Playing With Yourself: Solo Board Games that Don't Need Other Player

Transcript:

You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we play them at. Your DMs tonight and every

night are Josh and Chris. You can find us on all podcast platforms or check us out at noplotonly lore.com. If you like

what you hear today, please rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've ever met. Welcome back

to No Plottonly Lore, the game where I like to play by myself. Uh, I was 100%

gonna do uh brought to you by Terraforming Mars.

Please, please, Fricks Games, reach out. I We'll take any sponsorship. I just want a copy of the DICE version for

myself. I'd like money. Oh, we're not at that level yet.

We are not at this this podcast is so expensive. Um, so speaking of playing with yourself,

uh, we want to talk about board games more because that's that is not the segue I was thinking it would

was uh, yeah, this is Christopher has unlocked

the only way to like get me fully locked in and engaged for an entire half an

hour uh, is to talk about things that I like. Uh, I mean, you get so few opportunities.

I do. I I I have all of this like weird pretentious like role playing game media

[ __ ] that I want to dissect and every once in a while I I just I got to throw you a bone, man.

Well, yeah. Like I joined this this podcast under the pretense of like, yeah, I play Dungeons and Dragons once in a while and I can talk to my buddy

once a week for like an hour about it. Sure. Uh whatever. And then he started

getting all like high fallutin about it. I'm like, I just want to kill a cobalt. Like I don't know what what's the complication here. Um, but yeah, board

games are something I get complicated about because those are the best ones. Um, it's a thing about which I am not

complicated. So, I think it's an interesting off the turning. Sure.

So, you you floated this idea of talking about solo board games.

Yeah. Not a thing I've done. I I have not played a solo board game.

I' I've played games that can be played solo. Yeah. With people. Sure. So, like a couple of uh card

games, I think the Lord of the Rings card game was one where you could like

play it solo if you wanted to. Uh I only ever played it with people. Um there was a a D&D board game that you

could play solo as well. Never did. So, like I I've never really understood the draw for solo board games. Mostly

because when I'm playing games, I'm trying to be social. Yeah. Okay. So solo board games are

having there there's there's two types of games that are having a real like

push in the industry right now. There's what are called dual board games after

the first one that came out, the Seven Wonders Duel, where it's they take an existing game and they redesign it

around playing with only two people. And then the other thing that they do is now

everyone has a solo mode. And um I feel

like this has mostly come about for two reasons. One uh has to do with one of my

favorite designers uh the folks over at Stonem Games who put out the Automa

rules for um first starting with Scythe and then now every one of their games

has them designed by Automa Factory. um and everyone else has started paying

attention to solo specific rules. And I think a big part of that the the second

reason that they're having this resurgence was the impact of frankly co 19 on the whole industry. Um

I had read something about that where like because game night got disrupted

real bad. Yes. Right. Like it kind of depend on what kind of game you liked to play. if you

got together with your friends. Yeah. In 2020, you stopped doing that. Yeah. So,

so after 2020, there's a few things that that really changed because what game

night was could not happen for quite a while. So, there's a few things that popped up in that void. Uh, one was a

surge of activity towards online implementation, mostly through board game arena. Uh the second was a push for

very good two-player experiences for the people who are quarantined with their partner who is willing to tolerate a

board game. Um and then the third was solo games for people who like most

nerds are alone. Uh right. So that also would have been me if I was

playing board games during Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, there's never been a better time to be a solo board gamer. In fact,

there are some games that have been designed specifically to be a solo board game. Um, but a lot of them just find a

way to mimic the presence of another person through denial of actions and

adjustment of resources and things like that. Well, one of the things that I was looking at and one of one of the things

that kind of prompted this idea for me was somebody was complaining about how

on Kickstarter you basically have to have a solo mode now, right? If you want to be a successful

Kickstarter on a board game, you have to be able to play this game by yourself. Yeah.

Um, do you concur with that? I mean, what does concur really mean?

No, I I will say there's there's two things that it feels like are mandatory

for kick for kickstarting games right now are uh lots of plastic to look

pretty and a robust solo version. Okay. So, get yourself a 3D printer and

make sure that you can play it by your lonesome. Yeah. Yeah. Um

that being said, I I I really don't like solo games a lot

of the time. Um Okay, so that surprises me.

