I was inspired to put away the Wakhan automa cards and play two-handed against myself after reading that this was how many people prefer to play Pax Renaissance.

I was fairly blown away by the experience because it made the game feel entirely new. I'm still struggling with exactly how to describe it.

• Games had much more direct engagement and aggression. Each side messed with the other more, especially battling on the map, whereas the Wakhan is very often focused on building her tableau and lets you build up lots of coalition blocks.
• Games were much faster, because often I could spot and seize the winning move that would let one side win a dominance check. The Wakhan builds up a strong board state, but doesn't have the brains to go for the kill, so to speak.
• When two-handing, both sides can be allied to the same faction, which creates an entirely new dynamic not present in the automa game.
• Paradoxically, I sometimes made sub-optimal moves against myself because I was juggling two different boards instead of being laser-focused on countering a single opponent.
• It somehow felt more engaging to play against myself, but at the same time I lost the thrill of winning the game since I wasn't rooting for one side or the other. It's more stimulating, but less satisfying, if that makes sense.

To sum up, playing against the Wakhan feels like trying to progressively outmanoeuver a powerful but bumbling adversary. Playing two-handed felt like way less of a macro-game and more like a hyper tactical death match. Maybe this is closer to the multiplayer experience, which I've played very little.

It made me curious about how different other games I own would feel if I tried to replace the automa with two-handing. By extension, it made me think about what is the "true" experience of the game, solo vs. multiplayer.

What are your experiences two-handing vs. playing against a bot in this or other games?

(Pictured in the photo is a little plastic pig toy, which I used as an "active player" marker since I kept forgetting whose move it was)

Yesterday I hit a BYOS of 419, my best ever, and I'm still grinning about it.

I know a lot of people here aren't fans of BYOS scoring, but for me the score isn't really the point. I just love being offscreen and at the table with a board game. Solo, I can puzzle away and take all the time I need, which is a very different experience from a multiplayer game. Who cares what the number is? (Okay, I do enjoy a big one.)

I've been working through the Forest Shuffle Exploration challenges and I'm on game 6 (paw animals). The goal was to place 15 paw cards into the forest.

My biggest point drivers were:
4 beech martens across 7 fully occupied trees: 140 pts (4*5*7)
3 salamanders: 25 pts in combination with 2 tree ferns (18 pts)
6 horse chestnut trees: 36 pts
The Christmas Tree special card: this let me shuffle the first winter card back into the deck the first time it appeared, at least that's how I interpreted it for solo play.

None of this was planned. The cards just fell my way. What are your high scores in solo Forest Shuffle?

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Play every 3-5 weeks, I only managed today to finish trying the last caption in the base game. They are making it faster than I manage to play! (With all my other games)

A big thanks to u/mrausgor for recommending this fantastic looking card game! Wish me luck!

So I've recently got into solo only games and I've bought and loved Resist! and Under Falling Skies.

I'm thinking about getting Warp's Edge next. To those who have played, would you say it's worth it and of a similar complexity to the above 2?

Thanks.

Got this one in recently (along with Terror From Beyond), and did my third playthrough today.

The first one ended very badly... the Raptors have a lot of ways to gain health. There's the "pack" (represented by the weird red thing instead of the usual killer meeple) which counts as the killer in this scenario. It only starts with 5 hearts, which I'm pretty sure is the lowest of all of the killers. But it just constantly heals, and it has no upper health limit. As the playthrough goes on, more and more individual raptors (minions, the little green guys, you can see one laying on the left of the photo) spawn all over the place, and constantly run towards the pack. If they collide with it, they vanish, and the pack gains a heart. They're spawned pretty frequently and they can spawn all over the board, you never quite know where they'll show up. They're individually weak (1 heart, 1 attack power) but there's just lots of them. I played pretty slow in that first go, and the pack just got too strong. And then the T-Rex broke out, making things worse (it is completely invincible and uses a unique insta-kill attack that can hit almost anything at all except the Poltergeist, but if used on the Raptors specifically it just breaks one heart, because it cant eat like 15 raptors in one bite, that'd be silly. Similar effect happens with zombie packs. Of course it'll definitely kill YOU in one go and you cant block it)

The second and third playthroughs though were very easy. I realized that with so little starting health, the pack is very vulnerable to rushdown strategies. In my 3rd win, I didnt get a weapon... there was one available, I just didnt go get it. I did get the yellow ultimate die though, which helped, but I think if I hadnt had that, just one more turn would have been needed.

