So you want to play games by yourself, huh?
Don’t listen to ol’ windbag Wonka. Tens of millions of people sit in rooms by themselves and games without interacting with a single solitary human being. If it’s acceptable to do that with a keyboard and a glowing rectangle, why should it be any different with cards and a table? And so what if it is - let your freak flag fly.
But if you’re gonna spend your valuable time on this earth playing solitaire games, you don’t want to be playing shitty solitaire games, right? Don’t worry, we’re* here to help!
You may have some questions. Like… “You guys* have done board game analysis before, right?”
“Ok, but… you have a plan, right?”
“… that doesn’t even make sense!”
But relax. We* do have a lot of experience in design, if not specifically game design, and we* have some ideas for what makes a solo experience work. Those are likely to grow and change over time (read: we* gonna get shit wrong), but that’s ok. Ebert changed how he reviewed movies over time, too.
In general, games that offer interesting decisions that are not easily puzzled out, incentivize interesting behavior, offer interesting mechanisms to play with, are substantially replayability, have multiple paths to victory, and enough strategy to reward mastery but enough luck / hidden information to keep from being truly solvable are going to be the games that we* recommend most highly. But we’re* not as interested in figuring out whether these games are “good” or “bad” as figuring out which audience is right for them and how well that audience might enjoy it considering the other options available.
Win/loss conditions can also have an impact on which people will enjoy again. Generally, this puts games in one of three categories:
- Puzzlers. These have a defined end-state that you’re working towards with a binary win/loss condition. Think traditional Klondike solitaire.
- Pinballers. The principal aim with these competing against yourself to get a high score. Sure, there might be a theoretical maximum attainable score, but usually that’s not something you get to know. Think… uh, pinball.
- Puzzleballers. (Sweet portmanteau, right?) As you might have figured out, these games have an element of both. They present puzzles to be solved — and therefore can be failed — but there’s an element of efficiency or quality. Think Angry Birds levels.
Hopefully we* can use that framework to help you find solitaire games — both traditional and faaaaancy — that you’ll have lots of fun playing. And if not…
*There’s something poetic about a one-man blog writing about people playing multi-player board games by themselves pretending to be a tiny little empire.
