Top 10 Solo Only Board Games

Almost all of these games are ones that I’ve featured on the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. I will put out videos for all of them that I have one so you can find them all here.

10. Snowfall Over Mountains

This one is a nice and peaceful board game. Snowfall Over Mountains is a card laying game, and you will see a lot of these. You create a layout of cards that score for different types of terrain. You score rabbit tracks one way, ponds another, trees another, and so on, and this scoring can change. But you want to get as high as score as you can and that’s it for the game. It is fast, it is easy to shuffle up and play again.

9. Cursed

This one is all about trying to defeat a curse before time runs out. You need to defeat a certain number of monsters before the deck of cards runs out, or the witch gets your soul. The game play is all about pushing your luck and deciding how many cards to use to try and defeat the monsters. I like how all the cards have a few things on them. They might have special rules or treasure, but they can all be used for attacking and they are all monsters.

8. Numbsters

Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine. Yes, that is the basis for this game, and it it works. You want cards to eat each other and you want to end up with as few cards as possible. So you create a line of cards (or you can play it in your hand) and you need to use the rule at the front to eat cards, or just to eat cards that are one higher. It’s a little game, part of the Button Shy Line of games, and it works better than a lot of them for me.

7. Relics of Rajavihara

Maybe you remember the video game Chips Challenge. If you are like me, you loved that game growing up and trying to figure out every puzzle you could. Relics of Rajavihara gives you some of that same feel in a board game. You need to manipulate blocks in ways that let you get to the relic on each level. If you get stuck, you just reset the board and try again. It is one that I owned, played, sold, and now I got it back because I just want to go through them again.

6. Bargain Basement Bathysphere

This is a crazy game when it comes to board games names. But Bargain Basement Bathysphere is a fun campaign roll and write game. It is meant to be solo and it’s campaign only in the loosest terms, less of a campaign than Welcome to the Moon for example. But it’s fun to play and it’s fun to figure out how to manipulate the dice and get down to the bottom of the sea and get back out before your oxygen runs out. There is just a little bit of tension in the game, and that works well.

5. Grove/Orchard

Yes, this is two games at once on the list. But Grove and Orchard are very similar in what they do as board games. I could also add a game like Sprawlopolis to this, but I like what Grove and Orchard do better. In this game you are trying to grown the most fruit that you can. You gain fruit by overlapping cards so that matching fruit symbols cover each other. And that’s the majority of the game right there. Grove adds in some extra scoring challenges which are fun to play with as well.

4. Under Falling Skies

Have you ever wanted to play space invaders with Independence Day? For me, that is what the game Under Falling Skies feels like. At it’s core, it is a dice placement game where you want to get big numbers so you can fight the aliens, drive them back, and research how to stop them. But the higher number you use the faster the smaller alien ships descend. And if too many of them make it into the Earth’s atmosphere, well, that’s game over, man.

3. Final Girl

Final Girl is the one game on the list that I haven’t played yet on Malts and Meeples Youtube. I need to refresh myself on how to play it and then get it to the table. Though that might wait until the fall because Final Girl is all about horror. Every game you play takes you into the setting of your choice and you are the final girl. You need to survive and beat the killer or other things as you play.

And there are really a ton of different options as to what you can do. I love the mix and match nature of the horror setting your are in with the variety of final girls who you can play as. And it is all time management and resource management to try and win the game. Of course, the longer it goes, the scarier it gets. Can you find what you need, rescue others, and defeat the scenario?

2. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom

This is the one with the most recent playthrough on Malts and Meeples. And I blame Meet Me At The Table for getting me into this game. This is a legacy game, which is a bit odd to put on the list. But it’s a game all about managing a deck of cards to build up your kingdom and get as many points as you can. I love how streamlined it is and how almost all cards throughout the game can be upgraded as well as be resources that you use to upgrade other cards. So the decision how to use a card is always a challenge.