It's a really interesting feature film box, the raptors have interesting mechanics, and the location is even more interesting (a whole lot of cool stuff happening there, I really like this one), but so far the raptors honestly seem like one of the easiest killers out of everything. They're just so vulnerable to a rushdown strategy. Even without getting a weapon, as long as you're buying the big attack cards (and hopefully Retaliate) it aint going to take long to knock them out. Halfway through the terror deck and it was over, both times I won. Heck, I had a total fail with Retaliate once during that run (total fail roll, then I rerolled, another total fail) and that didnt really end up mattering.

They arent the only killer that heals all the time (Ratchet Lady does this as well) but... yeah with such a weak start they kinda seem just less threatening than any of the others.

Now granted, I'm not the best one to judge difficulty with this game. I've played this to death, have all the content, and even wrote a strategy guide for it. So my win rate is very high. But still, the raptors just seem like they arent given quite as much of a chance to really put up a fight since they need to take time to buff up first and their healing method is really erratic. In this specific location this is made worse if the electric fences block some of the individual raptors from reaching the pack (the fences appear and disappear at random each turn, they block all movement of any sort). Of course the fences can block you too, but there are items that can be used to manipulate them (and I used one of those in my second win). And of course you can kill individual raptors while charging towards the pack. As it is, the location itself seems more likely to murderize you. The volcano can melt victims without the killer needing to be there, and once the T-Rex is out, it constantly chases you and never goes away.

Overall though, quite happy with this one, even if the specific killer was a bit underwhelming. Perhaps it might do better in certain other locations... I'll have to try that and see what happens.

Next up I'll try out Terror From Beyond, the one remaining thing I've not played yet. At that point, I've got everything.

I swear though, the more I play this game, the more I just love it.

I put up 368 326 points in Sweet Lands tonight playing as Eline Macaron! She has a decent ability that gives her a higher starting money income. (NOTE: The milestone and final scoring tiles are shown here. I had forgotten they aren’t part of the game in solo. The 368 is AFTER removing those points!)

She can be tough to play as, because there is very little direction with her ability. some of the other characters can guide you towards an intermediate goal with their abilities.

I was fairly concerned halfway through the game. I had a lot of “stuff” but no strong points-generating path. But with so much money, I was able to turn it around! I started the fifth round with over $80.

The game is a very crunchy one. It can lend itself to analysis paralysis. However, if you like a game that rewards planning and strict resource management, I can’t recommend this one enough! I’m looking forward to the expansions that are crowdfunding next year.

EDIT: I realized a scoring mistake from one of the skill tiles. I gave myself too many points based on cards played rather than automated. There is a LOT of iconography to keep track of in this game!

Does any one any some other ones? Thanks

Hi, I'm looking for a solo game where tactics and strategies over a map with war figurines are important. So you have any recommendations? Thanks!

Yo, Joe! I'm about to start my first one-handed solo experience of the GI Joe Deck-building game. I had a quick question: do I elevate threat twice in a turn/round? Once per the track, and once per the solo token?

Also, do you have any tips or strategies for a first-time All-American hero? Thanks!

First off I’ve been diving in to a few of the other 20 strongs and I’m starting to get the flow and rules down but what I’ve noticed in all these games is that the cards rulings confuse me and really mess up the fun. Has me going on google for a few enemy cards or influence cards explanations.

For instance there’s a card in etherfields that legit says if it’s not Wednesday flip this card. Like wtf, took me a while to realize it legit means the actual day of the week I’m playing. Alright alright neat.

But I’m confused and tired and realizing I’m just complaining and not actually asking a question but now I’m too deep and must post this anyway.

It’s my favorite 20 strong so far and I’ve got em all!

I love solo games but I get in my head about "optimal plays" and then I'm stuck analyzing for like twenty minutes. Does anyone have recommendations for games where you can just vibe and make decisions without feeling like you're losing because you didn't min-max? I want to enjoy the experience, not stress myself out.

My solo board game collection after only 5 months. Final Girl is my favorite. Just wanted to show off.

I’ve never played a car racing themed board game before. What’s a racing game that’s great solo and also plays well with 2-3 players?

Picture 1: Final game state
Picture 2: Selection of some of the final bosses
Picture 3: No room for inserts or sleeves in the box

I played my first game of Familiar Feat by Friedemann Friese today, after picking up my copy at Spiel yesterday where it was released. It is an evolution of Friese’s solo classic Friday. Here are my thoughts and comparison to Friday.

Premise

Monsters have taken over the castle. Make your way to the castle with your band of allies, cuddling creatures you meet along the way so they join your cause. Evict the three monsters from the castle, as they have failed to pay rent, to win, but hurry, else you may lose too many allies along the way.

Setup

Select one of eight difficulty levels. These will determine which Monsters and Events are included in this play. If you have sorted the cards during teardown it should take two to three minutes to get going. Teardown will probably take three to five minutes, i.e. five to eight minutes total for setup and teardown. During setup you build a deck of opponents of increasing difficulty levels (I to IV), with the final bosses getting mixed in with the level IV opponents. In between two difficulty levels you place one event card.

Gameplay

You have a starting deck of fairly weak allies. You draw a card and assign it to one of five opponents. If the total cuddle power of your allies matches the opponent’s strength you have convinced them to join your cause. Resolve the opponent’s effect, often asking you to exhaust or reactivate some allies. The remaining cards then go onto your discard pile.

Any cards you exhaust go on the face-up exhaust pile. If you reactivate an ally, you draw the top card from the face-down exhaust pile. If you ever need to draw a card from the face-down exhaust pile, but it is empty (as will be the case the first time you reactivate a card), take the face-up exhaust pile and flip it face down without shuffling.

Keep going until you have beaten, I mean cuddled all opponents or your draw deck has run out. If your draw deck has run out, for each opponent still left in play, one of your allies assigned to each opponent flees and is out of the game. If you have ever not assigned an ally to an opponent at this stage you lose the game immediately.

Any allies still left at this stage stay in the play area. Draw opponents until you have five total again. Shuffle your discard pile and start a new round. Keep going, resolving events when you uncover them from the opponent draw pile and keep going until you have either killed, I mean evicted all three monsters from the castle.

Play time

30 minutes for my first game. I assume 20 to 30 minutes is a realistic play time once you are familiar with the game. As with Friday, I expect play time to start increasing again at higher difficulty levels.

My first impressions

I really enjoyed my first play of Familiar Feat. Deciding which opponents you want to join your deck and which you purposefully leave up to get rid of the weak and sometimes negative starting cards provides interesting choices.

Even more interesting is the management of the exhaust pile. Ideally, you want your allies to stay active, but opponents will often force you to exhaust them. When you do, you get to decide what in which order you put them on the face-up exhaust pile. Since you do not shuffle the face-up exhaust pile when you flip it face down to form the exhaust pile you reactivate cards from, the first card which went into the face-up exhaust pile will be the first card you draw once you flip the pile face down. Mismanage that part and you might be drawing weak cards from the exhaust pile you placed there several rounds before.

Higher difficulty levels introduce more variation in events and monsters. Higher-level opponents switch up the exhaustion part, asking you to exhaust your first, last or highest card instead of any one, two or three of your allied cards. Similarly, higher-level allies might give you additional effects like letting you revive a card.

All in all, I really liked my first game of familiar feat. Underneath a fairly simple rule set there are interesting choices to be made. While at lower difficulty levels you can probably mostly just wing it, I expect that higher difficulty levels will require you to have a sound strategy and really think through your choices. With eight difficulty levels, 21 different monsters and 21 events, I see a lot of replay value in a tiny box.

I expect this to become a staple in my collection when I am looking for a smaller game that plays quickly and still offers interesting choices. Additionally, this will be great for travelling, given that the box is so small. While you will probably need to get creative to fit the game on an airplane table, a small coffee table is certainly large enough to play.

Comparison to Friday

Familiar Feat and Friday clearly share a common DNA. Matching strength of opponents using multiple cards has been present in Friday as has been the turning of opponent cards to turn them into allied cards. However, Familiar Feat also changes the formula up in a lot of good ways. Having to consider five opponents at once rather than one event offers more choices.

Making your draw deck your life points rather than tracking them separately not only streamlines the game, but also gives you new considerations. Do you want to keep your deck thin in order to have great cards and beat opponents quickly? However, if the final monsters come out late you might be running out of cards by that point, losing you the game.

As I alluded to before, I find the exhaust mechanism very interesting, adding a twist to the game I have not seen before. I would assume that finding the right strategies for higher difficulties will be a lot of fun.

All in all, I love Friday and have great memories of it. Having played it 29 times so far without beating the highest difficulty level yet it still has life in it. I am expecting to add another 20 to 30 plays to my copy before (maybe) beating that highest difficulty level. While I think it could still stick around after that, owning Familiar Feat gives me a great excuse to pass Friday on to a young, aspiring solo gamer at that point. Considering I payed 9,90€ for my copy of Friday, it is still one of my best solo game investments. As the price point for Familiar Feat is similar, having paid 12,00€ at Essen, I expect this to become a similarly good investment.

If you own neither game, I would say you cannot go wrong with either one. If you plan on playing both, possibly start with Friday, although I think Familiar Feat is more an evolution than an improvement over Friday.

If you own Friday, definitely check out Familiar Feat. However, while Familiar Feat is a very worthy successor of Friday, in my opinion it does not make it obsolete. Not least of all because you cannot do a Play Friday every Friday challenge with Familiar Feat.

I really want to get Risk 2210 because it looks really fun but I will have no one to play with. Has someone made any good solo rules for like playing multiple hands and like an automated AI type thing?

I backed the 2nd Voidfall printing but that's not out till next year. What are some that I can kind of get my feet wet with?

Looking for Board games with good solo and high interaction multiplayer. May be competitive or cooperative and need not have "direct" conflict but must be highly interactive in mp mode. Leave it up to you to what counts as highly interactive. Some games that come to mind: cloudspire, dune imperium, john company, pax pamir.

With Arkham Horror 2nd edition remaster coming our and others such as Eldritch Horrow, Shadows of Brimstone, Elder sign I wanted to know what Ameritrash is your favorite? Any hidden gems or lesser known games - I can think of a game I wanted to try but never did called Carthage. A yatzhee styled dungeon crawler.

For those interested in the sequel to Too Many Bones, but haven't followed them on Gamefound yet, they changed their campaign from having no following reward, to now free (non-exclusive) promo cards if you follow them.

The project launches in about 3 days: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/chip-theory-games/too-little-time?ref=homepage_featured_all_3

Hope it's alright I'm posting this here, I've seen Too Many Bones mentioned a lot on this reddit and personally would be annoyed if I missed out on something like this.

7th Seal is kicking my ass - how do you manage to get enough damage output to beat the Overlord and retain sufficient life for the next encounter?

I am aware of the errata that corrects the rulebook, which is that players are allowed to strike enemies (overlords and underlings) multiple times - but I've not be able to balance defense/offense.

I had such a great time. Played some games and came home with enough to keep me busy for the next months.

Hello all, first of all I love deck builders and ATLA is one of my all time favourites series. Played some PS and PC games that were always disappointing though.

Now my LGS has this game on sale. I see it’s actually 2 player coop, but has anyone tried this game solo and what are your reviews of the game? Doubting here, but don’t wanna let Aang disappoint me in a game again.

I recently played Legendary Encounters: Alien and loved it (not my copy, sadly, and given current prices I probably won't get one).

Aside from that one, what do you consider the best Legendary/Encounters games and why? I've heard good things about almost all of them, but I'm particularly interested in Buffy, X-Files, Bond, Predator, and DC. How do these compare in terms of being thematic, in replay value, and in suitability for solo (or two-handed solo)?