Thought solo board gaming was just sad, then a guy in Denver showed me his setup
I used to think playing board games alone was a pretty lonely way to spend an evening, so I never gave it a shot. Last weekend at a shop in Denver a guy named Marcus walked me through his copy of Ark Nova and explained how the solo mode uses its own deck to block your moves. We played for about 90 minutes and I lost by 12 points, but I was hooked by the third turn. Turns out solo games are just puzzles with a board instead of a screen. Has anyone else gotten into one player games this way, and which one actually stuck for you?
Did you get that same feeling like the board was actually playing back at you? I had almost the exact same thing happen with a copy of Under Falling Skies at a meetup in Phoenix, some guy handed it to me and I figured I would be bored in five minutes. Instead the game kept pushing me around and I lost three times in a row before I finally beat it, and I was weirdly happy about it. Marcus sounds like a good dude for sitting with you that long too. What stuck for me was Mage Knight, which looks scary at first but the solo game is basically a big puzzle you chip away at over a couple hours. I still play with friends most weeks, but now I keep a solo game on my table for nights when nobody is free.