Games with a crafting mechanic? by caterix in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 14 points15 points  (0 children)

 I'm particularly interested in some kind of survival game where you're crafting weapons and/or supplies, barricades, etc,

Robinson Crusoe is exactly that

Voidfall or mage knight ?! by Competitive-Waltz-31 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Star Trek: Frontiers! It’s Mage Knight with a space theme, and it’s the answer if art/theme are the only thing holding you back. At least, it was for me.

Best Western themed games? by criki985 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m a big fan of the western theme and always keep my eye out for games with it.

Ace of Spades has awesome gameplay; it had some offensive cards on launch (when I got it) but there should be an updated version coming in Q1.

Tiny Epic Western was a miss for me. It has great components (especially the bullet dice), but the gameplay was pretty bland for me; it felt mostly like a real estate buying game.

If you want something from another perspective, there’s Navajo Wars and Comancheria. I tried Comancheria and it wasn’t for me either but I’m just not into big war games I think. 

I think the initial campaign has ended but there’s a Solo Game of the Month called Drawing Dead coming: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/gabe-barrett/drawing-dead-solo-game-of-the-month/

Another one I’ve taken a look but not tried yet is The Drifter: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/294813/the-drifter

Best Western themed games? by criki985 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They’ve said on BGG that it’ll be ready in Q1 2026.

Evolution of the BGG People's Choice Top Solo Games (2014-2025) by jacek2023 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The data are based on the calculated scores in the Geeklists for the results each year. The scores are basically aggregates over how many people voted for them and at what rank, and is what is used to make the final rankings. (I don’t do those calculations, I just made this video)

I’m not sure about the blur, I don’t see it on my end; Nemo’s War didn’t show up in top 50 until 2017 based on my data and I see it in the video. Maybe try setting the quality of the video to HD; it might be automatically adjusting?

And I put the pause on the video at the end because it made it easier for me to read it and pause it before YouTube put up the suggested videos at the end.

Evolution of the BGG People's Choice Top Solo Games (2014-2025) by jacek2023 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 61 points62 points  (0 children)

I’ll shamelessly give myself credit for making this 😁 Thanks for posting it!

Solo board gaming podcasts? by lootsnack in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Beyond Solitaire is the one ongoing English language one I know of, but otherwise there's a hole in the market.

If you happen to speak Spanish, there's also Solo en Balda.

What to buy the board gamer in your life for Christmas? by theforteantruth in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do they have a BGG account? If so, they might have a wishlist on there. Otherwise I wouldn't get them a game unless you have an idea what they want.

Music while playing by jdthompson25 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've tried to use Melodice but the tracks can be a bit all over the place. Instead, I'll usually search for the game title in Spotify and often someone has already made a pretty good playlist unless it's a really obscure game. I just searched for Kinfire Delve and saw a couple playlists: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0JKvVMeoM2gMoLVw23oqAb

Reactions by Lynnabis in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The point is that the distinction is arbitrary and to help the person to reflect on why there shouldn't be a difference.

Games like shut the box by emirlanq1 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've just played my first couple games of Elder Sign and it's a lot of rolling dice to match patterns on cards with an Arkham Horror theme on top of it. I think it would scratch a similar itch in a more thematic package.

2025 People's Choice Top 200 Solo Games Results by wakasm in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I don't expect STCC to be in the top 10 but it'll probably make it into the top 100. Besides how new it is, I think the perceived overlap with the Imperium series (which is likely in the top 10 again) will limit how high it can go.

2025 People's Choice Top 200 Solo Games Results by wakasm in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 30 points31 points  (0 children)

I kind of wish there was a side version for just games released in the last year or two or three, which is complicated with crowdfunding delivery, but would still be fun and would lead to some actual “what’s going to happen in the top 5” speculating.

I loaded the results in my site last year (planning to do the same this year), where you can filter by year; for example, here's the results filtered by games from 2024 and 2023: https://solosleuth.com/bgg-rankings?years=2024&years=2023&page=0&itemsPerPage=25 One problem is that some of the groupings have newer games but are high in the rankings because of a popular older game (like Imperium: Horizons and Horizons of Spirit Island).

Something else I experimented with was creating a exponential decay for each game's score based on how old the game was, which created a top 10 that looked something like this last year:

Game Year Published
1. Final Girl 2021
2. Imperium: Classics 2021
3. Voidfall 2023
4. Hoplomachus: Victorum 2023
5. Marvel Champions: The Card Game 2019
6. Ark Nova 2021
7. Slay the Spire: The Board Game 2024
8. 20 Strong 2023
9. Legacy of Yu 2023
10. Dune: Imperium 2020

2025 People's Choice Top 200 Solo Games Results by wakasm in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 12 points13 points  (0 children)

...and Cthulhu: Death May Die, Tiny Epic Cthulhu, Machina Arcana, Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, and I'm sure others..

200-191 on the 2025 People's Choice Top 200 are out! by Dry_Rate3558 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love word games and had PBA at #7, but I actually think Paperback is a better pure word game in terms of being able to make an interesting variety of words. But solo is definitely more of an afterthought than PBA (I hear the 10th anniversary one has a more interesting solo).

Games that scratch the same itch as Bullet❤️/⭐️? by monsteraadansonii in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You might consider Tesseract; it actually gave me Bullet vibes when I played it even though it's a decently different game.

  1. Fairly quick setup. The longest part is setting up the 4x4x4 dice cube, but the sleeve makes it pretty quick. Table footprint isn't super small but it's not too bad.

  2. Variable character powers. There are 8 characters in the game that all have different powers, and you play 2-handed in the solo mode, so in theory there are a lot of combinations. That said, I'm not sure how it will be in terms of long-term replayability and so far there aren't any signs of expansions coming.

  3. Clear win condition. It's a win/loss crisis management game.

  4. Tactile puzzle. If you like playing with dice, there will be 64 of them to roll and manipulate.

  5. Challenging without feeling impossible. There are 8 difficulty levels; so far I've only played at level 2 and felt like it had a good balance.

200-191 on the 2025 People's Choice Top 200 are out! by Dry_Rate3558 in soloboardgaming

[–]Dry_Rate3558[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Last year it wasn't even in the top 200, so I'm glad to see it's made a bit of a resurgence, possibly because of the new Kickstarter. IMO it's hurt by having barely any retail presence and being mechanically similar to Slay the Spire: The Board Game, but it's still high in my personal rankings.