![]() 20 was too easy – 10 is a good medium range challenge, and 5 is kicking my butt (but I’m getting closer). The solo design forces you to win the game (get your Conservation & Appeal markers to cross) before time runs out – so you can set your difficulty by where you start your Appeal marker. And, as you can probably guess by my number of solo plays, it’s an excellent solo game. There’s a reason so many people are nuts about this zoo-building game – it’s really that good. If you’re interested, I reviewed Wrath of the Lighthouse for the OG.Īrk Nova (8 plays – approx. The addition of the Wrath of the Lighthouse solo expansion late in 2022 ballooned my number of plays as I attempted to keep my Viking civilization alive. (And the plethora of expansions just means you have lots of options in how to try each solo scenario.) The two player is quite enjoyable… and so is the well-thought out solo mode. This frustration led me to Empires of the North, the cleaner, friendlier, and more coherently put together cousin to 51st State and Imperial Settlers. Add that the solo module for it is not enjoyable and it hasn’t seen much play in the last few years. While I’m a big fan of 51st State: Master Set, the dark apocalyptic tone makes it a little tough to get to the table sometimes. Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North (9 plays – approx. ![]() I laminated my copy of this game – and I carry the two Aquamarine boards (plus the five Voyages boards) in my laptop case along with three d6 and a dry erase pen so I can play pretty much wherever I go. It is – to some extent – a tile-laying game as you track your dive adventure. The second print’n’play roll’n’write (could I possibly use more apostrophes in this sentence?!) from Postmark Games… I find it a little less brain-burning than Voyages (which is also in this list) and great fun to play. I have had the chance to play with the Ferry expansion maps now, and they add a couple of small twists without doing any damage to the very solid base game.Īquamarine (11 plays – approx. It’s become a travel staple for me – easy to play in a small space with lots of press-your-luck angst on many flips of the cards. Less rules overhead than Cartographers, but with the same “make the best of what you get” vibe. playing time: 20 minutes)Ī really lovely little flip-n-write route building game that I found courtesy of a Twitter friend (hi, Daniel!). (The only hassle is how to store the game and the pile of maps in the two small boxes.) I’ll also throw in kind words for the Heroes stand-alone expansion & the six new map packs… they add some variety to the game without overly complicating the system. ![]() I’m glad the game is in my collection… adding a set of colored pencils makes my maps look even better! The Skills mini-expansion adds another level of decision-making that works well. playing time: 30 minutes)Īn incredibly pleasant flip’n’write game that works like a charm as a solo game… and will also work well as a “over Facetime/Zoom” game if you use the solo rules for monster attacks. (Note: this is not necessarily how much I like a particular game for solo play – for example, I think Soldiers in Postmen’s Uniforms is an excellent solo game design but I only played it three times in 2022.) Double DigitsĬartographers: A Roll Player Tale (13 plays – approx. So, what follows are my thoughts on the sixty (60!) different solo games I played in 2022 – ordered by number of times I’ve played them. This is true, BTW, for solo or multi-player play. One of the delights of a physical game is that the whole thing is spread out across the table where you can soak in whatever details you need. I’d also add that board game apps must – for perfectly understandable reasons – hide portions of the game from you. But there’s something really satisfying about physically playing a game: shuffling cards, moving pieces, seeing it all spread out in front of you. I know, I know – there are plenty of board game apps on iOS and Steam… and I own many of them. I’ll repeat my same caveat as each previous report: So, this is the third year I’ve been writing these extensive posts every four months to detail my solo gaming. For comparison, the yearly total for 2022 was 22%, 2021 was 33%, 2020 was 19%, and 2019 was 6%. (A bit of perspective: I had 947 plays of 333 different games in 2022.) Solo gaming is now a decent-sized chunk of my gaming experiences – while I am back out playing games with friends and family, 23% of my gaming for 2023 was solo. Even with him home during the extended time of quarantine (March-August 2020), I continued playing solo games… and that kept going when he returned to campus. I started doing a lot of solo gaming when my oldest son (and chief gamer buddy) left for college in August 2019.
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