Mage Knight vs Too Many Bones: Best Solo Game for Hotel Travel
If you’ve got a big hotel desk and a few free evenings, both Mage Knight and Too Many Bones will keep you occupied for hours, but they’re built for different kinds of trips. Mage Knight hands you a sprawling, map-building fantasy campaign that rewards long, uninterrupted stretches at the table. Too Many Bones is tighter and more modular, easier to pack up, unpack, and shuffle between hotel stays. If you’re a road warrior with a decent desk but not much time (or patience) for teardown, Too Many Bones is the more travel-friendly pick. Mage Knight still wins on sheer depth per box, though.
Quick Comparison Overview
| Factor | Mage Knight | Too Many Bones |
|---|---|---|
| Box size | Large, heavy | Large, heavy (worse with expansions) |
| Setup time | 15-25 minutes | 10-15 minutes |
| Table footprint | Very large (map tiles expand) | Large but contained |
| Session length | 90-180+ minutes | 60-120 minutes |
| Rules complexity | High, steep learning curve | Moderate-high |
| Replayability | Extremely high (deck/map variation) | Extremely high (character/tyrant combos) |
| Components fragility | Cardboard, dice | Dice bag, resin figures (some editions) |
Why Desk Size Matters More Than You Think
A hotel desk is never as generous as your dining table back home. You’re working around a lamp, a leftover room service tray, maybe a window ledge if you’re lucky. That constraint changes which game actually fits your trip.
- Mage Knight grows as you play. The hex map spreads out with exploration, and by the late game you might need 3 to 4 square feet just for terrain tiles, on top of your hand of cards, mana dice, and unit cards. Fine on a big desk, but it’ll creep past the edges the moment a laptop or notebook wants space too.
- Too Many Bones stays put. The Gearloc board, tyrant board, and dice pools occupy a footprint that barely changes mid-game. That makes it easy to leave set up overnight, or to slide aside in ten seconds flat if housekeeping knocks.
Setup and Teardown: The Real Travel Test
Every traveler knows the specific misery of packing up a game mid-session because checkout is at 11am. Here’s how each one handles getting interrupted:
- Mage Knight setup means shuffling a deed deck, laying out starting terrain, and sorting several card types (Advanced Actions, Spells, Artifacts, Units). Teardown drags, and it’s easy to misplace a card or two when you’re exhausted at 11pm.
- Too Many Bones leans on its dice-bag storage and pre-sorted trays. A lot of players just pause and pick up again across two or three nights without a full teardown, which fits a multi-night hotel stay almost perfectly.
Solo Experience Quality
Both games were clearly designed with solo play in mind (Mage Knight’s solo scenarios are near-legendary, and Too Many Bones might be the more “solo-first” design of the two).
- Mage Knight solo is a resource-optimization puzzle: juggling mana, fatigue, and card combos across a map that keeps expanding under you. It rewards patience, and honestly, it takes a few sessions before it clicks.
- Too Many Bones feels more like an RPG-lite combat simulator. Your Gearloc build evolves through Training and Adventure modes, and it’s a lot friendlier to short, scattered play sessions.
Portability Considerations
Neither of these is a backpack game, let’s be honest, but for travelers there are still some fixes:
- For Mage Knight, look into a travel insert or just repackage the cards into a smaller box. The stock components eat up way more room than they need to.
- Too Many Bones’ dice bag and modular trays are already halfway travel-optimized, though if you own expansions like Undertow or Splice & Dice, the box turns into a genuine suitcase.
Which Should You Choose?
- Go with Mage Knight if you’ve got several consecutive evenings in the same room and want one continuous, deeply strategic campaign to sink your teeth into.
- Go with Too Many Bones if your trip means shorter, scattered sessions, room changes, or you just want fast setup with a satisfying power-fantasy combat loop.
Conclusion
Both games reward solo players who have room to spread out on a big desk, but Too Many Bones is generally the smarter fit for travelers dealing with unpredictable hotel schedules. Faster setup, a footprint that doesn’t grow, and easy pause points make the difference. Mage Knight is still the richer, more immersive world if you’re staying put long enough to really sink into it. Either way, throw a small dice tray in your bag. Your desk will thank you.