Vast: A Solo Review

Vast: The Crystal Caverns is a dungeon crawler-lite game. What is most interesting about it is that each player plays a unique character that plays unlike any of the other characters. Now, most other dungeon crawlers that I have played, or am aware of, have different characters with maybe some variance in stats, skills, and starting equipment, but in Vast each character has completely different play mechanisms from the others.

Players, from one to five, can play as the Cave (yes, the dungeon itself), the Dragon, the Thief, the Knight, and the Goblins. The Cave lays down the dungeon tiles and events, attempting to thwart the other players' victory conditions by collapsing and killing all the others. The Dragon wins by escaping the Cave. The Thief has to steal five items. The Knight's job is to kill the Dragon. The Goblins are trying to kill the Knight. The Fearsome Foes expansion adds the Ghost, Ghoul, and Unicorn characters.

I've only played the solo version of the rules, but it looks to me like a multi-player game of at least three would be quite fun and entertaining.However, the solo rules, and it does come with rules for playing every character, except the Cave, solo, do not make for a very fun experience.

I've played solo as the Knight and it was truly a cakewalk, with no tension or feeling of foreboding. The knight starts with basic stats and additional action cubes, allowing her (yes, the Knight is female should anyone care) to move and explore/resolve encounters. She can earn more action cubes by earning Grit by performing certain actions, such as exploring a new tile or discarding a found treasure instead of equipping it.

Perhaps I was expecting more and disappointed from too high expectations, but I cannot imagine that playing as any of the other solo characters would have made much difference in the experience. I got about 3/4s of the way through the stack of tiles and just wanted to quit playing. Yet, I endeavored to persevere and finished the game with a big yawn.

Don't get me wrong, I am not unhappy with my purchase. I think this will be a fun intro game to players new to modern board gaming, and a nice filler after a meatier game ends early on a game night. I bought two of the available expansions (I am unlikely to by the miniatures expansion, although I was tempted to do so) and will probably get any others that add to the game play.

I do like how the backs of the tiles determine which goblin band can show up where, and the fact that they provide meeples for the characters as well as standees. I very much like the different play mechanics for each character. And I also like that the game plays fairly quickly. It is the the solo play that felt like a let down. This may be simply the product of solo play, lacking the banter and struggling with deciding how to beat the other players instead of the game, but I think solo rules should account for this in their design.

Yet, If you are looking for a lite multi-player game that would give a bit of fun for little involvement or investment, then you cannot go wrong with Vast.