Outdoor co-operative adventuring, with a focus on movement, exploration and completing quests across a revealing map, with character development and variable encounters. Generally these can be completed in one or two sessions:
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| 1. Too Many Bones (2017) – Chip Theory A dice based co-operative or solo outdoor adventure where you are tasked to defeat one of six tyrants. The core box is big containing 4 gearloc characters with amazingly coloured dice and playmats having neat spaces to slot in your dice as you roll them, and weighty round chips with excellent printwork. When upgrading your gearloc, decide each time whether you need health, attack, defense, more dice to roll or work through its skill trees. Battles are the heart of the game, with a good selection of different monster types, and a small battle mat makes movement, targets and positioning important and visual, but not overly complex in its execution. The game is very tactile, rolling the dice and moving chips, with text storylines for each encounter, it also works amazingly well as a solo experience, playing as either one or two gearlocs. My more detailed overview > Too Many Bones |
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2. Runebound 3rd Edition (2015) – Fantasy Flight A wilderness adventure game where heroes travel across the beautiful world map to complete quests and develop their abilities ready to take on a final challenge. It provides one of the best terrain travelling mechanisms using dice, together with an interactive challenge and character story, and is best played with one to two players. The 2nd edition offers huge expansions variety, while the later edition has better production and an interesting combat mechanic through a token throwing system. Time limited scenarios also push you onwards and make your game choices more urgent and important. The production quality of the boards and cards are amazing, and the later game tells a thematic story, with each scenario having its own unique story card deck. The ‘Unbreakable Bonds’ expansion made this game into one the best adventures around. My more detailed overview > Runebound 3rd Edition |
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| 3. City of Kings (2018) – City of Games A tactical roleplaying game which can be played solo or co-operative, where you embark on individual scenarios or follow a longer story. Heroes will explore a broken world and fight creatures, while workers search for vital resources. Each of the six characters has a lovely board and unique skills tree, but has free choice to specialise in attacking, healing, worker management or gaining their special skills. You explore across the hidden realm by turning over tiles, discovering locations, side quests, hazards, and find creatures that will need to be defeated. This is a strategic game with great artwork where movement and positioning will be important, as are decisions about what to upgrade and when. It is an immensely satisfying experience, scenarios appear well balanced, and each game you can try out different ideas as you progress. My more detailed overview > City of Kings |
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| 4. Hexplore It (2017) – Mariucci J Designs A roleplaying adventure game which now has four themed core set editions, where you will take on an evil nemesis who is trying to enslave your realm. Your heroes quest across a revealing map to complete tasks, fight monsters and upskill, creating powerful talismans and finding new equipment on the way. It is very roleplay centric in that you have basic skills to move, search for treasure and survive in the land, alongside combat abilities of attack and defence and two clever mastery skills. The game involves you upgrading your skills board using a mark and wipe process, and exploration is extremely freeform in style as you can explore where you want across the map, which has quest destinations to progress your story. An excellent solo or two player game with lovely artwork and components, and a game continually being improved over time. My more detailed overview > Hexplore It |
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| 5. Mage Knight (2011) – WizKids Considered by many as the ultimate solo adventure game, this is an exploration game across a revealing map with your mage hero who levels up, strengthens his powers and recruits followers in order to achieve his objective. The game has light elements of deck building, but its main mechanic is to manage your hand of cards each round to its best potential, using mana or crystals to boost or change the cards powers, and the game is a puzzle and an adventure rolled into one package. The components are good with painted models, nicely illustrated hexagonal tiles, excellent card art, although monster tokens could have been bigger sized to make them more interesting. This is a complex game and combat rules especially are tough to remember, but I really find the hand management choices it brings an addictive experience. My more detailed overview > Mage Knight |
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| 6. Dice Throne Adventures (2021) / Missions (2025) – Roxley Dice Throne was originally a competitive dice battling game based on the yahtzee three roll mechanism to activate character abilities and wear down your opponent. The adventures box is a co-operative expansion upgrade that turns the game into a light dungeon crawl experience with minions and boss battles, wrapped together by a simple campaign to beat four bosses. X-Men missions takes it further into co-operative survival scenarios with shorter boss fights. This game is now a real mix of dice rolling, adventure, missions, light deck building and battles, and could fit in any category. The artwork and production of all elements of this game are amazing and its easy mechanics and really fun dice rolling make it family friendly, where learning and building up a character is a neat experience. My more detailed overview > Dice Throne Adventures |
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| 7. Euthia (2021) – Steamforged A modular competitive or co-operative adventure game, where your hero quests across a revealing map to search new lands, fight monsters, undertake mining and trading to improve your equipment, and unlocking new abilities. Each game is self contained and based over a set number of rounds, with an overall objective to complete. Game components are excellent with nice thick tiles, which in the deluxe version slot neatly into your board. There is a strong progression arc, gaining wealth, trading for new items and improving your reputation, and it is very combat focused with a dice mechanic that has manipulation via gaar tokens. This game takes up a lot of storage, but once organised is so much fun to play, having easy enough rules for actions and combat, and reference sheets for more unique items and quests. It also has solo specific quests and mechanics that work really well. My more detailed overview > Euthia |