JW
Dec 16, 2019
Updated: Dec 21, 2020
Winter time is for playing family games by the Christmas tree. So why not play some family games solo?
I've retreated to Santa's Workshop in northern Lapland to continue working on Blizzard, my solo variant for Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. It uses the normal multiplayer rules, with a card controlled opponent that blocks tracks with snow (the white player pieces). The game turns into a fast playing race and the bot is easy to control. It uses a deck of seven cards (or six in hard mode). Most of these cards take away some Train Car cards from the market. One blocks a specific route between cities from a prioritized list. The last one claims a destination ticket, by blocking all routes between the cities on that card and scoring points.
I originally made this in March 2018 but could never work on it as I had borrowed the game back then. Now that I own it, I'm on it again. I played a few games today to refresh my memory. The improvements I can think of:
make variants for the card that blocks specific routes (you can then shuffle one in at random every time you play);
a variant for the card that claims destination tickets to make it score in a more predictable manner (I think I prefer it as it is now, and the game has a luck element in multiplayer as well, but it's worth a try).
After that I'll upload my files and description to Boardgamegeek. Then, let it snow.
Update: the complete series:
[10] 12 Solo Games for Christmas
[8] Rudolph, the bazooka-carrying reindeer
[5] Nils Holgersson didn't make it to the South