I’ve mentioned in some of my most recent reviews that I’m currently in my print-and-play era. I’ve also talked about how I love single sheet games, and I’m really happy when I can find games like this that I can play on my iPad. A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a BGG Geeklist that introduced me to all sorts of titles that would match this description.
As I went through that list, I came across LANTERN, a game designed by D. Di Maggio with art by P. Briaud. It immediately grabbed my attention with its hand-drawn fantasy aesthetic and some positive buzz online. The rules were only one page, the sheet seemed simple enough, and best of all, it was free! So I thought I’d give it a try.
Let Your Light Shine
The sheet itself is beautiful — it’s got the feel of a hand-drawn map from some fantasy book series. Some people have even talked about how they love to color in the sheet when they’re done playing. Setup is quick, the instructions are clear, and the layout is practical – well-spaced and easy to follow.
In LANTERN, you embark on a solo journey to conquer eight zones filled with enemies. To proceed through each zone, you roll six dice and aim to meet specific dice combinations shown on the game sheet. Each zone requires particular results for your dice. Some will need to have certain values; the rest will need to match in value. If you hit the target combination right away, you move to the next zone. Otherwise, you’ll need to rely on special abilities to adjust your dice.
Your abilities have names like “Critical Hit” and “Constitution” that evoke memories of other dungeon crawlers. Each ability allows for specific dice adjustments: flipping, re-rolling, or adjusting dice results by 1. How many you have at your disposal is determined during the games setup, where you’ll allocate the results of a dice roll to the four different categories, your experience track, and to an area of the map that will give you bonuses later.
Experience points, gained as you roll throughout the game, can be spent to add extra uses to these abilities, giving you some relief if you happen to use up all of a skill early on. The goal is to reach the final zone, defeat the Dragon, and finish with as few skill uses as possible.
The Light Begins to Dim
When I started the game, the simple rules, intriguing art, and the promise of a strategic experience had me excited. The gameplay itself, though, didn’t fully live up to my expectations. After my first playthrough, I realized that despite my efforts to strategically use my abilities, the dice ultimately ran the show. Scoring well relies so much on lucky rolls that even with careful skill use, I ended up in the “promising adventurer” range — basically, the game’s version of “better luck next time.” After going through the game a few more times, it felt like my choices could really only account for a 2 or 3 point difference in scoring.
The setup process also left me wishing for a little more control. As I mentioned earlier you roll to set skill values. I had a really good roll the first time I played, so I made it to the end with no issue. However, my results weren’t quite as good at the beginning of my second playthrough, so I was unable to defeat the last zone. I think I would prefer that a certain number of points be given that you have to allocate during setup. You could even have different difficulty levels based on varying values. I feel like this would ensure that each playthrough is more consistent and comparable.
The skills could use a bit more variety, too. There’s not much difference between re-rolling one die and re-rolling multiple dice; adding a unique ability with a distinct, higher cost might bring some much-needed depth.
But overall, I’m disappointed that the game’s score is based on how infrequently you use the tools you’ve been given to impact the game. Therefore, your score isn’t really based on choices you made, but on how the dice were rolled. In general, I feel that this is supposed to be encouraged! And the fact that they provide a scoring result for 0 is crazy. According to ChatGPT (which doesn’t always math correctly), the chance of a score of 0 is 1 in 13,784,000,000,000. So like, why?
Conclusion
As much as I enjoy the art and concept, LANTERN doesn’t have the payoff I’m looking for. With a few small changes to the rules, I think that player choice could have been better emphasized, making for a better playing experience. While the rules are simple enough for newcomers, I don’t believe the payoff is good enough for this to really work as an introductory print-and-play one sheet game. For a quick print-and-play solo, I’d pick something that makes me feel like I actually had a hand in my final score.
If you want to try out LANTERN for yourself, you can download the rules and play sheet on the game’s BoardGameGeek page.
Highs
- Great artwork
- Simple rules
- It’s cost is free
Lows
- Inconsistent game setup
- A scoring system that emphasizes chance over strategy
Complexity
Time Commitment
Replayability
