Tag: Solo / Solitaire Game

Elder Sign

| OTSG Staff

It is 1926, and the museum’s extensive collection of exotic curios and occult artifacts poses a threat to the barriers between our world and the elder evils lurking between dimensions. Gates to the beyond begin to leak open, and terrifying creatures of increasing strength steal through them. Animals, the mad, and those of more susceptible minds are driven to desperation by the supernatural forces the portals unleash. Only a handful of investigators race against time to locate the eldritch symbols necessary to seal the portals forever. Only they can stop the Ancient One beyond from finding its way to Earth and reducing humanity to cinders.

Elder Sign is a fast-paced, cooperative dice game of supernatural intrigue for one to eight players by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson, the designers of Arkham Horror. Players take the roles of investigators racing against time to stave off the imminent return of the Ancient One. Armed with tools, allies, and occult knowledge, investigators must put their sanity and stamina to the test as they adventure to locate Elder Signs, the eldritch symbols used to seal away the Ancient Ones and win the game.

To locate Elder Signs, investigators must successfully endure Adventures within the museum and its environs. A countdown mechanism makes an Ancient One appear if the investigators are not quick enough. The investigators must then battle the Ancient One. A clever and thematic dice mechanism pits their exploration against monsters and the sheer difficulty of staying sane and healthy, all within the standard game duration of one to two hours.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 8 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.34

Dog Park

| OTSG Staff

Welcome to Dog Park, a mid-weight, competitive set-collection and point-to-point movement game in which players take on the role of dog walkers who recruit, walk, and care for their dogs over four rounds. Each round is split into four phases:

  1. Recruitment Phase: Players compete in two rounds of offers to add dogs to their kennels. Offers are made with players’ reputation (victory points), so must be placed wisely.
  2. Selection Phase: Players decide which dogs to place on their lead to walk this round.
  3. Walking Phase: Players journey through the dog park with their fellow walkers, collecting resources, earning reputation, and interacting with other walkers.
  4. Home Time Phase: Players earn reputation for their walked dogs, and lose reputation for any unwalked dogs in their kennel.

Players must choose their routes and dogs carefully to earn the best reputation and prove they are the most accomplished walker of them all. At the end of the game, the player with the most reputation wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction / Bidding
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.17

Dice Hospital

| OTSG Staff

In Dice Hospital, a worker placement game, players must treat as many patients as possible to appease the local authorities! Players use their hospital staff to treat patients on their personal hospital player boards. However, players may also call in specialist staff to react to certain situations that arise to score more points with the authorities! The game uses worker placement mechanics for the staff, dice as the patients where low scores indicate low health and a personal player board of actions to treat patients. The player with the highest reputation wins the game!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Action Points
  • Dice Rolling
  • Modular Board
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.33

Dice City

| OTSG Staff

The Kingdom of Rolldovia is in turmoil. Her royal highness, the Queen, has decreed that there will be a new capital after the old one was sacked by hordes of barbarians and bandits from the south. As leaders of one of the country’s influential noble families, players vie with each other to establish their provincial city as the best home for Rolldovia’s new capital. You must choose your city’s path in gaining the approval of all others in the kingdom.

Dice City is a “dice-crafting” game in which the locations in your city act as the changing faces of your dice each turn. Use tactics and strategy to press your claim!

You each have several ways to promote your city; create strong armies; construct wondrous buildings; or open up trade routes. The secret is to manage your city and its natural resources carefully to make the best of your fortunes.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.02

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game – Season One

| OTSG Staff

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game – Season One, a.k.a. Detective: Season One, is a fully co-operative, deeply immersive board game in which 1-5 players take on the roles of investigators trying to solve a crime.

Detective: Season One is a new product in the award-winning Detective line, one with a shorter playing time that’s tailored for a mystery game night with simpler family-friendly rules. The game consists of three standalone cases, and each of them can be played in around 90 minutes. Each of the cases challenges players with different settings and styles. The cases are:

• Blood, Ink, and Tears moves the action to Great Britain, where players visit an old mansion and discover family secrets from the past that lead them to clues behind the mysterious death of the family patron. Fans of Agatha Christie’s novels will find themselves at home in this rather funny case!

• Solid Alibi throws players in the middle of a bloody conflict between gangs and criminals in the Italian district. Players have to not only solve the crime and discover who killed Robert Parkson, but also witness growing tension in the district and find out who to trust in the spiral of violence and mutual accusations!

