http://geekandsundry.com/why-we-adore-tiny-epic-quest-a-huge-adventure-in-a-small-box/

http://geekandsundry.com/the-evolution-of-the-meeple/

So, uhhh… I just had a 73 68-point solo game of Tiny Epic Quest/”Zelda” on the Gloomfall (dark/hard) side as Red, no Golden Mushrooms mini-expansion. The goal I’d initially set was just Squire, or 50 points, and I’m quite sure I didn’t cheat like in my last big scoring game (even though the end result wasn’t terribly much in the previous game.

12 points for finishing all three Legendary items (Sword, Shield, and Staff)

6 points from level 6 (Dolphin) magic

30 points from completing 10 quests

25 20 points from killing 8 7 goblins

(As a note: I’ll use the following notations to describe the map positions just in case they aren’t very legible in the uploaded picture:

A-E for column, 1-5 for row, counting from the bottom left (like chess notation), for which map card is used.

A5, B5, E5, E4, E1, D1, A1, and A2 are the empty spaces and are unreachable

L/R for side of the map card

For example, Red Castle is D4R, and Scorpion (Lvl 2) Magic is A3L in the map for this game as visible below.

Day/Night 1

The starting quests included Lantern (Fire Temple) and Defend the Inland Region (Requires: all three heroes in the center cross; Reward: 1 Free goblin token from any portal on the map) from setup, and with the movement-based mushroom grotto (Move your other two heroes 1 map card by foot) immediately North of my castle (grotto: D5R; Red Castle: D4R), so I knew that this would be a pretty strong start (presuming I didn’t get screwed by the dice or movement card drafting).

After getting Defend the Inland Region with my heroes at Shadow Temple (B3R), the Power grotto’s Goblin Portal (C3L), and the Punch grotto (D3R), I finished off Day 1 by moving my D3R hero to the Fire Temple (E2R).

Night got me everything I needed, and I’m pretty sure I ended without losing too many resources (the rest were mostly made up for with Day 2). All three heroes returned home (D4R), ending with the following results:

Hero 1: Lantern (this hero will only require 1 Power to gain extra Torch or Scroll symbols for themselves during the Night instead of the usual 2 Power)

Quests completed: 2

Goblins killed: 2 (Max HP: 6 -> 8)

Legendary Sword advances from Fire Temple completion (Ice next)

Legendary Staff advances from Shadow (Desert next)

A movement quest cycles out, leaving the quest row with Cane (Desert) and two other movement quests.

Day/Night 2

Since it just so happens I need Desert Temple next for the Staff, and one of the movement quests available was Deliver the Royal Decrees (Requires: all 3 heroes on separate map cards that are each at least 3 orthogonal spaces away from my castle; Reward: +2 HP & +2 Power), I had a fairly straightforward goal.

I believe I got the movement quest eventually by getting my Lantern hero onto Desert Temple (A3R), a 2nd on the Temple Grotto (C1R; Move another hero to a Temple that has a Treasure Quest showing in the quest row), and the 3rd on I think Blue Castle (B2R), revealing Boomerang (Ice Palace; super convenient treasure quests lining up with my legendary item order).

I ended Day 2 on Scorpion Shrine (A3L), Desert Temple (A3R), and Ice Temple (C1R), and nearly full health and power. I then proceeded to I think lose a fair amount of resources, especially going for Magic Level 2 to learn Scorpion, and had to pull out before finishing the Ice Temple (got to the 2nd to last step of the track).

Desert Temple completed = Staff completed (+4 victory points) & Cane quest completed.

Hero 2: Staff (During night upon resting, count the Mushroom on the magic track as 1 space higher for each power you spend) & Cane (Instead of moving normally, you may always choose to move this hero by Foot)

Scorpion magic learned (+2 Max Power)

Quests completed: 4

3rd hero still in Ice Temple, other two returned to Castle (D4R)

A movement quest is cycled out, revealing the Potion (Water Temple, which is required for Shield tier 1 for the Red player mat) and I think the Jewel/Rupee (Shadow Temple, which I had no plan of heading back to since it’s not a particularly important item and I couldn’t double it up with a Legendary item advance)

Day/Night 3

I had to finagle a bit with the movement (not via cheating, just a lot of pre-planning given the first draft and knowing what all might come up and could be sacrificed to a Cane-foot move), but after two moves, I completed the Ice Temple by going to the Temple-Advance Grotto (C2R; Spend 2 power to advance a hero in a Temple by 2 spaces), which then allowed me to place both the Legendary Sword (+4 points; During night, spend 1 power to get +1 punch against the current Goblin) and the Boomerang (Whenever I take the damage from a Goblin symbol during the Night, I deal 1 punch against the current Goblin) onto Hero 3.

