Crusaders Games

Exploration Adventures

An alternative to dungeon exploring is outdoor co-operative adventuring, with a focus on movement, exploration and completing a series of quests across a revealing map, and with character development and variable encounters. This list leans more towards being more successful at the solo or two player count and a game scenario is usually playable in one evening without specifically requiring ongoing campaign save positions :

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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 works amazingly well as solo experience, playing as either one or two gearlocs. My more detailed overview > Too Many Bones
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2. Runebound 2nd Edition (2005) / 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. Hexplore It (2017-2022) – 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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4. Darkest Night 2nd Edition (2018)– Victory Point

A co-operative or solo game, where the world has been ravaged by the evil necromancer, and is covered in blights tainting the seven core locations. As the last heroes you must search for clues to locate missing holy relics, which will provide a way to defeat this enemy. Heroes start with 3 power cards, and these will help you directly support each other, increasing dice, or maybe provide unique abilities. There are 29 characters to choose from, and all have their own theme and attributes to try out The game features a darkness tracker which builds tension and increases the difficulty as time progresses. The production on this 2nd edition is amazing, from artwork, large tarot cards, thick tokens, large and small board choices, and the hero standees are lovely. It is a great card driven strategy co-op game. My more detailed overview > Darkest Night 2nd Edition
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5. 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, while workers search for vital resources. Each of the six characters has a lovely board and unique skills tree, but 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 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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6. 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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7. Gloom of Kilforth (2017) – Hall or Nothing

This card based fantasy adventure game sees heroes move around a map of 25 locations, encountering events, meeting strangers or fighting monsters, trying to complete their quest line. At the end of their journey lies an ancient enemy plotting against them that you must defeat to win the game. Time is precious though, as the locations are falling into gloom each night and when this takes over the whole map you will lose. The game distils a story about your hero into one game session, and as you play you will obtain new skills, items and spells, largely through encounters or competing quest stages, and each game offers up a different journey. The artwork in this game is truly amazing, and to get the best from the game you need to use your imagination to convert your encounters into a storyline. My more detailed overview > Gloom of Kilforth
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8. Eldritch Horror (2013) – Fantasy Flight

A great co-operative survival game with a Lovecraft theme and a countdown doom tracker. Your hero characters will navigate around a world map looking for clues to stop the emergence of an ancient one. They will adventure, find weapons and equipment whilst also gaining conditions that weaken them. Gateways and monsters will appear in cities to make things tougher and over time the places in danger will escalate making this a tense affair as the doom approaches. The game tells a loose story as it progresses, and whilst it is not always fully joined up thematically it remains good enough to keep everything interesting and allows your investigator to have their own journey. It remains one of the great co-operative games that provides a tough challenge but is not overly rules heavy and therefore is relatively easy to teach and play. My more detailed overview > Eldritch Horror
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9. Nemo’s War 2nd Edition (2017) – Victory Point

This game was specifically designed for solo play merging an adventure storyline with strategic battling against the ships which slowly fill the oceans of the earth. You will captain the nautilus, and choose a motive to search for treasure, discover scientific knowledge or wage war which will change the end goal emphasis for success. The game flows smoothly and each round is not overly complex, with most actions allowing you to wager extra influence on the dice roll by gambling the welfare of the crew, the ships hull or nemo’s own abilities looking for a success roll. It has great theme and art, and has adventure events drawn into a story deck which changes each game. Gameplay is strategic in nature and over time you will learn hidden depths, but it is tough to score highly and surviving is a measure of success in itself. My more detailed overview > Nemo’s War
Previously Owned Adventure Co-operative Games… due to space and funding restrictions i regularly trade out games to try newer ones, producing an ever changing favourites list, but one of these other great games may be right for you. 
Frostpunk (2022) – a post apocalyptic world overcome by a severe ice age, this is a tough solo or co-operative survival game, balancing many different life threatening situations for the survival of the outpost. Has a lot of set up and perhaps too many boards to look after > Frostpunk
This War of Mine (2017) – a war torn survival game, with storybook narrative and tough decisions to be made that will test your moral compass. A decent game but slightly more frustrating and less engaging than i expected > This War of Mine 
Robinson Crusoe (2012) – a worker placement survival game with an exploratory feel, but really tough to win, and always felt a little on the complex and lengthy side, However it is a classic and a well regarded survival game experience
Legends of Andor (2012) – a survival fantasy game with great board artwork, where you quest around a superb looking board and fight off the enemies who are gradually converging on your base. I am still thinking of repurchasing this game