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Christmas can be an incredibly busy time for some, running around doing family stuff (whether blood relatives or chosen family), shopping, cooking and then just passing out in front of the TV. For others it can be a very lonely time with little to change up the days other than Doctor Who and the Harry Potter movies. And for some it can be a wonderful opportunity to shut themselves away from the world and enjoy some peace and quiet. However, for all of the above, a solo board game could be a very welcome experience. I only recently got into solo gaming as before that, they came from a need to socialise. But I found that an hour or so with my head in a board game gave me a meditative sensation allowing me to recharge as I escape the rest of the world for a bit. It feels like that sub genre within the hobby has exploded since the pandemic with so many people wanting a solo experience in any box they buy and there are so many publishers who do this so well, not to mention the solo only experiences available. Below is just a small selection of festive (ish) offerings that you might just want to escape into between the turkey and the Eastenders special.
Final Girl: The North Pole Nightmare
Nothing says Christmas than the simple notion of ‘survival’. The now enormous Final Girl franchise is a solo only game set in the world of horror cinema, named after the notion of the last girl standing in such classic films as Halloween and Alien. The game relies on owning the core box which includes everything to manage your character’s stats and then a secondary set which will add the thematic location and villain to the mix. On your turn you are playing cards to take actions from simply moving around and saving victims to clobbering the slasher over the head with a baseball bat. These are all guided by rolling dice which means this game can be brutal! The anxiety that comes with a vital dice roll really is so immersive and adding a specific playlist of atmospheric music can often push me over the edge! That is real immersion! I love Final Girl for its ability to really draw you into its story and to provide an experience that even if you die horribly, it’s just as fun as winning. And for this festive season why not try The Nightmare at North Pole. First of all it transports you to Santa’s Village, a colourful place with a huge Christmas tree right in the centre. Then you introduce the elves but these little horrors get in your way and cause you to lose time if you ever cross them. Finally, the big bad. There is only one Christmas villain and that’s the Germanic Krampus! We all know of the story of the horned beast who steals bad kids but this guy is meaner than you could ever imagine…in the best possible way. What's more festive than kicking back with a glass of sherry and taking down this frosty menace!
MY CITY ROLL AND BUILD - Favouritefoe
I need me time. Not sleep. Not a spa. Just a moment in my day where I can’t be around anybody else. For 14+ hours per working day, my ADHD and Autism crash into each other like waves competing for the same shore. Simultaneously doing everything and getting overwhelmed at the relentless effort. The sensory overload of 4 screens, two keyboards, and 3 phones is intense. So at Christmas (which is my only true time off), whilst most of each day is spent in the embrace of my amazing family, I crave a few moments alone. But it can be hard to squeeze it in, so MY CITY ROLL & BUILD from Kosmos is a brilliant and fun excuse for a small shot of solo gaming! MY CITY ROLL & BUILD is a short 4 Chapter campaign (each with 3 separate episodes), where you use 3 custom D6 die to give you a shape and building type to draw on your game sheet. Just like its brilliant bigger brother, MY CITY, there are general rules which apply from game to game; visible rocks – bad, empty spaces-bad, trees-good, and of course the river that shalt not be built over! However, new and additional scoring tweaks and mechanics develop over the 12 games (but of course I can’t let on what they include as I would most definitely be on Santa’s naughty list!). As a time starved, roll and write addicted solo gamer who will always treasure the amazing weekly #datenightgamenight MY CITY gave me and my husband, this is the perfect way for me to spend 15 quiet minutes per festive day. And because it is a campaign, I have the perfect excuse to play every day – nobody would deny me the right to see it through to the end! If you also like polyomino puzzles, roll and writes, or just fun, fast playing solo games, I highly recommend MY CITY ROLL & BUILD.
Dorfromantik – Pete Bartlam
I’m a New Romantik! Having recently bought Dorfromantik to see why it won Spiel des Jahres 2023 I played it – 5 times in a row! This is a great game and whilst it says up to 6 players (madness!) It's really a solo experience. Having enjoyed the video version with its limitless options I wasn’t sure about an admittedly generous but finite number of tiles in the box. But it translates very well capturing the true Romantik spirit and that just one more turn compulsion. Dorfromantik is a simple tile laying game. Two tile types: Landscape Tiles and Task Tiles are drawn, one at a time, and placed adjacent. Tiles depict: Forests, Fields and Villages; Train Tracks and Streams. Task Tiles have a type highlighted and get a numbered Task marker. When you successfully link that number of terrain tiles you take the marker for your score and draw another Task Tile. You start with three Task Tiles together and you must always have three on show. At game end you total your gained Markers plus bonuses for longest Stream and Rail
Track and enclosed areas that hold a Flag. And that’s it. Well not quite for if the desire to get increasingly satisfying and better scoring layouts wasn’t enough there is a legacy campaign. Each result sees you advance down the campaign trail and open the 5 goody boxes with more tiles and scoring variants. A game takes under 30 minutes – but you’re never going to play only once. Are you?
