Best Solo Board Games of 2024 – Review and Comparison

Looking for the best solo board games in case your board game night falls through? Or perhaps you like playing at your own pace with no peer pressure? Great news! We’ve just finished reviewing the top solo board games you can currently buy.

Traditionally, board games were always about playing with a group of people. You could either go against other players (i.e., competitive) or team up with the others (i.e., cooperative) to play against the game itself.

Until recently, single-player board games were quite scarce and uncommon. Looking at the latest releases, it is evident that the board gaming landscape is evolving. Notably, there have been more solo board games released in the last couple of years than in all previous years of board gaming combined.

The below table summarizes the best solo card games and board games available on the market today. We have carefully selected a list of games that will fit your circumstances based on the duration, difficulty level, and age.

Solo Board Games Side by Side Comparison

The Best Solo Board Games – Our Top Picks

1. Best Solo RPG – Mage Knight

In my view, Mage Knight is revolutionary as it has managed to redefine what a modern solo play is.

The game introduced character progression in a beautifully executed fantasy world setting. Explorations, quests, and fantasy artifacts manage to immerse players so much other board games, years later, are still struggling to match.

The game manages to combine a number of board gaming elements such as deck-building, card drafting, and roleplaying to create cohesive and smooth gameplay.

Additionally, it captures the rich history of the Mage Knight universe in a very engaging way that makes you lose the sense of time.

Since it is essential to get steps right, the player turns takes thorough planning and a considerable downtime as a result. But since you are playing this board game solo – this is not a concern.

Since turns can get complex and require detailed planning, it is likely that players would make mistakes. Thankfully, the game features a mechanism that allows reverting actions safely.

The unusual thing to mention is that movement steps can be random. If you do decide to move, it has to be the first thing you do. If you choose not to, you are likely to stay put this turn. This is fine when intended, not so much when you are trying to get from one place to another.

We have previously had a pleasure reviewing the best RPG board games where the game was highly praised for its role-playing capabilities. Additionally, if a one-player board game experience mixed with role-playing is what you are after, Mage Knight is set to deliver in spades. Please welcome the new future classic.

2. Best Solitare Board Game For Casual Play – Friday

In essence, Friday is a deck-building card game where you grow your play deck as the game progresses.

The idea is to build a deck with the most useful cards you can get, by keeping good cards and trashing bad ones.

You get additional cards by fighting wild beasts on the island. Every time you are successful in battle, you get to keep a card. 

On the other hand, losing battles results in taking damage and losing life points. Once you run out of life points, the game ends in defeat. Eventually, you want to build a strong enough deck to fight the two pirates at the end of the game, winning which will ultimately make you win the game.

To get to the pirates, you need to survive three hazard deck rounds. They increase in difficulty every time, so you want to make sure you can stand them before having your final battle with the pirates. Once you face the pirates and beat them, you emerge victorious and win the game.

The rules are quite straightforward and can be learned extremely quickly. The rulebook has a simple and neat layout making it easy to learn the game and find answers.

Although the game itself is simple, it is not that easy to win. Be prepared to die a lot, especially in the beginning. Dying is fun and frustrating at the same time as it pushes you to do a better job next time around. You will eventually become better and work out the strategies by fine-tuning your approach every time.

Being a short game that lasts only about 30 minutes, it has high replayability. It is also quite addictive as it makes you want to beat your previous score again and again.

3. Best Single Player Board Game on the Run – Onirim

To successfully escape the darkness of the dream world, you need to navigate the maze to find and unlock eight colored doors. To open each door, you need to play three cards matching the door color. Pretty simple you may think? Not really.

In the base game, you only get three types of cards – Labirynth, Door, and Dream cards, which makes it an easy start.

To add some extra spice, complexity, and variety, the latest version of Onirim comes with seven little expansions that you can choose to include at your preference.

The abundance of different cards allows you to tailor the gameplay and find the card balance that works for you. It is recommended to mix in a couple of expansions as the game remains streamlined yet gets an additional flavor. Conversely, including all expansions at once makes the game frustrating and barely playable.

Simple rules, beautiful design, and the game’s theme manage to generate a fantastic feeling of tension. You always feel that the time is ticking away and there is never enough of it to unlock remaining doors.

