Solotober 2025

 

For the forth straight year, I participated in the Solotober Challenge where I attempt to have 31 solo game plays in the month of October. Piggybacking off of last year's added challenge of also playing a different game everyday, I pledged to do that again and was successful. Before I get any further in this post, I know this is really late but I originally wasn't even going to write this post in the first place so give me some credit. There are a multitude of reasons for that but the main one being I played the vast majority of the games on BGA instead of in person because of just lack of time mostly. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I prefer to play physical copies of games for these challenges. Anywho, I got through it in what has become my busiest work month of the year.

As usual, I did enjoy finding time to sit down and play something by myself. What I did not enjoy was how many times I lost playing against the AI in Mandala. It's not the best solo implementation out there but I was bound and determined to win just once. Thankfully it was easy to grind through on BGA, because I might have cleared the table had I been drawing the cards myself. A counter bright spot was getting Glass Road to the table solo for the first time. I had played previously at four players but had seen a lot of praise for the solo version. I love an Uwe Rosenberg design and the puzzle that is Glass Road is something special. Other than that, I played a lot of shorter games just to meet the challenge.

This is continues to be an enjoyable gaming tradition that I plan to keep doing year after year. Hopefully I can do a better job in the future balancing everything during a busy work month. If you like solo gaming or are interested in starting, come join us at the 1 Player Guild. The people are some of the nicest and most accepting board gamers you'll find. The challenge is just a fun activity to do as a community that only requires you and whatever time you have available. Happy gaming!