I like Four Against Darkness and every supplement except the “White Label” games as they are to immature and full or sexual misogyny and demons.

A really great, easy to learn solo cave adventure game. Very good for beginners and anyone else interested in cave adventure. Worth buying e.g. Twisted Minions, Twisted Final Fights, Twisted Dungeons aja Wayfaries and Adventures. I personally bought these on the recommendation of the Dungeon Dive YouTube channel and I'm glad I did. The rules of the game remain simple and easy but you get quite a bit of variety in the game. Just 5/5, in my opinion.

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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.

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

Pure fun. There are typos and small errors and... but it does not matter. This is pure fun, with beutiful artworks and it has more theme than all new games released. Besides autor is great person!

I was a bit hesitant because I already know how to play rpgs solo, have played a solo dungeon crawl with 2nd Edition AD&D fashioned after Diablo, and I've played Castle Ravenloft. What finally got me to buy the book was when I saw the Boardgamegeek page and saw how people were customizing the game and expanding on it. Along with all the affordable add-ons being released for it, the customization of adventure content has really grabbed my interest. That, and it's a lot less cumbersome than AD&D. Especially if you factor in four characters.

I wouldn't mind a guide on how to create custom classes, but I doubt we would see something like that until after all the official classes have been released. This is something that eventually hurt Castle Ravenloft for me. Meanwhile, I can collect all the monsters and make my own vermin, minion and boss charts to fit the theme of my games.

I also like that playing a campaign is possible, but it's left to the player to define as they see fit. This way, new players have a game to play that's focused more on the dungeon crawl experience. As they get accustomed to that, they can add a village or a regular travelling merchant to slowly introduce campaign elements at their own speed. If that's what they want.

Good job on finding a good balance between rpg and board game and solo play. And a special thank you for making something of such quality for solo players, who (contrary to popular belief) don't just play solo because they don't have a group.

I needed something to scratch my dice rolling itch. Four Against Darkness more than did the trick. My youngest watched me play the first game and wanted to join, we had a blast. So much so, I bought a few more materials to expand our games. More than worth the cost!

Edit: I gave it another chance, and had a lot of fun. I still say Invisible Goblins are heavy handed, and not very thematic, so in the future I'm house ruling them like a trap. If a party member detects them, nothing is stolen, they harmlessly run away, and the party gets an XP roll. Theives and halflings get +1 on the detect roll vs. a 5. After all, invisibility does not also grant complete silence, and if the characters are alerted, there's no way they're going to steal everything and escape. A) The item they are holding is not invisible, even if they are. B) If the characters can see their items floating through the air, they can attack, and chase the goblins. I think this is more fair than the rule as written.

Upgrading from a 2 to a 4.

Downloaded, and read the rules, sat down to play the first game. Invisible Goblins stole all weapons from the party in the 3rd room. It's not possible to fight the Invisible Goblins, or avoid them. I did not find this very enjoyable, by I may play again some day.

This is the best of the solo rpg systems. It is quite simple to grasp and is quite robust in handling multiple adventures. The flexibility of the rooms means that the graph paper gets filled in a balanced and believable way. The ability to level up and go on an over-arching campaign that embraces multiple adventures, makes this compelling. The pocket forms of the rules and tables means it is perfect for long train journeys!

When we consider how the system has so many expansions and published adventures, this is a winner.

This really is an excellent game. The system is simple but also very customizable- it's fairly easy to create new classes, new monsters and new spells with a bit of tinkering. I recommend checking out the supplements as well, especially "Four Against the Abyss," which offers options for higher level adventures.

I have thoroughly enjoyed playing this game and eagerly await the next supplement.

This game solves one of the perennial problems of pen-and-paper RPGs: finding people to play with. OK, technically it's not an RPG but a dungeon crawl simulator, but the game is so well designed, that it really feels like you are playing an old school RPG solo. That said, I have also managed to keep my kids amused with it in co-operative mode, and I think it could be used to introduce people to the idea of pen and paper RPGs, with zero GM prep. Although I am blessed with a regular gaming group, they don't all love dungeon crawls as much as me. So if - like me - you're looking for a way to scratch the dungeon crawl itch more often, this is a great way to do it!

