I’ve really been enjoying playing Puzzle Dungeon this past week. It takes 2 minutes to set up and about 30-45 (can be shorter) minutes to play a game. It has made a great game to play before work or get a session in if I don’t want something too heavy.
I originally saw this game listed in spot #276 in the 2025 People’s Choice Top Solo Games. A lot of the commenters described it as a rules-light crunchy game made by an indie developer. This piqued my interest because getting a game to the table on the weekdays is always so hard for me to do. The intro deck was very affordable, so I decided to start with that!
In the game, you’re trying to defeat columns of monsters and collect sets that match your hero’s prey. This is done by matching cards to monster’s weakness. Either a dagger, torch, helmet, or hand icon. The hero and monsters will have various abilities that allow you to manipulate your deck and columns. The game is hard to explain, yet the easily digestible rulebook is 5 pages and no larger than the size of a credit card.
The intro deck comes with 16 heroes and offers tons of replayability. There’s also a deluxe box available that contains 550 (not a typo) heroes. I’ve read some people complain it has almost too much replayability! I’ll be getting it at some point, but am definitely enjoying the intro deck for now.
We played yesterday the first two scenarios (of 5) from Heredity. A story driven post apocalyptic story game. This game has a very cool time mechanic and multiple possible ways to solve a scenario.
We had a lot of fun yesterday and I really like the game so far. Did someone also played this already?
I picked it up but haven’t played it yet. Definitely interested to hear how you feel about it as you progress.
This was one I got interested in when you could only get it in French (which I don’t speak/read). So I just subscribed to its BGG page while waiting for the English version to finally drop. Took so long that I forgot what it was about! Just remembered my mental note to grab it when available.
My most played games in December 2025:
1: Vantage;
2: Tales from the Red Dragon Inn;
3: Warhammer Quest: Darkwater;
4: HeroQuest;
5: Warhammer Quest: Cursed City;
6: Heroes of Barcadia;
7: Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal;
8: Talisman: Harry Potter;
9: Dungeon Degenerates: Hand of Doom.
I hope we will continue playing it, while I am on Christmas break.
What was very cool, that the first two scenarios were very different from the playstyle. What I didn’t like, the enemies were very hard. They have heavy armor and you normally cannot easily kill someone, even if you own a rifle.
But the game also uses a timeline/encounter bar, just like I do in my Grimm World, but in a different way. And I find it really interesting how they’ve implemented it. I really like it, especially in scenario 1.
I’ll definitely give the game a try. You will have fun.
Warhammer Quest Darkwater has not left my table since I first set it up. Each encounter feels so different, and set up between each is so fast. You can get multiple encounters in in one afternoon.
I recently found Runebound (2nd edition) consigned at a game shop on a family trip. I played it last night two-handed to get familiar with the gameplay after all these years.
Arkham 2nd Edition always gives me the vibe I need from a board game in the darkest months of a Seattle winter. While the streets are definitely over run right now, I’m pretty confident Daisy Walker has got this under control with her newly obtained Necronomicon which she suffers no penalty to read.
