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Some of you may have had a lot of socializing over the holidays. Maybe you miss all that hustle and bustle, or maybe you are enjoying the calm and quiet. Either way, I thought this would be a good time to explore games that can be played Solo.
Every several weeks we’ll be featuring games for exploration that share a common trait. There is no set number of games that will be featured, but we’ll try to incorporate a mix of old favorites and new titles where possible.
We invite you to explore games that can be played solo! Then tell us some of the games that have given you awesome solo game experiences.
Exploreable Games
Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island
Portal Games, Z-Man Games | Published: 2013
Caverna: The Cave Farmers
Lookout Games, Mayfair Games | Published: 2013
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
Asmodee, Kosmos, Sleuth Publications | Published: 2012
Escape: The Curse of the Temple
Queen Games | Published: 2012
Castle Panic: The Wizard’s Tower
Fireside Games | Published: 2011
Friday
Rio Grande Games | Published: 2011
Mage Knight Board Game
WizKids | Published: 2011
Le Havre
Lookout Games, Z-Man Games | Published: 2008
There are a lot of games I enjoy solo”
– Dungeon Quest
– Fortune and Glory: the cliffhanger game w/ expansions
– Star Wars X-Wing (using the Heroes of the Aturi Cluster rules)
– Zombicide w/ expansions
– Zombicide: Black Plague w/ expansions
– Pandemic w/ On the Brink
– A Touch of Evil w/ expansions
– Deep Space D6
– Zombies!!!
– Legends of Andor
– Tiny Epic Defenders
– Tiny Epic Quest
– Forbidden Island
– Forbidden Desert
– All Things Zombie (Two Hour Wargames)
Looking forward to playing:
– Mage Knight
– Darkest Night
– Space Empires
For all the solo game fans out there – I am working on a solo-focused game to bring to Kickstarter this March. It’s called Unbroken and in it you play as a lone survivor of a monster attack, trying to recover from wounds and craft weapons from scraps. It’s a resource-management, push-your-luck dungeon adventure that plays in 20-30 min. Print and Play and Tabletop Simulator available – check it out.
Great to see so many awesome solo games being brought up!
How fitting with solo explorables just when Eli Manning “advertized” for solo gaming during the Super Bowl… 😀
@ Stargazer1 –
Thanks for the head’s up about the Dark Tower site; I made a link for it on our Dark Tower page as the “official” site.
@Elida I think the Sherlock Holmes game sounds fun, almost like the puzzle solving and deduction of an escape room game, as you try to unravel the mystery. And I really enjoy the escape room games.
Some of these games have already explored but it does not cost to reexplore them.
I liked the mix of old and new generation of games made in this selection.
All done! Interesting read about the Sherlock game
@NickJones: Agreed, Dark Tower is a good solo game. The Wizard is the only thing lost in the solo game. BTW, you can still play it at http://www.well-of-souls.com.
One of my favorite solo games is Return of the Heroes, which is a light fantasy game. In RotH, like many fantasy games, you build up your hero and then try to defeat the big baddie. The solo game plays in 20 minutes and has a scoring system so you can compare your current play with previous plays. I usually play 3 or 4 games in a sitting. There are also a couple of very good fan-made solo variants too.
Caverna sounds interesting, but $90 is a big investment for what sounds like a relatively simple game with basic-looking components.
As for favorite solo games, Dark Tower can be played alone, and the tower itself made an impressive opponent no matter how many people were playing.
I miss that game.
I’m all over the solo games; I buy more of these than any other type of game.
Favourites are Burgle Bros., Leaving Earth, Robinson Crusoe, Saltlands, Viticulture, Vinhos Deluxe, The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, Nemo’s War, The Gallerist, The Lost Expedition, Mint Works, Lisboa, Expedition: Northwest Passage, This War Of Mine, CO₂
But there are so many others in my collection:
Shakespeare
Planetarium
K2
Little Circuses
Lunarchitects
Mangaka
Untold: Adventures Await
Escape From 100 Million B.C.
Pathogenesis
Paperback
Grimslingers
And I play a lot of these with the fan-based solo variants:
Yokohama
Scythe
Great Western Trail
Will be looking forward to future releases with solos:
Petrichor
Cerebria
Museum
Detective: City Of Angels
CO₂: Second Chance
Everdell
My favorite solo games are Rush Hour and Gravity Maze, both from ThinkFun. I’ve played the original Rush Hour and some of the expansions, as well as the Rush Hour trains version. I just received Gravity Maze as a gift. It’s the same sort of logic problem presented by Rush Hour but the maze running it’s course is fun and I enjoy the satisfying clunk at the end of its course.