Playing Solo Boardgames

There has been an explosion in both the amount of boardgames published each year and the number of people who play them for quite a few years now. For instance, there were approximately 1,000 boardgames published yearly before the year 2000, whereas there are about 3,000 at the moment — and this figure doesn't even take expansions into account!

And yet, despite the growing popularity of boardgames, there are still many times when you cannot gather the required amount of people to play that cool game lying on your shelf... and so you get back playing Catan or Ticket to Ride for the umpteenth time. As implied by its name, this blog will explore solo boardgaming, but also how to use multi-player boardgames as solo boardgames, by suggesting solo mechanics, alternative rules, random tables, etc.

Watch this space!

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Twilight Struggle, Solitarianated

fan-made card I love playing Twilight Struggle . Well, not as much as playing COIN games, but almost on a par. And whilst I can indulge in playing COIN games even when I can’t find a partner thanks to the bots or the Jacquard cards, the same isn’t true for Twilight Struggle for want of a dedicated solo system. I’ve obviously scoured the internetz to find one, and while some are interesting ( Stuka Joe’s and its variants), some others are simply delirious, verging on pseudocode. The one I’m currently working on has been inspired by Fort Sumter ’s solo rules and by Jason Carr’s blog entry about designing a solo bot for Twilight Struggle: Red Sea — but not by the solo bot itself. The most notable influence from that blog post is the Solo Opponent’s ability to play Opponent-Aligned cards for Ops without triggering the event. Anyway, without further ado, here are my (WiP) Solo Opponent rules for Twilight Struggle . ⁂ Preliminary note: Realignment Rolls (6.2) are not used in t...

Solo Apps for COIN Games

I do not like video games. I do not like apps. Yet this latest piece of news from GMT Games’ monthly newsletter (Nov. 2025) is probably worth sharing: If you play COIN games solo, GET THESE! They are Free Solo Apps for Several of our COIN Games! I want to make you all aware of some free apps, created by Prabha Pillay, that you can download to your phone or tablet. These excellent solo apps (for both iOS and Android): - implement the game's flowchart bots, greatly reducing the workload for a solo player, - present only valid choices, reducing the time the player needs to compose their move You can get more info about these Apps from Prabha's posts on BGG, linked below. Xiandi for China's War Gia Long for Fire in the Lake Gandiva for Gandhi Skycrane for Red Dust Rebellion If you like what you see, you can download the apps directly from either the Apple or Android store. I hope these apps add value and enjoyment to your solo plays of our...

The Summer of the Boxers, 55 Days in Peking

The Summer of the Boxers is a solo wargame published in issue 136 of the French wargaming magazine Vae Victis . The game is in French (with almost no language-dependent text on the counters), and the rules can be downloaded for free from Vae Victis' web-site ( here ) so I thought I might as well start this blog with an English-language review of the game. Also, it is a game specifically designed to be played as a solo game, rather than the adaptation of a multi-player game to the solo format, which also makes it quite interesting as the very first game to be featured on this blog. (My current plan is to review a new game each week, with a mix of specific solo games and adaptations of standard games to the solo format. I also want to cover all kinds of boardgames and not only wargames.) The game components are as follows: a 15-page rulebook a zone-based A3 map of the Peking Legation Quarter at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, with a morale track and a supply track at the si...

Solo Boardgaming

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