A Board Game That Took 5 Years to Acquire

In my infantile board game years way back in 2012, I had just discovered Shut Up & Sit Down, a British board game review site that created episodic content reviewing interesting board games. Upon finally catching up to their series of episodes, I came across episode 3 from season 2, where roughly at the 17-minute mark, Paul and Quinns scale a seemingly-endless spiral staircase reviewing The Isle of Doctor Necreaux.

The Seed is Sow(lo)ed

What follow next is a single-shot walk-and-talk engaging review about the being heroes trying to save the world in 15 (gametime) minutes, fighting monsters and avoiding traps, all while trying to find scientists, the escape shuttle, and the doomsday device. While all of that was captivating, the one thing that stuck out to me was that "1-5 players" portion of the title card. One player? I can play this on my own? And thus, I did a quick search at that time, finding out that not many places stocked it. So, I abandoned it.

Years passed, and I acquired more and more games. It wasn't until earlier this year that I'd be reminded of it once more when the kickstarter for the second edition would pop up. While excited at first, the price difference of the newer vs old dismayed my wallet, and, once again, I went online to randomly search for it once more, with no luck.

Until now.

Unexpected Expectations

Thanks to some random deals posted by @TabletopGamingDeals, The Isle of Doctor Necreaux came up on my radar at a discount. As if a sudden 15-minute timer appeared, I raced to "save" my world and acquired the game, and now it sits in my hand.

However.

The last time I made an impulse buy for a game with a solo variant was The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game, which was hands down one of my favorite (if not THE favorite) solo games in my collection. I'm not quite so sure lightning will strike twice, especially for a game that's about 8 years old and based on a review that's been 5 years old.

But I'm certainly game to find out!