Well, let let me tell you why. Um Okay, so first of all, solo board games

are in general, even if the game mechanisms are the

same, they wind up being the same thing every time, which is just a

essentially a version of Sudoku that you try to set your high score on.

Okay. Um that kind of like just solving a puzzle. Yeah. And you're just solving the puzzle

of how many points can I get? Um there's no competition.

There's no I mean there's very minimal interaction. Um even in the versions that do mimic another player, there's

not a lot of interaction. Um, they are,

to use a terrible descriptor, they are masturbatory fun.

And we got to the reason why I titled the episode the way I did. Um, okay. So, the only the only solo game

that I have a lot of experience with is the Lord of the Rings card game. Sure. And I feel like the randomness

inherent in that game presents

a variety of challenges, okay, that like may

benefit th those issues of like you're just solving the the puzzle because like

I don't know if you've played it, but um every time you set up the game, you

are discovering a location or a bad guy or something that you have to figure

out. And then you also have like your cards that you have played to address those problems,

right? And those cards are drawn from decks and there's like a deck building element to

it. I believe it's been a long time since I played it, right? But essentially like the the randomness of those decks means that

every time you play this game there's going to be a unique set of challenges

and also that you will have different tools to address those challenges. Is

that not true for the vast majority of solo games? Um so solo games, excuse me, solo games come

in a variety of types. So you've got um okay so the game that I like multiplayer

is called barrage. Um, the way that that solo game plays out is that you've got a stack of tiles that are going to

randomize the behaviors of a a phantom player. So,

the actions that they select that may block what I do. Um, there's games like

uh Under Falling Skies, which is essentially just great title. It is

Space Invaders the board game. Um, And like like quite literally there are

no there are aliens coming at you from up in the skies. You roll a couple of dice and assign those dice to various actions

to um shoot at things or build up more energy to make upgrades things like that. Um there's

how dare you game company. Like again I'm about to segue real hard cuz like how how do you take

Yeah. a title that [ __ ] poetic like that? That's beautiful. Yeah. The game components were gorgeous,

too. And then you build a game about aliens getting

shot down out of the sky, I guess. Yep. It's It's literally Space Invader.

I had such like I was imagining box art. Yeah. when you said that and it was like

chunks of the sky falling down around somebody's I'm angry

as well you should be um it does have it does have great box art but uh it doesn't change the fact that

there's not much there and and this is a game No I put it on the chat for you so you can look um

it has a campaign mode for

why? I don't know. But it do. Um

the box art's all right, but it's definitely not as pretty as I was like I was imagining like a a beautiful like

meadow. Oh, sure. That you're like overlooking and then you would have like the title

underfalling skies. Yeah. And like gold across the top. Yeah.

And then like actually now that I'm thinking about it, having chickens. So you would have like chickens chilling in

like the the foreground like looking up at the sky that is literally [ __ ] falling.

Yeah, I am upset. Um

so that's one version. And then uh there's there's actually something very

similar to what you've described, a game called Marvel Champions um where you have like a deck with your hero and a

deck with the villain that you're trying to fight. Um, and then the most popular sort of solo genre almost is what they

call rolling rights where you've got a pad with various

um areas or statistics or or you know whatever and you roll some dice to get

some results and then decide where to assign those results. Um it's kind of like a solo yatsi in a lot of ways. Um,

so that has become a very like

significant portion of the industry is rolling rights who had a big blow up right after co um

the rocks sound a bit like a a genre of

choose your own adventure. Yeah, that I remember where like you had a character and you had dice and you would

like read the book and then like your roles would determine which pages you were going to. Oh, I see.

And I recall not liking even one of those. Yeah. And that's I I dislike rolling

rights generally. I I've tried I've given them a fair shot. There was um

there was a cool little flip book I bought that it it was this miniature thing where it actually didn't even cut

it didn't have a die. They had what they called a P6, which is a black pencil

with the numbers 1 through six on the top end of it. So you just roll the pencil across your table. Um, and then

you had a little grid dungeon that as you rolled your things, you would move your dude around on it, then progress to

the next next page. Um, you were playing that in the middle of conversations with me.

Was I? I I recall you describing this thing to me as you were doing it.