1. For Northwood

Finally, we have For Northwood a solo only trick taking game. And you might think, like I did, I like trick taking but how is it going to work solo? Well, it is my number one, so I think that it works well solo. In the game you need to win at each grove. When you win at a grove you get access to a leader who can help you in future rounds and you get points. But it is hard because each grove needs an exact number of tricks one.

I love how the game gives you powers and abilities that you can use. Though, you are only allowed to use them once per hand of cards. So if you need to spend it early, well that might be rough if things start to go sideways. But it just works and the challenges work well as well for once you have conquered the base game.

Final Thoughts

Now I know I have a lot more solo only games that I’ve played. There are a ton of Button Shy Games like that and only one of them made the list. Why is that? I think it is because a lot of them feel similar and they are all very small games. That isn’t a bad thing because for the most part I enjoy them a lot. And I know that I have a lot more to play from littler games like Friday and Palm Island to bigger solo only games like Mr President, Hallas of Hegra, and Hoplomachus: Victorum.

Is there one of the solo only games that you want to see me highlight on the channel? Let me know that down in the comment section or over on the Nerdologists Facebook page or on the YouTube channel.

Five Solo Board Games to Play on Malts and Meeples

But what are my Top 5 solo only games that I want to get played? Well, let’s do one last final list really quickly and in no particular order.

1. 20 Strong – This looks like a fun game and it’s from Chip Theory Games, but it’s small. And you decide what setting you want to play, so it can be their new one for the game or it can be one of their existing ones.
2. Mr President – This one would be a huge undertaking and that is why I haven’t played it yet. Have you ever wanted to be the President of the United States? I honestly can say that I don’t think I have, but in this board game, you can play as them and make decisions but you need to balance everything.
3. Forage – This is going to be the easiest to get to the table. It’s in the same line as Grove and Orchard, so I should just stream this one.
4. The Ratcatcher – This is the Pied Pipers story, in some ways, in a board game. It is one where you want to catch all the rats before they get too much cheese. I’ve heard the rulebook is tough but I still want to give it a got because of the theme.
5. Hoplomachus: Victorum – The second Chip Theory Games game on the list. This one is not small and it’s a campaign. But it is a short campaign. Can I build up my troops and combat prowess to get through the whole thing?

Which one of these should I play?

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Top 10 Games of 2024

10. Dungeon Kart

Do you want to play Mario Kart? Do you want to play a board game? Why not do both and play Dungeon Kart from Brotherwise Games. This is a racing game where you play as the characters from Boss Monster, those bosses who are trying to build up their dungeon, well, they want to blow off some steam. So hit the track and use their abilities and their cars to the best of your abilities to get around the track first. If you fall behind, don’t worry. You get spells and blast away at your opponents to slow them down so you can get back into the race.

I like this one because it is a fast game and a theme that people like. I like Mario Kart a lot, and I know that a lot of people do. So Dungeon Kart is an easy one to recommend. Add in that the game is simple to play, and it is even easier to recommend. There are a few things that you need to know, but overall, not a complex or difficult game to learn. And the fact that the characters and cars are different, that’s fun as well.

9. Snowfall Over Mountains

Snowfall Over Mountains is one of a few smaller games on the list, but the only one that is only solo. I enjoy this game for the solo experience because it’s one of those calming and relaxing solo games. You are drawing cards and trying to build a snowscape around you that is going to score the most points.

You score points for different things like rabbit tracks or trees. And there are a few different scoring cards for each of the elements. That is good because it means you can mix and match and get a lot of different combinations for a lot of good variety in what you are doing.

The footprint isn’t as small as some solo games, but it’s not huge. And the box that the game comes in is a nice and small box so if you are traveling and want a solo game to take along this is a solid one.

8. Star Wars: Unlimited

Next up, this game could have been higher, I think. I really like Star Wars Unlimited and I really enjoy the TCG aspect of it. As I say in the video, without the theme I’m not sure I’d be as excited for it. But being able to build a deck with clones, droids, Mandelorians, rebels, whatever factions they have thus far, that’s a lot of fun. And there are a number of aspects that also help the game.

