Flamecraft Solo Review

If Your Bread Isn’t Baked By A Dragon, Is It Even Bread?

I bet you never knew you wanted to play a game about cute dragons who make bread and brew potions, but once you see even one picture of Flamecraft, you will realize you can’t resist the thought. This is a worker placement, family friendly, mildly competitive game where you choose one of 6 dragons (they are different only in colour) to try to be the one with the most reputation at the end. You’ll be collecting resources, firing up other dragons and enchanting shops as means of attaining that, and you’ll be looking adorable as you do.

How The Game Works

There is a neoprene mat in Flamecraft that has the illustration of a village that looks like something out of a comic book, with spaces for shops, some of which are there since the beginning of the game, and the rest of which you’ll be drawing from a deck to populate empty slots on the map. On your turn, you will visit one of these shops with your dragon to either collect resources or enchant the shop. The resources are potions, diamonds, leaves, anvils, toasts or steaks. They are colour coded and these 6 types also correspond to each one of the player dragons, the types that the (non-playable) artisan dragons can be, as well as the main resource that can be gathered from almost all of the shops in the game (a handful of shops are either wild or give you something other than a resource, like a coin or the chance to draw another artisan dragon). Coins are wild, they replace any resource of your choice.

So, when you choose to gather resources, you will get one of each resource icon in that shop. Note this can be from 1 to 7 icons, because each shop has three slots for you to place an artisan dragon (and, as mentioned, they each have their own type/icon) and can be enchanted up to three times. Each enchantment card also has an icon, so if a shop is occupied to its maximum capacity, your gathering will be very fruitful. Also, when you choose to collect resources, you have the option to put down an artisan dragon in an empty spot in the shop, then use the ability of one of the dragons there (in the game, this is called ‘firing up’ the dragon) and finally use the ability of the shop itself. Starting shops don’t have abilities, but all others do.

Alternatively, you can collect nothing, but instead spend your resources to enchant the Flamecraft shop. This will always immediately give you 4 to 8 reputation points, as stated on the enchantment you choose, and add an extra icon to the shop. When you choose to do this, you don’t get to place an artisan dragon or use the shop’s ability, but you do get to fire up all dragons currently in the shop, so you can stack up their abilities.

That’s pretty much it for gameplay. The game ends whenever the last card from the artisan dragon or the enchantment deck is drawn. Everyone else gets a final turn and whoever has the highest reputation wins. There are end game points to be scored via fancy dragons, which have their own deck. Each fancy dragon will have a certain requirement that, if you meet, will net you some extra reputation. So that’s something else to bear in mind when planning your strategy.

For The Lone Dragon

As is common in the solo variant of a game, the main change is you’ll be racing to reach a minimum number of points before the game ends. What triggers the end is still the same: last card drawn from either the artisan dragon or the enchantment deck, but this actually becomes quite time sensitive, as a new enchantment will likely be placed in the village almost every turn.

The way this works is: the player’s turn happens the same way it would in a multiplayer game. After that, you must draw one card from the artisan dragon pile and place that new artisan dragon in the first available slot for that dragon type in the village. As each available player dragon corresponds to one of the six types of resources and artisan dragons, you will also move the equivalent player dragon token (unless it’s your own) to the shop where you placed the new artisan dragon. Finally, if there is an enchantment of that same type available, you will also place it in a shop that still has room for it. Once the game ends, you get a title depending on how many reputation points you have (the game doesn’t refer to winning or losing conditions, although there is implied success from scoring 75 points).

The setup for the solo Flamecraft mode states that you need to remove some of the cards form the deck, so you will be playing with a reduced number of cards, which makes the time you have to score reputation points very tight. There are some things you can do in terms of strategy, such as relying heavily on fancy dragons, but that is very luck of the draw. Or you can try to reduce the odds of enchantments being placed when it’s not your turn. Every time I’ve played this game solo, the end game condition was met from the enchantment deck, so keep a very close eye on it. Beside the deck, there are 5 slots for a face up enchantment. Those are the only 5 available to use at any given moment, either by you or by the automa. The rule is that you must always place one of the five face up enchantments if at least one matches the type of the newly drawn artisan dragon. So what has helped me is to keep the variety of types on the face up enchantments as low as possible.

Is Dragoning A Group Sport?

Flamecraft has been dubbed by many a game that’s sold mainly on cuteness. The mechanics are not the most complex out there. Many reviewers for Flamecraft ranked it very high specifically because their children loved it, because it looks good and is easy. Another point that’s been raised is that player interaction is mostly positive. One of the artisan dragon abilities in the game lets you deliberately gift a resource to a player in order to immediately gain 2 reputation points, so you’ll be doing that a lot. There isn’t much – or anything really – available in terms of harming another player. With all that in mind, I don’t think this game is at its best when played solo. With little complexity, a lot of style, and a strength based on generous player interaction, most of its value is probably found when playing as a group. Although many might appreciate the fact that winning a solo game is actually quite challenging, and the rules include certain achievements that can be unlocked in each successful playthrough in order to sort of make up a campaign. But each game will be very similar to the last.