Maybe conversations with me. Yeah, it sucks. Uh

maybe it's just how like how brutally unforgiving it could be at times, but like I I tried to make it through and

what it felt like in the game was like you could make your way through it and like just set a high score, but it

didn't really matter. And making and because you never like fullon failed, it was just like whatever. Um

but I've tried I tried the katan roll and right and again it's just like a katan roll and right.

Yep. You roll for what resources you get. I was literally thinking like

playing solo Settlers of Katan would be the worst [ __ ] experience. Oh yeah. Again, it sucked. I I gave it a

good shot. I mean, whatever. I'm out 10 bucks and I learned a lesson. But um

there is one I have been tempted to try uh called Nemo's War

uh which is based on Jules Vern's 40,000 leagues under the sea and you are

yeah you're you're Captain Ahab and and you're piloting the Nautilus around the world go for various missions but again

it's a game with like everything feels low stakes. I'm not beating someone. I'm like, well,

what am I doing here? Am I just, you know, checking out the [ __ ] decorations?

Like, I mean, there are some games where that could be the point.

Yeah. But I've never seen a solo version of it. Um, yeah. I think like maybe maybe I was

spoiled by this Lord of the Rings game. Yeah. Like again, I only ever played it with people. I've I've never played it on on

my own. Yeah. But the way that the challenge deck was put together

was with the assumption that you were going to be playing with another person generally. Sure.

And so I I think maybe the balance of that and like the the way that the challenges were put together and the way

that you were meant to address them Yeah. was built independent of that solo game

option. It seemed less bad, right? like it wasn't just like you were

playing against a like deck of cards that were similar to the cards that you

were playing. Each challenge was kind of unique in the way that it was put together. So, um,

a lot of this just sounds like toys. Yeah. To me, in a lot of ways it is.

Like it just is. My my definition of game

is very informed by like Mark Rosewater's essays

on game design. And so like I recognize that there is game here,

right? Like you have choices, you have decisions, there is an element of randomness. Yeah. All of the necessary components for

game, but there is something about the solo nature of it that feels

very I I don't want to use the word again because I used it in our last episode a

bunch, but it feels incomplete. Right. So, here's what I think is

missing and a way that I think a few games are trying to address that, which makes me interested in giving them a

shot. Um, these games when you play them solo,

it feels like you strip out the narrative arc of the session.

Um, you're just no, there's no conflict really. There's just what happened,

you know, did did the dice go a certain way and where did you assign them? There's no, you know, there's no

antagonist. Like even even in the games that have, you know, a quasi AI that

you're playing against, there's no person that you can taunt and torment and everything they do just kind of

happens and is not directed at you personally. So there's no, you know, vindictiveness to it. It's just the cold

machine. Um, but there's there's two games in

particular that I want to get to to giving a shot to. So, um, there's a

company that makes these games that, uh, uh, shoot, I wish I could remember the, uh, the name of the publisher itself. I

think it's something to do with a crow. But anyways, uh they they they publish a

series of games called Above and Below, Near and Far, uh Here and There, I think it was the other one. Uh or sorry, now

it's Now and Then. Um but they come with a narrative

an anime I watched. They come with a narrative choose your own adventure book that every time you have an encounter in

the game, there's a little write up and then there's a decision to make based on your statistics, resources, abilities in

the game, and then you get taken to a follow-up page for the answer. Um,

those can be played solo and there's a new a one a version called Sleeping Gods that I want to give a shot to. Um, the

other one that just came out last week is the newest Jamie Stagmire design

called Vantage. Now, the difference is Vantage from the start is designed as a cooperative

exploration game. Uh you are a team of space scientists who crash onto a planet

and you spend the game trying to explore the planet, find each other, and complete varying levels of objective to

uh complete the game. You're not trying to win the game, trying to complete it as a group. Uh in the same way that

you're just trying to like survive when you play Pandemic. Um we're not a group. How does that work?

So, it it does have a solo mode with again a bunch of narrative stuff and a

huge a huge number of locations and geographies and and um discoverables

to just explore as in a sandbox-like way. You've

got 800 different interconnected locations,

over 400 cards with 900 other miscellaneous discoverable cards. To get

through that by yourself would be, you know, you'd have an infinite amount of fun. And weirdly, the game is played

from a like quasi firsterson perspective, which I've never seen in a board game before.

