OFPG Voices - Our Favorite Solo Games! (Turing Machine, Imperium, Gloomhaven, & MORE!)

0:18 of fpg voices is brought to you by the following sponsors Ford and dice creates games where strategy and family fun Collide some of their latest releases are L granha Deluxe Master set books of time Barcelona and nucleum their Ally program lend support to underrepresented voices in The Hobby Gloom Haven buttons and bugs from sephila fair games is a new big little Gloom Haven Adventure that fits in the palm of your hand buttons and bugs packs the same deep strategy combat Gloom Haven but in a fraction of the size its compact footprint and streamlined system means that in under 20 minutes you can set up and play a Gloom Haven scenario that fits on practically any size table Gloom Haven buttons and bugs is available now at various retailers like your friendly local game store and a second printing is available for pre-order on the sephila fair games website and is estimated to ship in August 2024 onwards mercenaries hi everybody I'm I'm stara I'm and we are our G voices yeah pointing pointing yeah yeah I'm not sure why you're point I'm just pointing like ready to go ready go ready go ready to go well this week everybody we've got some great contributors and they're all talking about solo games yes one of my

1:49 favorite things solo games love them love them love them yes so yes we're going to hear from some really great uh people this week including this one over here because let me tell you family solo games you know they were kind of low and and not really out there but now it is really coming up I mean you have some games that are just solo games which is so cool and I love them cuz sometimes star don't want to play the type of games I like to play like Dungeon Crawlers or really you know like War Games kind of sort of but with solo I can do it and not have to worry about her at all I love it I love it yeah in addition to Mick we're going to have Jen from Jen plays she's going to give us a review and Amanda Panda has a great interview coming up oh the solo guy oh yes you can't I can't wait to hear this yes yes but first family let's hear from stala about juneth and the importance of it and why we should celebrate and commemorate it in her good hum segment here we go hi everybody welcome back to another segment of good humans this week we're going to focus on juneth and it is appr propo because this week our episode comes out on June 19th now for those of you who don't know what juneth is I'm going to tell you why we celebrate juneth and why it is a federally recognized holiday in the United States now juneth commemorates

3:21 the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans in the United States and it marks the day when Union Soldiers arrived in Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation now mind you this is 2 years after it was issued they made it to Texas on June 19th of 1865 and the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863 now juneth celebrates Freedom it emphasizes education and it promotes African-American culture and achievement now the holiday symbolizes the end of slavery and the ongoing fight for equality and justice now juneth is recognized as a state holiday or observed in Most states in the United States we celebrate when our country gets it right and juneth is one of those times we got it right especially when it comes to a federally recognized holiday this country was founded on freedom and that means freedom for all so juneth gave freedom to all and not just some so we want everybody to take some time to learn more about what juneth means you know Google it look it up go to a library learn more about this country and what this country has done in in regards to freedom and equality and justice for all people now in the good human segment we try to take an opportunity to talk about good humans or things people have done that are good and juneth being a holiday and being

4:53 recognized and celebrated is a good thing and good humans would understand and respect that now as we always say our goal here at OPG voices is to make this world a better place one board gamer at a time happy juneth everybody hi I'm gen cam from gen cam plays board games a channel where I play games soou to help you decide if a game is right for you and I am so excited to be here on ofg voices to tell you about one of my favorite games to play solo the best part this game is oh so good on board game arena which by the way is my favorite way to play and that game is touring machine one of my favorite things about touring machine is just how fast it plays the second part is that there are daily challenges that you can play either by going to Turning machine.

5:40 info for the physical version or right there directly on BGA thanks to both of those reasons turning machine is my most played game ever I am talking over 80 plays of this game my second most played game I probably have about 30 plays total of my second so needless to say I play turning machine a lot for less than 10 minutes a day I get to give my brain a little workout by trying to solve a three digigit code okay okay maybe a brain workout doesn't sound fun for everyone but figuring out the puzzle and beating the machine is it's oh so satisfying so how about we head over to BGA and I will show you how it plays okay so I put us into a standard game on the with four verifiers and we're going to try to figure out what the three digigit code is by looking to see whether the triangle is less than more than or equal to three uh whether or which color's number is smaller than the others how many even numbers there are in the code and if a number repeats itself in the code so what I like to do is I like to pick like three codes because sometimes there's ones with six verifiers so I kind of just pick number numbers to be able to verify three different codes so let's try triangle for two so that'll help us figure out a and since it's an even number we're looking for C and then

7:11 we're going to try to make sure that we have no repetition to figure out what the it is for D so let's just go 2 4 five so when you pick pick your numbers you're going to say choose this code and now it brings up this thing which if you play the game is um how you then kind of find out whether you are correct so let's pick a and we'll see that we got a check mark so we know that the triangle is less than three so now we're going to cross off every number that is three and above and now check to see how many even numbers we have we have two so we're also going to check off here we have two even numbers so we can check off all of those and then we'll see if there's any repetition there is not so we got a lot of information there now we're going to ask did you find the solution we did not I wish I could do it that fast so from the information we have now now I would assume that triangle is the smallest number in the code but then though if the triangle is the smallest one in the code then we don't know how which one of either the square or the circle smaller cuz then it would have to be two it would be a two four and a five but have no idea which one actually but then it could also be the two of four and then the five or three so I'm thinking one of them has to be one but the triangle

8:41 could be one feel like this is harder with L verifiers let's see if we have 2 4 1 with purple being smaller we try the code it is not the smallest we are going to pass did I find the solution no not yet let's try 2 1 4 there we go okay 2 1 and 4 so how did we get to that we know that this is under three and there needs to be two even numbers and there are no Pairs and since triangle is the lowest it has to be a one so two or triangle has to be a two there needs to be two even numbers which would make circle the four we're going to pass again we found the solution and it's 2 1 4 make sure you click correctly I've done that before and we're going to verify and look at that it's a victory we didn't beat the machine though so sad we found it in two rounds and six questions oh the machine found it two rounds six questions I found it in three rounds and five questions so even though I asked less questions since machine got it in a previous round beat me but I still say that's a win I asked fewer questions and I was able to get it so that is touring machine a really fast logic puzzle if maybe you really prefer a physical copy

10:12 of a game or a longer game and you really like logic puzzles then I would highly recommend um search for Planet X which is kind of you against a machine who can solve the logic problem first touring machine I do have the physical copy obvious viously but this is just so easy on BGA um to knock out that puzzle of the day so you can play every single day and always be playing a different puzzle it's infinite amount of puzzles to solve I mean maybe not infinite but more than I'm going to ever do it in my lifetime and of course you can play with multiple people but even then it really is pretty much a solo challenge of it's you know you're you're making your guesses other people making their guesses and it's who can do it first so it's almost the same as this only the game actually ends when somebody solves it instead of you playing until you solve it so definitely recommend it solo 100% recommend it on BGA 5 10 minutes a day work out your brain keep it strong till next time Family bye-bye thank you Jan for talking about touring machine now that's one I definitely want to play we have it and I want to play it solo and also party mode you know like with everybody on it and I love BGA for real all right so I'm going to talk about some my top five solo games cuz I love playing solo but I want to throw out a little honorable mention and that is some of the button shy games I love

11:44 button shy games and one that I love in particular that's really cool solo is ancient Realms definitely check that out that's a really good one now on my top five I'm going to start from number five and go up to number one and I'm going to start off with number five heat pedal to the metal from Days of Wonder great solo game it has a great solo mode where all the cars are kind of AI controlled with a real good system you are fighting for your life trying to get around those tracks with the AI system is a great solo mode great game love heat pedal to the metal number four Imperium Horizon Imperium Classics and Imperium Legends all of them they have all these different factions that you can fight and you can do a solo which is really cool I love it and you're going to hear from the man very soon who did it and it is a great solo game from and that's Imperium everything from ospry games love it my number three unded with reinforcements now reinforcements expansion with undaunted can gives you the ability to go solo with with their Normandy and North Africa games I love that love the game it's really great it's basically drafting cards and car playing in a war game love it undaunted with reinforcements to make your solo play

13:14 great number two come on you know I got to say it family terraforming Mars solo yes from stronghold games you can do all your building your engine and drafting card solo with terraforming Mars love it I've done pretty good on it so far sometimes but I usually kind of lose but I love playing terraform Mars solo all right and my number one yes I love Mage Knight from Whiz Kids let me tell you Mage Knight is a game that was made for solo it it's just a wonderful game you basically take your character and you just fight everything known to man trying to get to a big big boss and it's a big city that you got to take over and Destroy love it a lot of scenarios that keep you going so my number one Mage Knight from weirds kids games so that's me next up Amanda Panda the interviewer let's go hello everyone welcome to this episode of panda talks today I have the amazing designer David tsy in the house we're going to be talking about his games of course he's done a lot of solo games but we're also going to get to know him a little bit better when did you get into board games did you play it as a child or uh did you get into modern board games later on I mean I've definitely played my share of you know risks and statos as a

14:47 kid uh and I remember late high school early University we were starting to create our own risk house rules when we were like this is too random this this won't fly but uh and then then during University the munchkin was put on the table a few times but uh real board games cot up to me when somebody bought Battlestar Galactica for me as a Christmas present because they knew that I like the series and for about 2 3 years that was like almost practically the only game we played so it's like I don't know two three times a month at least and after that I found out about you know Euro games and stuff no I actually I think that was a little longer I went to Essen in 2012 and that's where that was the year when uh um keylow and soul kin and and teristic and all of those games came out so I suddenly learned what Euro games are and while the first game that uh uh my friends and I designed were very much in a Battlestar Galactica is hidden themes and and and that kind of feeling after that my next design an acony was immediately jumping into the Euro genre cuz like now I get it you've worked with a lot of different designers and you know you've L worked with a lot of good big names as well is there a favorite designer that you love working with and you want to work with

