Board Games for Solo Play

Below are games I find to be as fun or even more fun when playing solo rather than with multiple players. While some are aimed at solo play, all of them are easily converted into solo games.

For anyone interested, I will add links to anything that I purchased online.

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Fallout The Board Game:

1-4 players, Ages 14+, 2-3 hr.

*Find the full write-up on its own post.

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Hunted (Kobayashi Tower):

1-2 players, Ages 13+, 20 min.

- Hunted is a fantastic game which seems to be built with solo play in mind. In this version, you truly feel like John McClane in the Die Hard movies. You must work your way through a massive skyscraper in order to rescue your wife who's been taken hostage by terrorists. The 3 core mechanics are a push-your-luck card draw system, hand management to decide which cards to spend as resources, and dice-rolling to resolve outcomes.

- A player board tracks your health, test dice for resolving, equipped cards, and your time limit. The 70 Hunted cards and 15 Location cards essentially make up the "tower" you're climbing.

- Although I have yet to play it, the same creator also made Hunted: Mining Colony 415 which resembles the Alien movies. You will attempt to fend off blood-thirsty aliens and get to your spaceship before the colony self-destructs. The main difference here is that Mining Colony uses dexterity by tossing disks as its core mechanic instead of dice-rolling.

- The Feel Good Factor: Pushing your luck and have it pay off! When you're able to draw many cards and then successfully use them as resources to flip through locations quickly, it brings a feeling of satisfaction.

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Marvel Champions:

1-4 players, Ages 14+, 45-90 min.

*Find the full write-up on its own post.

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SuperHot (The Card Game):

1-3 players, Ages 12+, 20-40 min.

- SuperHot is a video game, VR game, and physical card game. This is a hand management and field control game with the core mechanic based on playing the correct cards to control the playing area. You play as a fictionalized version of yourself trying to survive/escape a dangerous situation. The concept is that whenever you move, the game world reacts and moves simultaneously. To replicate this in a card game, any cards left in the play area shift to the right and activate, potentially causing damage to you or adding more obstacles. When dealt damage, you take "bullet" cards which cluster your deck.

- Having experienced the video game first, I found the time mechanic well simulated here and the game-play engaging and thought inducing.

- The Feel Good Factor: I think the biggest rush SuperHot gives you is when you smartly pull off the perfect combo. You perfectly play your hand in an order that ends up wiping away most of the timer board and gaining you good cards in the process.

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Sentinels of the Multiverse:

2-5 players, Ages 13+, 30-60 min.

*Find the full write-up on its own post.

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Tiny Epic Zombies:

1-5 players, Ages 14+, 30-45 min.

- From the Tiny Epic series, this game focuses on survival against zombies! The premise is that an unthinkable crisis has struck the Echo Ridge Mall where a mysterious outbreak has claimed the lives of nearly everyone. However, they are now zombies, crawling through the stores, hungry for flesh! Survivors will always be running to collect weapons, kill zombies, and work towards completing objectives, all while protecting the center of the mall from being overrun.

- This game seems focused on Competitive play although there are many options. These include: Cooperative, Cooperative vs Zombie player, Competitive, Competitive vs Zombie player, and then Solo. Personally I lean towards the Cooperative and Solo above all else. Tiny Epic Zombies includes rule sets for all of the above and a simple little mechanic for controlling the zombies during Solo play.

- The game includes meeples with holes so you can attach little physical weapon pieces, a cool melee die, two vehicles miniatures, and tokens for zombies, ammo, resources, and health. It also comes with character cards (zombie variant backside), search cards, scenario cards, and double sided map cards which offer re-playability.

- After many years, I've ditched most of my zombie games to keep this one. Game play feels genuine as I have to carefully plan every move, make sacrificial moves to defend the map, and feel the tension as loss starts to feel inevitable. The multiple scenarios, different characters, and double sided map cards provide plenty of replay. I suggest only playing as 2 or 3 survivors at a time.

- The Feel Good Factor: When you successfully use the survivors in unison, protecting your runner as they charge into a room to retrieve resources and then sprinting back to the home base. Or using weapons and smart movement to clear an entire room of zombies just before they overrun the board.