The game’s playing time is the shortest in our review and is timed using the draw deck. If you manage to unlock all 8 doors before the draw deck depletes, you escape the confusing dream world and win the game. Alternatively, if the draw deck runs out and you still have some doors unlocked, you succumb to the darkness and remain trapped in the world of dreams forever.

Although it is predominantly a single-player game, it can also work with two players. It makes it an excellent choice for couples and friends.

4. Best Solo Card Game – The Lord of the Rings: Card Game

You start your game with three heroes and a starting deck. Each turn your heroes get a resource token which can be used to acquire equipment (e.g., shield, sword, etc.), trigger certain events or call allies for support.

Throughout the game, you will encounter monsters and will need to decide whether to engage in combat or not.

Sending your heroes to complete quests gets you closer to the ultimate objective of the game. On the other hand, avoiding engagement with enemies makes them grow stronger and eventually harder to beat.

When fighting or completing quests, your heroes get exhausted which limits their actions and engagement in battles.

The game’s design implies that there are always more options than your heroes could accomplish. The abundance of which and the lack of resources continually pushes you to make hard choices as you can never do everything that you would want to.

Playing The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game forces you to make tough calls between taking and dealing damage. At times you find, that both options are sub-optimal, but picking the one that is more sub-optimal than the other can easily land you a defeat.

The game can be rude and unforgiving, so if patience is not your virtue, you may not entirely enjoy it. Conversely, for the ones who enjoy challenges and strategic thinking, will find the game to be amongst the top board games for one player out there.

The components are well designed and feature an artwork that has great aesthetics and drips with the theme.

Although there are multiple expansions available, I suggest starting with a base game. It comes with enough cards to have a full-featured experience. Unlike other LCG (i.e., Living Card Games) games that tease you with a limited card set and expect you to buy expansions, the game provides a full-scale experience right out of the box.

5. Best Solo Adventure – Robinson Crusoe

Almost always, you feel that there are more things to do than you can handle. There is never enough food, tools, shelter and you never feel ready for the upcoming weather storm.

The problem is that the game does not let you do everything, and you need to be careful with whatever falls off the plate. The challenges that the game presents are both realistic and thematic. At the same time, there are so many of them that you are likely to find yourself in a constant state of anxiety.

More often than not, the game will present you with some very tough choices. Hence, if you’re going to make it off the island, you better be good at picking the right trade-offs.

The game comes with multiple scenarios and packs a lot of playtimes. Moreover, due to the excellent variety of random events, character traits, and abilities, playing the same scenario twice does not feel repetitive.

Adventures on the Cursed Island comes with an introductory scenario which we highly recommend first time players to start with. It partly compensates for the poorly written rulebook. Besides, it sets in the game basics right and prepares you for more complex game scenarios.

Each scenario tells a story that is engaging and unique. The cards contain a flavor text that you can read to yourself (preferably aloud) to add that extra level of immersion.

The game also lets you push your luck when performing actions, or play safe if that is your preference. For example, you can send two pawns on a mission that guarantees success. Alternatively, you can send one pawn and roll an action dice to potentially get wounded.

You will have to get used to losing and dying. Although failing the game may feel disappointing, yet strangely enough, it also feels remarkably fulfilling.

Even when you get eaten by a crocodile or die from hunger, the richness of the game always delivers a feeling of accomplishment that you got one step closer to victory. It makes you reflect on the challenges you have gone through and gives you that funny itch to play the game again and make it further the next time around.

6. Best One Player Euro Game – Viticulture Essential Edition

The aim of the game is to build a highly successful winery by planting vines, building additional structures, and fulfilling wine orders.

Opening the box, the first thing you notice is how refined and professionally made the overall package is. The artwork is just stunning, the components are well made, and the rulebook is neatly structured.

At the heart of the game and beyond the beautiful aesthetics lies one of the top single-player board games with worker placement mechanics we have played. On the board, you will find different areas that allow you to perform various actions. Some of the main activities central to winemaking are:

1. Acquire vines for your fields
2. Plant vines in your fields
3. Harvest grapes and collect tokens for your crush pad
4. Make wine by moving it from the crush pad to the cellar
5. Fulfill wine orders

Other actions on the board game are supporting activities since they help you to accomplish the above process sooner, better, and with a higher return. Some of those secondary actions include giving winery tours to visitors, constructing new buildings, planting more vines, and the most interesting one – asking your visitors to help you with the wine production.