Um, so I'm wondering, okay, so that that does sound cool and I would be

interested in exploring that later once you've had a chance to play it. Yeah, like I'm I'm wondering how much of the

solo game experience benefits from randomness.

Um, because like especially in challenge, right? Like on on the challenge side of the game,

right? in order to be able to create unique experiences

and to be able to have like a narrative encounter or like found narrative in

your game. I feel like there needs to be an unpredictable element.

Yeah. In the game and in a lot of games that comes from other players, right? Like that player did something that was

[ __ ] crazy and everybody still talks about it weeks later about how great that turn was on that game.

But you don't have that in a solo game. So, I'm wondering how much like the the random element of the game contributes

to a good solo game. And that's I think that's where like

ultimately the the satisfaction of the game itself kind of can hinge on, right?

Like a rolling right has some of that input randomness that you're looking for

there where it's like I rolled the dice, this is what showed up. Um, right. A lot of these other games, their solo

versions, like I guess the best case for randomness is just like you shuffled a

deck of cards that tell you what the guy's going to do. But like they also have a certain amount of predictability because you do need to be

like in the same way that I can kind of figure out how a friend plays, you do need to have like a little bit of agency

in figuring out what the bot is going to do and how you can prevent that. Because if the bot just selects actions at

random, it's not a very satisfying game. Right. Right. I'm thinking about like the the Stagmire

game that you were just mentioning, having that many pieces, right?

Right. Having that many options that are interconnected and have some randomness

built into them. Yeah. Creates the opportunity for exploration. For sure.

And I'm I'm wondering if maybe like the biggest issue that we're running into

with solo games is that like maybe the randomness is like too random. Maybe

it's just like that there isn't anything that's connecting these ideas together or maybe it isn't random enough.

Yeah. Where everything feels like it's just like lock step with the way that you're expecting it to go. Oh, and I'm

wondering like how to balance that in a way that's going to stay fresh and

interesting um without becoming too weird and like L

Penguin random. Yeah. like and and I think that's why first of all I think you've kind of

nailed what the difficulty is of making solo board games or solo versions of board games is that like you know one

you know like I said before with some of these games you're just going through the motions and setting your own high

score right and there's not a any randomness is pretty easily mitigated like with you know a roll in right it's

just like oh what's random is what value I get on the dice and then I can make decisions and go from there and so at a

certain point you're just going to be like, "Oh, this is the optimal decision. I'll just do that." Um,

there's Have you ever cheated at a solo game? I

Yes. Um, it was that stupid little flip book.

Oh, okay. I was just like, "This is dumb." Cuz like you just get like you get like wiped out of your cash right before like

one of the few buying levels. If you don't buy anything, it's just like, well, this game is just going to be like a [ __ ] kick in the dick. So, I just

told myself I didn't die on that floor. Okay.

Yeah. I I don't know that I would have the like moral fortitude to just be

like, "No, that role didn't happen." I mean,

ultimately, I'm the boss of me and my own experience. If I want to quote unquote cheapen it by just saying this

is stupid and I'm not having fun, that's my prerogative, I think. Okay, I can I think I can also say that

I have cheated a solo game, but that is only by the loosest possible definition of game.

Okay, because I was one of those people that would like hold my thumb on one page of a choose your own adventure and then go and read

that page and then go back and check the other option every I I got like paper cuts on my membranes from holding open

five different spots when I could have made a choice of chooser adventure. Okay. Like [Music]

great. I wonder like Okay, so with with this

many Yeah. options. And maybe this is something that like could use more exploration

in like a different episode, but like I I feel like in some of these cases

it would almost be enhanced by being online. Yeah.

Like not just in the the sense of like moving the pieces around or whatever, but like the the number of options that you could

potentially add and like tweak and play around with. Sure. in in an online offering seems

like it would maybe be more conducive to solo play, but then we start to get into like the territory of like what is a

board game versus what is a Yes. like video game. Yeah, it I mean, so I I do play some

like quasi solo digital implementations of board games by myself, you know, that's if I'm going to play a board

game, that's how I do it because it just says here, here's a couple of computer opponents and then play the game like

the actual game. So, like I've done that with Terraforming Mars. I've done that with uh Through the Ages. Uh I do it I

did it with I did it so much with Star Realms. I memorized the deck. Um yeah,

like I I have Okay, shameful confession. Star Realms used to be the game I played

while I was driving. Like to be to playing a a deck builder

at 100 km an hour is not a good look. Um, it also not a good idea. Oh, I know.

