriately named Friday. You are stuck on an island with your pal, Robinson Crusoe. You are tasked with keeping him alive, which is easier said than done as again, Robinson is a complete dunce. For one, he has no attention span. And when he's not chasing butterflies, he's often simply too weak to contribute anything.
All of Robinson's shortcomings are represented by a starting deck of cards, each with a numerical value and possibly an ability. For instance, a card could give some food to Robinson, which is represented by green tokens. If you ever run out of these green tokens, Robinson is toast. So it's a good idea to manage these well.
One each turn, you draw two cards from an encounter deck, and decide which adventure you want to pursue. On one side of the card is the adventure, while on the opposite side is what bonuses you will get if you pass said adventure, and therefore add it to your own discard pile. For instance, you might have a choice between a simple jaunt to your raft to grab some supplies or facing some wild animals. The raft jaunt takes zero to defeat, so you could easily pass this adventure and add it to your deck. But, you only get to draw one card for this adventure, and there are a lot of -1 cards in that Robinson deck. But, it's still the safe bet. The wild animals, however, would certainly be a lot harder to defeat, despite the fact that you get to draw more cards. But the numerical value and bonus you receive are much better for your deck.
Well, early on in the game, this would seem like an easy decision. Just do the easy thing and get a card in your deck. But that's where the beauty of this game comes in. Let's say you choose the wild animals, which again cost 5 points to defeat. You draw your four cards, and don't come close to defeating the animals with only 2 points. You could draw a new card for a cost of -1 life token. Or, you could actually purposely take the loss.
When you lose an adventure, you pay -1 life token for each point difference between the card defeat cost and your point total. In this case, we'd pay -3 life tokens. BUT, that gives us the opportunity to trash cards that have been played from the game. In the upper left corner, you can see a leaf value. Starter deck cards cost 1 point to get rid of. Some of the more advanced aging cards (which we'll get into later) cost 2 points to get rid of. So in our case, we could trash three of the starter deck cards and take the loss, also returning 3 life tokens to the pool. Now, we would also have to discard the adventure card, as we didn't defeat it. But we also get to make our deck much stronger in the process.
It's these decisions that make Friday so great. Do you want to thin out your deck early? And if so, are you thinning it out too much? Because once you get through your starter deck, you're going to have to add an Aging card to your deck. These are cards showing how Robinson gets even more moronic the longer you stay on the island. Their effects are usually very bad. Luckily, there are cards in the adventure deck you can earn to trash bad cards, or discard them for something else, etc.
The game will also advance in difficulty as you progress through the adventure deck. Once empty, you have to reshuffle the adventures. But this time as you draw, you will be on the harder yellow difficulty, which requires more points to defeat.
And finally, if you make it all the way through the red difficulty, you will face two impending pirate ships. There are numerous pirate ships included in the game, assuring a different experience each time. I believe the manual has you flip this face up so you can see what you're going to face. But to me, the theme works better if I turn them face down, and only flip them once I reach that portion of the game. It's like you can see the pirate ships on the horizon, but you don't know what you're really dealing with until they get close enough for combat.
I absolutely love Friday. Yes, it is a score beating game, meaning that you're going to be trying to beat your high score when you play. Normally I'm not huge on that style of game, but in this case, I adore it. Trying to beat my high score is tremendous fun. Of course, it will take a while before you're even in a position to beat your high score, as you're going to die, and you're going to die a lot. This is not an easy game. And when playing on the hard difficulty, I've only won one time. But man, that one time was oh so fulfilling.
I highly recommend Friday if you're into solo experiences. With very little setup and breakdown time, this is something you can toss into a carry on and enjoy anywhere you go.
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