Skip to Content
 

Theory Behind Solo Games

10 replies [Last post]
Ekobor
Offline
Joined: 10/27/2008

Hello all, me again.

Right now I am looking at what makes a successful solo game.

I am mostly looking for what you look for in a solo game, especially a card game. I personally love solo games, as I don't have a group to play with that often.

I like games that still hold a sense of tension in single player, and believe Press Your Luck mechanics work well for that.

I also do not like having large numbers of things to track, as that detracts from the experience of the game. (If I'm constantly having to check them against things)

Direct conflict is something I dislike in games. I like the idea of the Call of Cthulhu card game where players are trying to win things out from under other players, rather than directly attacking each other.
It is also less exciting in a solo game, in my opinion, because there is less of a feeling of head-to-head battle.

What do you like in solo games? What don't you like?

devaloki
devaloki's picture
Offline
Joined: 01/15/2014
Hey Ekobor, I'm a huge fan of

Hey Ekobor,
I'm a huge fan of solo games and I'm designing mine to be solo playable. I've played a number of them so I'll share what I personally like in a solo game:
1. An important thing is not to have a strict time limit that one has to beat the game by. Make it so that there is a soft limit. What I mean is that instead of the player losing after say 30 turns, make it so that the difficulty progressively ramps up throughout the game, especially if the player gets stronger, and have it so when you get to (in the example) 30 turns more enemies come out quicker. So when you get to the limit you don't automatically lose but your chances of losing to the loss conditions of the game are increased.
2. Give lots of options one can do during their turn.
3. Have the difficulty high but fair.
4. If you use event cards, have world events that affect how things work on the board. Special circumstances are fun!
5. Either have multiple characters one can control solo, or if it's only one character you control have it so that there are a lot of things to keep track of with the character.
6. Have side quests the character can do and also have different degrees of victory for the game so you can keep track of your score between games to see yourself getting better.
7. Have the game able to set up differently each time to provide fresh challenges to the solo player. Randomization is good.
8. But on the other hand, don't make things too reliant upon chance. Cruel Necessity is fun game but I feel in that game that roll of the dice is too important.

I'll list more later on if anything comes to mind...
Oh and btw, here's a list of some of my all time favourite solo games:
- Mage Knight
- Dawn of the Zeds
- Eldritch Horror
- Defenders of the Realm
- Darkest Night
- Ghost Stories
- Yggdrasil
- Wrath of Ashardalon

The Chaz
The Chaz's picture
Offline
Joined: 11/20/2012
Do or don't?

OP says "don't have lots of things to keep track of";
dev says "do..."!

(Or maybe that was a typo)

Sometimes I feel like the *action point system* so prevalent in today's games (Pandemic, Forbidden Desert/Island, Flashpoint, etc.) is an attempt to balance out all the upkeep/maintenance that happens (usually) at the end of each player turn.

What is the alternative, though, to "do good stuff; do bad stuff"?!?

DO you let a certain number of players take their turn before the bad stuff happens (e.g. Sentinels of the Multiverse)?

And how do you balance that? It seems like - and it's been a while since I've played SotM - you have twice the advantage in SotM with 4 players as you do with 2. Is it worth balancing, or do you just say "this is easier with more characters/players"?

devaloki
devaloki's picture
Offline
Joined: 01/15/2014
Chaz, it wasn't a typo, I

Chaz, it wasn't a typo, I really did mean to say it's a good idea for the player to have lots of things to track (but not overly so of course).

What the designer should avoid though are rules that are very minor/exceptions that come up very rarely. Republic of Rome and A Touch of Evil are both solo playable games that suffered from the problem of having rules exceptions that were very minor and easy to forget.

The Chaz
The Chaz's picture
Offline
Joined: 11/20/2012
While I've got you here...

Thanks for clarifying - I still think we're mostly all on the same page :)

Now for a philosophical question: would you say that co-operative games are just solo games with "too many" players, or something like that?

Naturally, this is related to the whole "quarterbacking/alpha gamer" concept - where one player dominates the decision-making process.

If one player *could* just play solo, why not? (Ignoring the social aspect)

X3M
X3M's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/28/2013
I too looked into the solo

I too looked into the solo game.

But found out that certain games never can have a proper solo version. Thus make sure the game is fun and mechanical possible to do with just 1 player.

I agree with point 1. This is a good point. However, there should be a chance for players to grow faster when taking the right action. Thus they outgrow the soft limits.

