Sologames

12 Exciting New Boardgames
To Be Played by One Person

Review by Kerry Lloyd

Desiged by H David Jackson
Almar Press
4105 Marietta Dr., Binghampton NY 13903
Released:November 1982
Price $12.95
Complexity. Beginner
Solitaire Suitability: Excellent

Solo Games is a book containing all that is necessary to play twelve different solitaire board games. The different games include fantasy, historical re-enactments, general military, sports, a little science- fiction, and general amusement. Most of them can be played in 15 minutes or less, and all necessary components other than dice, paper, and pencil are included in the book.

Of the twelve games, eight use game boards, and ten use various and assorted counters or markers. Both boards and counters are provided in a card-stock insert stapled into the book; the components can easily be cut apart with an ordinary pair of scissors. A white mailing envelope is glued inside the back cover for storage of the game pieces.

The twelve games are, in order of appearance in the book: Animal (a general amusement game); Assailant (a generalized fantasy game); The Pits (a programmed adventure fantasy game); Road Rally (a non- standard racing sports game); Challenge Cup (a yacht racing sports game); Boarding Party (a generalized military game); Medic (a generalized military game); Kamikaze (a World War II naval/air game); Tank Corps (a World War II armored combat game); Three Day Battle (a Civil War game-Gettysburg); Iron Ships (a Civil War naval game-Monitor vs. Merrimac), and Rescue (a science fiction game-vaguely Star Trekish).

Overall, all the games are more-or-less fun to play and show a fair amount of ingenuity in their individual designs. Most are worth replay (I'm going to beat the North at Gettysburg yet! If I can only come up with a victory condition ... ), and all can help while away a pleasant hour or two. For those who can never find the opponents they want at the right times, and for everybody who enjoys a good little game which requires some thought, Solo Games is a good investment.

Twelve Solo Games

ANIMAL: Combination of War and Rock-Paper-Scissors with three animal types used for combatants. Odds high for a draw.

ASSAILANT Hack-and-slash fantasy duelling game; characters can be continued from combat to combat if they survive, possibly improving, and used in following game. Odds favor bigger, rather than better, fighter.

THE PITS Programmed Adventure, rescuing princess from ogre. uses characters from previous game. Either hefty developrnent or great-guessing is recommended. Can occassionally be replayed, but...

ROAD RALLY Almost pure strategy road racing game. Keep track of gate setups, starting positions, and times, and try to improve results on future runs; times and courses are all player controlled.

CHALLENGE CUP Pure strategy game, racing yachts. Similar to Road rally, uses same board and factor with wind factor. Slower times than RR, but adds excitement of judging wind direction.

BOARDING PARTY Combined race and strategy "locate the bomb and defuse it before it blows" game. Fair number of variables. Odds favor the disarming crew

MEDIC Combined race and strategy game, rescue a wounded man from a battlefield before he succumbsto his original wounds and before you get blown to bits by a mortar. Odds favor the mortars.

KAMIKAZE American carrier vs. Japanese "Divine Wind" fighters game; requires living room floor or a very large table to play on. Odds favor Japanese.

TANK CORPS Panzers vs. Shermans ga,me with Afrika Corps overtones. Odds favor the Panzers at less than two Shermans to one Panzer.

THREE DAY BATTLE Gettysburg divisional level game; odds heavily favor North; rules confusion does not provide victory condition for South player.

IRON SHIPS Monitor vs. Merrimac in Hampton Roads naval mmaneuver and cannon fire game. Odds heavily against the South player, but opportunity to win exists.

RESCUE "Federation Starship rescues shuttle while being chased by Klingon" game; intelligent play favors the Starship, but the Klingon shows up in the wrong places at the wrong times more often....

More Reviews

Back to Table of Contents -- Game News #2
To Game News List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1999 by Dana Lombardy.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com