For for all of the 16 year olds who are listening, who I know make up the vast majority of our audience.

Yeah. Don't listen to me. Yeah, I'm I'm kidding. Our audience is entirely like white male and over 30.

Yeah. But yeah, no, uh, like I honestly that's kind of like my favorite way to do solo

games is just like, hey, make a digital implementation of it that you can just play our game without having to track

down people. Um, well, and also like doing the math for you, right? So that it's less of like a

a number crunching. Yeah. Less of the Sudoku side of things cuz cuz that was that was what threw me

off of the Barrage solo game is I love Barrage. It's a very well-designed game, very tight, but

the upkeep and the maintenance that I had to do to for the the AI player's

turn sucked all of because my decision making capability, it's pretty robust. I

know what I'm going to do quickly and then to have to my turn took a minute

and then the computer or the the AI turn took like five like checking all the

boxes doing all the things, you know. Well, that a little bit comes back to like the my

whole thing with Bellatro. Yeah. Like I play a weird amount of Batro right now. Um, and that game I think is

only really feasible on a computer. Sure. Right. Like the the number of

multiplications that you're doing and like the things that you need to remember and like how many different triggers are happening.

If you were to try and do that in real life, a single game of Bellatro could take a week.

Yeah. Um, and I think that like there are some games that really benefit from

that type of like number crunching in the background. Like um, you and I have both played a fair bit of Hearthstone.

Yeah. And there are some card designs in that

game that are really only possible in a digital offering.

it. Yeah, it is not possible to do any of the uh random things that they do in

a physical offering. Like there's cards that can pull literally anything from the entirety of your collection.

Yeah. Or like cards that can pull things that you don't even have in your collection, right? Like cards

are completely randomized and like specific to that card. I'm remembering like a minotaur that plays a guitar or

something and suddenly you have like a band member in your your party. ETC. Yeah.

Which is sweet. Um so yeah, like I I I feel like maybe some

solo games Yeah. are just better played online. But then again, like Hearthstone is a video game.

Yeah. And I think that's that's one of the toughest design spaces to be in

right now is wanting to do something solo that feels unique, that feels

like satis like satisfying and rewarding and isn't just I could have done this as

a video game better, you know, like I that I really don't mind when games are

the games give you the option for a solo play, but I feel like it's really

just kind of like making I don't know uh making lemonade, you know, in a weird

way. Yeah. Because board games are just not there's there's so few designs that are like, hey, this is specifically meant to be a

solo game and when they do, they're just not awesome. Yeah. Are there any genres or like types

of games that you think are better suited to solo games? Like one of the notes that I have here is if you're playing a Hidden Trader game by

yourself, are you still paranoid? Right. And yeah, hidden trader games just don't

work with uh as far as I can tell, there's no way to make it work with a

solo game. But um jeez, any

I I really don't think there's any that are like, boy howdy, this is really good solo because so much of what makes board

games board games is the board state and reacting to that. And it's very hard to

make a board state in a solo game that feels

like engaging. I wonder about sealed games. Like I'm

trying to think of like a a mystery type game that you could play kind of similar to um

do you remember when uh Risk put out like their their campaign version? Oh,

you mean Risk Legacy that invented the legacy genre. Yes, I remember that. Sure. That one. Um that [ __ ]

envelope. Yeah. In the bottom of the box. Yes. Right. Like having a mystery element that can be revealed to the players. Um

if you were to build an entire game around that concept and then play it

solo, right? Like having parts of the game revealed to you as you're playing it. I think that would be really

interesting. It would have zero replayability. Yes, it is a oneand done. And to to a

certain extent, I feel like those exit board games kind of do that, but they are just an escape room in a box,

right? And that's not necessarily a great direction for game design for board games cuz you have escape rooms

and you can play them by yourself if you want. Hey, thanks for making it all the way

through this episode of No Plot Only Lore. If you're looking for more, you can always find us at noplotonlore.com

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