1 Player Podcast

This week's episode gets us outside, figuratively, when Julius tells us about a Kickstarter game he received recently.  This is the very pretty looking Blume.

• Blume (BGG)

This week Julius and I talk about Noctiluca.  It's a neat little-ish game about bio-luminescent single-celled organisms.  I argued they are plankton and Julius called them jellyfish.  I won the argument during the show but apparently in scientific circles the verdict is still out.  Anyway, we all know, Noctiluca are really dice!

Make sure to check out the video linked below.. it's quite amazing.

• Noctiluca (BGG, Wikipedia, Youtube)

This week Julius tells us about a Scooby-Doo themed escape room game. I tend to be uninterested in film & tv tie-ins, but this one sounds pretty cool!

WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS ONE.  STOP LISTENING AT 24:45 TO AVOID THE SPOILERS.

• Scooby-Doo: Escape from the Haunted Mansion (BGG)

Hot off the heels of the anniversary shows, Julius and I take a look at an older game. The game is Flash Point: Fire Rescue and it has a half dozen or so expansions.  Julius has played this a lot and I've dabbled in it every once in a while.  Listen in and see how we feel about these expansions.

• Flash Point: Fire Rescue (BGG)
  • Fire Academy Challenge (BGG)
  • Urban Structures (BGG)
  • 2nd Story (BGG)
  • Veteran and Rescue Dog (BGG)
  • Extreme Danger (BGG)
  • Dangerous Waters (BGG)
  • Honor & Duty (BGG)
  • Tragic Events (BGG)

Well, this is it.  This is the final episode in the solo podcasting series we've been doing.  This time around we have three more interesting and, again, very unique shows.  This episode runs a bit long but I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

• 01:52 - Once Upon a Die (Podcast, BGG guild)
• 26:30 - 1 Stop Co-op (Podcast)
• 43:58 - More Games Than Time (Podcast, Forums, BGG podcast page, Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice podcast)

The featured games

• Bullet (BGG)
• Paleo (pay-lee-oh) (BGG)
• Machina Arcana (BGG)
• Leaving Earth (BGG)

The anniversary party continues!  This week Julius and I split up to talk to two more solo gaming podcasts.  I am personally enjoying these a lot and really just REALLY LOVE the variety each of the shows brings. They each have their own charm and are really worth checking out.

• 01:21 - Solo BG (Spotify, RSS, Podcast en Español, RSS en Español, Facebook)
• 24:17 - Solosaurus (Podcast)

Games mentioned

• Nemesis
• Cthulhu Death May Die
• Tainted Grail
• Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps
• Newton

This week is the 10th anniversary of the 1 Player Podcast!  Wow, huh!?  When the show started there wasn't much talk of solo gaming in the podcast world, with at least the notable exception of the EXCELLENT Print and Play podcast which was hosted by FNH1.  it wasn't specifically solitaire, but quite often featured solo games.  Well in 10 years things have changed and we are lucky to have quite a variety of solo gaming shows to enjoy.  We are bringing on as many of the solo gaming podcasts as we can to give you a taste of what's out there.  You will see as you listen to the discussions that they are all interesting and quite different.  There is a lot more than we can fit into a single episode so this discussion will go over the next few weeks!

• 04:14 - Meeple, Myself and I (podcast, review geeklist)
• 18:11 - Stop Somewhere (podcast, Instagram)
• 29:57 - Always Player One (podcast, Facebook)

Some of the mentioned games

• Cartographers (BGG)
• Helionox: The Last Sunset (BGG)
• Ironsworn RPG (RPG Geek)
• The Coin Tribes' Revolt (BGG)
• Rollway Stations (BGG)

This very special announcement is here just to tell you there is no show this week. Tune back in next week!

It's back to the table with Friday!  I hadn't played this game in six years.  Julius and I took the time to re-visit this solo classic.

Someone's stolen the MacGuffin!  What do we do?  You've got five minutes to study the crime scene and find clues to lead you to the culprit.  This is a real-time family game that can be played solo and it sounds pretty fun.

This week Julius and go to the mall! More like we go to a magical mall and get lost.  We are talking about Magic Maze, the real-time mall crawling fantasy game.  If the theme makes no sense, that's okay.  This is a fast playing game for 1 to something like 6 players.  Instead of controlling a character, you control individual actions for all the characters.  It's a neat concept that works great for multiplayer...

• Magic Maze (BGG)

This week and maybe for the first time, we talk about an expansion to a game.  That's right... can you believe it?  We've already talked about Nations: the Dice Game twice before, not to mention Nations and an interview with Rustan Hakansson, so you know we like it.  Well, here's what we think about the expansion.

• Nations: The Dice Game - Unrest (BGG)
• Nations: The Dice Game (BGG)
• Nattions (BGG)

This week I have a discussion with Jason Carr of GMT Games.  He's now managing GMT One, their new internal development studio for solitaire gaming.  GMT Games has supported solo gaming for a very long time.  With GMT One, they are now creating a team of developers concentrated on helping GMT designers add solitaire play to their games.

Enjoy the discussion!

• GMT Games
• SpaceCorp (BGG, GMT Games)
• 1759: The Siege of Quebec (BGG, Worthington Games)
• Caesar: Rome vs Gaul (BGG, GMT Games)
• Red Flag Over Paris (BGG, GMT Games)
• GMT's Monthly newsletter with mentions of GMT One (2021 January, 2021 February, 2021 March)
• Inside GMT One blog posts (Inside GMT)

This week Julius tells us about the game Horrified.  If you like the classic movie monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster & the Bride of Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, the Werewolf and the Creater from the Black Lagoon) then you may just like this game.  This is a co-op game by Prospero Hall and published by Ravensburger that is reminiscent of Pandemic.

• Horrified (BGG, Ravensburger)

This week Julius is out of town.  Instead, I have a conversation with José Ruiz, a.k.a. Stuka Joe.  Stuka Joe has a YouTube channel with many, many playthrough videos of wargames. It you are interested in wargames it's worth checking out his solo playthroughs of multiplayer and solo games.

He's also the designer of the CDG Solo System which allows a person to play Card Drive Games solo by helping you manage the fog of war created by having a hand of cards.  Don't be confused like I was.  You will still be playing both sides, like playing Monopoly against yourself.  The CDG Solo System helps you manage the cards in a way that will still give you interesting choices and a fog of war.

The solo system is available as a PnP, but GMT is also going to produce a professionally printed edition via their P500, including tweak sheets for some of their CDG games, with more tweak sheets to come.  Not only that, as it is a community driven product, they will be offering their edition as a PnP, including the rules, playsheets and all the files you'll need, with very minimal printing.

I really enjoyed talking to Jose.  Listen in and see if this is something for you.  Even if you aren't a wargamer, this system is something you can probably use in many card driven games.

• CDG Solo System print and play edition (BGG)
• CDG Solo System (GMT Games)
• CDG Solo System playthrough video (BGG)
• Stuka Joe's video channel (YouTube)