Wren Games Assembly Board Game - An Addictive & Mind-Bending Escape Puzzle Card Game (2-player Cooperative or Solo)

I bought this after a random amazon search brought it up. I'm a big fan of board games and I'm always looking for games that work solo. This game is 1-2 player.The idea is that you are on a spacestation that after being hit by a micrometeor is now awash with an unknown virus. The computer aware of the danger has shut everything down to prevent spreading the disease to earth. Except its forgotten about a partly constructed ship in one of its holds.You lay 12 cards in a clock pattern each card represents a system on the ship. They are called blueprint cards. There are also 12 tokens with symbols that match the blueprints. They are called modules. The idea is using a small deck of movement cards to bring out and then correctly position the modules onto the matching blueprint before locking it down.You have just three rounds (three cycles through the movement deck) to achieve your goal. You can play a simple version of the game where that is your only task or you can add malfunctions.Malfunctions are special cards that are positioned at 12, 3, 6, and 9. They either trigger when you lock down the module on them or require you to do something different to lock them down.They vary from a relatively simple challenge to something very tough indeed. This adds a great deal of replayability to the game. If that's not enough there is also an expansion called glitches to add even more content. The two player game is clever. Communication between players is allowed until certain key words are used. Then no further talking is allowed. The idea is that the computer is listening to your conversation and shuts down communication when it hears certain words. The only slightly tricky part is learning how verify a move. Briefly it's this. When it's your turn you play the movement card you wish to. Your partner if they have an identical card need do nothing. If however they don't they must discard a card of their choice from their hand to their discard pile. This shows just how important careful communication is. You don't want to burn through your movement cards quicker than necessary.Considering how small this game is (the box is roughly the same size as a smart phone and around 7cm deep there is a huge amount of game here. Although very simple game there is a surprising amount of depth of thought. You will never be able to do everything you want to do everytime so will have to optimise each and every turn.That been said this game is winnable. The easiest mode for me has about a 50/50 win loss ratio. When the malfunctions are added this drops, but not by so much that you are discouraged.This is an excellent first game from a husband and wife team I hope for many more. But I think I'll always keep going back to assembly. Well done Mr and Mrs Turner.

Really great game once you get the hang of it. You can play this as 2 players or 1 and both modes are great. I definately needed to watch a play through on YouTube to understand the rules as 1 and half hours of trying to decipher the instructions led us nowhere. I think a link to a video explanation should be included.

In many ways the board game community sets some high standards. They want high quality artwork and high quality components. This is all well and good, of course when you spend hard earned cash on a game, you want it to look and feel good. This game however, bucks a trend in that it provides you with something quite different in its approach to co-operative play and even though the graphic design is simple and perhaps not appealing to some, I found myself drawn into a scenario that genuinely kept me on the edge. I love thematic games and space is one of my favourites, but this was cool. The idea of a HAL like computer shutting down your efforts to escape. It may be pricey for what you get, but here is a small family run business, producing a well thought out game. It is worth it for the puzzle it holds and I look forward to the future of Wren Games :)

As a 60+ year old gamer with a wife not interested I introduced her to Assembly. She enjoys it and it has multiple replay ability options. The levels of difficulty can be altered and any children will pick it up quicker than me. Good idea to look at video first. I have now bought the follow up.

From what I read I thought this would be a good game (Got made on Kickstarter), so I thought I would buy it and see. I thought this would be a board type game but it's a small box with cards. dice, chips and stickers for £23, which I thinks is expensive. The idea of the game is sound but the instructions are very long. Checked a few things online and found out you can get the single person game as an app for £4. So, sent the game back.

This is an excellent and fun solo or two player game with some amazingly well thought out mechanics. The verifying commands aspect can be as simple or difficult as you like adding loads to the game and the malfunction cards add loads of replayability to the game. Such a perfectly designed game that's really quick to pick up and teach to new players! Going to be playing this for ages!

Overpriced for such a small box. Long instructions. I love games, but couldn’t understand the first few instructions around inform and verify! Why is this unnecessarily complicated?! The game unfortunately has been regifted and never been played. It just caused frustration and waste of time. Such a shame for what apparently is an easy game to play.

Took a while to read and understand the rather lengthy set of rules, some aspects of which still not sure about. Once we got going it was quite gripping. We wanted to keep trying over and over again. I would recommend for age 10 and over because if the complexity of the rules. Adults, be prepared to help youngsters to go through the rules and help them get started!