I want to focus on one aspect here. I really like that you always have a leader in this game. The leader is going to give you an ability that you can use, even when they aren’t in play, and that ability is going to give you a focus for your deck. There isn’t just throwing your favorite cards into a deck, you need to think about synergies as well between your characters.

Okay, one more aspect that I really like, and I promise that is it. I appreciate that the game doesn’t let you run out of energy. There is no card draw and hope you get credits or whatever so you can play out cards. Instead, it uses this great system, you draw two cards and, if you want, put one into play as a resource. I love that decision space as I need to decide, do I want this card or do I want the resource, and that is often times a very tough call.

7. The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Now for another theme that I really like, we have The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth. This game reimplements 7 Wonders Duel, but it’s not just a straight reimplementation. And for me that is a good thing. I like 7 Wonders Duel a lot. But I think that I like Lord of the Rings Duel (as I’ll be calling it) more. And of course, the theme is a great reason for that.

I also like that the game doesn’t end with scoring. Yes, I’m not 100% sold on how it does end, but there are a number of ways for it. There is only one way that I have an issue with or wish there was a bit more. The first way is that the ringbearer makes it to Mount Doom and chucks in the ring, or the Nazgul catches the ringbearer. Or if you rally the support of the different races of Middle-Earth that’s another way too. Finally, if you take control or have a piece of control in every area. If none of those happen it’s whomever controls the most areas, and that’s okay.

But if you like Lord of the Rings, this is a great two player head to head game that I really recommend. If you don’t like Lord of the Rings, it’s still good. Especially if you want something with a bit of theme in it compared to 7 Wonders Duel.

6. Castle Combo

Now for a game without much theme but that’s still a lot of fun. Obviously Castle Combo is a lot of fun, it’s in my Top 10 Games of 2024 and at #6. But this is a game about building out the best scoring grid that you can. The game is simple, you play it in nine rounds, and at the end, you have a 3 by 3 grid of 9 cards.

But there are elements to the game that offer a great challenge or some good fun. I like how the cards are all divided into three things. The first element is the cost, you need to be able to pay that coin cost to get it. The next is an instant effect. It might be that all cards of a certain type cost 1 less now. Or it might just get you coins or keys. Finally there is the scoring, and that is going to happen after all your grid is full. So you need to figure out how to optimize that scoring while still getting coins and keys to get more cards.

And I really like the key mechanism in the game. The keys either let you wipe the row of cards you are on. Or you can use the key to move you to the other row so you can buy from there. But, it won’t less you do both in one turn. I really like that challenge element of the game because I could wipe, but will I get something good. Or I could move, but maybe wiping will give me something better.

5. Let’s Go! To Japan

Next up is one that didn’t make my Top 100 Games because I hadn’t played it yet. But I really love Let’s Go! To Japan. This is a game about planning out your itinerary for going to Japan. And you need to plan out three things to do each day in Tokyo, Kyoto, or both.

Each day has a particular theme that it wants you to go for as well. It might be that you want to get food one day and go to a nature sight another day. That order changes for every game, but the different symbols remain the same. The fun thing is that you need those symbols to score your cards each day, well to score the one that you can see the end game scoring on anyways. So if you need food and it’s before the food day, you probably need to get some food in a less than optimal way.

It is also a good drafting game. I like how I get two cards, one Tokyo and one Kyoto. I pick one to add to my itinerary and give you the other, or person to my left or right. But not to use right away, to collect into a hand of cards that then you’ll pick from later in the game. So I can set you up with stuff you don’t want. Or I can just focus on what is best for me. But it’s a nice twist on drafting.

4. Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game

Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game was one of my most anticipated games for 2024, and clearly it didn’t disappoint. I really enjoy this game and of course, I love the theme and I love deckbuilding. But those two elements aren’t enough for me automatically love the game. I think the solo/cooperative play helps it as well, though I really do enjoy it as a competitive game too.

There are two elements I want to talk about that I really like. The first is the burning of the metals. I love how they make that a thematic part of the game. Pewter is going to give you more attack and healing. Things that help you sooth emotions or rile them up could heal or get people to be generous and give you more money. But they are thematic and I like that you are limited in how many you can burn, so there is a good amount of strategy in your deckbuilding.

I also like that the game has a leveling track. Each player levels up once per turn. That gives you new abilities that make you more unique and powerful in the game. And it starts to let you burn more metals. I think that combination just works well so that what could be a longer game, can’t be as long because you start to ramp and get stronger. And soon you might be buying and using cards with Atium and doing a lot of damage or leveling to win the game.

3. Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

I never thought that I’d put Hearts on my top games list, but here it is, Hearts, albeit with shenanigans is my #3 game for 2024. I really like this one because it’s a familiar trick taking game. Instead of avoiding hearts and the queen of spades, you avoid the princes proposals and the frog prince and his proposal. That element is very much the same.

But it’s very different in a lot of other ways. You each have a princess and they have a power. You can use that power once per hand of cards. And then you, instead of passing left, right and then across, you pass however a flipped card tells you to. And that flipped card also has other things on it, like some special rules for that hand. It might be that the person furthest from the card that led the trick, numerically, is going to be the winner of that trick. It causes chaos but is so much fun.

2. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

The last two are ones that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples. First off we have Slay the Spire. I love the video game and the board game works just as well. In fact, it offers something that the video game can’t, you can play Slay the Spire: The Board Game multiplayer, and it’s amazing. In fact, I think I prefer it multiplayer, or maybe multihanded better than purely solo.

The game does a few things to make it work. While the core of climbing the tower, and adding cards to your deck, is the game, there are elements that are different. Firstly, it scales down the health and attack levels. I love this because it makes the math easier. Next you roll a die to determine the enemies attack and what relics that you have activate. This makes it simple as compared to keeping track that something goes off every seventh round or anything like that.

And I want to talk about multiplayer. Each player gets their own row of enemies that will damage them. But you are able to support your allies by attacking the enemies. So maybe mind are just playing defense for a round, that means that I can help wipe out your row of enemies and then you don’t have to worry about anything so you can go all out attacking. It’s a great addition to a great game.

1. The 7th Citadel

Finally, at #1, we have The 7th Citadel. I really love this game and it’s what I had wanted from The 7th Continent, though I do appreciate that open and very sandbox system in The 7th Continent. The 7th Citadel gives you that same sandbox to play in but gives you more specific and focused missions. I know that I need to find something southeast. I’m not sure where for sure, but I just know that I need to go southeast, and I really enjoy how that works.

But the game keeps some of the core elements to it that are great. I like that you still are spending cards from a deck. And while that deck isn’t your life and won’t just instantly kill you if the wrong thing is drawn, bit kind of is your life. You put cards back into the deck by spending hit points. So if I want to get 10 cards by in, that’s five of my life. And while the game isn’t always punishing you with combat and taking life that way, there are a ton of challenges that you need to deal with.

Final Thoughts

Like I said at the beginning, I’m annoyed I missed Rock Hard 1977. I really like that game, so it’s an honorable mention and probably would be in about the middle. And I look at my shelf and I see more 2024 games that I want to play. Bomb Busters is a big one as is Stamp Swap that I want to try.

It is always a good year for games. If you don’t find one that you love, it means that you either got caught up in the hype for some game or weren’t looking that hard. And I love that I can find amazing games all the time to try. I definitely want to spend more time playing 2024 games, and maybe late in 2025, I’ll look back again at 2024 and see what my Top 10 looks like then.

Let me know your favorite game from 2024?

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And for other ideas check out the previous lists.

