Playing Solo Board Games

What to do when the power is out...

Photo by m wrona on Unsplash

I was without power all day the Sunday before last until 6pm. My phone died. I couldn't watch TV, couldn’t listen to music, couldn’t play video games, couldn’t access PDFs of table top games, etc. It was especially strange since my wife was on vacation and I was alone (except for my two dogs).

I talked to myself. Out loud. Alot.

I considered what resources I had. I had the Kal Arath booklet printed from awhile ago, as well as a Kal Arath rules reference sheet and a character sheet. I used that, some notebook paper, and some graph paper to create a story about a man named Rogar who was trying to set up trade routes. He acquired a nomad warrior to assist him, got into some scrapes, barely surviving, and made his way from settlement to settlement making trade deals. It was fun for awhile but I grew bored of it. Instead of relying on the dice roll, I should have chosen a more interesting goal for the character. The trade routes didn’t inspire me and I got tired of it.

So I turned to board games. I have quite the collection but not many are solo-able. Co-op games often are, so I played Forbidden Desert (and won handily). It’s a fun puzzle but I didn’t feel like replaying. Then, I decided since I had so much time and nothing to do, to break out Arkham Horror (see below). It’s a massive, complex game with many, many rules. I played two characters and took notes in a journal to sort of write a narrative, but halfway through, I got tired of writing everything out and just played the game. It was fun! I lost. The world was devoured by an Ancient One but good times were had.

It reminded me that playing board games solo is a good time, and when I first started this Substack, I had planned on playing and writing about solo board games as well. I randomly chose two characters, a nun and a doctor, and got started. Gates and monsters started appearing everywhere. I moved to locations, drew cards to have encounters, fought off monsters, traveled to Other Worlds, acquired magic items, skills and companions, but the number of gates and monsters kept increasing, far outpacing my ability to close them, especially as I drew a particularly difficult rumor which I had to spend many wasted turns attempting to deal with, leaving me with no chance of defeating the Ancient One once he’d awoken. It’s a very narrative game, while also being a difficult puzzle, which is why I think it succeeds at being a solo (or co-op) game. You’re creating a story as you play, and the number of different things that can happen is pretty impressive. The actual mechanics work really well, despite how dense and fiddly they are. It’s also nice to engage with something where I don’t have to expend as much creative energy, as with solo RPGs. I can simply play the game and the narrative unfolds. I can simply play without also being the “gm”, the engine of the game making decisions instead of me.

Sometimes, it’s fun to just be a player.

I would post the ‘narrative’ that I jotted down as I played, but it really just sounds kind of boring unless I put in a ton of effort to embellish it. It’s mostly “Person moved to this place, gathered these clues, had this encounter, snuck by this monster, went here, gathered clues, closed this gate” etc.

I would recommend it as a solo game as it is fun, although I’ve heard there are now better, modern versions (like a card or dice game?) so this might feel old-fashioned, slow and a bit clunky. It’s got charm though.

My next idea is to truly do an ultimate solo Arkham Horror game with 8 characters (max players) and going up against the ultimate Ancient One (Cthulhu), but I don’t know when the next time I’m going to have 6-8 free hours of playtime, which is about how long I’d expect it to take!

I am interested in checking out other solo board games however and am open to others experiences in playing them! Drop your opinions, ideas and thoughts in the comments.

Thanks for reading.