With the question for smaller solo games already posted I want to ask if any of you got some large and deep solo games. I’m usually someone who does enjoy longer, bigger and deeper games (not saying small games can’t be deep). But when things get more involved and complex, that’s where I feel at home.
Any recommendations?
Highly recommend Spirit Island. It’s the best solo experience I’ve had. Gloomhaven is okay, especially if you use an app to manage all the fiddly bits. Spirit Island is my go to if I am not able to rope people into a game night.
I played through gloomhaven on PC. It was a ton of fun. But imagining managing all the stuff manually is daunting.
Even though I do usually not enjoy solo play, I can recommend Spirit Island. As different spirits you take on settlers corrupting your Island. Besides every spirit having a completely different play style, it can be as challenging as you like, as you have multiple options to give the settlers different strength levels with unique strategies. It is a coop Multiplayer boardgame which works really well while playing alone.
- Spirit Island. My overall favorite game since my first play of it. Plays great solo as a single or as 2 spirits. Coop games in general are good for solos because you can run them multihanded if necessary
- Dune Imperium has an automa based solo mode that luckily is simple enough to run
- On the hard to find side: Leaving Earth–space race simulation. I haven’t played that many solos of it but it is a grandiose thing to be launching a moon mission and testing Saturn rockets.
- most of the big Uwe Rosenberg games have excellent solo modes. My favorites are Nusfjord and Oranienburger Kanal. But A Feast for Odin with the Norwegians expansion is also very good!
- I recently got Legacy of Yu which is a solo only campaign game that reminds me of Paladins of the West Kingdom but is much easier to run as a solo because it was designed as such.
- Imperium: Classics and Legends are very versatile and once one understands the basics of how to run the opponents they aren’t that difficult to grok.
- As I mentioned on the small games thread I love Ark Nova and Revive as solos.
- Obsession - tile laying, worker placement, card-game mashup that I recently found out I prefer solo on the table as opposed to multiplayer online.
I am not a fan of having to run automas so I prefer games that can be soloed without complex bot actions. Dune Imperium is one automa deck that I can stomach.
This is a great list that pretty much covers my recommendations. I’ll second this entire list and also add in Aeon’s End/Astro Knights, which are mid-weight co-op deck builders that play great solo.
I never heard of legacy of yu. I just read a review and it sounds very nice. Thanks for recommending so many games to check out.
I’m 5 games into Legacy of Yu, and having just an absolute blast with it so far. As a campaign/legacy-ish game, I’m not sure it’ll have the staying power of something like Spirit Island, but I’m going to get way, way, way more than money’s worth out of it.
Two-handed Spirit Island by far. It’s one of my favourite co-op game too, although it’s a toss-up with ArkhamLCG in true co-op.
But I feel Beast and Claw or Jagged Earth is essential for the extra tokens and events, feels too static otherwise after a couple of plays.
I bought a copy of Trudvang Legends in order to solo play. The only reason I haven’t solo played at this point is that I am playing it campaign style with my board game group, and don’t want to accidentally spoiler alert myself until we are done. I love the combat mechanics of the game. I am sure I am being overly cautious but hey, I have to have something to do when I retire…
That game looks badass. I enjoy myself some nice combat mechanics as well as campaign games. I’ll look into it a bit more!
My friend who owns the copy we are playing as a group played it solo, just controlled a few characters on his own. Since it’s coop, it wasn’t like a mental challenge to separate everyone. And the way it plays, where you make decisions and go to different pages in the book (choose you own adventure, or Tales of the Arabian Nights style) he had been to some of the scenarios we went to as a group. That is what I don’t want to spoil for myself playing solo. I would rather do a run through as a group, and then I can go back and explore other options in solo mode. My hope is that they come out with more campaigns for this, or maybe a way to make your own campaign, and then distribute it for others to play.
Pandemic (and its variants) can be quite fun solo. It’s a co-op game, so all you need to do is decide how many characters you want to have, then run them all yourself. Makes for a very interesting, puzzle-y experience.