• Natural Causes takes players to a university campus in the U.S. Professor Calvin Higgs is found dead in his lab at the Biology Institute of Virginia University. Players need to find out whether his death is from natural causes, or perhaps there’s someone in his surroundings responsible for this horrible crime. But what could be the motive?

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.03

Destinies

| OTSG Staff

Destinies is a competitive, story-driven, game of adventure and exploration, mixing an app and a board game.

The first in a series of games using a brand-new system called Destinies. This game is set in a dark medieval-fantasy universe.

The Destinies system offers a fully story-driven, app-supported, RPG-like board game experience, without the need for a game master. Each scenario depicts a part of a vivid world, full of dark stories, epic NPCs and mysteries to solve. Each player takes the role of a hero on a quest to fulfill their destiny. Each destiny is a final goal of the character and has at least two, completely different paths to victory, composed of branching series of quests. Players compete with each other to push the world towards their own destiny.

The game uses an app and the Scan&Play technology to offer players a unique story-driven experience full of dynamic events, epic adventures, and an ever-changing game world. Each turn players discover new parts of the world presented on tiles, explore them and pick one point of interest to visit. There they learn more about the story and make crucial choices of how they want to interact with people, creatures or situations faced there. The consequences of each choice are meaningful and often change the state of the world forever.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Role Playing
  • Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Storytelling
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 3 Players
  • 90 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.93

D6: Dungeons, Dudes, Dames, Danger, Dice and Dragons!

| OTSG Staff

In D6, you’re playing the role of players playing a role-playing game. That boat you needed? It’s already in the harbor. That pit? It’s already been dug. Every adventure will be different, but your objectives will remain the same.

Collect the bounties. Kill the monsters. Gain the glory. The most glorious hero will prevail!

Game Mechanics:

  • Chit-Pull System
  • Contracts
  • Cooperative Game
  • Role Playing
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Take That
  • Team-Based Game
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.42

Cthulhu: Death May Die

| OTSG Staff

In Cthulhu: Death May Die, inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, you and your fellow players represent investigators in the 1920s who instead of trying to stop the coming of Elder Gods, want to summon those otherworldly beings so that you can put a stop to them permanently. You start the game insane, and while your long-term goal is to shoot Cthulhu in the face, so to speak, at some point during the game you’ll probably fail to mitigate your dice rolls properly and your insanity will cause you to do something terrible — or maybe advantageous. Hard to know for sure.

The game has multiple episodes, and each of them has a similar structure of two acts, those being before and after you summon whatever it is you happen to be summoning. If any character dies prior to the summoning, then the game ends and you lose; once the Elder One is on the board, as long as one of you is still alive, you still have a chance to win.

The episodes are all standalone and not contingent on being played in a certain order or with the same players.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Role Playing
  • Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Creature Comforts

| OTSG Staff

Life in the forest is a lot of fun, at least while the sun is shining and the leaves are on the trees. Those days don’t last forever though, and long before the weather starts to change, the wise animals start to harvest for the long cold winter ahead. You will spend many months tucked into your burrow and you want to make it as cozy as possible. A nice bowl of soup, a comfortable rocking chair, and some toys and games will go a long way to make those dark winter days pass by quickly.

In Creature Comforts, you spend the Spring, Summer, and Fall gathering different goods from the forest and spending them to collect items that will make your home more inviting while the world outside is covered in a layer of snow. Each round you send family members out to various locations in an attempt to gain supplies. If they fall short of their goal, they’ll learn a lesson and be better prepared next time. The family that has created the most comfortable den wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Events
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.36

CoraQuest

| OTSG Staff

CoraQuest is an exciting and accessible co-operative dungeon crawling game for one to four people, aged six and up.

In CoraQuest the players work together to guide four adventurers exploring a dungeon, avoiding traps, finding treasure, fighting monsters, and sometimes rescuing a gnome called Kevin.

CoraQuest is a game that kids and grown-ups can play together and get equal amounts of fun from. It’s also a game that sparks creativity – providing encouragement and guidance on how to create heroes, monsters and adventures to make CoraQuest your own.

All the artwork in CoraQuest is based on kids’ drawings, much of it sent in to us from all over the world by the wonderful CoraQuest community. The art has been brought together by our “chief-colourer-in”, Gary King, to make a unique and charming-looking game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Modular Board
  • Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00