Isn’t that true of all roll-and-writes? As near as I can tell, they’re all solitaire high-score chases with minimal to no player interaction. That’s why I’m curious what, if anything, sets Twilight Inscription apart from the others.
Also, tell your boss I told him to lay off while we’re talking about boardgames. Can’t he see that we’re talking about an important subject here?
So I’ve played a bunch of Three Sisters and Hadrian’s Wall, mostly solo. I’d also toss Dinosaur Island: Rawr and Write into the same category. They’re all essentially bigger variations on the So Clever games with theme painted on top.
I found Three Sisters very dry and would really prefer any of the theme-free Clever games for a similar experience.
I had the same experience. It was a neat game, but I didn’t find any of the rules intuitive so it devolves into digging around the rulebook anytime I want to try a new area of the score sheet.
I would highly recommend Dinosaur Island: Rawr and Write as a good thematic middle-ground between the two. It has some fun park layout puzzling and just enough silliness in its theme to obscure the numbers at its core. And the core rules are very consistent.
I personally don’t like any games where I have to draw anything in…like Cartographers or Rawr and Write. I dunno, I suck at drawing, even when there are lines. I appreciate those games but that’s why I like Twilight as you just cross stuff out and circle stuff.
I cant tell my boss much because he and the other boss are both gone on Fridays and I tend to play a boardgame the hour or two before closing…my wife thinks they will find out but if someone comes in, I just throw a bunch of papers on top of the game…my desk looks messy normally like that so it looks like the normal course of business for me.
Hmm, just noticed that GMT Games has a sale going on where you can get 50% off anything in stock (via code : GMTSale2022).
Anything folks want to reccomend for solo play?
The site mentions their 50% off sale is only for customers that ordered & had something shipped between certain dates so not sure the code will actually work for everyone. Unless it’s completely unrelated! Not sure, never used their site before.
ah - they later sent a clarification that they’re going to make the coupon open to everyone, even non-P500 backers so it should work for everyone until EOD Monday!
Ah nice! Well I’ll wait to hear recommendations too then :D
I don’t think Comancheria or even Navajo Wars are still in stock, but if you’re up to that level of complexity, they’re both tremendous games. I was playing a ton of Comancheria a few months ago, and I feel like I’m the verge of breaking it back out pretty much every day. One of my all-time favorite boardgame designs.
Otherwise, Jeremy White’s airplane games are the bee’s knees. His Enemy Coast Ahead: The Doolittle Raids isn’t a traditional wargame so much as a multi-staged heist game, and thrilling throughout. His Skies Above the Reich games are more traditional, but they’re also thrilling for their tactical reinterpretations of air combat. In fact, I just orders Skies Over Britain on Wednesday (missing the 50% off sale by two days!).
EDIT: Looking over GMT’s list of games filtered by solitaire, I take issue with several of these games being described as “solitaire”. A lot of them seem to be solitaire by dint of wargamers being willing to play both sides of a two-player game and call it “solitaire”. It’s also a stretch to include the COIN games, which include instructions for bots, usually in the form of convoluted flow charts. But just because you can technically play them without other players doesn’t mean they’re solitaire designs.
Thanks for the reccs! I’ll check them out - definitely agree with your assessment of COIN. I played quite a few and I’d never want to play them solo.
They’re stressful enough when playing 4 player!
There’s definitely a difference between “can play solo” and “is designed to be played solo”.
I just received Frostpunk, which is manifestly the latter despite pretending to offer coop.
I want to also recommend Fields of Fire if you really are ok with a lot of complexity. Game is hard to learn and they are releasing a new tule book to teach it, but it’s a pretty compelling tactical simulation.
I would have been all over Fields of Fire by now if it weren’t for being waved off by people I trust, specifically because of the state of the game’s rules. Sloppy rules writing is bad enough in a “normal” game, but it’s particularly deadly in a wargame.
The new deluxe version should fix it. Maybe? I dunno, but they are trying. Releasing a playbook to teach the concepts and letting the tule book become a reference.
The game is unlearnable with the current rule book.
And yes, wargames are more vulnerable to bad rules, since it’s such a commitment to learn even the ones with good, clear ones.
The only GMT game I own these days is Blackbeard, which does have a solo variant and I think it’s pretty fun - pretty dense but not still moves reasonably fast. Not one of my favorites though; if I want a seafaring solo game I’ll probably play Nemo’s War and if I want to roam the seas as a pirate I’d probably rather play Merchants and Marauders. But I can’t quite get rid of old Blackbeard, we’ve shared some good times.
Now there was a game that really needed a solo mode. I own it and the expansion, but it’s just too long and uneven to break out with a group. You play four hours, and for three of them, there’s probably a clear winner while the rest of the table faffs about waiting for the winner to cross the finish line so they can see who came in second, third, and fourth. Seems to me to really tune a game about pirates on the high seas, you need something with a strict structure like Maracaibo.
A lot of those “race to deliver” games would make excellent sandboxes for solitaire play, but the only one I’ve seen effectively wrestled into solo playability is Xia, the sci-fi game. I wish Merchants and Marauders had solitaire support like Xia. All the elements are there.
Oh man, I would play the absolute heck out of a solo Merchants and Marauders. And I seriously wish they’d reprint the expansion because I can’t find it anywhere and I’ve heard it really improves the base game.
My copy of Merchants and Marauders with the expansion is in my “get rid of” pile. If you’re comfortable DMing me your mailing address, I’ll gladly send it to you when I mail my Secret Santa stuff this year. But you’ll have to untangle the expansion stuff from the base game. I’ve got it all mixed together.
Oh wow. Ok, I’ll message you.
They have released a rewritten rulebook, which is a big improvement. You might want to look the current rules over to see if it’s your bag, Tom.
They are apparently releasing a comprehensive tutorial/ playthrough when the reprint is published, but that is not available yet.
It’s a great design, but it’s not something that can be just set up and played without having a good understanding of the rules, even with the rewritten rules. It’s fairly complex.
Did anyone else purchase anything from GMT recently? I ordered three games on the 16th, and I’ve repeatedly tried to contact them since then, first to see if I could use the 50% off code, but then to try to get some information on the status of the order. I’ve emailed them four times since then and haven’t gotten a single response. Not so much as a confirmation.
I can understand they might be busy, but ignoring an attempt to emend an order for well over a week is pretty subpar customer support. I’m trying to cancel the order now, but I’m curious if anyone was able to take advantage of GMT’s 50% off offer, or if anyone has even been able to even place an order?