Marvel Champions: Age of Apocalypse - Sam de Smith
Alright, I admit it, this is a little bit of a cheat, as you need the Marvel Champions core set for this one (although, only sort of). Marvel Champions is a superb Living Card Game as you Assemble your team of heroes to defeat the scum of the Marvel universe. It works really well as a Solo game as every scenario is scalable by number of players. There are also 2 ways to play a single player, True Solo or Double Handed. True Solo is what it says on the tin, but Double Handed is the more interesting challenge, where you control 2 heroes simultaneously to complement one another. That being said, True Solo presents a serious challenge. In Age of Apocalypse, two new heroes come to the table: Bishop and Magik. Bishop is a solid Leadership deck that works well not only with the eXisting X-Men and X-Force heroes but actually synergizes well with pretty much any other hero, so you can treat yourself to another if you're so minded. He runs off resource manipulation with a splash of healing, so brings a lot of the joy of Protection without you necessarily switching him out. Magik is prebuilt as Aggression but, to be honest it’s the least interesting part of her build, with some fun allies and lots of damage output – so relatively straightforward, certainly, but more potential and synergy in Protection or (my preference) Justice, particularly as she manipulates the top card of her own deck for cost reduction. Still, she’s accessible, effective and independent, and a bit more interesting than your regular Aggression killing machine. The other big addition is Standard III: a new core encounter set that can replace the one in the base game. It makes the game differently difficult, keeping the challenge fresh and mixing it up further – and with multiple campaign packs, scenario packs and Heroes, Marvel Champions remains the best (Living) card game out there. Now we just need Santa as an Omega-level Mutant...
Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game - Sophie Jones
Since the first movie was released in December 2001, nothing reminds me of Christmas more than The Lord of the Rings. The sweeping views of Middle Earth, the epic battles, and the warmth of the Fellowship are perfect for this time of year. Now, with The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game, you can relive the magic through a fantastic solo experience set in Tolkien’s legendary world. What makes this game shine, especially when playing solo, is its light legacy feel. Across eight chapters, your decisions carry weight as your progress builds and shapes the adventure. Completing challenges rewards you with powerful cards like Galadriel and Shadowfax, which stay in your deck for future chapters. On the flip side, failing a chapter means giving those hard-earned cards back, adding a layer of tension and strategy that keeps you fully engaged. The game’s attention to detail brings Middle Earth to life. From the One Ring card, which mirrors its corrupting influence, to the miniatures of Frodo, Sam, and the gang, every element ties beautifully into the theme. Whether you’re sneaking past the Black Riders or facing the challenges of Mordor, the journey feels as epic as the story it’s based on. If you’re a fan of Tolkien and want a game to enjoy on quiet evenings this Christmas, The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game is a brilliant choice. It’s easy to set up, full of adventure, and the perfect solo experience for the festive season.
Buttons and Bugs - Rob Wright
Some games are destined to become legendary, and Gloomhaven is probably one of those games. It isn’t so much about the gameplay, though that, admittedly, is pretty good – a co-operative skirmish game/adventure that doesn’t use dice AT ALL but still manages to have an element of randomness that even the best strategy can’t quite cope with. No, the thing everyone will remember most is its size – a veritable trunk of components, minis, standees, cards and campaign/instruction manuals. Jaws of The Lion featured most of the BIG game’s mechanics, but trimmed it down a bit by having all the maps in a couple of gamebooks – sorta Gloomhaven-lite, but this is a bit unfair as it is pretty much the same game but manageable in a single lifetime. But we can go smaller than that, can’t we? Bugs and Buttons is the Gloomhaven/JoTL solo experience in a teeny tiny trunk that is adorably on theme with the game – you are still a valiant hero and adventurer, only you are now barely a hundredth of your size, with a button for a shield and a bug for an adversary. It really is a wonder how they have managed to scale down the mechanics to one: make it suitable for a single player and two: not skimp on the crunchy card management approach of the other games in the series – there is a dice in this though, but it’s there to provide the card-based randomness from the bigger games in a more compact but equally frustrating form. It also plays really quick – set up takes about five to ten mins, but a game usually takes about 20-30 mins, depending on how you do – and has a really small table-top footprint. And it has a nice bit of replay value as there are six (count’ em!) possible characters, each with their own minis and sets of cards to play with. Yeah, it’s good – the bugs are features and it’s bright as a button!
Eldritch Horror and the Mountains of Madness Expansion - Northern Invasion Stu
Okay so it may seem a little ‘weird’ to pick a board game featuring unlikely heroes battling against the odds to investigate unthinkable terrors and ultimately (and usually unsuccessfully) seek to save humanity in a world-spanning epic contest against cosmic horrors beyond imagination. Bear with me. For some, Christmas can be a time of indulgence with time off work and frequent gatherings featuring rich foods and the odd tipple. For me, however, that indulgence definitely includes setting aside a full day to play my favourite game in what has become a Christmas tradition. It isn’t often I get to dedicate a day to doing whatever I choose but I make sure to do so at least once during the festive break. I tend to pick one of those nondescript days between Boxing Day and Hogmanay and I accept that the game is going to take over the kitchen table for around 24 hours. I invite half a dozen friends to play in the evening but I am sure to play the game solo at least once while it’s set up to let my imagination run wild as I work through a session. Normally I would randomly draw the Great Old One and the characters to face it but at Christmas we must of course play the Mountains of Madness expansion with its Antarctic sideboard because it has snow on it and that’s festive. Eldritch Horror is now a decade old with masses of additional content in the form of large and small expansions meaning that every adventure is massively different and the game is always an exceptionally rich narrative experience. Eldritch Horror is a difficult game and it takes a lot of time to set up and play. However, the short days and the wild weather sets the perfect scene for a day hunkered down indoors getting lost in your favourite board game - whatever it may be.
So there you are. A selection of solo experiences to escape the tinsel and the turkey. But remember, whatever your festive season looks like, make sure you take some time for yourself and recharge whether through fighting elder gods or simply building your own small town. Ho Ho Hope you have a wonderful time!