The game also has a concept of seasons. This makes some actions more applicable for particular seasons of the year, so you need to make sure you get your timing right.

To support a single-player, Viticulture Essential Edition introduces a neutral worker. It represents a competitor winemaker you need to beat to win the game.

The game goes for seven years. At the end of it, you have to compare your score with the score of the neutral worker, which is always 20. If you manage to beat it, you end up having a superior winery and win the game.

For some of us, the winemaking theme may lack catchiness and appear unattractive at first, but this time around, you may want to reconsider it. The game is incredibly thematic, especially for Euro-style games which are known to be dull and sometimes even boring. In fact, I have never thought I could enjoy making wine so much!

7. Best Solo Board Game On The Go – Hostage Negotiator

The great thing about Hostage Negotiator is that all abductors are entirely different and require a tailored negotiation approach.

This is not to say that you need to change the strategy every time, yet subtle changes in personalizing the negotiation approach can make a significant difference. To win the game, you must either capture or eliminate the hostage-taker or save at least half the hostages.

You start the game by choosing the abductor, setting out demands, hostages, and a threat meter. Demands are revealed one by one throughout the game, and that is how you learn what the abductor wants and tailor your strategy accordingly. The threat meter controls several things, but in essence, it is an indicator of the game difficulty.

Each turn consists of three phases, a conversation phase, a spend phase, and a terror phase. In the conversation phase, you play cards from your hand to resolve them. Successful card resolution gains positive effects such as rescuing hostages or generating conversation points.

In the spend phase, you use conversation points earned previously to buy new cards.

Lastly, in the terror phase, bad things happen as the card from the terror deck is played triggering a negative event.

The game has pretty simple rules and takes around 20 minutes to play, give or take. This makes it accessible to a broad public, given that of course, you are fine with the theme.

Battling with the game feels fair and not overly complicated, so if you get most things right, you have a good chance of scoring a win. The theme is not for everyone as some may find it controversial. Otherwise, the game offers an amazingly rewarding and intense gaming experience as most negotiations tend to come down to the wire.

8. Best Steampunk Solitaire Board Game – Scythe

Scythe is unique in many ways, for starters, it is set in an alternate stark but beautiful and unique steampunk world created by Jakub Rozalskiit.

The game recreates the theme impeccably through detailed components and stunning artwork. It takes place in an alternate-history setting of the 1920s when Europa is going through the time of unrest. It is a period of cruel war and farming, rusted gears, and deeply broken hearts, valor, and innovation.

In the game, you get to lead one of five factions in Eastern Europe. Throughout the game, you will earn your fortune and fight for the land of the mysterious city called “The Factory”. The way to do it is extremely thematic. You get to conquer new territories, control areas, collect resources, recruit militia, build things, and engage large mech machines to give you the tactical advantage.

At heart, Scythe is an asymmetric engine-building game which puts players at different starting locations, with various resources, unique special abilities and grants them hidden objectives.

In fact, almost anything you do represents an engine building element. Conquer more land, build structures, enhance resource production, and make people work for you. All tailored to generate coins, build that fortune and spread the influence.

As previously mentioned, the game features a specially designed solo system that game designers call Automa. It comes with custom cards and allows the game to move or activate a character, a mech, or a worker to play against you.

Without going into too many details, Automa is probably one of the most straightforward and enjoyable solo systems I had the pleasure playing. Everything seems to be clear, accessible, and makes perfect sense. You won’t find yourself going through the rule book finding that particular condition that sometimes applies and sometimes doesn’t.

In addition, the game lets you select one of four levels of play difficulty to match your solo adventurer skill. We suggest starting with the easiest level and make your way up. It may not be as easy as you may think.

The objective of the game varies between solo and group modes. Playing with others, it is all about gaining coins, which are ultimately your victory points. Solo mode, however, is about land and influence. In a solitaire mode, you need to conquer territories while the game is trying to stop you from doing so.

9. Best Single Player Board Game in Space – Terraforming Mars

To contribute to the above objectives, players can acquire and complete projects. You can build cities, harvest resources, establish greenhouse infrastructure, plant trees, breed animals, and much more. There are over 200 of them, and each one is unique!

For each human advancement on Mars or in the solar system in general, you get victory points which you need to win the game.

