Elder Sign: Omens

Not fun, just difficult.

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Elden ring, err, Elder Sign is a digital adaptation of the board game in which you control 4 investigators trying to seal a great evil before it destroys the world. No pressure.

The main mechanic is rather straightforward, visit places with various task that need to be assigned certain dice faces. Complete all of them and you get closer to winning the game. Lose, and your sanity might suffer.

The game's relative simplicity is the biggest draw. There is planning, but not overwhelmingly so. There is risk management but you don't need to calculate the odds. The scenarios are also fairly quick to complete (under 1h). However, if you are new to the game, the in-game tutorial is not the best and would recommend looking up the official game overview videos.

The main criticisms of the game many bring up, is the luck factor. You set yourself up for success only to fail due to bad luck. While this can and will certainly happen, I didn't feel bad luck was more impactful than careful planning and I've initially expected a far larger reliance on luck. I've beaten the game 5 times with random investigators, including the 'very difficult' Cthulhu scenario, and most of them on the first try (Cthulhu took 4 attempts).

The game offers a good amount of investigators and bosses, although the latter do feel a bit same-ish. Thankfully, there are a few mini campaigns that add some twists to the usual gameplay. Overall, I was happy with the variability and replayability.

Regarding balance, it feels right although it's fair to mention that big failures are difficult to recover from. If you go unto a difficult adventure with good odds of success, then proceed to lose all items and fail, it can be extremely difficult for the investigator to recover from this blow, and they become mostly reliant on luck for future success until they stabilize.

I will also add that the feeling of dread and encroaching madness typically accompanying Cthulhu themed games, isn't quite there. Monsters are surprisingly easy to beat, and in fact, monster hunting can be a viable strategy. But this is a minor complaint.

Overall, I had fun with Elder Sign and will keep this one on my desktop to jump in from time to time.

The positive

+ Good variety and replayability

+ Relatively simple and straightforward gameplay while still rewarding efficient planning.

The neutral

* Some animations feel unnecessary. It only slows down the game by a small amount so it's a minor grievance.

* While proper planning is much more impactful, occasional bad luck can ruin even the best of plans

* In game tutorial is not the best way to learn the game. Thankfully, there are official game overviews that are quite short and explain the game better.

The negative

- Big failures can be difficult to recover from. Thankfully, you have other investigators to pull the weight.

Conclusion:

Decent solo board game that's relatively easy to pick up with good replayability. While luck plays a role, a well formed strategy remains crucial for winning games. Recommended.

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The only thing missing here is multiplayer. Wonderful execution of the board game.

The game is easy at the beginning so easy to learn. It has unusual ways of game play unique to this game, I recommend trying different strategies to beat the big guys, and be aware that mostly the bigger ones are very difficult, but fun

This is a very enjoyable digital iteration of an outstanding card game

This game is really hard and extremely luck based but I enjoy the challenge.

A nice adaptation of the Elder Sign board game.

There are a few differences especially in the expansion campaigns but it's a nice way to experience the game without having to take the box off the shelf.

There's an element of randomness in the game. Much more depends on strategy and planning than the die rolls, though. Sure you can get a horrible die roll streak that just screws your perfect strategy, but this happens very rarely; most of the time the randomness just keeps things interesting and exciting and the game will be won or lost mainly based on the decisions taken.

Well designed game, but it 100% cheats, 3 attempts at a 3 required dice adventure using the yellow dice and I failed each time. (needed 3 terror, game only gave me 2 in 3 attempts with 7 dice) that is 84 dice rolls and I got a combined total of 5 terror symbols (1 in 6 chance) statistically speaking that should have been almost 3 times that chance. so play at your own risk.

It's great, just learn the rules and don't expect to win very often and you'll be fine.

I dunno, it feels like the game was made harder than the real board game.

I was feeling nostalgic and almost installed and launched this again for old times' sake, but just before I did, I remembered the issue with this adaptation:

Since you can only play it single-player, its locked into the optional 'solo play' variant rules that come with the physical board game. Unfortunately those rules make the game nigh-impossible to beat because Fantasy Flight was somehow under the impression that playing alone is easier than playing as a group (and I don't know why, because when you're playing as a group the difficulty of challenges is determined by the number of characters on the board, not the number of players) and imposes a pretty severe handicap that the game won't let you turn off.

game is rather hard even on easy

Absolutely chilling atmospherical masterpiece of solo boardgaming, if such a thing can be said to exist.

It's too RNG dependent. Skill is not a factor. You're 100% at the mercy of the luck of the draw, and 99 out of 100 times, you just don't get any way to progress.