Solo Board Games 2022 (Top 10)

pre-pandemic i was very comfortable and going great attending one maybe two all-day game day meetings a month and that's it this could be time to play my games play other people's games meet other people and do that whole socializing thing and leave time for my other hobbies like making these videos and golf then the pandemic kitchen we went into lockdowns for two years there was no one to play these games with i spent my free time on playstation xbox nintendo or pc video games instead of you know achieving something good or learning something useful middle class problems i know but then the world semi opened up in the uk which means deliveries were go but meeting in groups were not so those kickstarters started to arrive and the part of shane started to mount up and as i couldn't get out to play the games to reduce the pile i had to do the thing i tend not to do unprovoked play board games solo i'm rob from just the road.com and in the order i enjoy playing them solo this is a spoiler-free list of my top 10 solo board games [Music] but first you know what else is so low the percentage of you watching that are subscribed so be sure to hit that subscribe button number 10 i love deck building games and the majority of them especially the ones i like to play have no place on this list they're either very cooperative like a game in the legendary series or very competitive like you know most of the others but this is both of those and it's solo hero realms players have a generic identical deck or a thematic character deck and use it to deal damage and buy new cards these cards belong to one of four different factions and some are special or extra abilities when played together with other cards from that faction so when buying a card you have to consider what faction it belongs to and how that synergizes with your current deck as well as its actual ability you have guards and champions that sit in front of you as the player an attack can provide other abilities as well as being able to soak up damage the opponent throws at you but who or what is dealing damage to you in a solo game well you have choices there are challenges that play by activating their devastating and really annoying abilities depending on the faction card on the top card of the market deck but i prefer to play the campaign here you follow a story in a book and play various scenarios as you follow the campaign through your deck gains permanent upgrades as story items are found all one and experience points allow you to upgrade cards and special character abilities so all hero realms is a standard deck building game there are a lot of options and is a lot of fun it's a great way to play deadpool in the game solo the same way you would play multiplayer great game i have no notes although if it was to be picky there's a reason it's so low on this list now it would be that a great digital version came out recently so you can play the campaign without having to sort out set up play sort out and put away all the cards constantly what can i say i'm lazy number nine i do like tower defense games like kingdom rush balloons and dungeon defenders there you have a digital kingdom to digitally defend from the digital hordes with your various digital towers i have the kingdom rush ball game but i haven't played it enough to consider it for the list this time around but for this entry i'll go for my 2019 game of the year bad bones you have the tower in the middle of a board to defend as well as a village at the bottom of the board round after round skeletons will spawn and march down their paths towards these defendable targets you have a hero that moves around killing these skeletons as well as traps to play to kill catapult and divert the skeletons away from their targets turn to simple move the hero 1 space add or remove a trap move skeletons spawn new skeletons and these traps are not invincible so it becomes a puzzle to solve how do you use your limited resources to defend 10 rounds against a horde of skeletons and protect your tower and your village removing a used trap means you can't play one down this turn but it heals it meaning it won't be permanently destroyed but the issue with this game solo and the reason it's so far down on this list is that it misses something i love from the multiplayer game see the skeletons you divert off the board with fences or filling off the board with catapults go to your opponent's boards further overwhelming them and it's really fun looking your opponent in the eyes and dumping four skeletons onto their board only to find two other people have given you three each solo they all just go back to you so you don't feel like you've achieved anything it's not really a win just a downer so bad bones is a good option if you want a challenging solo game but it's better with five other people number eight now i've mentioned plenty of times in videos that i prefer video games to board games when i'm home alone so adding technology into my board games bridges that gap and gives me something warm and familiar i enjoyed the xcon board game solo back in the day but like bad bones i preferred this at its maximum player count so each player had their own individual role in the game and it also means you have someone some blame when it inevitably goes tits up so i'm going to pick a game that uses tech but doesn't need other people chronicles of crime players are detectives trying to solve a crime by visiting different locations talking to people and asking them about other people they have met and things they have seen and each time you learn something you may add somebody new or a new location so you've got some more people to question and ask them about different things as well as different places to visit at the end of the case you answer a few questions and the better your investigations have been the more points you'll score from correct answers the app doesn't just help with these conversations the story and keeping track of everything it also allows you to view the crime scene you can look around the crime scenes looking for clues that will give you information to ask the people you encounter for example maybe find a gun at the crime scene so you can use the gun card whenever you're talking to somebody you can scan that gun card to ask them about the gun you also have experts at hand to ask maybe you can get forensics to look at the gun find out who it's registered to or does it for prince the problem with it solo is not only is a lot of case information to remember when you're looking at a case there is a big deck of cards to dig through to find the right ones this means when you're playing solo you have to look at the crime scene then try and remember what you've seen as you flick through the cards trying to find the cards you need and it's not that straightforward because the cards are general not specific when playing with multiple players you can shout out what you see as you see it while other players dig the cards out as you go and that's why it's lower on the list for me the game is really good but it requires far too much brainpower for me to find this game relaxing i mean i enjoy playing it solo i just need to be in the right mood i need to know i'm not going to be interrupted for the length of the game case details can easily be forgotten number seven and i'm a sucker for a game based on ip i like and especially when it comes to marvel i often have to try and keep a level head and make smart buying decisions i mean i bought marvel flux for some reason and considered picking up munchkin marvel briefly but this entry i played essa before buying so i knew i was going to like it it's marvel champions in this game plays players heroes trying to defeat the film before they complete their evil scheme each player has a customizable deck based around a hero with cards specifically for them showing off their unique skills allies and equipment the rest of the player deck is made up of an aspect to enhance the hero from the damage dealing aggression to the defensive protection aspect the villain deck is also made up of several elements making each experience customizable in both difficulty and gameplay players are going to attack and defend as you would expect we also play cards from your hand by discarding other cards from your hand which is a mechanism i really enjoy the villain is going to throw events minions and other hindrances at the heroes while adding threat to a scheme which will advance the game when there is enough threat on it it's a very good game and plays the same for one player as it does for any number of players this is because the health that the enemies have and the amount of threat they need scales depending on the player count sure some effects can work better with others but they work for any play account but at the time of writing there are 32 playable heroes and 26 villains plus their different variations which is a lot of cards and strategy to remember this is of course fine you can read the cards as you draw them and have a quick flick through the hero deck before playing to remind yourself of the strategy but there are new keywords set up rules differences and things to remember with new hero releases it's not all of them but there are enough that you need to keep a bunch of little rule books all around so you've got all the rules to hand when you need them you could just tighten them up but you probably need to update that sheet monthly so as a pick up and play experience marvel champions is fun just fiddly but it is fun but fiddly number six so what i really want from a solo game is something that plays like the multiplayer version but it's not too taxing on the rules or memory wise on the old noggin we can get around the gameplay similar to the multiplayer version by not having a multiplayer version at all so this is the solo only under falling skies in this game you're defending a city against a descending mothership and several alien invaders you do this by placing dice into the various rooms of your underground base to activate them some rooms generate power which is a resource you can spend to activate other rooms in the base these can send out jet fighters to shoot down descending aliens or increase your standing on the research track which is how you win the game you can even advance your excavator further into your base to unlock new rooms to activate this is because you can place one die in each column in your base so the more rooms you've excavated the more options you have for your strategy of course the aliens won't make this easy for each die you place the alien ships in that column descend that many spaces damaging the city they make it down to earth so you can't just put every six you get to increase the research track to try and win the game as quickly as possible or just play dice willy nilly you have to look at the ships in that column and where they're going to end up plus sometimes you need to manipulate the alien ships onto certain spaces you can shoot them down also in each round the mothership descents causing cave-ins in your base firing out new alien ships and even pushing back your research track moving you away from victory if the base takes too much damage all the mothership descends to earth then it's game over for you and the planet come to think of it under fullness guys is a really fun puzzle and plays very quickly there's also a campaign we can play several levels and follow a story but that's full of spoilers and such number five okay for the second and not quite final time we're going to be adding a digital element into our board games now the games on this list so far have been good obviously but this is the first time we're coming up to a game that i felt was made just for me it's my 2021 game of the year destinies players have a character and try and complete their hidden destiny before the other players they do this by exploring the map interacting with locations and people including completing tasks for rewards and buying and selling equipment players will also be tested in various ways against their stats using dice the app controls follows all of this maybe making you update the map after certain interactions or events i mentioned this now because it also tracks the successes and failings of your stat tests you make allowing a sliding scale of success from ooh just to well done you this being on an app means no one can see the possible outcomes as you're doing games like that of winter which are on cards the exploration ease of gameplay and engaging story makes this not just one of my favorite solo games but one of my favorite games of all time so why only fifth on this solo list well it does lack replayability and if you play the story you kind of know some elements of it if you're going to play it again games like this are better with other people as a group i feel the same for games like time stories which are playable solo but better as a team even video games like borderlands are more enjoyable multiplayer than solo so while i do enjoy destiny's solo i'd rather share the story and the time playing it with good people it's what board gamers do number four so this entry belongs to a group of games all around the same theme those you can buy second hand play once and immediately sell they also follow a similar theme gameplay wise but don't fill in landfills like the disposable planet killer that is exit unlock is a series of games we play through a story using cards and an app this is the last entry on the list that uses apps i promise the app helps you through the story gives you hints if you get stuck and is mainly used to give answers to the puzzles to see if you're correct escape tales works in a similar way using a website instead of an app but you have a board to look at 50 clues are similar to escape tales but don't play with kids it's disturbing now i could include time stories on this list but as i mentioned earlier i don't like that game solo it's all the different characters and all the time loops it's too much the games