Concerning time, each turn represents one generation. This means that by the time you finish the game, you would have covered hundreds of years. Those great leaps of time align nicely with the game’s theme and the atmosphere it manages to deliver. They create a fantastic feeling of contributions, life-changing milestones, and substantial progress towards an entirely different future for humanity.

Often, projects are dependant on the current terraforming state of Mars which is determined by the levels of oxygen, temperature, and ocean coverage. For example, you need to have sufficient oxygen in the atmosphere to be able to introduce animal life to the planet.

Every time you improve any of the three thresholds, it takes the game one step closer to its completion. Once the predetermined levels of oxygen, temperature, and water reach the required level, the game ends.

Having that visibility allows you to time and pace your actions as you progress in the game. You can rush your way through or you can really maximize the industrial advancement before wrapping up the game.

The base rules are relatively simple letting you start playing Terraforming Mars in little to no time. In most cases, it merely requires you to follow card instructions to resolve action effects. The rules are neatly structured and clear, so finding the answers should be quick and easy.

The only real complexity comes from working out the combined effects of the played cards and keeping it in mind throughout the game. Otherwise, the gaming experience is pretty straightforward and reasonably streamlined.

Are there any things we don’t like about the game? Honestly, not many. The only place where we felt somewhat disappointed is the design and the component quality. Cards and mats feel thin and fragile. Cubes seem to be too generic and can represent almost anything. The card design is inconsistent as it uses stock photos, illustrations, and 3D rendered images.

10. Best Civil War – This War of Mine

The war approach taken by the developers sets the board game apart from anything else we have previously played. It is no longer about attacking, defending, shooting, and explosives, but instead about hunger, desperation, fear, and pneumonia.

You start the game as a group of people trying to find their way out of the building that stands in ruins in a city that is under a siege. Your group is hungry and emotionally broken, yet manages to pull themselves together to make that last attempt at getting out.

The game has a day and night phase. During the day you will typically move your civilians around and make them do something productive to increase the chances of survival.

Those tasks may include unblocking passages, searching rooms for items, building a bed, setting traps to catch some food, and much more. There are plenty of things to do in the game, but you soon realize that you do not have enough time or supplies to accomplish all of it.

The game continually forces you to make tough choices which get worse as the game advances and the health of your civilians diminishes.

The night phase is either about resting or scavenging for food and supplies. You will typically have your group split in two. Some of your people are likely to stay at “home”, get some rest, or hold the door to protect yourself from occasional night raids. Others are likely to go on a scavenging hunt to find some supplies, food, water, or even weapons.

The theme is the biggest highlight of This War of Mine: The Board Game. It feels so real that some may even find it somewhat uncomfortable. The game almost naturally starts to push your moral compass and make choices based on your values.

Most of the tough calls you need to make do not have a good option. For example – should you steal food from others and let them die the next day or should you not steal and lose some of your civilians instead.

To make the theme even more profound and immersive, the game comes with a thick book of scripts. Depending on the actions you take and the events that happen, the game directs you to a text in the book. Reading the script in the book forms a deep and unique civil war survival narrative almost every time.

You can never win the game in a true sense. At best, yet still, a grim outcome you can try to stay alive.

Overall, it is hard to explain how immersive the gaming experience is, you need to try it for yourself. Although the game supports up to 6 players, it only plays great as a solo due to the excessive wait time between turns.

Since the game is so heavily thematic, multiple players tend to dilute your immersion and break the intensity build-up. Do yourself a favor – try to experience the game on your own before trying group play as it delivers a unique atmosphere and feel nothing out there can match. This War of Mine is probably the best single-player board game survival experience we have ever had.

Things You Need To Know Before Buying Solo Board Games

There are two different design approaches to get your head around. Board games that are designed specifically for a solitaire play and the ones that can support both single-player and group modes.

Board games that can do both, usually support the solo play in one of two distinct ways. The player either takes on roles of multiple characters or buys an expansion that enables a solitaire mode.

At the same time, some board games, like Scythe, have gone the extra mile. They have included a full-scale experience for both. In other words, a fully supported solitaire and group modes are included in the base game. Admittedly, that approach is less common but has started to pick up some traction recently.

Lastly, the design approach is not crucial to delivering a great single-player experience. We should judge board games by the level of excitement they manage to create, not the design methodology.

And that is precisely what we hope we have done in our best single-player board games review today!

Frequently Asked Questions