#SoloYear

ryan posing in front of completed game of Planet Unkown board is a planet with polyominoes arranged on it.

completed game of Planet Unkown board is a planet with polyominoes arranged on it.

Planet Unknown

the one remains in my top ten! breezy but satisfying numbers-go-up polyomino optimization game

I think the rover element is what really differentiates it<3

I did _horrible_ with my goals this time. whiffed all of them 😅 timing of the bad events was brutal

#SoloYear #boardgames 32/

ryan posing in front of complete game of Tokyo Highway board game, tons of sticks and cars interlaced

Tokyo Highway solo game start, four player colors facing each other

Tokyo Highway early game, some highways crossing each other

close up macro shot of Tokyo Highway with many highways crossing each other

Tokyo Highway: Rainbow City

finally arrived! new edition of TC with rubberized cars and rubber road tips make things really stable!

the solo mode is surprisingly effective? play 4 colors, colors are assigned direction limitations such as "road must go north"

+ Rainbow!

#SoloYear #boardgames 32/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of Skoventyr board game

top down photo of Skoventyr end of game state. six cards with images of trees are in a ring to represent an abstract forest

Skoventyr

another whim pickup. cute light coop with scandi foklore! and great art!

badgers as protagonists? hell yeah

feels very Oniverse: Nautilion with the ring chase & Sylvion w/ forest health

cardplay has tough tradeoffs and great risk pulls. I lost badly : p

#SoloYear #boardgames 31/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of Cthulhu: Death May Die board game. board is made up oflarge monster miniatures and dungeon board tiles.

Cthulhu: Death May Die

my first crawler of the year. got a steal on the recent KS

super clean compared to other crawlers

the stronger-as-you-get-closer-to-loss player arc is exhilarating. <90 minutes to go from "this looks impossible" to "I am a god". last minute win >:D

#SoloYear #boargames 30/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of game Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs on the table

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs

Truly impressive how they crunched the core GH experience into an iiitty bitty living space. I do with the full rules were printed tho 😒

I appreciate the GH system (I mostly finished JotL) but I get too loss-averse to fully enjoy it.

#SoloYear #boardgames 29/

nakedly apparent, but I lost my daily #SoloYear streak towards the end of Jan. add me to the study on new year's resolutions 🙃

had a rough personal start to feb but gaming again and I _think_ I can keep up to the 365 cadence by the end of march ; D

I'm even saving my roll-and-writes for later :p

ryan posing with peace sign above board game Ginkpopolis midgame on table

close up photo of board game Ginkopolis midgame

Ginkopolis

this is I think my favorite game and I don't know how it took me so long to try the solo!

she's a bit _too_ easy to dodge since you choose which of your 4 cards to give and can usually dump an ineffective urbanization

I trounced, but will try again w/ hard

#SoloYear #BoardGames 28/

ryan posing with peace sign in front of table with the board game Solutions displayed mid-game

Solutions

1st play and I was surprised to see this was a kind of coop Timeline but with climate impact mitigation projects (try to place in order of efficacy)

it's cute! best game I've seen yet for an educational setting! solo definitely lacked the intended discussion

#SoloYear #boardgames 27/

ryan posing with peace sign in front of game mid-play of Samurai Spirit

Samurai Spirit

fun lil base defense coop!

cardplay is mitigigable blackjack. you want enemies that _just_ meet your threshold, but you can/need to sideline some

the variable powers are a good mix, and I'm a sucker for "losing? get more powerful" w/ the animal form bit

#boardgames #SoloYear 26/

Sol @prismofeverything.bsky.social

orbital concepts are so seductive but sol is the only one that's has earned it for me

solo is cute! I was surprised it existed. exceeded expectations

multiplayer, this game is 💯 doppler effect applied to infra investment

#SoloYear #boardgames #sologaming 25/

White Castle

love how much this crunches into "9 actions"

very combo-y but fun and just short of annoying

bot can be swingy with how often it doubles actions, but it was very polite this play. lost by one!!!

#SoloYear #boardgames #sologaming 24/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of board game Shinkansen: Zero-Kei mid-game

Close up photo of board game Shinkansen: Zero-Kei with box cover in background

Shinkansen: Zero-Kei

reading rules, I thought this would be _too_ much of a plate/pancake/glaive spinning type of game but it blends much better than I thought

I got lucky w/ draw but it's _brutal_ to have bot lock out carriage swap right out. that's kind of the game?

#SoloYear #boardgames 23/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of Flatiron board game mid play.

closeup photo of flatiron board game at end of game with layers of wooden cylinders precariously holding up layers of cardboard floors making up a loose representation of a flatiron building structure

Flatiron

tight 1-2p tableau-building worker placement to build a shared building

I _really_ dig the knife-fight from the different color pillar requirement, especially since the color point values are asymmetric

also, what a visual!

#SoloYear #soloboardgames #boardgames 22/

Twilight Struggle: Red Sea board game setup, Ryan posing in front.

Twilight Struggle: Red Sea

lean version of twilight struggle which does the original great justice! very funny to play only two hands, but it surprisingly works

the first time I played, the bot stuck in a loop that I couldn't help but cheese. good challenge this time!