After that, I plopped Lantern hero onto Water Temple (C4R) and Combat hero onto a Goblin Portal (Plenty to choose from, probably chose C3L), and had a relatively short Night phase going for only Scrolls and Punches (especially since I was very low on resources). After taking a little damage still despite the few symbol type desires, I got both desired results by the end of the night.

Water Temple completed = Advance Legendary Shield (now requires Forest Temple) and gain Potion item from Quest row.

Hero 1: Receives the Potion (At the end of the Day phase, roll the dice and gain 1 HP for each Power face rolled)

Goblins earned: 3 (Max HP 8 -> 9)

Quests Completed: 6

I’m not sure of the current map location of my Cane/Staff hero, but I think they’re still on the Temple-Advance Grotto at C2R.

Quest row cycles out the Rupee/Jewel, now has I think two movements and the Shovel (another Shadow Temple)

Day/Night 4

I immediately was able to complete Share Ancient Knowledge (Requires: 2 heroes on the center map card [C3]; Reward: Advance Spell Token 1 space in the Spell Library) to increase my max power by 1 and make Dolphin (C4L) available to me, far easier to reach than Lion (E2L). Taking SAK reveals the Bow (Forest Temple, ridiculous luck from the Quest deck), but I was going to go for Forest Temple anyway.

End the Day with Staff/Cane hero at Dolphin, Lantern/Potion delving into Forest, and Sword/Boomerang going at another Goblin. During the night, I only had enough health and power available to complete Forest Temple and kill the Goblin, though everyone returned home so that I could get 3 extra HP.

Forest Temple completed = Complete Legendary Shield (+4 points) & Gain Bow from Quest row.

Hero 1: Trade Lantern (no longer care about delving into Temples) for Legendary Shield (Only costs 1 power to prevent damage from a Goblin symbol at night instead of 2)

Hero 3: Trade Boomerang for the much more efficient (and in most players’ opinions, relatively overpowered) Bow (May spend Punch symbols on the dice to attack adjacent map cards’ Goblins; adjacency includes diagonals in this case)

Goblins earned: 4 (Max HP 9 -> 10)

Quests completed: 8

Day/Night 5

Two easier quests are available here: Battle the Twin Krakens (Req: Have 2 heroes on opposite Coasts in the same row or column; Reward: Gain 3 power) and Attend an Ally’s Coronation (Req: Have 2 Heroes in another player’s Castle; Reward: Move any 1 of your Heroes to any Map Card of your choice).

Also, at this point, I just want magic and killing as many Goblins as I can, which means ending the Day with Potion/Shield on Yellow Castle (B4R), Sword/Bow on the Portal surrounded by as many other portals as possible (C2L, with other goblins on C3L, D3L, and B1L), and Cane/Staff is back at Dolphin (C4L). The Potion finished the Day by healing me by a further 2, so I had plenty of resources available.

During this final night, I was hardly ever damaged, and had to have rolled something like 15-20 rolls because I kept rolling dozens each of Power, Torches, and Scrolls, only whittling away at all of the goblins with the bow each roll once I was able to just generate a dozen extra power on the Sword to just kill the C2L Goblin. Also, even with a max power of 5 and the Staff at Dolphin, I took the Magic track all the way to the end just in order to ensure I got all 4 goblins I could potentially have gotten. I had to start using power on Shield to prevent the 2 HP of damage from Goblin symbols near the end, but I eventually got everything I needed.

Goblins earned: 8 7

Quests completed: 10

Spell level: 6

Summary

Overall, it was actually a particularly interesting game playing on the Gloomfall side. I got extremely lucky with the placement of the various Grottos, the Quest deck’s ordering, and especially Night 5′s dice rolls, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily that much harder than the light side besides that it’s slightly more mechanically challenging. However, once you get your head around the base game, Gloomfall isn’t that bad.