Two Player Games
Campaign Games

Solo Games

Final Girl

Final Girl is not one of the solo games that has a great theme for the holidays, unless that holiday is Halloween. But for a person who loves board games and horror movies this is a great game. Because this game is all about being the final girl who survives or at least makes it to the end of the horror film. Can you survive to the end?

But there is more beyond that. This game has some really fun mechanisms to it. It’s all about spending energy to play out cards. Of course you spend too much you won’t be able to buy more cards and you’ll end up with a weak turn. It’s this really fun balancing act of actions you try and do, and then you hope that you roll successes.

The game also has so much variability in it. You don’t need to get it all, but you buy a base box, that is the core game for the whole thing. And you buy what they call feature film boxes. Basically boxes that have different final girls and horror bad guy tropes. So you can pick your favorite tropes or buy a bunch for a lot of fun variety.

Grove

Grove is a small game even when it comes for solo games. This one is about building up your best and most productive fruit grove. It does it by having you overlap cards. A lot of games do this and Grove, in my opinion does this best. Orchard is the simpler version, and Sprawlopolis does something similar, but it isn’t as small

Like I said, in this game you are trying to overlap cards so you get the right types of fruits covering the other up. In fact, you can’t mix fruits as you overlap. It’s a good and thinky puzzle that way as you play. And the game is done with only nine cards. So even for a solo game it goes fast. The game does come with 18 cards, though, so you can easily play twice quickly before you even need to shuffle up again.

For Northwood

From the same company as Grove and in the same size box we have For Northwood. As far as solo games go, this one is very unique. Mainly because it’s trick taking. How do you do trick taking as a solo game?

The trick taking is pretty simple. You play against a deck of cards, you know what cards aren’t in that deck because they are in your hand. And you need to win tricks like normal. You play the same suit, you win the trick if you have the higher number. A lot of the fun, though comes from the fact that you don’t want to win tricks sometimes. You activate a different location each time and that tells you how many tricks you need to win.

That sounds very lucky. But it’s less lucky because as you play you start with powers that you can use, and as you win at locations you activate and get the opportunity to bring in new powers to use. Some help you get that target of winning seven tricks I believe it is. Other powers let you dump cards and lose tricks when you can’t win any.

The Isofarian Guard

Now we’re into the big solo games. Though just for this one game. This also could cross over onto the campaign games list. But The Isofarian Guard is a big campaign game with a big footprint, voice acted (or might be just narrated) story, and it’s a fun time.

I have a play of the game, at least the start of it, you can checkout on Malts and Meeples. But the main mechanisms are around you exploring the map, going to locations and sometimes you get story, other times you fight monsters, and then you build up your home base as well. The combat can become a bit repetitive with you stumble across it too often. They might have changed that up in the 2nd edition or 1.5 edition they crowdfunded.

The story is the element that really drives the game. This is not going be one of the easier solo games to find. I suspect they might have a few around as they are fulfilling their latest crowdfunding campaign, but this is a good big solo campaign game that you can play. It also does work two players as well, but was built for solo because you can’t explore separately.

Snowfall Over Mountains

Snowfall Over Mountains is probably the best thematically for the holidays. This is about building out the landscape of the surrounding areas to a little log cabin. And that’s really how it works, you take a card and figure out where you want to place it around the cabin or with what you’ve already built out.

But I like how relaxing this game is as a solo game. It’s one where you don’t feel the pressure to do well because you are just seeing how many points you get. And you get points by completing objectives to the best of your ability. Each objective scores for a different thing, and there are multiple of each scoring so you can vary up how the game plays every time.

This one is really for that nice peaceful, maybe not your family or friends sending you away, but when you want to get away and do something that still stimulates your brain sort of games. And I enjoy that for a solo game because it gives a nice relaxing experience. And it’s another one that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy solo games. Though, I find that I like them best when I’m streaming them. Mainly because I like to have someone to talk to, so a camera does the trick for that. Let me know what some of your favorite solo games are.

