#solotober2023 — Public Fediverse posts

To all my #boardgames #wargames friends on Mastodon... Apologies for letting the #Solotober2023 posts trail off. However, I offer you the complete list of solo games I played this past month. Posted on BGG. Thrilled that everyone else posted throughout *all* of October -- lots of really cool games out there! Special thanks to @neildixon for getting this event started! Here's my list, entry 151 👉 https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/321894/solotober-2023?page=7

I have a bad habit of feeling too tired to do anything, but too bored to keep watching mindless entertainment. #solotober2023 legitimately helped me to realize how energizing these solo games can be, and it got me to take another whack at Final Girl: Panic at Station 2891. This time, my partner (who was the one who purchased Final Girl in the first place but still hasn't played it) kept me company.

I did a lot better this time, both by luck and by strategy. I made an effort to find some weapons and test kits early, then started my testing. Only one of the three Exposed Victims ended up being a Mutated Organism, and I managed to kill it! Only for it to have the +3 final health token. The game ended when it got two attacks off on me in one round when I flubbed a Guard roll. It had a single health left. Sigh.

I know that this is a luck fest and it's a pain to set up, but I'm a sucker for good theme and this nails it so hard. I need to play this more often (and go back to the Alien one - I got really lucky the last time I played it and I want to see what it's like when that doesn't happen).

#boardgames #soloboardgaming #finalgirl

#BoardGames I played in October 2023, via #BGStats

It’s a big one because it was #Solotober2023 and I managed to play a different game every day for all 31 days! There’s now only one game in my collection that I’ve never played!

And that's it! #solotober2023 is done! Considering I didn't even know it existed on Oct 1, I feel pretty good about completing it. The period around my birthday and #GameHoleCon are going to be a struggle every year, but I'm fine with making sure I have the numbers even if I don't play every day.

Next year, I'd like to focus more on playing my heavier games on more days. There's a lot of lighter fare on this last (some from travel, some from time or energy), and I'd rather sink time into meatier games when I have the time and energy than "cheap out" with a bunch of e.g. Button Shy games. Maybe I'll consolidate those smaller ones into aggregated play sessions so I still get them to the table, but still hold myself accountable to play more stuff in general.

Altogether, I'd say this whole thing was great. It got me playing more solo games, clearing out some of my unplayed list, and thinking about what I like about solo games on the whole. It also got me buying more games which probably isn't great, but I enjoyed them! 😂

For the next month, I think I'll be focusing on two-player games. I won't be committed to playing 30 in November necessarily, but I'll do my best for sure! Off the top of my head, I'm looking forward to General Orders: World War II, Sea Salt & Paper, Sky Team, Air, Land, and Sea, Radlands, Watergate, and 7 Wonders Duel. And that's just the two-player specific stuff I can think of! There's plenty more. I already can't wait 🤩

#boardgames #soloboardgaming #bgstatschallenges #bgstats

To close out #solotober2023, I played Final Girl: Panic at Station 2891. A fitting outcome for Halloween, too: alone in the cold, dark research station, surrounded by alien monsters, unarmed, with no chance of rescue.

I definitely played this way too slow. Instead of getting survivors out, I should've been collecting items and testing the exposed victims. With the goal of killing all the Mutated Organisms, I didn't manage to deal a single point of damage to any of them. It also didn't help that I lost three victims to frostbite on turn 2.

This was a mess and I loved it. I still think that setup and teardown for this whole game system is cumbersome, and it's an enormous table hog, but for a thematic dice fest, it really can't be beat.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming #finalgirl

What a day.

• An article about me published in the Seattle Times
• Last full day at my job
• ONT replacement for my fiber line
• Hours spent trying to get line speed in pfSense from some new hardware (unsuccessful)
• New dishwasher delivery taken back and rescheduled because the installers didn't realize the feet on the old one are adjustable
• Halloween treat distribution

Now I can finally play my last game for #solotober2023

Also I'm calling it now that my final play for #solotober2023 is going to be this, because it has to be.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming #finalgirl

And for my quicker game to get me caught up for #solotober2023 , I finally broke out Skulls of Sedlec with the Monstrance expansion. I've had this for ages, and for whatever reason have put off trying it out until tonight. Well, okay, I'm playing it tonight because it's after midnight, finally making this Halloween 🎃 But there's no reason for me to have out it off for the many months leading up to October!

I really enjoyed this. The feature being a different shape than the stack, the additional choices that provides in terms of placement, the extra challenge from the scoring condition, all of it makes for a nice light puzzle. I'm kicking myself now for now picking up any of the other expansions - hopefully there will be a reprint sometime soon.

I managed 61 points, just enough to get me into the Humble Monk scoring category.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

I spent my evening playing an excellent solo game of John Company Second Edition for #solotober2023. I played using the 1710 scenario at Normal difficulty. I spent the first half of the game trying to get military control of India, only to have my first controlled region immediately lost (which is now the second time this has happened to me). The Events in India deck led to the northern half of the country being secured as an enormous empire, and by mid game, almost all of the contracts were closed. The AI, seeing the lack of control, decided to cut and run and start the company's downfall by cutting off cash flow. I made a last ditch effort to eke some personal funds through trade, but a botched roll meant that both I and the company were all but bankrupt.

