|
|
|
Always alone... the definitive list of single player games.
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
I frequently see questions asked about what games can be played with just a single player, and while there have been several other lists created for this purpose, I aim to make this the definitive list. Please add any games I may have missed.The two questions I always ask when looking at games are; "What's this about?" and, "Is this solitaire only, or can I play it with others?" To answer these questions, I have listed a brief summary of each game (stolen from the game's page) and listed the number of players supported. All comments are welcome and appreciated.
|
|
|
Posted Thu Dec 1, 2005 3:52 am
Edited Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:31 am
|
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
A family of games designed for a single player. These puzzle-games challenge the player to clear a grid of tokens or pegs. Typically all but one space on the board is filled. The game is played by jumping a peg over one other into an empty space. The peg jumped over is removed from the board. This continues until no more jumps can be made. The object is to leave only a single peg or token left on the board.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
This prairie-dog themed game is a stacking puzzle, and players must rearrange 13 prairie dogs into their burrows. Players must correctly stack six three-dimensional puzzle pieces with prairie dogs, so that all six pieces lie flat between the top and bottom puzzle layers. A logical and deductive challenge!
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Ant Trails is a solitaire puzzle game where you must lay tiles that have red and black ants and cracks. You must connect the ants of respective colours into a trail leading to their crack in the floor. The end tile placement must form a 6x6 square.
|
4.
Board Game: Ambush!
[Average Rating:7.19 Overall Rank:258]
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Ambush! is the solitaire game of combat, adventure, and heroism in World War Two France. Using a ground-breaking development of the programmed paragraph solitaire system, Ambush! gives the player control of an American squad, faced with a variety of missions against an ever-changing, hidden German foe. The variable events, innumerable tactical options, and wealth of unexpected occurrences make Ambush! a solitaire gaming experience unlike any that has gone before. The easily learned rules are specially designed to get the player into the action within minutes. The player selects and arms his squad, providing each soldier with command and initiative ratings, perception, weapons skill, driving skill, and movement capability. After selecting one of the eight missions provided, the player sends his squad into a mission map to conduct operations called for in the mission. Soldiers move freely, as far as the player wishes, checking for events each time they move...until the sequenced action founds are triggered by the whine of German bullets!
|
5.
Board Game: Cameo
[Average Rating:0.00 Unranked]
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
The game board is a 8x8 grid. The grid itself is divided into four 4x4 areas of a different color. On each area four rectangular cubes of the same color as the area are placed. The object is to move the cubes in such a way that at the end the areas contain cubes of a different color matching a previously drawn objective card
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
The Psychobox contains forty-eight psychological tests and brilliantly diverse optical illusions, each on a 5 5/16 x 7 5/8 card with informative and witty instructions for use on the back, and each inviting the reader's participation. Also included is a sixteen-page booklet by the famed British doctor and theatrical director Jonathan Miller introducing the tests and putting them in their historical context. And the box itself contains a three-dimensional perceptual trick.
|
7.
Board Game: Code-X
[Average Rating:4.92 Unranked]
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Code - X is a strange little game that challenges players to make connections using wooden rods of variable length on dowels in movable wooden bases. In the solitaire game, you try to use all the connecting rods. In the multiplayer game, you try to create a situation that will prevent your opponent from making a connection.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Indochine 2000 is a modified version of standard solitaire, also called Klondike. The differences are significant in that they add many new ideas and features that make the game much more strategic. Also, the game uses mah-jongg sized wooden tiles instead of cards, making it both easy and beautiful to play.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Maneuver the steel ball through the wooden maze without falling into any of the holes. The surface may have numerous tiny pits and bumps, making the behavior of the ball all the more erratic, but that arguably adds to the challenge. An unplugged precursor to video games.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
LEVEL Q is a three-dimensional brain twister, Level Q is a challenging test of design and perceptual skills for a single player. Work your way from Levels 1 and 2 up to Level Q - the highest level of mastery - by creating increasingly difficult configurations of columns on the gameboard.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
The object of the game is to move the 24 pieces in the least number of moves from a starting position (as described under any of the 20 illustrated games in this booklet) to a position described as a completed game. A game is completed when the 24 pieces are resting on the circles of the game board so that the number on each piece corresponds with the number below each circle on the game board.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Solo is a self-contained (i.e. no loose bits) solitaire game, in the "Fox and Geese" tradition. The plastic frame hold 41 balls, each with one black and one white hemisphere. The simple mechanics are to choose a ball, turn the two adjacent balls to the opposite colour and reverse the colour of the original ball. The object is to change all balls (except one) to the opposite colour from their starting position.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
A precision designed puzzle contains four big cubes and one square box for you put them in. But observe these cubes are warped out of square and require a seriously warped solution! Extremely challenging!
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Over 360 mind challenging puzzles! Triangulation will bring hours of fun to all ages. Start by recreating the Basic Square, if you're clever enough you will discover a 3-D image hidden within this puzzle, then move on to puzzles simple enough to captivate children yet challenging enough to baffle even the most ingenious of adults. Triangulation will strech your imagination as you attempt to solve the hundreds of puzzles that create animals, numbers, letters, and abstract objects. Discover how five easy pieces can be hundreds of laughs!