And which of these solo games would you want to get or give?

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How To Play Snowfall over Mountains

Snowfall over Mountains is a path building or connection building solo game where you place out tiles around your cabin to create scoring opportunities. You score five different elements during the game. You score rabbit trails, bear tracks, bushes, trees, and ponds. Each of them have different ways that they can score. You also lose points if you build out trails that don’t connect back to your cabin.

On your turn you look at the two tiles that you have and you place one of them. It needs to connect to the tiles that are already placed. But it only needs to overlap in one spot, not the whole tile. So no diagonal connections allowed. You do that until all of the tiles are placed. Then you look at see how many points you scored based off of the cards that were out for scoring. As the scoring cards are one for each group, but are randomly selected for each game.

You also play with tools. Tools allow you to break the rules, basically. Generally it is going to be things like you can move a tile after you play it. Or it might be something like draw three tiles and play all of them before you go back to your hand of tiles. It isn’t going to be anything major, but it will allow you to potentially get yourself out of a spot if you are having trouble finding the best play for scoring.

What Doesn’t Work?

I find no major complaints with this. I think there are two elements though that might trip up people at times. Firstly, this is a familiar feeling game. Games like Sprawlopolis and Orchard give me similar feels to it. By that I mean, it gives you the ability to play out cards or tiles to complete different scoring objectives. This one doesn’t allow you to overlap, but there is certainly an element that puts it into a similar family.

The other being that it’s tricky to keep track of all the scoring and pay attention to it all at once. Generally I let one of them go to the wayside. I don’t know that it is the best move to do that. I think that I probably messed up with that and getting a higher score because I didn’t score all of them well and didn’t use my tools well. But as you learn the game, it is going to be part of what you need to think about.

What Works Well?

I like the variety in scoring a lot. I sit down and I randomly select five different scoring objectives. Yes, they can be tricky to remember all at once, but generally none of the scoring is that complex. So I think it is more of a matter of holding it all in your head and getting practice with that. I also think it is going to provide good replayability for the game because without the mini expansion there are three per scoring objective which gives you a considerable number of combinations.

The game is also very fast. I play the game twice in forty minutes on the video. And even that isn’t a true forty minutes. The first time it takes a little bit longer as I need to remember the scoring. And there is the introduction, outro, and a brief pause as I need to check on my kid. So the game is very fast, under twenty minutes per time which is faster than it says on the box. I think it may take longer depending on how much you analyze each placement. So there is that, but the game overall is quick.

The game also doesn’t take up that much room. Now compared to Sprawlopolis and Orchard, probably about the same amount as Sprawlopolis and more than Orchard, so it isn’t the smallest footprint. But it is not large though like something like A Gentle Rain which can grow quite big. So I like how it contains itself for a solo game. It means that it is the type of game I could carry in a backpack and reasonably play at a bar or on my work desk.

Final Thoughts on Snowfall over Mountains

Snowfall over Mountains is a fun solo game. It’s light, easy to play, but offers great variety in what it does. When I put it in the same category of Orchard, a game that I like a lot, and Sprawlopolis, a game that I find good, that is very good company. A number of solo games do this, so it feels like it’s in a genre with limited space. But what it does and the variety it offers, it does it well.

And Pencil First Games always makes games with good production value. And Snowfall over Mountains is no exception to that. The artwork and the tiles are great. You don’t even need to punch out the tiles, which I appreciate. That could have made this box a lot bigger. Instead, they keep it in a small box that fits the tiles and cards easily. And it even fits the expansion in well without any additional box lift.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the game is really streamlined and easy to get to the table. Get your five scoring cards, draw your three and keep two tool cards. And then you basically start playing. The time from opening up the box to playing the game is under three minutes. I like that a lot for a small box solo only game. It means it is way easier to play than some other solo gaming experiences.

My Grade: B+
Casual Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B

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