Entries missing vital information, like life point total.

Bear in mind that I will have some positive things to say later in this review. But listen. I know the description has a mature content warning. I have no problem with people wanting to include sexual themes in their games. That being said, that should be fully opt-in. This book claims to offer that as a possibility, but unfortunately the layout makes that far from the case. Rather than containing the mature content to its own chapter, it's sprinkled throughout the book, including multiple illustrations that go beyond pinup and start encroaching on softcore. Also, the handling of said content is far from mature, leaning childish and exploitative. Apparently injecting his personal fantasies into books he works on is a running theme with Bouchard. He's more than welcome to do so, but I think his whims should be confined to their own supplements specifically focused on sexual subject matter. It's like being given a brownie with nuts in it and being told to eat around them if you don't like nuts- possible, but might not be worth it depending on how much you like brownies. That being said, the care that went into this book is undeniably evident. The map tile system and the density of the places it produces are very fun. Where it may or may not lose you with regards to the mechanical contents is how well the tone matches your preferences- the events and systens trend towards supporting a bawdy, darkly comedic world, one that's joyfully cynical. It's certainly not for every table. The other thing is that, while I know it's kind of a keystone of the solo tabletop genre, bear in mind that you will be crossreferencing a LOT of tables. The cities it generates aren't just dense visually, but in terms of the amount of potential hooks and mechanics each tile offers as well. Overall I think there's a lot to potentially enjoy with this book- it just depends on how open you are to certain subject matters and tones. Despite having a mature content warning, I think the description fails to adequately prepare the reader for the contents, which is the primary drive for my review.

4AD is an excellent dungeon crawl game that is very addictive. I bought the print copy of this core rules but after watching some YouTube play through videos I bought the pdf as well for the handy reference resources. Andrea is very active in the Facebook group and answers questions quickly to. Highly recommend this game and all its accessories

A surprisingly user-friendly solo RPG system, Four Against Darkness reminds me of the Hero Quest miniature boardgame with its self-contained rules, random encounters, and general hack-and-slash-and-loot system. There are legitimate complaints about organization and clarity, though this edition has cleaned up some of the most confusing bits and the FAQ at the end is very helpful. The rulebook is pretty minimalistic and alludes to various supplements that you'll need to buy to make full use of the game in terms of campaigns and such.

All-in-all this game will give you plenty of material for solo sessions as well as a very simple dungeon generator for those days the GM just can't.

The patron system certainly adds a new aspect to the game and meshes neatly with the faction system, which makes ongoing campaigns easier with this system. The quality of each patron varies a bit, which is to be expected, but overall, the patrons fill out the world a bit more without adding too much complexity.

That said, the adolescent-themed material could have been left out completely and the book would have been better for it. Some supplements to this system are almost completely 12-year-old boy material, and unless you like that type of thing, I'd skip over that aspect of the content in this book and save yourself the squick factor

If you have run into patrons in other supplements and would like to have more to choose from, this is a good choice. You'll find some interesting details and have a wide selection of NPC patron types to choose from. I'm not keen on taking them into the fray with me, but that's optional, so again, you do you.

I sent the book to a company that prints and binds it, they said that it is password protected, on the other hand the other book Twisted dungeons was not.