Granted, an early Lantern doesn’t hurt, let alone a bunch of Treasure Quests that happen to line up exactly with the available Legendary tracks you’re going for. X-P

Addendum

Game Day!

April 14, 2018

It’s been a while since I played TEQ solo. I’ve mostly been teaching the game each time I’ve played it since receiving it. As such, I still haven’t played at all with the Golden Mushrooms mini-expansion or on the Gloomfall side.

That being said, I decided to still just play on the light world side and try only for Squire difficulty of going for at least 50 points.

I randomly drew Yellow as my player mat. The map was actually very hard to navigate beyond turn 1 because I was surrounded by two goblins along both coasts, so moving By Ship became costly early on.

Day 1: I knew I’d need some fast magic, so day one led me to Scorpion obelisk, blue castle, and Desert Temple, netting two early movement quests (two heroes in same castle, and coast to coast). Getting the mushrooms and torches were relatively simple this night. The Shovel ended up discarded at the end, and Bow was revealed during Day 1.

Day 2: I knew I needed that Bow, especially since I now only needed Forest Temple to get my Legendary Sword, making the ridiculous sword-archer combo easily within reach. Honestly, this is what got me so many end-game points.

I ended up netting another two movement quests, as well; this time, it was the 3 away from each other and all on coasts ones. I ended the day with a hero on Fire Temple, Forest Temple, and Rabbit Obelisk.

Night 2: I lost a bit of health, but with the diverse set of faces I was looking for (torches, scrolls, and mushrooms), it wasn’t a terrible ordeal, and so I managed to get the Bow and Legendary Sword onto the same hero upon all of them returning*. I believe a movement quest or Potion was discarded before turning to Day.

*Upon post-game reading of the rules, it turns out that my interpretation that bow and sword interact with each other was false, so I gained a few too many points than I should’ve for goblins. Given how Night 5 went, though, it wouldn’t have led to a loss.

Day 3: This day phase ended up really screwing me over as I went for the “two in the center” movement quest, but it took until the third movement card draft in order to even pull it off, and putting my sword bow on a mushroom grotto instead of a goblin portal.

I ended with sword-bow hero on the roll to advance in dungeons grotto, a blank hero on the goblin next to her, and the final blank on Ice Temple in an attempt for I think the Flute.

However, on Night 3, I pushed my luck a little too hard going for punches that I instead died after hitting magic track lvl 2, having only 2 health remaining after being whittled down prior to the massive goblin attack that led to my demise. I only had enough Power to prevent one goblin face of damage, so I lost the benefit from wasting three movements to get the “to the center” quest (advance fairy one space on spell library).

Day 4: Fairy quest was available, as was an easier movement quest (diversify: one obelisk, one temple, one portal). I ended with Sword-bow on the portal with the “roll to dungeon advance” grotto, and then doubled on torch dungeons with Shadow (to finish the Shield) and Forest (for the fairy and the quest).

Night didn’t go too bad. Managed to kill the two goblins** and still get enough torches that I completed both in the night with minimal damage suffered.

** In hindsight, I think I either rolled enough punches that the “combo” was moot, or else if I’d done things right and only used excess Power on the local goblin and used the rolled punches on the next one over first, so this night didn’t end too differently if assigned perfectly.

Day 5: With no official rule regarding getting more than accounted for in a given scoring column, I instead opted to end this day getting one last movement quest, abusing the fairy movement to get the “all three heroes stay off the coast” quest. Then, I finished with Sword-bow on Dolphin so she could shoot goblins*** while learning a spell, fairy on that center grotto, for the move quest, and finally Shield moved down to Desert to grab the Cane in the night.

During the night, thanks to shield, bow, and plenty of scrolls and excess Power, I was able to stay healthy and just wait for the magic track to get to 2 for Dolphin. I easily rolled enough real punches to make up for some of the early goblin kills from the fake combo, or else I’d maybe be one goblin short and 4 points lower.

Ending total, including “cheating”, was 64, well above the 50 I was aiming for.

8 for Legendary Sword and shield.

30 for 10 quests

20 for 7 goblins (12-16 if we exclude 1-2 goblins for cheating slightly, however moot it really was)

6 for level 6 magic.