Solotober
Nothing spookier than being alone.
This October I’d like to celebrate a few of my favorite games I’ve played solo recently. (I’d also like to talk about my upcoming game PONDUS, which launches on Kickstarter October 17th. but more on that later)
Today’s solo adventure?
Overboss designed by Aaron Mesburne & Kevin Russ and published by Brotherwise Games
In Overboss, the player is tasked with drafting tiles to complete their gridded board and score the most points they can. The solo game has 2 modes, a ‘classic’ and a ‘campaign’ mode. In today’s game I’m playing ‘classic’ mode.
Setup is a little tedious if the game wasn’t put up properly, but otherwise it’s simple. Shuffle the terrain selection cards and randomly select 4. Pull those tiles from the very fancy container, along with their matching tokens (don’t forget the dungeon tiles & boss tokens!) Grab a player board and you’re done!
Here are the tiles I selected for this playthrough.
Swamp. Score 1 point from the tile, 1 point for placing it next to a water edge, and 1 point for placing it next to another swamp.
Camp. Score 1/4/9/16 points for having 1/2/3/4 unique camps on your board. (Each camp has a flag on it that determines uniqueness.)
Volcano. Score 4 points from this tile, but when you place it, you lose the surrounding tokens. Beware!
Desert. Score 0/2/6/12/20 points for having 1/2/3/4/5 desert tiles next to each other in a chain. (corners don’t count!)
Forest. Score 1/3/6/10/15 points for having 1/2/3/4/5 forest tiles on your board.
Dungeon. These tiles are in every game of Overboss and they score 1 point from the tile itself, and 1 point for each unique tile that shares a border with it.
The game begins with me selecting the swamp tile on the right and placing it on my map in the upper right corner.
Tiles can earn bonus points for being by different terrains on your player board, so watch out!
When selecting a tile, it also comes with a token. This is usually placed on the tile you draw, but at some point, you may draw a token that hangs out at the bottom of your player mat, opening up a tile on your map where you can place new tokens you draw. (This small offset, gives the player just a little more choice, allowing them to maximize their end game score)
After you’ve selected and placed your tile and token, the further right tile and token are trashed. Slide the remaining 2 to the right and draw 2 more tiles and tokens.
Repeat this process until your board is full! Here’s what my finished board looked like:
Scoring is as simple as going through the checklist. Here’s how I did:
Swamp Tiles: 6
Camp Tiles: 9
Volcano Tiles: 4
Desert Tiles: 20
Forest Tiles: 0
Duneon Tiles: 5
Miniboss Tokens: 2
Crystals: 0
Matching Monsters: 7
Bands of Monsters: 9
Total: 62
According to the solo guide, I achieved the Overboss level for scoring 62 points. Hurray!
This game took 20 minutes to setup and play. (This is my 6th or so time playing)
As a game designer, I’m constantly learning from my coworkers in the scene, and so I try and play as many games as I can afford to! I have a particular interest in making games that provide a great solo experience and I try to take away a lesson or two from each game I play, even if the solo mode wasn’t the original intention of the game.
Lessons learned from Overboss:
I really like how fast it is to play. It’s so fast, that I found myself playing another 2 rounds to see if I could beat my previous score. Setup is so simple, that resetting the game is as easy as throwing tokens in the bag and shuffling up the tiles. I love this.
I also really like how the strategy of this game can scale. For someone younger or just beginning to dive into the board game world, this game is as simple as picking the tile you like best and placing it on your map. You’re not going to have a bad time if you forget how the scoring works as you play. But for folks who really like strategizing and doing the math, this game has some hidden depth. Maximizing your score is not an easy task.
It’s interesting the kind of game you can make with just cardboard tiles and tokens.
I paid $40 for this game on Kickstarter back in July 2020. (plus shipping)
My game PONDUS is launching October 17th on Kickstarter during their Witchstarter event. You can follow the campaign by clicking this link. Over the next few weeks, I hope to show you a little more about the game. But here’s a small sample for now:
In PONDUS you are a wandering wyzard on the hunt for the Orbs of Power. PONDUS can be played 3 different ways, solo, co-op, or battle royale. In the solo mode, you’ll take the task of finding the orbs of power alone, one area at a time. Your magic is limited (It is both your health and power to defend yourself) and as you draft new tiles to explore, you’ll uncover a variety of treasures, curses, and enemies. Each area concludes with a big boss fight. If you win, you earn an Orb of Power granting you a new ability for the rest of your game. If you lose, much like a rougelike video game, you’ll reset the area and try again.
I’m illustrating everything in the game and it’s filled with whimsical goof balls in costumes. (You take the hunt for power very seriously, but the folks around you do not.)
That’s all for today. I hope you give the solo mode of a boardgame on your shelf a try and let me know how it goes! Thank you for listening. I’ll see you again soon.