Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island vs This War of Mine: The Board Game: Which Should You Buy?

In Robinson Crusoe, you're shipwrecked with just two actions per turn, and the island spends the whole game trying to end you. You build a shelter, gather wood, hunt, and race to finish a scenario before the weather, hunger, or your own bad luck finishes you first. The magic is in the adventure and event cards, which keep stacking small catastrophes until every game becomes its own little disaster story. It won the Golden Geek for Best Thematic in 2013, and players still call it one of the most thematic games ever made. Fair warning though, it's hard in a sneaky way. You'll lose, and lose again, and only later figure out that one missing roof or one bad hunt is what sank you.

This War of Mine flips the whole premise. You're not a hero, you're a handful of ordinary civilians hiding in a wrecked house while the city tears itself apart. By day you patch the place up, by night someone sneaks out to scavenge, and that's where the gut-punches live. The Book of Scripts holds over 1,900 outcomes, so no two runs feel the same, and the word players keep reaching for is "authentic." It's war as hunger, cold, and guilt, not explosions. Most reviewers agree it isn't really fun, and they mean that as a compliment.

Both games sit in medium-heavy territory, but they get you to the table in opposite ways. Robinson Crusoe's first-edition rulebook is famously rough and oddly translated, so expect to flip back to it mid-game for ages. The challenge is also opaque, which means your first few plays are mostly tuition. This War of Mine skips the rulebook slog entirely. The journal and scripts walk you into the game as you play, which is genuinely lovely for a first session.

The catch is what happens after setup. This War of Mine trades that easy start for heavy bookkeeping and serious table sprawl, where cards blend together and you spend minutes doing what a computer did instantly. So Robinson Crusoe is harder to learn but smoother to run, and This War of Mine is easier to start but more of a chore to manage. Pick your poison, truly.

Robinson Crusoe is the long-haul choice. Seven scenarios give you a lot of island to suffer on, the cards genuinely surprise you every game, and it plays beautifully solo. That solo strength matters, because at a full table the alpha-player problem is baked in. With only two actions each, a bossy player can quietly quarterback everyone, leaving quieter folks feeling like spectators in their own shipwreck. Solo or with a well-matched duo, it sings.

This War of Mine has that same leader problem, only worse. With more than two or three people, it becomes one person playing while five hands hover, so ignore the 1-6 on the box and treat it as a solo or two-player game. Its 1,900-plus script outcomes keep discovery alive across runs, but the real limiter is time and weight. Sessions run five to eight hours, often across multiple sittings, and characters spiral downward fast. If dark themes wear you down, this one will crush you. The good kind, mostly, but still.