1 Player Podcast

This week Julius and I talk about the game Skyline Express.  This game seems to mix, trains, air travel, maybe steampunk and a post-apocalyptic past to bring you a fun experience but seems to fall short for Julius.

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Skyline Express (BGG)

This week Julius tells us about City: Skylines a cooperative city building game by Rustan Håkansson, who designed Nations & Nations: The Dice Game.  Cities: Skylines is based on a video game IP and sounds like a big 'ol jigsaw of a game.  Check it out!

This week Julius and I gush about the game PARKS based on the US National Park system and the fantastic art from 59parks.net.  In this 1-4 player game, you play as hikers hiking through the parks, buying gear and filling your canteen along the way as you collect parks.  At it's heart it is a resource management game without enough time to collect all the resources you want.

• PARKS (BGG, publisher)
• 59parks.net (website)
• Field Notes Brand notebooks(website)

This week Julius and I talk about the time travelling game The LOOP.  More specifically, Julius tells me about the game.  It's got strikingly fantastic garish art and interesting game play.  Note that both of those facts are good things.

• The LOOP (BGG)

This week Julius and I look at something a bit different.  The Curioius Correspondence Club is a subscription service that will send you an escape room style mystery every month.  It comes in the form of a letter with all kinds of papercraft items that you use to solve the mystery.

Each letter is just about self contained, other than the internet you need to enter the final answer once you have solved all the puzzles.  You can also look at layered on-line hints if you get stuck with a puzzle.

The Curious Correspondence Club (website)

You ship got a bit too close to the sun and are now being pulled in. Sadly, your ship is suffering malfunctions due to the intense heat of the sun.  You need to rep[air all the modules as they break around you and divert power to the engine so you can escape the Sun's gravity.

This week we have a small episode in which I teach Julius the small game Solar Storm.  This is a fun little pandemic style cooperative game in a very small package.

This week I interview Elli Amir, designer of the game Worldbreakers: Advent of the Khanate.  This is a two player card game with a solo campaign mode which will be coming to Kickstarter in March.  I really enjoyed this conversation with Elli, not only did they talk about the game and the solo mode for the game but they told me a bit about the process of commissioning art for a game.  I really enjoy hearing the backstory for games and game design.  This was a really good conversation and I look forward to seeing more of the game, which can be tried for free on Tabletopia!

• Worldbreakers: Advent of the Khanate (BGG, website, Tabletopia)
• How to play video (YouTube)
• Solo playthrough (YouTube)
• Mailing List (website)

This week Julius tells us about the Plaid Hat Games game, Forgotten Waters.  This is a family friendly piratical adventure on the high seas.

• Forgotten Waters (BGG, Plaid Hat Games)

Today Julius and I bring back a classic game to the table.  We are looking at the 2013 Solo PnP Design Contest game, Maquis by Jake Staines.  The second edition of this game was just published so we look at it again.  The published version is quite a nice package and very well worth looking into.

• Maquis (BGG, Side Room Games)
• Maquis New Content for first edition (Side Room Games)

Julius and I talk about the RPG Ironsworn, designed by Shawn Tomkin.  The game is a full fledged RPG that can be played solo or co-operatively and can work equally well either way.  It's set in a fantasy world that you define.  It's quite a good game... and really an excellent RPG all around.  It's available for free to download or you can purchase physical copies of the book.  If the fantasy setting isn't your thing, you can check out the upcoming Starforged game based on the same system.

Also, I joined the guys at the More Games Than Time to help celebrate their 1 year anniversary.  Check out the episode, linked below.

• Ironsworn (RPGGeek, website, DriveThruRPG)
• Starforged (RPGGeek, website, late pledge)
• More Games Than Time (episode 13)

This week Julius and I discuss the no longer latest campaign for the Arkham Horror card game.  I am writing of Innsmouth Conspiracy.  In this campaign, you get to explore Innsmouth and environs and have all sorts of interesting adventures.  This is part 1 of 2 episodes.  In this part, we cover the first four campaigns.  Just a note, but part 2 will not be the next.. give it a bit of time :)

Come listen.. we are labelling this a spoiler episode as it will give away some of the story and a small bit of strategy.  However, it's a very small bit of strategy.  Based on what I learned from Julius, I doubt I will have more success the next time I play.

• Arkham Horror: LCG (BGG, FFG)
• Innsmouth Conspiracy (BGG, FGG)
• In To Deep (BGG, FFG)
• Devil Reef (BGG, FFG)
• LotR: Murder at the Prancing Pony (BGG, FGG)

This week, I teach Julius about Fire of Eidolon from Magic Meeple Games and designed by Michael Lipton.  It's a fun little Pandemic style game in which you expand the dudgeon as you explore it and then watch it crumble away as you race to collect the Fire of Eidolon and get out before becoming trapped forever.

I really like this game with all the variability in set-up and options.  Julius is less impressed and says he'd rather play Forbidden Island.

• Fire of Eidolong (BGG, Magic Meeple)
• Forbidden Island (BGG)

Hi folks!  Another chat with a solo content creator. This time, it's with Jon, the host of the Tale of the Manticore podcast.  This show is a hybrid solo RPG playthrough/ dark fiction podcast. The podcast is a serial story in which "the dice determine" the fate of the characters.  A story is being told and crafted by playing a solo game of Dungeons and Dragons.

Jon does an amazing job of producing a high quality show.  This is an excellent example of what can be accomplished by playing an RPG solo.  It's done without an emulator and Jon takes the role of both character and DM, though primarily DM.  It's an excellent show worth listening to and easy to binge and catch up!

• Tale of the Manticore (website)
• One Shot in the Dark (Drive Thru RPG)

This week Julius and I talk to Jason Tagmire of Button Shy games.  We talk about small games, design contests and the upcoming game ROVE.  It's going to be released on the Button Shy website on Black Friday.  Check it out, it's a neat little spatial puzzle of a game.

• ROVE (BGG, Button Shy)
• Button Shy Games (website, Discord, Patreon)
• The Button Shop (website)

This week Julius and I talk about the game Cascadia, the game of the Pacific Northwest, designed by Randy Flynn and published by Flatout Games.  This is a tile laying game in which you are placing tiles with a mix environments and populating them with a variety of animals to try and maximize your score.  It's pretty abstract but it's pretty fun and you can try the solo game on-line to see what you think.  I can say, we like it.

This episode features my Golden Retriever, Kaylee, barking in the background throughout the episode.  I removed a lot of the barks but there is only so much I could do.  Later on, she got into the room I was recording in and started eating the catfood out of the bowl.  I hope all that noise is not too distracting!

• Cascadia (BGG, Flatout Games, online solo game)