One Little Play at the End of The Big Book of Madness
Open a secret tome to battle the many monsters and curses on its pages as student magicians in The Big Book of Madness.
My last plays of The Big Book of Madness were years and years ago… Time to return to it! This is a rather abstract icon matching game with an interesting setting, filled with some neat spells to learn. Yet I’ve found that I rarely play this one, so I brought it back to my solo table for what I expected to be a final experience. But first, time to try to win one last time!
Game Overview
Game Name: The Big Book of Madness
Publication Year: 2015
Designer: Maxime Rambourg
Artist: Xavier Gueniffey Durin
Publisher: IELLO
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game (Cooperative)
Over 6 pages, monsters appear with various curses. Students must use elements and spells to fight back, carefully managing resources and ensuring madness doesn’t stack up too much! Planning ahead and working out the puzzle can be a very rewarding sort of experience.
First Play
June 12, 2019
Complexity
3
Latest Play
October 23, 2026
Expansions
0
Setup Time
10 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
11
Play Time
45 Minutes
High Score
N/A
Game Area
28" x 22"
Low Score
N/A
Out of the Pages
Each page features a random monster and series of effects, depending on whether the curses are cleared or not. Setup involves shuffling these cards, so each page is a surprise!
I’m still not entirely sure what sort of monster I’m looking at here. Some sort of bagpipe blowfish? Ha! Interesting.
The theme drew me in, yet it quickly disintegrated. This is an abstract puzzle about matching icons and timing certain decisions. It was a bit bland, considering the play time.
I played with a pair of characters, as this is a cooperative game. More might work better, but that’s a lot to track!
Elemental Symbols
Decks are comprised of different element cards and, eventually, madness cards. The latter clog up hands and need to be managed. Too much madness, and it’s all over!
It was interesting to manage a hand of cards with the spells, yet this still came down to a very icon-focused experience.
Never did I feel like a spell actually happened, or a character did something exciting. It was simply about clearing curses, managing madness, and slowly becoming more powerful.
This sort of abstract puzzle can be fun, yet for the time it took to set it all up and play, it fell rather flat for me.
Casting All the Spells
There is a decent amount of variety in the spells, of which only a few are used during each play. But these are still rather abstract and tie into managing a character’s deck.
I liked some of these elements and know why I enjoyed the game years ago. There’s a fun sort of puzzle! Yet for the effort, I felt like I would choose many other options.
The theme was also fairly lacking, and I know I would always pick Wizard’s Academy for something similar.
Alas, this was to be the last hurrah, although I could still appreciate this design from over a decade ago. Neat ideas!
Losing on the Last Page
Making it to the end is more about surviving, so it isn’t always a bad thing to lose to the middle pages. But I ended up with some horrible curses to close things out.
There was no way I could handle all of the extra tokens on the curses, so I was at least reasonably happy I lost with just a pair left… And I almost cleared the one on the left side!
Overall, this felt like more work than what I got out of the game. It was very methodical, without a lot of fun for me.
No matter, though! At least I can clear a little shelf space and know that I had a good time with this one many years ago.
Revisiting Old Games: When to Play vs. Pass
I’ve been getting better about acquiring new solo games, limiting these pretty substantially, but what about everything already on my shelves? There are some games that have been sitting unplayed for over 5 years. I tried to realistically look at these the other day, and realized I had seen everything I was going to see in some of them. Time to pass them along!
Yet there are others I don’t remember as clearly and want to bring back to my table. This was one of them. I used to love it and rated it very highly, for good reasons! Yet I’ve moved on over the years and probably just didn’t want to face the fact that this one had already seen its good days with me. Playing again can be a bit of a double-edged sword at times.
There are other games I haven’t played in years that turn out to be wonderfully delightful! This is why I don’t automatically move on just because my last play was a long time ago. It’s a bit vague, yet it boils down to a combination of what I feel and know about the experience. Plus, having shelves filled with games I love is the ultimate goal I’m working towards!
Session Overview
Play Number: 11
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game (Cooperative)
Play Details: Medium Difficulty Level in Normal Mode
Outcome: Loss
My pair of magicians didn’t quite have what it took to overcome the final monster. The spells that looked so promising turned out to be a little more bland, and I often had one character supporting the other a little too much. This one feels like an older game that didn’t hold up well for me, but that’s OK! Revisiting unplayed solo games is a good lesson now and then. This one will be off to a new home!
%
10 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
7
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
7
Originality
Design & Theme
4
Quality
Components & Rules
7
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
3
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
7
+ Pros (Positives)
- Managing a deck can be interesting, particularly with some of the spells that allow cards to be reordered or drawn.
- The madness mechanic is a tricky one to keep track of, as running out of the madness cards results in an instant loss.
- Flipping to the next page is a neat and surprising moment, aided by the information about the upcoming curses.
- Spells offer fun possibilities to manipulate cards and decks, and there is enough variety to make each play different.
- Having the book be represented by random pages is a clever mechanic that feels thematic and adds variability.
- Following the sequence through a page is easy and allows planning for curses or the ultimate monster outcome.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Setup feels like it takes a bit too long, which also means that cleanup involves sorting through lots of decks.
- Although the theme is exciting, gameplay boils down to a more abstract experience that may end up feeling bland.
- Monsters and students don’t always feel all that unique beyond different artwork and slightly different abilities.
- Play time can feel like it drags on, especially during the middle pages, and the finale might already have been lost.
Victory Conditions
Defeat the Final Page
- Overall Goal Progress 67%
Goals and Milestones
Win at least 1 game at the easy difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game at the medium difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game at the difficult difficulty level.
Continue the Conversation
Have you played The Big Book of Madness? Was there an exciting play when you defeated the final monster at the last possible second? I liked this one once upon a time, but my tastes have changed over the years. Some older solo games stick around, and others leave behind a few nice memories. Glad I finally brought this one back to my table for its last hurrah!
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