Greetings.
I have great respect for pencil and paper games like DnD. But have never played myself. When I sit down to play something I want to switch off my brain. Not make it work overtime to imagine everything I should be doing. That is what I paid the game for.
Not 100% sure how I ended up here. I normally play more traditional boardgames. YouTube rabbit hole probably. Somehow ended up on a review/playthrough by Lone Gamer. Due to my changing circumstances I was looking for something to play solitaire, that is easy to set up and tear down, encourages repeat plays.
So having said all that:
Glide is my first pen and pencil RPG/game ever. I can not compare it to anything else. Apart from DnD PC games I have played.
I enjoy starting with a blank map and the exploration. Specifically that locations take up multiple hexes. I have seen videos of other hex games and rolling for every single 6 sided little bloody hex seems awfully tedious.
I like that the game provides impetuous for me to do something and does not leave everything over to my, very lacking, imagination. It provides a starting character with a bonus and a mission or goal. It provides guilds with objectives. Thus some sort of beginning and end. Something to work towards. It provides just enough descriptions of locations and events to make me know what is going on, leaves enough open for my imagination, but does not require me to do all the heavy lifting. I thus like that the game straddles the fine line(s) between being a solo journal RPG (for which I lack the imagination), being "gamey" enough (providing me with enough things to do that don't require my imagination), and not being just a lot of rulesets and tables that requires my imagination to congeal (an imagination I am, once again, lacking).
The changing difficulty levels linked to the various locations and dice throws, I think, is clever. Putting random encounters in the towns are, I think, also clever. It provides a lot of story. Normally in games you just go 'back to town' to 'restock and head back out again'. Here something happens in what is otherwise a desolate world.
I am also in a phase of my life where I am not in the mood for violent, murdering, stabby-stabby games. So Glide being none of this is quite refreshing and enjoyable.
The fact that some of the locations in the base game tables are not in alphabetical order is criminal.
Thank you very much for this. I love it. I am enjoying my time with it. It helps me relax in the evenings. As my first foray into pencil and paper games this has set the bar quite high for me.
Sorry for my purchase at sale price but printing around here is quite expensive. I wish I could afford it all at normal price and would highly recommend others not to buy it on sale. Don't be like me. It is worth the full price.