Daniel (@dungeondive) reviews Explorers of the Woodlands from From the Woods Studios, developed by Jeffrey Wood — a light-hearted critter-crawl for one to four, played solo with two heroes. He pauses early to legislate a definition he’s clearly wanted for a while: anything smaller than an FFG Elder Sign box is a small-box game, anything up to Arkham Horror is medium.
Each turn you roll four hero dice and assign them: ones through threes buy movement, fours and up buy orbs that serve as both currency and the key to your two special powers. Tiles come off a dungeon deck with the boss shuffled into the last three, monsters carry a target number, and combat is a dice pool evaluated die by die, with elemental weaknesses adding pips and other heroes able to lend dice. The thorn cards come in easy, normal and hard variants — he draws at random, and rates the dial highly in a family-weight game.
The lair cards are the reason he keeps it. An entrance card pairs with an interior, and three consecutive successful encounters see you out with two treasures; fail once and you’re ejected with the consequences. His wishlist is specific: three power cards per hero drawn blind, four more cards per lair deck, and a few more events.
One small module — the lair cards — is what lifts this game into Daniel’s keep pile. Has a single mini-expansion ever rescued a game for you?