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20 Strong is a solo play system by Chip Theory Games and the Tanglewoods series puts the system to the test in a dark fairy tale setting. Tanglewoods Gold is to Goldilocks what Tanglewoods Red was to Little Red Riding Hood. And, as with the other releases in the Tanglewoods series, we get the dead gorgeous art of Manny Trembley to pull you into the fractured fairy tale.
Tanglewoods Gold doesn't have a single big bad but Mama, Papa and Baby bads. Using the gold system, you'll be visiting the Merchant and balancing the need to power-up your character with gold and spending that gold to add the various bears to the forest deck so that you can defeat them and win the game. Feeding the three bears into the forest deck is something you want to do as soon as possible. Otherwise, you are simply stumbling around in the forest. Sure, you can use that time to grab items and increase your stats but Tanglewoods feels like it slowly saps your strength, wearing you down bit by bit as you become more exhausted.
Timing is extremely important. Due to the nature of the Forest deck and the map deck (Flipping cards to the night side/harder side) you want to complete the game before you have to deal with these supercharged sides. If you tend to try to max out your chosen character, it can come back to bite you in the ass in the long run when the difficulty ratchets up. It's that “balancing on the knife's edge” feel that makes Gold thrive...even when that knife cuts you down.
Choosing the correct path is also a balancing act: you can only visit the Trader when his icon appears on a map card, so you have to decide if you want a face a harder challenge in order to be to purchase items/add a bear to the deck (Spoiler alert: You usually do). Where as Tanglewoods Red put you on a path to Grandma's house, Tanglewoods Gold emulates you wandering around lost in forest. Sure, you stumble upon the Trader a disturbing number of times but, trust me, he is always a welcome sight. The gist of the Map Deck is that you pull a map and you will be pulling from the forest deck to get the icons you need to “complete” the map. Each direction will usually be an enemy but there are fable cards shuffled into the forest deck that can inch you closer without adding someone/something you will need to bribe/battle. However, it is usually enemies that get added to the path that don't advance you on the path that will lead to your down fall...or make fall down face first dead in the dirt.
I'm going to use the path system to talk about the characters you can choose from in Tanglewoods Gold. Goldilocks will likely be the first hero you choose to start with, but she is a bit of a blonde glass cannon, which can lead to some punishing initial games. Once you play a game or two, you'll likely be drawn to Hansel/Gretel because they have the amazing power of letting you use (depending on the side currently chosen) North and South or East and West interchangeably. This power can reduce the number of enemies in an encounter by a significant amount which can be a literal life saver. Don't worry if you think Hansel/Gretel sounds a tad bit boring, the meat shield card that you can acquire allows you to pull an additional hero to step in and help you out on a temporary basis if you really want to pull in one of the more fragile heroes and give them a spin.
Tanglewoods gold hits three core concepts I like in my solo gaming: Brevity, Replayability, and Challenge. The length of the game feels exactly right (well, except for when you die in the first few rounds), the nature of the bosses means you can try to pull them out in different orders so the battles never feel “samey” and the variable challenge system skews toward everything on the lower half of the spectrum being benefits and the higher being hindrances. Hell, you can even choose level zero where you start with one Bear defeated...just remember to put them face down in front of you so you can get sweet little bonus and that awful drawback for having already defeated them.
I'm by no means a hardcore solo game but this is the most fun I've had playing solo since Seal Team Flix was released. Tanglewoods Gold fulfills the promise of the Twenty Strong system and is definitely the Gold Standard for the Tanglewoods line. It gives you deliciously difficult choices at every turn in a very satisfying way.
Someone is a Mad Max fan.
A review copy of this release was provided by the publisher. Therewillbe.games would like to thank them for their support.
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