After finding out about this game via a YouTube video, I decided to give it a go, and I must say I'm impressed! At first glance, I wasn't sure how complex it would be, since everything seemed pretty simple. However, after spending the evening playing the game solo, I've realized there's a suprising amount of depth as well as actual tension. I can't wait to sit down again and continue on my adventure to see what's through the next door, and whether or not my Elf will once again whiff every single attack she makes. Absolutely worth the asking price!

Era il gioco che cercavo da tanto tempo! Sono appassionato del genere Fantasy rpg ma, non volendone sapere il mio gruppo di giocarlo, perlomeno con 4AD ho ritrovato la possibilità di giocare e gustare le atmosfere Old School dei bei tempi andati di D&D. Il bot del gioco, grazie all'uso ricorrente e continuo di tabelle casuali, genera sempre nuove scene, situazioni, scontri, colpi di scena che rendono ogni giocata unica. Il total party kill è sempre dietro l'angolo ma nel complesso lo si accetta perchè si vive una bella storia dall'inizio alla fine. Il gioco è supportato dall'autore Andrea Sfiligoi e da un ricco fandom presente su Facebook. Il manuale base contempla la possibilità di fare avanzare i personaggi fino al 3° livello dopodichè, se si vogliono provare sfide nuove e avvincenti, sono disponibili espansioni al regolamento con possibilità di livellare oltre il 9° livello e anche avventure pre-generate. Insomma, la giocabilità di Four Against Darkness è lunga e dà soddisfazione. A differenza di altri solo game presenti sul mercato, qui il giocatore porta avanti un gruppo di quattro personaggi scelti fra un pool disponibile sul manuale e ciascuno di loro ha le sue peculiarità di razza e di classe. Il sistema è semplice ed intuitivo ma, al tempo stesso, abbastanza profondo da contemplare molte situazioni di combattimento e di esplorazione tipiche dell'rpg fantasy. Vivamente consigliato!

Whenever I'm in the mood to play a dungeon crawl, I keep coming back to Four Against Darkness: it's the best system that I've come across for this. Its rules are elegantly simple & modular: very streamlined & fast to play solo or GM-less; as well as easy to customize, absorbing to tinker with. Yet it feels similar to playing traditional dungeon crawls & classes from the 1970's: it isn't as clunky but it scratches that itch. Plus its dungeon generator is a lot of fun to draw maps with. I love it.

For me, 4AD's magic is in its elegant simplicity and its tweakability.

The elegant simplicity gets and keeps the player in the game. The first few sessions will require a bit of page-flipping (and/or appropriate judgement-calling), but it nonetheless flows quickly, with neither fuss nor muss.

Tweakability: after your first couple of delves you'll be adding your own classes, creating rules for managing the party outside of the dungeon (e.g. the "party stash" and whatnot), creating your own encounter charts, and possibly even your own dungeon map generators. There's nothing in the game which hinders players in this regard, and there's enough material in the system to provide a good basis of "what's really intended to fit" within the framework.

In the long term, i suspect that 4AD will be known not so much for what it is itself, but as a catalyst which will spawn many other similar systems, each tweaked for variable levels of complexity, depth, and play styles, but ultimately having roots which lead back to this game.

One play tip: stone or aluminum tiles used for flooring and walls, preferably in the size range 2cm to 1 inch or so, can be bought cheaply in large sheets at most hardware stores and make an excellent component for this game. See this photo album for examples of 4AD play using such tiles instead of drawn-on-paper dungeons: https://goo.gl/photos/ACpGecKRRvbpx2mJ7

(Pedantic note: the backslash-escaping of quotes in this review is not from me, but is a bug in the review tool.)