This year, my now 3 year old has started half-day preschool. So, I finally have kid free time in the mornings to stream, which is something I’ve been interested in doing for a couple of years now. My goal is to stream mornings on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday when I’m home, playing a range of solo physical board games, as well as digital games. You can check me out on Twitch as GamezMama.
Now, why is this relevant to the game? Because The Hobbit: There & Back Again (Board Game Geek Link) is the first game that I streamed as a solo game.
In The Hobbit: There & Back Again (Amazon Link), you are playing a roll and write adventure through 8 different parts that make up the story of the Hobbit as a whole.
For those not familiar with the term “roll-and-write”, this is a category in the hobby board game space where players use a randomizer, in this case rolling dice, the selecting from the randomized element and writing something in on their play sheet. The category has expanded to more of an ‘X-and-write’ as the randomized element can be card flips, drafting, or other ways to great the random element.
The box says that the game plays 1-4 players, ages 10+, in about 30 minutes, and I found that to be fairly accurate. While played the game solo on stream in the morning, I got it to the table with my almost 8 year old and my husband in the evening. My child is a gamer kid and has been playing from a young age, so he typically plays at a 10-11 year old age level, and he really enjoyed the game, and I only had to ‘explain’ strategic choices a couple of time, then he made his own decisions on which move to make.
Published by Office Dog and designed by Reiner Knizia, in this game, you select one of the 8 story parts. Each story is it’s own contained game experience and can be played in any order desired or progressing the story from Part 1 to Part 8. Additionally, each of the parts feels like a unique experience (I’ve played to Part 5 so far). There is enough difference between say, Part 1 and Part 2, that even though I’m using the same components, it feels like it’s own experience.
The core loop of the game is to take a set of dice – the white D6’s, the black D12, or the combined group – and roll the dice, creating a pool of potential resources or actions to take. The white dice have resources – bread, swords, hats – or difficult variations on draw-able pathways that extend over one, two, or three spaces. Many of the scenarios have you drawing paths from one point to another, moving forward along your journey and balancing efficiency with danger aversion and resource gathering. The D12 will randomize an enemy element or provide a its own selection of options.
In most of the parts so far, it has been the 5 white dice to determine actions. In the solo mode, the player will have a set number of round to play through the scenario (completion is not necessary to end, but will provide bonus points of you can meet the scenario goals). When rolling the 5 dice, you will group them into 2 sets of 2 and 1 single die, based on which dice are closest to each other. Of each of those groups, you’ll choose to activate one die, leaving two unused. I feel like it’s a unique and challenging way to still add in that random element while playing the solo.
In multiplayer, the first player will roll the dice, then make their selection. Players draft dice around the table, until there are no more dice to draft. The next person to take a die would grab all 5 dice and roll them again, starting the play pattern again. Unlike in solo, in Multiplayer, each scenario has an end game condition. The first player to meet that scenario goal will immediately trigger the end of the game.
So far, I’ve enjoyed both the solo and multiplayer modes, but the game definitely shines in multiplayer competitive. In the solo, the limited number of turns in which you have to complete the scenario is quite difficult in my experience. I’ve only gotten kind of close to completing the scenario goals once, otherwise I feel quite far off. It makes for a very tight game where every decision is critical for success, which is not a bad thing.
However, playing the game in multiplayer mode where the timer is both myself and my opponents felt like the more natural way to play. We got the chance to explore the range of the scenario without feeling like one misplay sinks the ship.
Compared to other roll and write style games, I feel like this one gives off Railroad Ink vibes the most. Much of the game is selecting paths from dice and drawing them onto your board. The first part for example, you’re trying to get each of the dwarves to Bag End, by drawing paths from the dwarves to the hobbit hole, but also trying to be most effective and linking paths so that multiple dwarves can arrive at the same time.
While I enjoyed Railroad Ink, I found this game to be much tighter and have more easily defined goals, which made it more enjoyable. Railroad Ink is quite free-form with a lot of different options, space, and paths. However, if combo-tactic roll-and-writes are your jam, this doesn’t really scratch that itch. There are points where you can chain paths with resources, or use resources to gain paths, but it’s pretty minimal. The beauty though is that each part feels different, so there is one that I’ve played in which you are using polyomino shapes and spaces where you can get bonus shapes. So while it’s not patched with combo-y goodness, it has its moments.
Overall, I’m rating this one as an 8 on the Board Game Geek scale. I’m honestly feeling more 7ish about it, but I wouldn’t turn it down if someone wanted to play it and would suggest it to others.
If you’ve played it already or get a chance to play it, I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. 🙂
And go check out my Twitch channel! If you’re a morning person, I’ll be tackling more solo games.
(The Amazon link in the post is my affiliate link.)
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