1 Player Podcast

This week Julius and I talk past each other as I try to describe games that are good if you want more enjoyment from the game than just the time at the table, or as I call it, the Game Between the Game.  Not all is in agreement here though so come listen and decide how you feel about this topic.  Let us know what you think about the topic.  Do you agree with either of us?

• Lord of the Rings: the Card Game (BGG, FFG)
• Arkham Horror (2nd edition) (BGG)
• Hostage Negotiator (BGG, VRG)
• For Northwood! (BGG, Side Room Games)
• Ironsworn (RPG Geek, Ironsworn.com)

This week I tell Julius all about the GMT Games title Banish the Snakes.  You play as St. Patrick or some of the other saints that worked to convert Ireland to Christianity as the Roman Empire and Roman Britain and collapsed.  This is a really interesting historical title that plays very similarly to a Pandemic but with the complexity taken up a notch or two.

• Banish the Snakes (BGG, GMT Games)

This week Julius tells us about Skytear Horde.  A cooperative card game not too unlike M:tG.  In it you play cards to cast spells and summon allies.  A rift has torn the sky open and from that tear emerges a horde of demons, more or less one at a time in a pretty orderly fashion to defeat you!  You can play solo or cooperatively to defeat this horde and their boss!

• Skytear Horder (BGG, Skytear)

This week I preset a cool little 2-player dueling game which also includes solo rules.  The game is set in an alternate history earth around the time (and place) of Genghis Khan.

• Worldbreakers (BGG, Worldbreakers website)

This week Julius and I talk about the relatively new game, Skoventyr.  This was designed by Morten Monrad Pederson and produced by Shadi Torbey (of Oniverse fame).  This is a light but fun game of running around the forest trying to escape from the devil, or Gamle Erik as he is known in Danish folklore.

• Skoventyr (BGG)

This week Julius and I manage to fit a bunch of games into a small 30 minute space.  This Popular Mechanics episode is about polyomino games with their funny shaped pieces.  Think Tetris.

• Cartographers (BGG)
• Kingdom Rush (BGG)
• Spring Meadow (BGG)
• Nmbr 9 (BGG)
• ROVE: Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer (BGG)
• Clip Cut Parcs (BGG)

Honorable Mentions

• Eureka journal of recreational mathematics (Cambridge)
• Cottage Garden (BGG)
• Indian Summer (BGG)
• Project L (BGG)
• Isle of Cats (BGG)
• Feast for Odin (BGG)
• Patchwork (BGG)
• Agricola - really? (BGG)
• Ada Lovelace: Consulting Mathematician (BGG)
• Cities: Skylines (BGG)
• Dinosaur Island: Rawr 'n Write (BGG)
• Katamino (mistakenly called Polyominoes on the show) (BGG)

This week, Julius tells us about the cooperative game, Keep the Heroes Out!, in which, well, you are trying to keep heroes out of your dungeon.  You play as one of a number of dungeon denizens.  You'll go is to keep the wave after wave of pesky humans out of your dungeon by killing them, all while trying to do some other, scenario based thingy.   It's a super-cute looking game with a neat theme.  From all Julius tells us, it was very nicely implemented and lots of fun.  Check it out!

• Keep the Heroes Out (BGG, Brueh Games)

In a galaxy far, far away you get to be a bounty hunter after your next target.  Nothing will stop you though many enemies will try to get in your way.  Notorious is a solo journalling RPG about being a bounty hunter in a hardscrabble world.

Unable to record this week, Julius's family picks up my slack by talking about the Adventures of Robin Hood.  This is an adventure game in which players cooperatively, or one player controlling multiple heroes, explores Sherwood Forrest as Robin Hood and his Merry Men (in tights). Their description of it and the look of it reminds me a lot of the excellent video game Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood.

• The Adventures of Robin Hood (BGG)
• Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood (Steam)

This week Julius tells us about the solo game Wreckland Run. It's a Mad Max kinda world and you are racing around collecting spare parts and building up your arsenal of a car in a short 7 game campaign game.  This is part of the Solo Heroes series from Renegade Games.  See what Julius thinks and how he ranks it against the rest.  Hint:  this one doesn't even rank for him!

• Wreckland Run (Renegade Game Studios, BGG)

This week Julius and I look at games with modular boards.  It's one of my favorite "mechanics" in a game.  I really like games where the setup is different each round and it affects how the game plays out.  The bigger the impact, the better!

• Clank! In Space (BGG)
• Under Falling Skies (BGG)
• Keep the Heroes Out (BGG)
• Descent (BGG)
• 7th Continent (BGG)
• Forbidden Island (BGG)
• PARKS (BGG)
• Five Tribes (BGG)
• Magic Maze (BGG)
• Carcassone (BGG)

I was out with COVID so Julius and family picked up my slack and revisited a cool little game called PARKS.  Visit the National Parks in a very pretty game with an interesting solo bot.  But do they like it?

This week Julius and I look at the charming little trick taking game For Northwood!.  It's a fun and interesting game in a tiny package.

• For Northwood! (BGG)
• Solo trick-taking games (BGG)

This week I was lost in time.  Julius and family picked up my slack and took an anachronistic look at a Jurrasic Park legacy game Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar.  It sounds like a fun family experience and a good solo game.

• Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar (BGG)

Warning: there are spoilers sprinkled throughout this episode.

I've always been curious about this game but have never tried it.  Julius does me the curteousy of telling me all about how it works.  It sounds like a fun, light and puzzling experience but not as cold as being up on the side of a mountain.

• K2 (BGG, Rebel.pl)