Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage right here —and let us know what you think.

A common refrain we hear in the comments section of Ars Cardboard stories is, “Man, these games look great! If only I had someone to play them with...”

We hear you. Assembling a board game group can be a daunting task, even for dedicated gamers. Hopping online for some multiplayer video gaming takes just a few clicks, but getting a group of busy adults to wrangle conflicting schedules and converge on a single physical space for several hours can often feel like a pipe dream—and that’s if you have gaming friends in the first place.

And what if you do have a group but don't play enough? An insatiable hunger for board gaming is an affliction that we at Ars Cardboard share.

Fortunately, we also have remedies.

Option 1: Solo games

To many people outside the hobby, the only thing sadder than playing board games might be playing board games by yourself. But to the 4,140 members of the Board Game Geek (BGG) 1-Player Guild (and thousands more like them), it’s a way of life. You already play single-player video games; what’s so different about their physical counterparts? So ignore the haters—solo board gaming can be a blast.

Those new to the idea may be surprised to learn just how many games have fun and fulfilling solitaire modes. Due to their puzzly nature, many Eurogames retain much of their fun as solo exercises, and almost every pure co-op game (think Pandemic) can be played by yourself. Here are a few of our favorite titles.









The first purchase an aspiring solo gamer needs to make is Friedemann Friese’s brilliant little deckbuilder Friday. If you’ve played Dominion, you know how the genre works: you start off with a small deck of crappy cards, and you use those cards to get better cards, crafting an increasingly powerful deck as the game progresses.

Here, you play the role of Robinson Crusoe’s Friday, and you’ll help the bumbling Crusoe brave the perils of island living until he’s strong enough to face a ship of pirates circling the island. You’ll get rid of Robinson’s negative trait cards like “Distracted” and “Weak” to make room for more helpful cards like “Experience” and “Realization.”

Friday’s crushing difficulty ensures maximum replayability, and its solitaire-only design means you’re always playing the “full game.” It takes about 25 minutes to play and costs $20 or less. Everyone needs a copy of this game.

Mage Knight ($60-$85 on Amazon)

On the other end of the complexity spectrum sits mad-genius designer Vlaada Chvatil’s gigantic adventure game Mage Knight. If Friday is a satisfying board game snack, Mage Knight is a huge Thanksgiving meal followed by a decadent dessert—and then by a course of leftover turkey sandwiches. It’s long, complicated, and intimidatingly deep.

But Mage Knight consistently tops “best solo games” lists because of its immense complexity. The game seats up to four, but most Mage Knight vets recommend that you keep this one as a solo experience. Player turns can be exceedingly long (seriously, ten-minute turns are not unusual) because of the intricate card-driven puzzle you’re presented with on each turn.

If the above description hasn’t scared you off, give Mage Knight a good, hard look. If you can stomach its 3+ hour playing time and huge learning curve, you’ll be rewarded with one of the finest experiences in board gaming, solo or not.

Imperial Settlers ($35 on Amazon)

Imperial Settlers is probably my current favorite solo game, and I’m not alone—the title won the BGG reader’s choice award for best solo game in 2014. The game is a Euro-style card-and-token affair that tasks you with creating the best civilization in the ancient world. You start with only a few resources, but through clever card play, you’ll build up a mean, efficient production engine that will let you pull off crazy point-scoring moves by the final round.

A solo mode is playable right out of the box, and designer Ignacy Trzewiczek has also published a highly recommended solo campaign variant that allows you to build up power and bonuses over multiple game sessions. Engine-building, multi-use cards, crazy combos—if you’re anything like me, you’ll love this game. And if you do end up getting a group together, you can play the game with up to three friends.

Other solo games

Several months ago, any self-respecting list of solo games would have had to include perennial solitaire favorites Space Hulk: Death Angel and Lord of the Rings: The Card Game . Today we have a new "co-op as solo play" card game option. Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game , a fun dungeon crawl card game released at the end of 2015, aped mechanics from those previous two games and streamlined them down to their essentials. You can read our review here

Other cooperative games that come highly recommended as solo experiences include Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island, Eldritch Horror, and Sentinels of the Multiverse. You'll generally take the role of two or more characters when playing a co-op alone—just think of it as commanding a squad in a party-based video game.

If you’re looking for other Euro options, the wine-making game Viticulture Essential Edition has an excellent solo variant (you can also try to track down the original game and its full expansion, Tuscany, for an even richer experience). And many of designer Uwe Rosenberg’s games are lauded for their solo-ability; I’d recommend the fun Chinese veggie-farming title At the Gates of Loyang if you’re keeping it strictly single-player.