On the second to last turn, the famine relief card came up. I had £2 to the Crown's £4 and I thought I could starve it out, but all that ended up happening was me losing all of my funds and my shipyards. The AI can pull from company funds (and trigger more emergency loans in doing so) to pay for taxes and upkeep. Ugh. The end result of this was me losing all of my prizes (and thus, all of my VP) as the company took slightly longer to fail than would've been helpful.

I won the power contest and got some points as a result, but not fast enough. I should have worked harder to actively tank the company sooner (really, as soon as the Crown had seven shares). Lesson for next time I suppose.

One of these days I need to try out the longer game. I haven't played with deregulation yet, and I'm curious to see how that changes the dynamic.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

And I know the #solotober2023 rules say not to count every short game play separately, but I'm behind enough that I'm doing it anyway. I'm only really accountable to myself (and @neildixon I guess 🤣).

Alright, 23 points this time, which still puts me in the lowest scoring category (Embarrassing Environment).

I don't think I like this one very much? The rules for placement are really constraining in a way that is more frustrating than fun. Keeping track of the runestones is fiddly.

I'll hold on to this and give it another shot some other time, but it's not even close to my favorite Button Shy game after two plays. I also have the expansion cards which I haven't added - maybe those help.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming #solotober2023

Trying out River Wild as I continue to work through my #solotober2023 backlog. I clearly did not understand the goal here. Managed to earn two whole points. Let's give this another shot.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

My next game for #solotober2023 catch-up is Baseball Highlights: 2045. I first played this with a buddy when it was brand new and enjoyed it. After coming back to the hobby this last year-ish, I knew I wanted it in my collection. The publisher, Eagle Gryphon Games, doesn't seem to sell the full game anymore, but you can assemble it piecemeal from the "Spring Training" box, some extra starter teams, and the full sixty card free agent deck. As a bonus, doing it this way makes it a remarkable deal, as all of the parts are only a couple bucks. I threw down for some extra starter teams - the Brewers may not have made it to the world series in 2023, but for this game, they won it in 2045 😀

This was my first time playing this solo. Giving the AI a static team of fifteen free agents certainly makes the early games difficult, but the fact that their deck never changes means that you can learn it and plan around it. The deck building, as always, is a great part of this game. Deciding to focus on hard hitters or great defenders might seem obvious, but the tradeoff is usually low revenue for those players.

Like I keep saying, I absolutely don't need more game stuff, but maybe I should pick up some of the expansions for this. They only add a few cards each, but each one adds mechanics. Something to look into I suppose.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

Today's #solotober2023 contribution is the continuation of last night's SpaceCorp game. In the Planeteers and Starfarers eras, I never could quite catch up to the AI. I kept investing into Production, but could never get the cards I needed to truly capitalize on that. Next time, I'm going to focus more on getting early exploration bonuses and getting things built quickly to setting up industry.

Also, now that I'm looking at things, the game should have ended earlier thanks to the sixth contract being fulfilled. At that point, the AI's lead was even greater. Welp. Lessons for next time.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

#solotober2023 game two for the night: SpaceCorp 2025-2300AD. After a discussion a while back with @grayson about various space games (and after letting Leaving Earth slip through my fingers the last time it showed up at Noble Knight), this has been stuck in the back of my mind, and I finally picked up a copy from a BGG Marketplace seller who id purchased from before. It showed up today (with the Ventures expansion, new in shrink), so I figured I'd give it a go.

Because I started way too late and I'm still going slowly to make sure I don't screw up too much, I'm pausing tonight at the end of the Mariners era. The AI is only 4 Profit ahead of me right now - it beat me to Mars and got plenty of discovery tokens bonuses, while I was busy chasing contracts for points. We'll see how things go in the next era!

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

For #solotober2023 tonight I finally played some of the Onirim expansions! One Stop Co-op Shop has a video out on the latest Oniverse game where they mentioned having a playlist of all their Oniverse videos. On there, they have a playthrough with all seven of the included Onirim expansions at once. That seemed excessive, so I started with three: The Glyphs, The Dreamcatchers, and Crossroads and Dead Ends. I definitely see why people love this game so much now! The core game provides a really solid base to build this modular system on top of, and the way the expansions intersect is fun. The dreamcatchers significantly reduced shuffling (yay), but the dead ends made me want to hit the same nightmares that those dreamcatchers were sequestering away. Similarly, having door cards stuffed into the dreamcatchers meant I never had a serendipitous moment of grabbing a door while I had a matching key. I'm really excited to try more combinations here!

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

And that was my #GameHoleCon! Some truly incredible games, some real stinkers. Not a lot in the middle, somehow. In spite of those, I still had a great time. Meeting nice new folks, catching up with friends from around the midwest and from here in town that I just don't see too often. The food trucks had excellent food as always. I scored some deals in the vendor hall. It was a good time.

