I’m calling it: 2025 is the start of my solo career (sorry Matt, we can still play games together too!). I played a lot of Solitaire in my youth, so I jumped at the chance to check out the dungeon-delving solitaire game Cavern Shuffle: Maze of the Minotaur.

Gameplay:

👥 1 player
⌛ 15 minutes
🧠 10 years+

Cavern Shuffle is based on the classic card game for 1 player, Solitaire (or Patience if you’re a traditionalist), but with a dungeon party twist! Level up your party of brave adventurers and collect useful items to defeat monsters and conquer obstacles. Get strong enough and you take out the mighty Minotaur and win the game!

In set-up, cards are dealt into the Solitaire layout to form the dungeon (see the photo below), with the Minotaur boss monster lurking in the first column and the starting item Short Rest placed to the side. The 4 adventurers take the place of card suits, and you move them round the dungeon by stacking them on top of one another in sequential descending order (so a 5 can be placed on a 6, a 9 can be placed on 10, and so on. Any cards already part of a sequence move together (so if there’s a 5-4-3 sequence together, you move them all to a 6). Instead of red and black suits, you have to alternate the lawful Barbarian or Cleric cards with Chaotic Rangers or Rogues – you can’t place cards of the same type on top of one another.

To level up your party, you need to move the topmost adventurer cards from the dungeon into the 4 party piles (one for each suit), but you have to do this in ascending order, so starting with card 1, then 2, then 3…if that wasn’t tricky enough, every time you level-up a member of your party, the Minotaur moves along to the next column in the dungeon, blocking you from using those cards until it moves again.

If you’re lucky enough to come across any items, you can instantly remove them from the dungeon and put them with your Short Rest until you want to use them – but use them wisely you must, because you can only use them once. There’s also encounter cards: Obstacle cards specific to each adventurer, that increase in difficulty with each one you overcome and remove from play, and Enemy cards of varying levels, often with an irksome ability. If your party’s total level is the same or higher than the Enemy level, you can vanquish it from the dungeon.

Like with normal Solitaire, whenever you uncover a facedown card in the dungeon by moving/removing the card on top of it, you flip it over and reveal it. And if you get stuck, you can use the Explore deck (the remaining cards that weren’t dealt out during set-up). Flip over 3 cards from the Explore deck at a time. If you can’t use the topmost card in the pile, keep flipping. But if you can use it, you get to reveal the card underneath. If you get to the end of the deck, you can reset it (without shuffling) and go through it again – this will potentially reveal different active cards if you took cards out previously.

When your party total level matches the Minotaur – you win! If you get stuck and can’t do anything before you get to that point (i.e. can’t move/remove any more cards), you lose and your adventurer’s are at the mercy of the dungeon monsters.

Our thoughts:

This game took me right back to my childhood, sitting on my grandparents sofa with the rain pattering outside and dealing out another game of Solitaire on the weathered table. It feels familiar, nostalgic, almost comforting. And playing Cavern Shuffle gave me that same sense of relaxing calm that I’ve always got from Solitaire. But the twists Cavern shuffle adds to the usual Solitaire gameplay makes it feel new and interesting, and made me love it even more. The artwork is perfect, fun but not too over the top. And the linen finish feels lush. Cavern Shuffle might just be my perfect solo game!

Trying to plan around the Minotaur movements when you level up is a fun challenge. Sometimes you need to plan moving cards before the Minotaur blocks them, sometimes you’re trying to move the Minotaur to get to a card you need, and sometimes you forget the Minotaur is going to move and accidentally block the card(s) you need!

The twists Cavern shuffle adds to the usual Solitaire gameplay makes it feel new and interesting, and made me love it even more.

With normal Solitaire, losing is the norm and the same can be said for Cavern Shuffle. A lot depends on the luck of the cards as they come out and the mostly uninformed moves you make. Sometimes you might have to decide between two cards from the same coloured suits (e.g. moving either the 2 Barbarian and 2 Cleric onto a 3 Rogue); you have no idea what cards are underneath either option, so it’s a gamble. But using items in Cavern Shuffle, like Short Rest to shuffle the Explore deck, adds a bit of mitigation that lets you keep playing for longer and more likely to get that win. I also enjoy optimising when to take cards from the Explore deck – sometimes I’ll hold out and see what’s showing up in the rest of the deck before committing.

We don’t have any niggles with Cavern Shuffle, but there are some elements others might want to consider. Firstly, this is obviously heavily luck-based. Secondly, while we personally loved the colour scheme, the grey and beige suit colours might be difficult for some people to easily distinguish between. Each adventurer has their own suit symbol, so you can learn to link that to which type of suit they are, but it’s an extra mental step. Thirdly, the only way to get it in the UK currently is directly from Gravy Boat Games in the US and although the cost of the game itself is very reasonable the postage is quite expensive (£10) and pretty much doubles the cost.

Finally, some random thoughts from me. To beat the Minotaur, your party needs to be level 30 and as each adventurer can go up to level 10, you don’t have to max out your party to win. This can feel a bit anticlimactic at first if you’re used to Solitaire, when you have to complete each suit stack to win (side note: remember the bouncy animation when you won a game of Solitaire on PC?). And conceptually, I found it a bit odd to start the adventure with nobody in the party (because it’s empty until you find the level 1 cards). This isn’t really an issue or anything, but something that didn’t quite make sense to me thematically.

What we like:

• It adds more fun and replayability to a classic card game I love.
• The Item cards give some mitigation so you don’t lose as quickly or as often as normal solitaire – but still be prepared to lose most of the time!
• The Minotaur moving and blocking cards when you level up is a fun challenge to deal with.
• Easy to learn, quick to play, and moreish – I never had ‘just one game’!
• Gameplay feels relaxing and almost zen-like.

Considerations:

• Relies heavily on luck.
• The beige and grey suit colours might not be the most accessible for everyone.
• Only available direct from the US and Canada at the moment, so the shipping to the UK is a tad expensive.

Final verdict:

I. Love. This. Game! Cavern Shuffle takes Solitaire to the next level. Yes, there’s a lot of luck, but it’s so fun and addictive. I often still have the urge to play it, even after sending the review copy off weeks ago (I WILL be getting my own copy soon). It’s the perfect game for me to get a quick card fix or take on my solo work trips – especially because it’s simple, so I can still play even when my brain is burnt out from work. I always found Solitaire a meditative, mindful activity, and I get the same feeling with Cavern Shuffle (even though I’m fending off monsters!). I can’t wait to get my own copy to play again, and again, and again….

I really recommend seeking out Cavern Shuffle: Maze of the Minotaur and trying it out for yourself. We’re hoping the series continues with more variations in the future!

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This game was kindly loaned by Gravy Boat Games via the UK Board Game Review Circle. All opinions are ours and our reviews are always honest.