When comparing Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island vs Stone Age, the Slant community recommends Stone Age for most people. In the question“What are the best worker placement boardgames?” Stone Age is ranked 1st while Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Stone Age is:
Each game of Stone Age will turn out differently. Obviously, your dice rolls are going to lead to different results, and the buildings and civilization cards you draw are going to be in a new order. There are many paths to victory, you can always try a different strategy. Best part is, no strategy is superior, you get points from many things, so don’t be afraid to experiment.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Gameplay mechanics combine with theme for a deeply immersive experience
Whether trying to outrun a volcano, defeat tribes of cannibals, or removing a curse from the island; each scenario requires you to play the game subtly different in a way that makes the theme come alive. For example, while fleeing from the volcano players are highly encouraged to use the exploration icon to uncover more and more tiles to stay ahead of the encroaching lava, while in a different scenario gathering wood becomes the priority and players shift to using the resource gathering option more often. This leads to each scenario feeling unique and really drawing players into each one of them.
Pro Multiple scenarios and variable set-up lead to great replayability
With 6 scenarios included in the base game (more in expansions), and each scenario having a variable setup that can lead to very different gameplay experiences, Robinson Crusoe is a game that you will keep coming back to time and time again. Every game will be completely different, not only because you can pick a different class and different strategy, but also because of the many variables and randomness of the game.
Pro Fully cooperative gameplay
With the game being hard enough on its own, working together with other players feels like a welcome relief from the normally competitive nature of board games.
Pro Stacks well with player count
The game has a specific set of rules depending on the number of players, so it doesn’t feel better or worse when played solo or in a 4-player group.
Pro Good aesthetics
The visual look of Robinson Crusoe is very appealing and adds a lot to the thematic immersion. It follows a 17th century shipwreck theme like the popular novel and includes tribal marks, old maps, the look of aged parchment, etc.
Pro Quality components
All the components featured in Robinson Crusoe should easily hold up to a lot of plays. From the smaller wooden bits and pieces to the heavy dice and durable cardstock cards, all the components are top-notch and don’t feel cheap.
Pro Highly replayable
Each game of Stone Age will turn out differently. Obviously, your dice rolls are going to lead to different results, and the buildings and civilization cards you draw are going to be in a new order.
There are many paths to victory, you can always try a different strategy. Best part is, no strategy is superior, you get points from many things, so don’t be afraid to experiment.
Pro Easy and accessible
Stone Age is a game suited for people of all ages and gaming backgrounds because it’s easy to learn and it provides quite a bit of strategic depth. The basic gist of Stone Age is easy – there are three phases in a round: placing workers, resolving actions, and feeding the tribe.
Players take turns placing their workers on empty spaces on the gameboard, signified by circles. There are resource areas, special areas, civilization cards, and hut tiles. There can’t be more workers than circles in an area.
After all the workers are distributed, players resolve actions in any order they choose. Depending on where you placed your workers, you either roll dice for resources or receive other bonuses in from special areas – tools, civilization cards, buildings, food generation, etc.
When all actions are complete, players must feed their tribes. This is done by returning the food resource to the pile. You pay one food per worker. If you generate food from the agriculture area, then you subtract that amount from the total.
Pro Beautiful aesthetics and theme
The visual design of Stone Age is very detailed and thematic. Both the artwork and the components look great and highly compliment the gameplay.
The gameboard and the player sheets feature stunning artwork of prehistoric scenery, the first player token is a silly drawing of a sitting chieftain, and the cards have some thematic nuances – stone tablets, figurines, prehistoric boats, etc. The resource tokens resemble what they’re supposed to be – food, wood, gold, bricks, and stone. The player tokens are colorful and patterned meeples.
Since dice rolling is a big part of the game, the components surrounding this have been made to look amazing – the dice are wood, and the pips are engraved. There’s a leather dice cup, which is a really nice thematic touch.
Cons
Con Complex
While the rules aren’t necessarily difficult, there are a lot of things you must remember and keep track of when playing Robinson Crusoe. You must essentially memorize what areas provide what type of resources, what are the conditions of getting resources or creating stuff, how to resolve specific plays, how dice and event cards work, etc. While you’re struggling to survive you must constantly remind yourself of the main objective that you must achieve to win. There’s a lot of thinking about what the least worst move out of the bunch is.
Con Quarterbacking issue
Robinson Crusoe is a prime example of a game that suffers from the alpha-gamer issue. Each round begins with players talking to each other and deciding what they’re going to do, and it’s easy for the experienced gamer to dictate what everyone must do because this is a game that has a pretty steep learning curve.
Con Many small components
There are a lot of tiny wooden cubes and tokens in Robinson Crusoe, and this can lead to multiple problems. Firstly, if you accidentally happen to drop something, then it might be difficult to find if it rolls in a corner or a less visible place. Secondly, the gameboard is very vulnerable to movement, so you might displace some valuable information, for example, the cube tracking your current health points. Lastly, the number of components lead to a long setup / takedown time.
Con Luck dependant
At its core Stone Age is a dice rolling game. You choose what you’re rolling for and how many dice you’re going to use when sending workers to a resource gathering space, and your roll will impact what you get. Some civilization cards also include dice rolling to decide which players get what resource.
The number is always rounded down, for example, if you sent two workers to gather wood, you’d roll two dice. One piece of wood costs 3. If you rolled 8 in total, then you’d get only two pieces of wood and you’d be missing one more pip.
Con Can be quite long
Depending on the number of players, the game can take 1 to 2 hours to play through, which is alright for more experienced board gamers, but it can be a big turn-off for new players or children who might lose their enthusiasm as the game progresses.
Con Pricey
The game has been out of stock for a few years. Wherever the copies of the game are available, they cost quite a lot. The price varies from $40 to $70, depending on the seller.