Adamastor

Today's review is of the 2025 release, Adamastor. For one player, it takes 30 minutes.

Overview

You are a captain charged with getting your ship across the seas. But it won't be easy . . . illness, fatigue, weather, and even mutiny may stand in your way. Do you have what it takes to navigate these perils (and any adventures that may await) and lead your ship to safe shores?

Adamastor is a solo game—it is a race against time and perils. After setting up the play area (laying out four map cards, setting your ship on the leftmost, laying out three sailing cards to form the adventure row, setting up the sailing amd encounter decks, and drawing 3 more sailing cards as your hand) and determining the weather (see below), play begins.

Key to this game are the sailing cards, which have several attributes. They have a card number (top right), weather icon (top left), threat and motivation icons (middle left), navigation points (bottom center), and a trauma or skill (center right). 

- the card number determines order in the adventure row (cards go highest to lowest number)

- the weather icons of the three cards in the adventure row determine the weather for the turn (which determines your action points and navigation difficulty for the turn)

- threat and motivation icons are used during the event phase to determine if any bad things happen or you have enough motivation to gain a skill, respectively 

- navigation points are used to propel your ship. Moving into different spots on the map have different costs, and you must discard from your hand to gain the corresponding number of points

- traumas or skills are gained during the event phase, giving you permanent bonuses or penalties

The game is played over a series of turns. Simplified, these are:

- sunrise (draw a card and add it to the adventure row, then determine the weather and gather the corresponding number of action tokens)

- actions (draw a card, swap a card between your hand and adventure row, or navigate your ship by discarding the needed number of navigation points). Each of these actions costs one token, and you can do as many as you can pay for (including the same action more than once)

-- in the action phase, if you stop on an adventure icon, you trigger an encounter by drawing the bottom card of the encounter deck and doing what it says

- events (check the card symbols in the adventure row, gaining a skill if possible, then studying the perils to see if you have triggered unrest, disease, exhaustion, or mutiny penalties)

- sunset (discard the lowest value card in the adventure row, gaining it as a trauma or discarding if a skill)

The turns continue until you win (by getting your ship across all four map cards to safe harbor) or lose (by a mutiny or running out of sailing cards).

Game in progress, right before I win

Review 

I have never played a solo tabletop game before (meaning one meant for only one player), and I really liked this one. The rules are easily grasped, gameplay moves along swiftly, there are meaningful decisions, and there is a lot of tension—it is hard to win, and if you do, it will be by the skin of your teeth (I played five times and won only twice, both times in the nick of time). The art is gorgeous, too. And I liked the multiple functions of the sailing cards; they are cleverly done. Overall, this one is a winner.

Rating: A