I also agree with point 2. But I want to add that players should be limited in what they actually can do in a turn. Thus plenty of options, limited in choosing.
About square root would be best. Thus 4 options, 2 choices, 9 options, 3 choices.

3. Is a given. I hate games that are unbeatable in 5 out of 6 times. A 50-50 ratio is always best.

All the other points are good points.

8. With number 8, my opinion is that only 1/3th should be based on gamble. Thus having 2/3th to react to a bad outcome and having at least some progress.

9. Stopping progress of a player, or even reversing the progress. Is no fun. Players should always have some progress. However, the game itself can progress faster, thus the player looses. Let's say, you hide the reversing of a player to that player.

Ekobor
Offline
Joined: 10/27/2008
Beware, long winded answer

Beware, long winded answer ahoy!

@devaloki
1. Why would you say that a hard limit is a bad thing?
In my experience having to do something in a time limit really adds to the tension of the game, and can make it feel a lot less draggy.
Obviously not every game would benefit from a hard limit, but surely some games would be more interesting with one?

2. Most certainly a lot of options is a good thing. That makes it feel strategic and engaging. But also having all (or at least most) of those options seem viable every turn. There is no reason to have ten things you /can/ do, if only two of them are ever useful.

3. I agree with this. I feel in solo games it is even more important to achieve balance than in multiplayer, as there is only the one player to mitigate anything odd happening in the game.

4. Agreed! Special circumstances /are/ fun! As long as they aren’t /all/ special circumstances, making none of them feel special, of course.

5. I’m not sure I agree with this entirely. I agree there is a need to track a certain number of things, or the game feels too linear, but there is certainly a threshold, and that can be different with everyone. I would be okay with tracking two or three characters that have up to five things each, but much more than that is too much for me. One character with fifteen seems too much for me, even though it is the same number of things, technically. There has to be a balance.

6. Yes. I like that most every play through would feel different, right down to how you won. But again there is a threshold. Too many ways to win and it feels easy. As for side quests, as long as they are not the focus of the game, or required for the most part (Like, complete three side quests is fine as a victory condition, but complete Find the Hidden Egg isn’t) I think there can be a whole lot of them, making the game a lot more variable.

7. I agree with this. It makes the game last longer in the long run.

8. I also agree with this. There is a threshold (again.)

Exceptions for exceptions sake are obviously bad. unless an exception is going to be used regularly I don’t think it needs to be included. This works especially well in card games where the exception is written directly on the card, making the need to look at the rules moot.

@The Chaz
I believe a game that plays equally well with 1 player as with more is a rarity. Pandemic supposedly did this (though I haven’t played yet).
I think the social aspect /is/ all that separates a solo game from a co-op one. If you didn’t have the social aspect you may as well be playing by yourself.
Unless there is some bonus that makes the game easier/harder/different that you can only do with other players, but then you could play as more than one player…
I guess if each player has hidden information is the only real way I can think of that soloing would not be better, in a co-op game. But that seems against the grain of a co-op game.

@X3M
I saw your post about the solo wargame. I agree that some games will just never work well in a solo version.

I think this is crucial in a game that doesn’t have a hard limit, and harkens back to balance. If the player never grows a bit stronger than the game, the player will only win by fluke.

Yes. If you can choose to do everything, there is little point in choosing.

I’m not sure a hard limit of 50/50 is always best, but certainly close to there. If I can win 4/10ths of the time, I feel accomplished, like I’m challenged. A game that you can learn how to beat is the game I would want to avoid, as that is less a game, and more a puzzle to be solved.

8. I don’t know the math, but that sounds good.

9. Agreed! It reminds me of Tales of Arabian Night’s Enscorcelled effect. the other players get to move your character for you until you could win a die roll. Mixed with another card that let another player pick your die roll, it was completely unfun for the player, as they lost all sense of control.

Mosker
Mosker's picture
Offline
Joined: 03/30/2014
It's an either/or (mostly) situation.

Ekobor:

My question when approaching a solo game: Must this take my full attention? Most of the time the answer is yes, but consider the casual market for electronic games on portable devices, the enduring appeal of the basic solitaire (patience).

Can you play the game sitting on a couch, all of the components fitting on a TV tray, with a ball game on television or are you taking over the dining room and basement with a large playing surface.

(Playing area need not be the sole consideration: I have fond memories of playing Sorcerer's Cave as a child on the floor as our local broadcast Sunday afternoon horror movie was on TV).