of this entry allow you to concentrate just on what's in front of you basically what we're looking at here is any resellable escape room style game buy it play it sell it the issue here is that there are more than 10 unlocked games alone on my new book for playing game solo is maybe play these on my own which is really bad come closer i'll tell you why i suck number three i've never been a fan of open information co-ops at least a table talk yes but it usually leads to one player being louder than everyone else now i don't need the game to have a full-on traitor mechanic do maybe something like a secret goal so that nobody has to listen to just one player throughout the game of course you could just cut out everyone altogether and play a co-op game solo your spirit you have a village to defend from three ways of increasing strength raiders trying to keep the farmsteads and families safe mostly these raiders are drawn from the deck and are either defended against or attacked by placing them next to the player board a player can only defend against one farm one peasant or one family per round the rest they must attack when fighting if the total strength of the raiders exceeds the value they have to drop out of the round if it matches the ki value they activate their special power if a player takes two wounds they flipped over to the animal side and become more powerful being able to fight more raiders in a round each player has a player power and instead of attacking or defending they can support another samira by giving them a token allowing them to use your player power on their next round if at least one farmstead and one family remain after three rounds the samurai win but if one samurai takes two wounds while on the animal side or the village and its inhabitants are destroyed the raiders win now solo this game plays similar to the multiplayer game where you play with two samurai and you have one off access to the other five support tokens it's a whole thing but as i said this is an open information co-op so you can play as many characters as you can fit on your table or in your head also it's a fun puzzle to try and beat and it doesn't help that it's very easy on the eye that's samurai spirit number two so we've looked at one and done resellable games and as much as i'd like to play them solo given the opportunity i would play them with other people but it's not the case for all of them one of them stands above all the others for a reason i will explain shortly micro macro crime city has a big map containing snapshots in time over the most awful place to live ever you have cases to solve and the cards in the game will guide you to the crime scene you then advance through the deck finding clues discovering evidence following victims or suspects and eventually solving the crime the cases themselves are funny they're also tragic and in some cases shocking you go through a range of emotions as you work your way through the small deck of cards as it's more of a search than a puzzle i don't need as much help from other players as i do when i'm playing the other puzzle style games not to say that it's straightforward as the cases get tougher you're not handheld anymore you're given some clues and have to deduce where to start who to follow what clues to look for etc but the map is big and the details are small with thin outlines and as fun and as detailed as it is you do need really good lighting to be able to see it this is why i not only have to change my glasses so i can see the detail yes i'm old but it's also a reason i don't play it with other people people have heads heads block light light is needed also i'm looking to keep the resale value high and people have fingers greasy dirty fingers and my mac needs to stay pristine for me to pass it on money aside the game is so much fun to play and i'm sure that once my backlog of solo games i haven't played yet is empty micro macro will be the top of the list for wants to buy next and now number one so by now i've talked enough about solo games that you probably know what i like what i don't and what i need from a solo game this entry covers all the previous requirements but it does bring one up that i haven't got to yet it's also a game i'm very familiar with it's the game i've played the most this year by a mile because i've played it solo 70 times against every villain it's my 2020 game of the year marvel united players play as heroes against the villain each hero has a unique deck of cards they can use to rescue civilians defeat thugs defeat minions perform heroic feats and eventually when enough missions have been completed defeat the villain solo plays slightly differently for multiplayer there you have one hero each in a solo game you have three heroes that share one hand of cards it does mean you have five health collectively for your three heroes rather than nine health as you would have in a multiplayer game but you can play your heroes in any order which addresses that imbalance it does mean that some villains can easily kill a solo player on the first turn of the game if the board is set up and the right card is drawn and it can happen and it does happen and it has happened luckily there are a ton of villains to play against enough that there are options so that doesn't matter too much the issue it does raise is the footprint for a light game it's big in my solo game last month i had to put the locations only under the camera the villain dashboard play cards and everything else couldn't fit even for playing the game off camera i need to use multiple surfaces i mean look at the size of the play mat but i do love playing this game i love the look the challenge the theme and the options that's marvel united that's my list what do you think of these games any you haven't played any you want to play and you would never play any games that would be on your list that didn't make it on mine let me know in the comments below and for all of you commented about the solo only mackey in my top 10 work placement game video i haven't got around to playing it yet remember to like share and subscribe for just two board game videos a month also check out my live stuff and board game short videos on twitter insta and tick tock at jester the rogue i also do occasional video game live streams on twitch.tv forward slash jester the rogue and finally find my blog just the road dot com i've been rob aka just the rogue i'll see you soon

Channel: JestaThaRogue

Views: 8,396

Keywords: 1 player board games, Other, Top 10 Solo Board Games, best new solo board games 2022, best solo board game, best solo board games 2022, board games for one, board games for one person, board games for one player, solo board games, solo board games 2022, solo board games best, solo board games for beginners, solo board games ranked, top 10 solo board games 2022, top 10 solo board games of all time, top solo board games 2022, top ten board games

Id: 0vCiICWj-Yo

Length: 16min 46sec (1006 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 04 2022