I've spent the last few months playing through all of my owned solo games and ranking them. This has been to help me prep for the People's Choice Top 100 Solo games, but it was also a way to enjoy all of my games again.
Here's the list that I've come up with so far:
THREEPOINTTHED'S SOLO RANKINGS
1. Gears of War (28/30)
2. Zombicide: Black Plague (27/30)
3. Star Realms (27/30)
4. Xenoshyft: Dreadmire (26/30)
5. Baseball Highlights: 2045 (24/30)
6. Friday (24/30)
7. Flash Point: Fire Rescue (24/30)
8. Aeon's End (24/30)
9. Castle Panic (22/30)
10. Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (22/30)
11. Burgle Bros (22/30)
12. The Big Book of Madness (22/30)
13. The Lost Expedition (22/30)
14. The Grizzled (22/30)
15. One Deck Dungeon (20/30)
16. FUSE (19/30)
You can find my reviews for these games in earlier posts, although I haven't posted them all yet.
Now, this doesn't mean that FUSE is my #16 solo game - just the #16 solo game that I OWN and have played more than 2 or 3 times. I just picked up Star Trek: Frontiers, The Pursuit of Happiness, and Apocalypse Chaos and have played them each only 1 or 2 times. I've also owned, borrowed, and played other games that are great solo.
So, I'm going to attempt to add them in now, although this may change next year when I've had a chance to play some of these more. Here are the ones I'm thinking about:
- Star Trek: Frontiers - I've played one "learning game" and one full playthrough of the solo challenge, although I'm sure I played a zillion rules incorrectly. This game is fun. At first I was overwhelmed, but I'm in love with the million things you can do and the different ways you can add cards to your deck and use your deck. This is going to be a top game for sure.
- Apocalypse Chaos - this one hurts my brain. There are so many moving parts to this puzzle! I've only played it once, so there is a lot more to experience. I like it though, but probably not one of my tops.
- Pursuit of Happiness - I like this game with others, because there is a lot of storytelling opportunities. My one solo playthrough was fun, but lacked that interaction. Don't know if this'll get pulled out solo very often, but it is a great game.
- Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd edition) - borrowed this from a friend and played it a couple of times. It's nice, but it just isn't a deep enough game with enough choices. I do like the skills and things you can get and the components are nice.
- Mice and Mystics - borrowed this from my brother-in-law and played it through once. Even nicer components than Descent (in my mind) but even simpler. Too simple for me. A good intro dungeon crawler, but I'm beyond that.
- Ascended - I own this game, but have only played it 1.5 times. The rules were a big problem and I couldn't get into it and figure out how to play. They may have sent out some updates and fixes, but I haven't looked into it yet.
- Caverna - owned this and sold it. This was my first experience with a solo Euro game and I did not like it. It was boring. But, maybe I just needed to grow as a gamer. I'd give it another try, but it did not leave a good taste in my mouth at the time.
- Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game - flip tile, get attacked, kill monster, repeat. That's this game. I LOVE the books this game is based on, but the game was boring. Owned it and sold it.
- Escape: The Curse of the Temple (Big Box) - traded for this and then traded it away. It was fun, but it was too expensive for the amount I played it. I would totally pick up the base game used or in a trade.
- Forbidden Desert - owned and sold (twice). A good intro game, but I'm looking for more depth.
- Legends of Andor - owned and sold. I can't really put my finger on why I didn't like this game, but I just didn't. Felt like I didn't get into the theme of it.
- Lord of the Rings - owned and sold. To be honest, couldn't really figure out how to play it. Maybe I didn't give it enough time but I found it confusing and uninteresting.
- The Lord of the Rings: Journey to Mordor - sold to my brother-in-law. Just too simple of a game for solo and I have other simple games for playing with others.
- Sentinels of the Multiverse - love this game, great game, but ended up not loving the artwork (same reason why I don't own any other superhero games with their spandex clad females). Aeon's End partially scratches the Sentinels itch for me.
- Space Hulk: Death Angel - bought and sold. That stupid die! I have no problem playing a tough game, but I didn't find it fun that so often success or failure relied on the roll of one die that you had very little to do with.
- Super Fantasy: Ugly Snouts Assault - bought and sold. The quirky art was fun, but something about it just didn't click.
- Tiny Epic Quest - Kickstarted and sold. Tried playing it once and I don't know, it just didn't click. Plus there were other games I wanted the money for and I knew I could make a profit if I sold it right away.
- Vast: The Crystal Caverns - bought and traded (with our local board game cafe owner for Baseball Highlights 2045 - very happy with this trade!). I really liked the art and idea behind this game, but didn't find the solo very enjoyable and wanted the money for other things (perhaps an SNES Classic).
So, after all of that, here's how my top 20 rounds out:
THREEPOINTTHED'S SOLO RANKINGS
1. Gears of War (28/30)
2. Zombicide: Black Plague (27/30)
3. Star Realms (27/30)
4. Star Trek: Frontiers5. Xenoshyft: Dreadmire (26/30)
5. Xenoshyft: Dreadmire (26/30)
6. Baseball Highlights: 2045 (24/30)
7. Friday (24/30)
8. Flash Point: Fire Rescue (24/30)
9. Aeon's End (24/30)
10. Castle Panic (22/30)
11. Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (22/30)
12. Burgle Bros (22/30)
13. Apocalypse Chaos
14. Pursuit of Happiness
15. Mice and Mystics
16. The Big Book of Madness (22/30)
17. The Lost Expedition (22/30)
18. Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd edition)
19. The Grizzled (22/30)
20. One Deck Dungeon (20/30)
I'll keep working on this (obviously) as I play and buy more games before next year, but I think this is how it all shakes down for 2017.
Except, I just got a shipping notification that Gloomhaven is out for delivery right now...
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