Pocket Landship (2017) - Solo Review

A tiny game for tiny breaks.

Pocket Landship

A literally pocket-sized game that puts you into a British World War One landship aka an early tank.

Specifically, I'm talking about the free version from 2017. While writing this post, I discovered that the designer actually followed up with a proper retail version in 2019. The theme of that version seems to have morphed into a steampunk setting instead of the historical WWI background, and I don't know what changed in terms of game mechanics.

The Background

If you've never heard of the early tank designs of WWI, then do yourself a favor and take a glance at the Wikipedia entry. If that doesn't tickle your fancy, then this game probably isn't for you.

However, if you are interested in learning more, then I highly recommend that you try to approach the topic from the perspective of the larger picture, which was WWI at that point. The Great War is a gigantic topic that you could spend thousands of hours studying, but I'm talking about casual surface knowledge for non-historians here.

The best way to do that (imo) is to listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast series Blueprint for Armageddon. It obviously talks about the entire war, and landships were just a tiny part of that horrific and fascinating conflict. Nonetheless, it still helps you to understand the conditions that led to the creation of these early tank designs.

The game needs to be carried by your imagination because the mechanics are way too simplistic.

My crudely crafted copy

The Mechanics

It's a very simple dice game. You fight up to 6 enemies and try to keep your landship alive by chucking a few six-sided dice, and after 5 to 15 minutes, it's over. Nothing more, nothing less.

Okay, there is a bit more to it, but you get the gist. A tiny game for tiny gaming sessions where you're just too exhausted for anything more complex.

There is a bit of enemy variety, landship options, and the setup can be randomized to offer a bit more replayability. Don't expect to fill entire evenings with this game, that's not what it's designed for.

Example Starting Setup

Conclusion

Not much more to say here. There's nothing hiding beneath the surface. What you see is what you get. An extremely simple game that only lasts a handful of minutes.

Since it's free, I recommend that you give it a shot, but go into it with the right expectations.