Lessons for next year:

• Diversify. No more signing up for two or three games from the same GM.
• Keep trying new systems. It usually works out well.
• Don't book myself for 12+ hour days with no breaks for food. I say I'll stop doing this every year, but when event registration comes around, I can't help myself.
• Go do the paint and take! I've got everything I need for painting minis but I haven't put brush to plastic, and this is such a low-investment way to try it.
• Maybe leave time to see one of the presentations, go to the auction, do other con "social activities". I always spend my whole con in rooms playing RPGs, and there's so much more to see!
• Leave time for boardgaming! I haven't spent enough time playing anything but solo or two-player games with my partner this last year and I need to play more multi-player games.
• Meet up with more folks from the Fediverse! I saw that a ton of people who read these were at the con, and I didn't make enough of an effort to meet up with folks. Gonna have to rectify that next year.

Anyway, with this finally written up, I can get back to focusing on #solotober2023. My plan for the weekend is to get caught up and play some bigger games that I haven't been making time for. Here's hoping I can hit my 31 plays by Tuesday night!

#ttrpg #boardgames

Second #solotober2023 game of the day is Mike Lambo's Lone Sherman, a solitaire book game. Mike has produced a whole bunch of these, but this one's the most commonly recommended. In it, you control a single Sherman tank through various missions. Tonight I attempted Mission 2 - Tiger Hunt. For this one, all you have to do is destroy the German Tiger tank and exit the map. Simple, right?

The German spawn locations turned this into an early game traffic jam. I was narrowly able to avoid the German tanks, and even managed to corner and damage one, but my turret was damaged by a Stuka attack and I couldn't capitalize on that damage to convert it to a kill. Eventually, I was up against a blockade of three German tanks in a row in front of me, and managed to take out the Tiger and punch a hole through the line. Unfortunately, a hit on my Sherman caused a fire, which continued to grow and shrink for the rest of the game until a lucky shot to my back from a Panzer III landed a killing blow.

These games are total luck fests, but I love them for the narratives they generate. They play in about an hour, and using some 3d printed tanks really enhances the experience. I need to reprint these - for whatever reason, I supported them upside down, so the surface detail on the top is terrible, while the bottoms and treads look perfect 🙃 I could also print up some real tokens, but generic cubes work fine honestly.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

Game night, so it’s a quick Grove for today’s #Solotober2023. I managed to beat my high score, but failed to beat the target score of 76!

Beginning my attempt to catch up on #solotober2023 with Apex Predator. @bymattkelly posted about this one, and it turns out that I have it thanks to an itch.io bundle.

It's fine. The theme is Monster Hunter, but the gameplay is pretty basic. You traverse a playing card grid, triggering effects associated with each card. You're looking for four cards of the same suit as the monster you're hunting, and when you find those, the monster is in its lair (the monster card). The card effects are pretty straightforward: gain advantage or health, lose advantage or health, roll to avoid losing advantage or health, gain or lose tracks, and in many cases, no effect. Once you find the monster, you roll dice until one of you is knocked out. You can respawn at your base once (which I did), but when the monster hits 0, you win.

Maybe the more advanced monsters have more interesting mechanics, but I was pretty bored with this one. Finding things in the jungle leading to a flat +1 felt bland, and the fight with the monster being a roll-off just doesn't do anything for me. Maybe if there were more choices (e.g. tracking what you pick up and their elemental or status effects, choosing when to use which items against the monster) I'd find it more engaging, but as it is, I don't think I'll be playing this one again any time soon.

#boardgames #soloboardgaming

I've been quiet on here aside from making excuses about not playing my #solotober2023 games (and tonight will probably be another one of those nights - it's been a long day of adulting), so let's make this more positive with some write ups from #GameHoleCon

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Day 22 #Solotober2023: Playing the Wars of Marcus Aurelius from @rdeleskie and Hollandspiele. Love the topic (yes, I think about Rome every day) and the mechanics. This is the game that got me into solo gaming and helped me rediscover #boardgames #wargames. @neildixon

I'm now 3 days behind on #solotober2023 but I have a working pfSense firewall with all the bells and whistles I want. Priorities or something.

Day 21 #Solotober2023 : Playing Apex Predator by Peach Garden Games. Tracking and hunting titanic monsters in an ancient forest. Really enjoying the tension and use of common components! #boardgames @neildixon

Day 20 #Solotober2023 : Playing Dustrunner by Grey Gnome Games. Racing across a post-nuclear wasteland in my all-terrain cyberpunk vehicle. Fending off raiders and other threats. The mechanics and artwork are very cool. #boardgames @neildixon

Day 19 #Solotober2023: Still more Miru by @Hinokodo . This is a fascinating world – still exploring! Have faced off with T-5 and T-7 robots, wild dogs and a Grolar Bear. Just acquired a laser arm, hope to fashion a new weapon soon. #boardgames @neildixon

Day 18 #Solotober2023: Playing more Miru by @Hinokodo . This world opens up with interesting places. Building strength and gathering tools to face the challenges and mysteries it presents. #boardgames @neildixon

Yikes. It's been a few days since I posted for #solotober2023. Been playing, just haven't been posting. Get ready for a bunch of updates... #boardgames 👍 @neildixon