So, yesterday I talked about what I look for in a campaign game, you can find that post here. The plan wasn’t for this to become a series, but thinking about it, I think for a lot of new gamers but also people new to hobbies, there is a lot out there. I almost wrote about the speed that board games are coming out and how that’s extremely difficult to keep up with. But instead, I think I want to do a series of what I look for in different games or different hobbies. So we’re going onto what I look for in a solo game.

What Is A Solo Game?

A solo board game is a board game that you can play by yourself. There are a number of these, so what I’m doing with Aeon’s End Legacy, though that game doesn’t have to be played solo, it can be. Other games like Gloomhaven or Sword & Sorcery from the Campaign Game post can also be played solo.

There are a few different types of solo games, I tend to think of them as being in three categories. Firstly, there are the small solo games, these are things like A Gentle Rain or Onirim, games that can easily travel, play quickly, and are kind of filler. The next is the big solo games, a lot of these are going to be board games that can be played with more, but intentionally have a solo mode as well. These can be played with controlling a character but sometimes by controlling multiple characters.

Finally, we have some games that are just solo only and bigger games. These can be campaign style or just a one off game. It is becoming more of a common now as solo gaming is a growing part of the board game hobby. But it’s most often that other games have solo modes added to them than just being a purely solo game.

What Do I Look For In A Solo Game?

So, with campaign games yesterday, they are all pretty much the same. But as you can see from my description of solo games there is more variety in this type of game. Picking out a solo game for that reason is trickier. But let’s take a look at the two main types, the big box solo games and the filler.

Big Box

1. Theme/Story
2. Ease to Table
3. Information To Track

Theme

This one I think an go without saying on a lot of my lists. I like my games to have a theme that makes sense, though you’ll see with filler it matters less. But if the game is in a bigger box, I am going to want it to have a theme that I can enjoy. And a lot of campaign games will have a solo, so in that case a story that I can enjoy. It seems obvious that you’d want to enjoy the theme, but I think no theme for a bigger game often gets it to the table less, and it’s not like I strongly dislike games not having a theme.

Ease To Table

This one is right up there, actually, all three are very important. This one is just how much set-up is there for this game. If I have to get out 200 tokens, set-up two characters or create a deck for the game to play as, that’s way less fun. I want to be able to get it to the table pretty quickly. Something like Aeon’s End Legacy takes a little bit but because they have dividers for everything it makes it way easier to get to the table. Something like Sword & Sorcery where I had close to 2 dozen baggies of tokens, that wasn’t nearly as fast.

Information To Track

This ties into Ease to the table, but how much do I need to track throughout the game. If I need to track two characters, their items, their abilities and their interactions that can be a bit much. Of the automated actions of the game take as long as my turn, that’s probably too much. Unless there is something interesting going on in what the automated actions are, some luck or choice involved it’s a hard sell.

Filler

1. Game Length
2. Ease to Table
3. Space

Game Length

It’s a filler game, I want it to play like a filler. A Gentle Rain and Onirim play in 10 to 15 minutes. I don’t want it to take longer than 20-25 minutes. Why, because this is meant to be a filler game. I talk about, on Malts and Meeples, how solo fillers are a brain palate cleanser. They are going to be something I use to reset my brain, so lighter and faster.

Ease To Table

This one should be obvious for a solo game. I like that with Onirim I can pull out the cards, shuffle and go. A Gentle Rain pull out the tiles and shuffle and go. I don’t want to have much if any set-up for the game. Once you get into having set-up, that might take longer than the game actually takes. Minimal such as pulling out tokens is acceptable but I don’t want more than that. And if there are tokens, there shouldn’t be too many.

Space

Finally, I don’t want it to take up too much room. This again goes to how much stuff there is in the game. A Gentle Rain is pushing it with how much it spreads out, but I can play it on the floor and it works just fine. Onirim is just a deck of cards and a line of cards, which you can always compact the line. So it doesn’t have to be something I can play on an airplane, but I don’t want it to be too big, that’s why roll and writes with a solo work great as well.

Are All Criteria Equally Important

With campaign games, I said that some mattered more than others. Here, I honestly thing that all three are equally as important in each category. With filler, I’d say that space is the least important. I often play A Gentle Rain at my game table while I have a YouTube video on, so space isn’t that big an issue. And you might find that something as small a package as A Gentle Rain works well for you even though it spreads out as you play it. For the bigger games, all are important, though ease of set-up might matter less if you have a spot where you can set-up a game and leave it out.

Let’s Do An Example

We’re actually going to go with Chronicles of Drunagor again because it does have a solo mode to the game. Most cooperative games can really be played solo. This obviously falls into the bigger box category, so let’s get started.

Theme

Well, you can see what I wrote about that in the campaign games last time, so clearly I like the theme. It’s one that is going to be engaging to get to the table and one that I want to come back to the story that it is telling.

Ease To Table

But now we’re going to knock it a lot. This is not going to be a game that is easy to get to the table. Why, because it has a ton of pieces. You need to find tiles, you need to find monsters, you need to get characters out and set-up, get the darkness out, and more. It’s going to take a good amount of time to get it out of the box and to the table every time that you want to play it. If you can leave it set-up it wouldn’t be as bad, because you’d be only changing up the maps, but if you don’t have that space, it’ll be a lot of work.

Information to Track

This one I think actually might be okay. There is some information, such as where you are in a game that you might want to take note of between games. But during the game play itself, I think it’d be okay, much like Aeon’s End Legacy that way. I don’t know if you can play this truly solo with one character, but even with two, since the cubes that you are play match up color wise it’s going to be easier to see. Now it’s a lot of abilities, but picking those abilities will be a lot of fun during play. And combat seems pretty simple, so monster turns shouldn’t be too long.

With two things being positive, or at least neutral you’d think it might be good solo, and I might find that it is for me. But looking at it, the set-up right now is going to hold me back from playing it solo. If I were looking at Chronicles of Drunagor as a solo only game, I might have passed on it for the ease to the table issue.

Will This Work For You?

As compared to the campaign game, I do think that keeping these in the back of your head is probably going to be a good idea. There are a ton of different solo games out there, but unless it’s your focus some games are going to be harder to get to the table.

Filler games, you might be fine with the larger space. Bigger solo games, definitely take note of the ease to the table. And for campaign, take note how many character you need to control. I know that games, even smaller ones like Arkham Horror LCG, because of the deck construction and scenario set-up, it takes longer than Aeon’s End Legacy, a bigger box game to get to the table.

What solo game do you pull off your shelf to play?

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