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Carrier is a solitaire simulation of both historical and hypothetical carrier battles in the Southwest Pacific Theater during the hotly-contested naval campaigns of 1942 and 1943. As the U.S. commander, you maneuver your task forces and conduct air searches in a tension-packed contest to find the Japanese carriers before they locate and attack yours. Simples game mechanics control Japanese movement and determine the timing and strengths of their attacks. You will not know that a Japanese air strike is headed your way until it actually appears in the skies above your task force. Once the enemy has been located, you face the very same, real-life, tactical dilemmas as you historical counterparts.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
The Vesuvius Incident is a solo game where the player controls a group of space marines on a rescue mission to evacuate the USS Feynman, a science ship in a low decaying orbit being overrun by hostile aliens. It becomes a battle against aliens and time as you try to rescue the crew before the ship breaks apart in the atmosphere.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Solitaire game of tank command. You control your Sherman tank (17 variations) and crew. Move into a new territory and deal with what you encounter.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Star Smuggler is a solitaire game of tense adventure in the far future. No opponent is necessary, as the Event Booklet takes you through a pre-programmed sequence of encounters which is different each time you play the game. For each event, you, as star smuggler Duke Springer must make the decisions which will make you huge profits - or may cost you your life.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Barbarian Prince is a solitaire game of heroic adventure in a forgotten age of barbarism and sorcery. No opponent is necessary, as the Event Booklet takes you through a pre-programmed sequence of encounters which is different each time you play the game. For each event, you, as the Barbarian Prince Cal Arath, must make the decisions which will make your quest successful - or may cost you your life.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Battle Hymn is a solitaire game of combat, adventure, and heroism in the Pacific during World War II. Using the revolutionary programmed paragraph approach pioneered in the Ambush! game system, Battle Hymn gives you a squad of American Marines and challenges you to fight your way through a variety of Missions against a deceptive and ever-changing Japanese foe. Unexpected events and innumerable tactical options offer virtually endless solitaire enjoyment, and the easily learned rules start even relatively inexperienced players on their first Mission quickly. Select you squad, arm them, and choose their Mission . Move your men out, advancing them as you wish, until something triggers an Event - until a peaceful walk in the steaming jungle turns out to be a fight for your life!
|
21.
Board Game: CATCH 21
[Average Rating:4.50 Unranked]
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Problem: Fit all 21 pieces onto the pegged board. When you've found the only logical solution (it's not easy) turn the board over for still another mental workout.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
It's the year 2032. A warp has opened up in the old Municipal Buildings in the heart of old Manhattan and bizarre creatures are flooding through into our dimension. Goading them on is Darkness, a malvolent entity who intends dragging the city of New York back through the warp - destroying it utterly!
Many brave men died assailing Darkness' stronghold before they remembered you. In the past you have done the Special Forces Unit many favours... but now you must come out of retirement to face the toughest challenge of your glorious career. Equipped with all the latest in high-tech armaments you must battle your way into the very heart of Darkness' domain and defeat him within the hour - or the city you love will be destroyed!!
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Damocles Mission is a solitaire paragraph based game to explore the alien craft around the earth. Tiles will allow the player to expand the known area of the craft, and a variable handicap system at the end of each play will allow you to adjust the initial allocation of units for the next time to make it easier/harder.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
Solitaire game of the battle for Stalingrad, 1942/43. Innovative system plots the player as the surrounded Germans trying to break out from the Soviet encirclement.
|
|
|
Mike Keane
United States
San Angelo
Texas
|
1 player only
A new and different type of fantasy boardgame that requires only one player to play. Included are easy to understand rules for various weapons, magic and fantastic creatures, along with a colorful map and counters.
|
|
|
|
Posted Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:50 pm
San Angelo
Texas
I must thank those that made these lists before me, as well as the rest of BGG community for their input; I could never have created this list otherwise.
Utica
New York
...and now I know where Electronic Arts got their original company slogan from.
Isafjordur
No problem with wargames, most of them can be played solo.
What really annoys me are the new games (and by new , I mean in the last 3 years or so) have no solitaire rules.
Solo variants are OK, but I do so wish that game designers would at least try and include a solo variant of their own.
I have loads of solitaire games, but I really want to see an adventure game or a civy game that includes solo play in the future.
Thanks for this list, I do come back and look at it just in case there is something new.
Regards.
PS: BTW, there is a great little puzzler called Alcatraz which I find very good and if possible could be included here.
The one game that seems to be missing in the list is Saikoro which can be played solo.
If you need a list of solo games, I can furnish you with one
Edit: included PS
Gaithersburg
Maryland
It's the game of the British commando raid on the German-held French port of St Nazaire, intended to deny the use of the Normandie Dock to the Tirpitz.
It's one of the most replayable games I know - I've played it over twenty times and no two games have been or felt the same.
The board is awesome - looks like a satellite photo of the dock area, with targets, gun emplacements, sea and land areas well represented. You get a great feeling of the increasingly desperate fight the commandos were in as the Germans got organized and came after them.
A definite solitaire hit.