Patience re-made for D&D fans

The old saying goes that imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

Well then whoever created the ever-popular solitaire card game patience back in 1783 – no designer is known -- according to Board Game Geek must be quite flattered by Canadian game designer Ryan Dawson’s Cavern Shuffle: Maze of the Minotaur.

Now over the years I have played literally hundreds of ‘hands’ of patience. It’s a repetitive time filler where you know you will succeed rarely, but you always seem willing to play just one more hand. It’s perfect for rainy days at the lake, minus-40 winter weekends and when you just need a diversion.

From a Canadian designer 

So when Cavern Shuffle arrived and I saw it likened itself to the classic solitaire card game except with a ‘dungeon crawling’ theme,  I dove right in.

For a guy who found and fell in love with Dungeons & Dragons as a role playing game some quarter of a century-plus ago, delving into dusty caverns in search of treasure, battling baddies along the way is almost in the gaming blood.

But getting our current RPG group together is like herding cats as they say, with dad’s with kids and wives, and jobs. Finding a date for the seven of us to gather is about as easy as finding hen’s teeth.

But a solitaire card game that has something of the same ‘feel’ and is based on something as familiar as Patience, what could be better?

As it turned out a great deal – at least in regards to solo games.

This one is pretty straight forward Patience in terms of rules – albeit with unique cards. Gone are typical card suits, for sets featuring four rather standard D&D archetypes; ranger, rogue, cleric and barbarian, with art which is thematically fine by Bodie H.

Where this one diverges is that along the way you will reveal ‘items’ that can be set aside and used to help you later in the game, or you encounter enemies and obstacles that you must best to basically clear them from the board so you have access to other cards to continue your quest.

The Minotaur is the big baddie and it actually moves around the piles, creating an issue which is more difficult to deal with.

It’s a pretty slick idea Dawson has come up with, and it works pretty smoothly, in large part because Patience is so well-known going in.

That said I will note that Cavern Shuffle is probably one best-suited to fans of D&D and similar games, as it tends to provide some of that experience.

Certainly in my case I’ll likely make this my regular Patience option moving forward because it really is more fun than a bunch of hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.

Check it out through Gravy Boat Games (gravyboatgames.com).