Finally, check out designer Shadi Torbey's solo-first card games Onirim and Sylvion.

Option 2: Mobile apps

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of the options available to solo board gamers involve the digital realm. And there’s no better way to play digital board games than on a tablet. Tablet board game apps promise an approximation of the real deal—on a tablet, you’re not using a mouse to click and drag pieces; you’re moving components around with your actual fingertips. Though not quite the same tactile smorgasbord that you get from a real-life game, it still works surprisingly well.

Many board game apps are universal, meaning that you can theoretically play them on your phone as well. But for most apps, even ridiculously huge smartphone displays will require an uncomfortable amount of zooming and scrolling; bigger is always better here. iOS is definitely the platform of choice for board game apps, but the Android faithful still have some options.

All of our picks below feature solo play vs AI, online multiplayer, and “pass and play” game modes. Online modes can be hit or miss, but solo and local modes on all of these titles are solid. Apps are also a great way to learn new games, as tutorials are standard.















$9.99 on iOS ) is one of the best tablet board game implementations available. The classic tile-laying game enjoys a polished rendition featuring lovely visuals and audio, and all the usual play options are accounted for. It’s well worth the $10 asking price, and this is coming from someone who is fairly ambivalent about the actual tabletop game. (I can’t vouch for the $4.99 Android version , which is made by a different company.)

($6.99 on iOS and Android ) is a great mobile version of an Ars tabletop favorite—the title made it onto our " best games we played in 2015 " list (even though, yes, it came out in 2014). Splendor is essentially a competitive puzzle, making it a perfect match for the puzzle-heavy mobile marketplace. I've taken to honing my skills in private so I can dominate my friends when we get together for game night.

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer (base game free on iOS and Android; expansions available as in-app purchases) is one of the rare tabletop games that actually works better as a digital experience. Between the constant card shuffling and fiddling with scoring tokens, the physical game can be a bit high-maintenance. The app handles all the busywork for you. Ignore the blah artwork; there’s a fun and addictive deckbuilding game hiding underneath. If you prefer a sci-fi theme, the 2014 hit Star Realms (free on iOS and Android; additional game modes available as in-app purchases) plays similarly, except you can directly attack your opponent. It's like a deckbuilder meets Magic: The Gathering... in space!

Suburbia ($4.99 on iOS, $3.99 on Android) is like a board game version of Sim City. Each player builds his or her own little suburb, but all the creations exist in the same larger city, so your actions can have an effect on your opponents. Winning the game requires you to carefully manage your reputation, population, and income while buying and placing the tiles that make up your slice of the metropolis. Suburbia is an excellent mathy Euro, and the app helps to cut down on some of the physical game's slightly tedious bookkeeping. A cool solo campaign rounds out the game's modes.

San Juan ($4.99 on iOS and Android) is the card game version of the classic board game Puerto Rico. The digital version's production values won't win any awards, and it's sadly missing the updated cards from the game's second edition. But the game is so much fun that it doesn't really matter. San Juan isn't as deep as the similar Race for the Galaxy (which sadly does not have an app version), but it's easy to learn, quick to play, and always fun.

$6.99 on iOS , no Android version) is hands-down the best entry point for those wanting to see what this whole "worker placement" game craze is all about. The iOS version is perhaps a little too faithful to the cardboard original (there's some wasted space on the board, forcing pinching-and-panning on smaller devices), but the overall package is great. A Eurogame disguised as a Dungeons and Dragons quest-'em-up, Lords of Waterdeep is one of my favorites.

Agricola ($6.99 on iOS, no Android version) brings Uwe Rosenberg's classic farming epic to your mobile device. If you've ever wanted to live the punishing life of a 17th-century subsistence farmer, Agricola is for you. (I've heard the game described as "Misery Farm"—an apt description.) And with the app version, you'll no longer have to face the judging eyes of other players as you fail to feed your starving children. (The game is actually fun, I swear.)

If the above titles don't do it for you, there's an endless supply of others where those came from. Galaxy Trucker ($4.99 on iOS and Android) is another Ars favorite. Old standbys Pandemic ($6.99 on iOS and Android), Ticket to Ride ($6.99 on iOS and Android), and Small World 2 ($6.99 on iOS and Android) are also worth a look. Really, if there's a board game you're interested in playing on your tablet, look it up—you may well be in luck.

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