Enjoyed this greatly for the FUN SANDBOXY KITCHEN SINK HORROR CRAWL that it is. Especially fond of how the neighborhood grid mechanic plays out compared to 4AD's dungeon crawling. But a couple minor things holding it back from a 5th star from me. --The first is that there are A LOT of incorrect page reference numbers, especially in the latter half of the book. Sometimes off by 3-4 pages. This adds up over time when so much of the gameplay involves flipping to the page it tells you to. --Tagging on to that, I'd guess that most of the places that refer you to the Haunted House table don't even list a page number to turn to.
That said, I do want to be very clear: BEYOND THE MULTIPLE PAGE REFERENCE ERRORS, THIS BOOK IS EXTREMELY WELL EDITED.
The second thing keeping it from a 5th star for me is a more ephemeral/balance vs. randomness issue. The Win condition for a game is closing 1 gate. For a campaign, 7 gates. It's a trivial amount of XP to get the Close Gate spell, but unless you have chosen a certain skill, it can be a hard ride with cold dice looking for one of the tomes that can unlock learning it. Also, Gates are pretty rare to spawn on their own. In one run, I had one gate spawn in 30+ spaces explored, and zero Libraries or books. If your Mission is about Gates, then you'll get 2 more auto spawn and you'll know when they are coming, so you can plan for it a little bit--But if that isn't your mission, you may never see a Gate with cold dice. And then, once you have the Spell, and there's a Gate, it's a tough roll to successfully cast the spell. To boil it down, I suspect it's going to get pretty repetitive, perhaps losing a bit of its charm when you're well into a second block of 30 spaces before you can finish a campaign. Some simple house rules to allow focused Clue use to help, or reducing the number of Gates needed will keep the game fresher longer. But perhaps even wiser would be to make a campaign more like a "Double Feature" with the campaign ending after successful completion of 2 consecutive Missions. But again, bottom line is that if you like 4AD or 4AGOO, and are cool with a Thematic B-Movie Blizzard (ie Aliens showing up one street away from a Park Full of werewolves next to some Haunted Houses or Evil Puppets), you're gonna LOVE exploring this book.

I love this treasure trove of 4AD goodness for its rules for guild-play, hexcrawl suggestions, and suggestions to link the different books together. For me, this is a must have.

Nothing one can’t get for better value from Urban Dressing 1&2. Also, £15 and no outlines or hyperlinked contents, come on?

A great addition. Now we can explore dungeons and towns.

I would love to see a) a print version of it and b) a new book that focuses on wilderness!

This is a great entry to fantasy skirmish gaming. It simplifies the rules so even younger gamers can join in. The simplified magic system might be a turn-off for some, but it keeps things breezy. Activation mechanic is pretty neat though, and adds to the unpredictability of battle.

My son and I play this all the time. Rules lite but very deep with other books and adventures

The sibling to Mighty Monsters, of which a good 50% of the text is copy/pasted from one to the other. To copypaste a part of my own review: "A modification of the rules typically used with Ganesha games, upsizing a unit to be multiple parts and having a lifebar that makes things riskier for the monster the more damage it has. With the emphasis being on body parts, the creation of a monster is very flexible and grants plenty of variety. They have been kind enough to include lots of archtypes implemented to create most of the classic giant monsters." Replace "monster" with "giant robot" and you'll get most of the gist.

The biggest key difference here is that mechas take damage differently, suffering more immediate effects and risking their pilot being knocked out. That said, there's plenty of bits and pieces tailored specifically to the mecha genre to give this its own feel from its sibling book.

A modification of the rules typically used with Ganesha games, upsizing a unit to be multiple parts and having a lifebar that makes things riskier for the monster the more damage it has. With the emphasis being on body parts, the creation of a monster is very flexible and grants plenty of variety. They have been kind enough to include lots of archtypes implemented to create most of the classic giant monsters. The damage system is pretty good too for emulating monsters stumbling and struggling to stay up after being worn down. The only gripe I have is that it it is sadly pretty easy to end up in a slugfest where two monsters get stuck together trading blows until one gets lucky and sends the other flying or something else interferes.

A fantastic introductory solo fantasy skirmish game. Simple enough that kids can learn to play it, yet has enough interesting depth for most wargamers.

One point deducted for two reasons. One, you NEED the card deck (free to download but adds an extra cost if you're getting it printed and made at home or bought via drive-thru-cards). Second is for some of the haphazardly organized information. This is sort of similar to my issue with Andrea's other games (Four Against Darkness for example). Some information just isn't where you expect them to be. For example, when going to party creation where it explains how to make a crew, there is no mention of starting HP or speed. That is mentioned under "Movement and Terrain" as well as under "Hit Points". Magic and spellcasting is in a section AFTER the campaign scenarios. Jumping back into the game after a while and just quickly building a crew turned out to be a bit more effort than it needed to be for such a relatively simple game.

There are also a few instances where I had to make judgement calls about what to do (when a monster's behavior conflicts with the activation card's instructions). This is sort of expected in some solo wargames where you're reliant on an AI system to drive the opponents.

Overall, I've had a LOT of fun with SS&SS and it has been my go to for getting some some quick solo games on the table.