🎲 1x1: an e-zine of solo games

2023-09-11

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Intro

1x1 (pronounced "one by one") is a one-off e-zine dedicated to solo gaming, playable without computers. I am particularly interested in games not commercially manufactured but I do enjoy some solo rules variants of commercial board games. And I have a love of games playable with standard items like a regular card deck, pen and paper, dice, and dominos. While I do also enjoy the occasional solo rules variants of commercial games, particularly fan-made ones, there are many other places to find that kind of thing online.

Bringing a small ruleset, and a notebook to the park, maybe with a die or two, sounds about ideal right now. Maybe I should commission games that can only be played in the park, with items found there, now that's an idea.

In general, I've tried to find creative commons and similar licensed games. Many game creators may be removed from the world of software, Linux, or other entry points to the world or ideas of free, libre and open source software, and creative commons, but are still sharing their materials online or through other means hoping to find friends, fellow players, and community, but even though they published rules I decided to focus on explicitly labeled CC works for this 'issue.'

Without further ado...

🔭🦔 Where I find solo games to play?

There are a wealth of podcasts, websites and game jams dedicated to solo games.

Some categories of solo games that I particularly am interested in are solo ttrpg games, dungeon crawler solo games, and story driven solo/strongly themed games.

I am a relative newcomer to solo board gaming. I turned to trying out solo games, particularly solo table top roleplaying games (TTRPGs) during the pandemic when I wasn't playing Among Us. I found that I liked them! And I first came across James Chip's The Adventurer, which was my first experience with a journaling game, before discovering there were dozens of these kinds of games to be found on Itch.io.

=> The Adventurer, on Itch.io (www)

From there, I branched out to more solo journaling games, then decided to find more hack and slash games, some commercially produced solo games, and solo variants of games I already owned.

=> Solo Tabletop RPGs Are Really Fun, Actually (www)

I found lots and lots of independently produced and published solo games online, particularly on Itch.io. See this immense list of games below.

=> The Hermits Club: all solo TTRPGs and LARPs on itch.io (www)

James Chip runs the wonderful Micro fiction games jam, which has run in 3 editions as of the date I'm writing. The Micro fiction games jam is open to folks that create very short format games, always on a theme. The 2022 theme was "Item, Alcove and Haunt" and attracted 35 entries by my count.

James specifically requests folks submit games that can be described and actionable (playable by someone reading the instructions), in only 280 characters or less! From my experience, some require a bit more imagination to adapt to a fully playable experience, but I've always had fun trying. There are over 100 of these games to be found on the site currently, the majority of which are intended to be or can be played solo, so you have lots of options to try out here, and all of the games submitted are creative commons licensed CC BY 4.0. If you've played more exacting and complex games with packed rules sheets, this will feel like a very different experience. Not better. Not worse. But different.

=> Micro fiction games jam (www)

Incidentally, James can also can be found on Gemini. His capsule currently lists 3 small games he's created, along with their rules.

=> James Chip

I'd be remiss to not mention one other major source for finding out about solo games, Board Game Geek, and in particular 1PG (One Player Guild).

=> One Player Guild on BoardGameGeek (www)

Lastly, I'm not active on any of these but you can also find discussion on r/soloboardgaming as well as forums on BoardGameGeek, and I believe on various discord and other spaces around the web, just a search away.

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