More recent example: just got a stack of cheap Vs. System cards that I am trying to repurpose (a basic rules variant isn't working) into a quick little solitaire game that minimizes physical space--especially the opponent's--and plays as fast as Patience.

Progress has admittedly been meh, but this is as much a design exercise for me than anything else. At the same time, I'm starting to think that there may be a solitaire experience that's perhaps a more satisfying superhero experience than the multiplayer game, but the final result will hug to the opposite pole--something that would be far, far more complex than the basic rules.

Final note: remember your players are consumers. Complexity is easier to pay for because it has the (deceptive) aura of a designer working harder. If you choose the former route, allocate extra time to polish and playtest. (And yes, water is wet and the sun rises in the east.)

jvallerand
Offline
Joined: 10/12/2013
I think that a solo game

I think that a solo game should have: (1) a quick set-up and take-down; (2) multiple paths to "victory"; (3) a feeling of progression between games (either difficulty levels of the AI, or a numerical score you could try to beat); and (4) not too much randomness.

The reasons behind that:
(1) When setting up a multiplayer game in my group, there is either social interaction to distract us, or we save precious gaming time by setting up before players arrive. Solo games are rarely planned ahead of time, I believe, and so having to set up for more than 5 minutes would, for me, kill my enthusiasm for the game.

(2) If I have a solo game, I want to be able to play it multiple times. If every time, I have to do the same thing, I won't play a third game. I need enough different paths to victory that by the time I've tried them all, I have the feeling I could do better using the first one than the last time I tried it.

(3) If (2) is about getting back to the game at a later day, (3) is about playing a second game right after. These mini games on everyone's phone? They work because by the time they end, you feel like you can beat that hi-score/level/boss if you just try one more time. To play a solo game multiple times, I'd need that sense of progress. Also, it provides tension.

(4) While controlled randomness is interesting, if I beat my hi-score because instead of Event "Plague infests your Kingdom", I got "It's raining Diamonds!", then I'm never touching the game again. I have to feel like I'm the reason behind the result I had: I mean, isn't that the whole point behind solo games?

pelle
pelle's picture
Offline
Joined: 08/11/2008
I love solitaire games. I

I love solitaire games. I have quite a collection of them, and have designed a few. Preparing for the 2014 bgg solitaire game design competition (about to start in a few months).

Agree about giving players much to track and decide on. On the other hand abstract as much as possible about the enemy/opposition. There are some great examples of this in solitaire wargames, for instance the player can be forced to track ammunition, have units within command distance of its commander, but the enemy has no such considerations.

In fact fiddling with rules is a major thing that makes solo boardgames worth playing to be honest. Some popular games are pretty much just following rules and rolling some dice. I don't really enjoy that style of game, but many do. I still think there is worth from having mechanics that force you to follow somewhat lengthy procedures now and then, because it adds tention. Rolling a die, drawing a card, looking somehting up in a table then find the result in a second table, is more fun than just drawing a card to get a result. It is also more fun than tapping a button on a tablet and see the result instantly. Having to follow a procedure and watch the result being made is a good thing that should not be underestimated and not be optimized away without good reason. Too much of it of course will make the game too slow for most of us.

Randomness is also very important. Make a new game every time, not just a puzzle that can be solved and then becomes meaningless to replay.

Don't make the game too easy. I know I'm not alone in rarely replaying a solo game I have won, at least not unless there is a lot of random world-building to make each game unique. I can keep replaying a game many times if I feel like I almost won but have not quite figured out how to win. On the other hand if I have figured out how to win but just need to replay to get the right dice rolls that is also boring.

A great thing is if you can make a campaign game, in particular if each scenario in the campaign can be set up and played in a very short time (of if short scenarios are available).

pelle
pelle's picture
Offline
Joined: 08/11/2008
jvallerand wrote: (4) While

jvallerand wrote:

(4) While controlled randomness is interesting, if I beat my hi-score because instead of Event "Plague infests your Kingdom", I got "It's raining Diamonds!", then I'm never touching the game again. I have to feel like I'm the reason behind the result I had: I mean, isn't that the whole point behind solo games?

No, the stories and adventures created is the point to me. And the tension of generating the random events. Solo games to me is closer to gambling than to playing chess, although ideally it has elements of that type of gaming as well. But some successful solo games are really just random story generators where you roll dice and apply rules and watch what happens, make some obvious decisions now and then (at best) and hope you win. That's a bit too extreme to me, but it is a good indication that randomness is a good source of fun for solo games.

Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut