As hinted at in our Solitaire Times, they are a-changing post, our crowdfunding previews will from now on include weekly overviews and, possibly but not necessarily, individual game highlights. Two games are scheduled to launch this coming week: Harakiri: Blades of Honor, and Spring and Autumn: Story of China. I'm going to take a look at each, and briefly discuss their aesthetic and gameplay qualities. *** Okay, let's start with Harakiri: Blades of Honor, a 1-4 player coopera

For those who are unfamiliar with the Lounge, the "Fresh on BGG" posts are broad overviews of new solo games added to the Board Game Geek database. These can be mere notions of a game by a hopeful would-be publisher, the next big expansion of a major retail hit, a Print and Play, or a future Kickstarter campaign… Who knows - and in most cases, not us. The entries below are filtered for you from the influx of new database additions, to pique your interest, so you can look into

Underwater Cities is Solitaire Times Approved. It's a favourite game of both Athena and me. I just bought it this year and have played it forty times in six months. Plus at least that amount of solo sessions on the Yucata website. I was curious what the expansion would add, so let's pretend you are as well and I'll share my New Discoveries with you. Let's start with the bad news. The expansion contains a new variant, with an extra Museum board, that you can't play solo. So te

Yesterday we published numbers 20 - 11, so let's continue where we left off. Today it's time for the final countdown of Zerbique's Top 20 Solo Games 2021. 10. Tajemnicze podziemia Ok, that this game made it to a Top 20 solo games list is surprising even to me. Tajemnicze podziemia is a very, very basic game, and it's actually an implementation of an app. You randomly draw a dungeon tile, place it in your dungeon grid, and keep doing this until the dungeon is filled. Then ther

Now that the 2021 People's Choice Top 200 Solo Games has been revealed on Board Game Geek, we'll share some favourite games with you as well. Please join us and post your top (3, 10, 500) solo games in the Lounge. We'd love to read about them. First up, here's Zerbique's list: numbers 20 - 11. I don't like competition. I don't like picking the best out of a lot. But I do enjoy rankings, as an ordered sequence of items that seems worthy of interest, or at the very least, of cu

It's been a while since we last checked the Kickstarter offerings in the playing card category. Out of the projects currently running on the platform, there are three that stand out to me: a couple of super deluxe decks for deep wallets, an affordable good-looking option, and a couple of cheerful novelty ones. Let's start with The Azure Dragon & Time Machine playing card Collector's sets. The Azure Dragon features a paper sculpture inside the tuck box: an ornate Chinese drago

Monster Expedition starts off from a weird premise: in a Victorian steampunk fantasy world, rich people are entertained by exhibits known as the Carnival of Monsters. Wild creatures are displayed to fill the attendants both with awe for the might of the savage world, and deep and smug satisfaction for the human superiority than places us so fundamentally above it. That, however, is the story of another game. In Monster Expedition, you play as the brave heroes that must captur

It's been a long time coming, so to most of you this won't be a surprise. We cannot keep up the website according to our vision. Solitaire Times was meant to be a daily newspaper, but after two years, life got in the way. Athena got a demanding job, JW a demanding illness. We've gradually run out of time and energy. So what do you do when you get sad and frustrated because you can't meet your goals week in week out? You lower them, that's what! Here's the plan. Instead of dai

Call to Adventure: Epic Origins, a stand-alone sequel to Call to Adventure, is live on Kickstarter until December 3. In this game, you draft cards to tell the story of your heroic character in a generic Fantasy setting, casting runes to claim the cards that interest you the most. The game is played as a campaign: in each scenario you shall face a different Adversary while unfolding your personal story. You also randomly pick an Adversary Challenge that will add abilities to t

Last Resort is a 1-4 players game in which you build a space resort to attract tourists and make the most money before the fad wanes, as people realize space tourism is mostly a scam. The campaign will be live on Kickstarter on November 16. In the solo mode, you play against a bot whose behavior every round is driven by card draw. The game is played over three Years, of three Seasons (i.e. rounds) each. Since the bot’s deck has 9 cards, as the game progresses you can know wit

"Oh, crap. Now I'm stuck with it", I uttered as soon as I saw the Kickstarter email that notified me Senjutsu has successfully funded and collected my pledge. What happened in this case is I snatched an Early Bird Deluxe pledge on the first day it launched, then watched a playthrough, was filled with doubt, decided to un-back, and then forgot to. Now I can only hope my doubts were unfounded and it's a great solo game. Which it won't be. Because too random. Argh! So, Senjutsu.

Nuuk is a 1-2 players co-operative resource management card game. In this game, you lost all of your money during a trip in the Arctic (we told you not to pledge for that big new shiny KS during vacation!), and must now recover 21 krone (Greenland currency) within 18 days by visiting villages, learning new skills, and trading goods efficiently. Nuuk consists of 20 cards and will only be available in PnP format. The Kickstarter campaign will launch on November 9. You start the

The Last Stronghold is a 1-2 players tower defense game set in the same Fantasy universe as The Hand of Destiny. In this game, you must defend the Kingdom of Lux against the forces of darkness. The Kickstarter campaign for The Hand of Destiny, The Last Stronghold and The Forgotten Road will go live on November 9. The goal of the game is to defend the capital city and the five surrounding locations with your party of four heroes against the incoming waves of monsters. Before s

Weather Machine is a 1-4 player worker placement and set collection game by Vital Lacerda. You are playing as a scientist on the team of professor Lativ, trying to restore the balance that was disrupted by the weather-controlling machine built by the professor. The Kickstarter campaign will launch on November 11. You start the game by choosing a player colour and setting up the main board and your laboratory (player board). You will place your bots in the assembly line of the

Age of Galaxy is a 1-4 players sci-fi themed 4X game in which you develop your interstellar empire to achieve prestige, knowledge, and dominion over the galaxy. The campaign is live on Kickstarter, and it will run for 14 days. At the beginning of the game, you pick a faction to be your main faction throughout the game, and you are dealt a hand of 7 faction cards that can be used later on. This hand is definitive and you will not draw any more cards during the game. The game i

Titania Ascending is a 1-6 players drafting and map-writing game in which you play as an advisor of Queen Titania, tasked with finding six sacred stones so magic can come back to Earth and your Queen can claim her rightful throne on this planet. The campaign for the game went live on Kickstarter on November 2 and will run for another 17 days. The game is played in two phases, each featuring a win/loss condition. In the first phase, Divination, your aim is to recruit six hallo