#SoloYear #boardgames 21/

Ryan posing in front of board game Dual Powers mid play

Dual Powers

light area-influence Russia 1917, first time

the MP game is mostly about the secret objective "headline" card choice but solo gives you a face-down one and are forced to spend a precious action to inspect. bot getting will of people automatically is punishing

#SoloYear #boardgames 20/

Ryan posing in front of in-progress game of The Wars of Marcus Aurelius

The Wars of Marcus Aurelius from @rdeleskie.bsky.social & HS

haven't played in a minute! had some nasty rolls (shh about the empty Quadi), but this one's really fun. I like the dig-your-own-grave temptation of unlimited cardplay while your draw dwindles

#SoloYear #boardgames #sologames 19/

Ryan posing with Irish Freedom game mid-play

Irish Freedom

great topic! only played once before when it came out. both times I think tooooo swingy out of the gate for me. need to try again soon to try to make it to the second half of the game ; D

#SoloYear #boardgames #sologames 18/ (ugh, bad photo, sorry)

DerrocAr

sick theme, knife fight for pres succession in Argentina 2000-ish. it's Pax Munchkin? That's mean. but set collection gotcha is core. the political aspects make it _very_ interesting

novel solo what's procedure flowchat uses and plays _your_ hand. fine solo?

#SoloYear #boardgames 17/

Jump Ship!

cheat game because I spend the whole pm reading Cardboard Ghosts and couldn't be bothered to learn something

picked this up as a prospective game with kid. idk? can't see any cyoa being worse than this. lacks narrative viv, idk what else to say

#SoloYear #boardgames 16/

oh hell, I've got a lot of posts to catch up on.

I broke my one-a-day-streak but I'm well ahead of cadence for one _per_ day, #SoloYear posts incoming!

ps: america's bad right now, you shouldn't do it like we done it

okay tonight's #SoloYear might be an A4 handwritten proxy of Win Lose Banana because I just want my solo activity to be crushing

ryan posed, peace sign, with initial setup of Pocket Master Builder

Pocket Master Builder

hits _right_ at the limit of too spatial for me. the bot is a little hard to preempt. super mean flipping/denying in a great way >: D

lots to juggle and it makes me _more_ reticent to take on Rome

#SoloYear #boardgames 15/

Ryan in front of Red Cathedral board game

red Cathedral board game near end

The Red Cathedral

still great! I love the cadence of using delivery or claim turns to stall for when the dice are where you want but the storage space/coin game is tight.

I realized bot cards should NOT be randomized as written, flop gave me way too much head start, trounced it

#SoloYear 14/

selfie of ryan giving peace sign in front of finished game of the Peak Oil: Profiteer board game

photo of the front cover of the Peak Oil: Profiteer board game

Peak Oil: Profiteer

WOAH what a surprise

it's got the King is Dead / Pax Penning kind of using your tenuously favored non-player suits for gain at the expense of their future efficacy (increased cost in this case) but wrapped in a lil euro econ

solo was eh, but wanna play MP _SOON_

#SoloYear 13/

selfie of Ryan posing with peace sign in front of the end game of La Granja board game

La Granja

wanted to try this since I fell in love with Cooper's Island! (also by ode.)

I love some pfister/chudyk multi-use cards but I didn't feel like there were enough card-play actions in the game that I was feeling good tension there. And I was fine with any die draft result?

#SoloYear 12/

selfie of Ryan giving peace sign in front of Time Stories Damien board game set up to start playing

Time Stories Damien board game at the end of play. tons of cards sprawled on the table.

photo of Time Stories Damien board game box cover

Time Stories - Damien

short promotional/demo Time Stories mission

it's fine? like great production and art but it's an hourish to play what would be, no joke, a five minute point and click adventure game. I think it would be miserable with multiple players and limited comms

#SoloYear 11/

selfie of ryan giving peace sign with the Halls of Hegra board game set up on the table. another person is beside ryan

photo of the board game Halls of Hegra midgame

Halls of Hegra

still the best solo game I've ever played

gameplay arc is: oh god I'm so stressed where do I put these plates → oh god wtf now I'm juggling plates → WHY ARE THEY SHOOTING AT MY PLATES

@tompetgames.bsky.social y'all did a good one <3

#SoloYear 10/

ryan posing close to the table giving peace sign. table has Bargain Basement Bathysphere game midplay

Bargain Basement Bathysphere

girl, I need to play this more often. the risky delve bait gives good Dome Keeper vibes. metaprogress works great in a short campaign

my partner and I played half the campaign together before [gestures broadly] but we'll have to get back into it. cute fun!
#SoloYear 9/

A year of solo board games 🎉 #SoloYear

New year! New social media! new reason to table #boardgames solo that I love and some I haven't yet had the chance to love <3

I won't struggle to find 365 games, but I'll always take suggestions ; D

new post everyday (🤞😬)

🧵 1/365 #SoloBoardgames

game board of Hegemony mid-play

Hegemony (take 2)

finally! I should have used the basic bot the first time ;D early impressions, but I had a blast

capitalist has a tough puzzle enticing the working class _just_ enough to get them to bite and still make bank. definitely coming back to this, probably as middle class

#SoloYear 8/