One Page Quest: the roguelike that fits on one sheet, perfect when you're sick
When you're sick, playing a game feels like a chore: getting a box out, sorting tokens, rereading a rulebook, all of it takes energy you simply don't have. Yet that is exactly the state I was in when I dove into One Page Quest, the new solo game by Léandre Proust, published by Grammes Édition (a publisher that has already accustomed us to out-of-the-ordinary ideas). The Kickstarter campaign runs until November 24, and its €800 goal was reached long ago. All I needed was a printed sheet, a pencil and some dice, and here I am on my third sheet.
Publisher: Grammes Édition · Designer: Léandre Proust · Illustration: Olekzandr Zahorulko · Players: 1 · Duration: about 45 min · Age: 10+ · Components: one black-and-white A4 sheet, five dice, a pencil · Languages: French and English · Price: €8 during the campaign, €10 at the public release planned for spring 2027
One sheet, five dice, one pencil
This is Print & Play in its purest form: no cards to cut out, no board to assemble. The sheet you print is your board, your hero sheet and your progression tracker all at once. It holds your hero and their special ability, the merchants, the equipment, the chests and the upgrades that will make your character grow. The mood evokes old-school fantasy role-playing games, but setup takes about a minute, which makes it a dream companion when your energy is low.
How it plays
In every fight, you roll your five dice and use your rerolls to aim for the best combination: pair, two pairs, three of a kind, full house, four of a kind or five of a kind. You decide which dice to keep and how far to push your luck (think Yahtzee, except you're not filling in a grid, you're slaying monsters). Each die face and each combination gives Strength, Accuracy and Gold. Once you settle on a result, you add up your Strength, add up your Accuracy, and multiply the two totals: that's your Power. If it reaches your opponent's threshold, you win. If it reaches twice that threshold, you score a Critical Victory and collect extra rewards.
The roguelike side happens between fights. Your dice open the door to the merchants, where you spend your Gold to permanently upgrade certain faces or combinations, buy equipment and build synergies.
The adventure unfolds over three Acts, each with three increasingly tough minions followed by a Boss. Losing to a minion is not fatal. Losing to a Boss ends the game. And if you want more, an endless mode lets you start over after the third Boss with every threshold multiplied by ten. This hunt for the combo that makes the numbers explode brings Balatro to mind.
What works
Before starting, I had one fear: repetition. After all, you are just rolling dice. It never materialized, and that is the game's great strength. Your hero's power, the enemies and the equipment change from one sheet to the next, and every new combination forces you to rethink your strategy. I have unlocked the mage, the archer and the protector, and each one pushed me to reconsider my choices.
This is where the random generation of the sheets is clever. The OnePageQuest.com website draws from the heroes, bosses, chests and equipment in your collection to compose a unique adventure, which you then print. Your victories keep widening that collection: mine currently shows 3 heroes out of 50, 20 chests out of 66, 26 pieces of equipment out of 110 and 8 bosses out of 36. Plenty of road ahead. Every sheet carries a Seed, a code to replay or share exactly the same adventure, and a weekly challenge gives everyone the same sheet, with a leaderboard on top. It's the progression of a video game, but on paper.
The flip side
What frustrated me most is tied to my condition: mental math. Adding up Strength, adding up Accuracy, multiplying the two, and starting over with every reroll is a pleasure when you're feeling well and quickly tiresome when your head is full of cotton. Good news: the designer confirmed to me that a companion web app already exists. It offers a virtual dice roller, handy when you have no dice at hand, and a built-in calculator that makes the Power calculation easier, multiplication included.
Another point: the color version of the sheets, which I recently unlocked, is gorgeous, but it could hurt your ink cartridge. Good news again: the designer confirms it is entirely optional, so you can generate your sheets in black and white or in color. If I play in color, it will be on my iPad. Finally, you play solo, and you need access to the website to generate your sheets.
Verdict
One Page Quest is a solo game firmly turned toward adventure, one that fits on a sheet and slips in anywhere. Bring it out if you want a 45-minute game with no setup, if you love builds, synergies and runaway numbers, or if, like me right now, you're too under the weather to take out anything more than a pencil and five dice. Pass if you want anything other than a solo game or if you'd rather not depend on a website. The campaign ends on November 24, and the free demo on the Kickstarter page lets you get a feel for it before backing.
My rating: 8/10.
Comments