16:20 again first of all I work a lot with famous designers just as I said a moment ago is because I've been working working hard to get better like good at it on purpose not just accidentally making things that look like a good idea and I I can't I don't study I I do so the easiest way for me to get better at something is to do it with somebody who does it better than me okay and and once I've done it once twice three times then then then I saw what they did well I saw what they did not well well but then on the other pair uh they did some they did something else well the the my favorite example to this is always that I did a game with independently with both Daniel tasini and with Simon eliani and Danielle is a great inventor I explained to him what game I wanted to design and 5 days later he sent me a diagram of the central mechanism and that is what how teko's Central dice drafting Works unchanged is like that's the chart that he draw that's the which die counts as positive as negative and then everything else I had to do was just polish the actions to be as that you want to do all the actions and it's not just okay I get a resource I spend the resour get victory points but like to make everything interesting into everything so that was I was very much making the

17:51 game sing around his Central magnificent idea and and and I learned from him what what's the difference between a few nice ideas in a game versus a one great idea and then come 3 years later at with nucleum I call Simona and tell him that I have a central magnificent idea for a game the build Network out of dominoes that's it and and I say I try to build a game around it it's nothing special let's sit down because it sounds like something like barrage so you might know how it works let's sit down and tell me how to make this game great and and on in that meeting I was the the the inventor and he was the the the let's make this better let's make this simpler let's make this do more with less kind of person so and and and now I can go into a third meeting and act like I'm the Simon elani in the room so it's the these are the kind of uh experiences I really cherish when you know when I get to sit in every role and and and and see the best of every other role yeah that's awesome and nucleum is a really fun game I just got to play it very I really enjoyed it yeah I me I mean uh I I've been working a bit recently with Martin Wallace a lot he's always a hoot uh I've got a game coming up with Richard Breeze of the key series

19:24 uh and and that that that's like the way his brain works has been a very interesting puzzle to keep up with and very different ways of of like put a lot of seemingly boring bricks together to get a very fascinating and very interesting puzzle in the end and and I really love doing that and and well I I I shouldn't really say which which which big name I'm working with now because the game doesn't work yet so it might not come through so but yes I I I have this checklist of of people that I I want to the codesign with to learn from them so oh it's so much fun now as we can see you've done a lot of games um now it says that you designed the solo mode for 117 games that is crazy that that count it in some weird weird way cuz that probably counts expansions and and yeah yeah it although also it's not entirely impossible but I can see a bunch of games that is counted two three times here but 60 70 games I can imagine the trick here and it's not a trick because I tell everybody when they ask is that solo designing and designing are two completely different jobs designing is is my life my brain my heart my soul I

20:55 do that every waking moment of of my life maybe except when I play with the little one that's the only other thing that can occupy the complete attention of mine but solo design is is a work of engineering that's I accidentally figured out how to make semi- interactive automas back at an Acron and managed to improve on it with taakan and since both of them ended up in the top 100 people saw my name it was that simple and then three other Publishers called me to make them a solo mode which meant that more people saw my name which meant next year five more Publishers called me to make them a solo mode which me next year another five more Co me too and and the reason why it became possible to sustain it to this day is that the original volunteers who were one day just volunteering to test one of the solo modes many many years ago the best ones kept coming back for projects oh and every time I wasn't just making them play the game I was interacting with them I was Co creating with them so like I learn from what they like and I teach on how I think and now 5 years later each and every one of them are a very capable very good solo designer on their own and we also work as a team so

22:27 publisher comes to me I look at the game I say the solo mode should do this this this this and that I want to abstract out that system that system and then hey guys which one of you want to take it do you have free time all right yours and then the the game comes out with his name and my name on the solo mode so or or or I have solo modes where I had a 3our Skype call with the or Google meet call these days with the publisher where they taught me the game and I explained to them how I would do the solo mode and there own development team did it so I came up with the concept but I have never even played the game so it's easy to make 70 solo modes that way so it's I I look at it as more of a marketing and a community engagement job for me I I do it so that all those people who would otherwise miss out on a lot of the games that get them closer and closer to my kind of games now can get closer and closer to my kind of games and a lot of people who would not see my name now see my name yeah there are a few games that I have special stories about on the solo design and yes there are a few games where I spent months and months of sweating for the solo mode but for every one of those there's 20 other that took me two days or less so yeah know which make which makes me not want to be very oh my God look at me I've designed 70 solo modes because

23:58 no I I I I applied my engineering method of how to simulate an opponent in over four dozen games so so what do you have coming up let's uh let's talk about the games that you have uh coming out this year what was Imperium Horizons Imperium Horizon at least a few months ago it's the third books in the Imperium series that Nigel and I did and it's the clowning jeel of of the series because it almost doubles the number of civilizations in the Box it brings a new uh positive interaction with an optional module in it uh he rote the rub from scratch because a lot of people complained that the original rub book was not very user friendly so and it's a giant box and it's very pretty and I don't have the lead with me I have the bottom of the box here so I can't show it uh but yeah so that that was a game that took years of our lives but it was very well worth it uh and as of a few days ago another game was announced from niga and myself which is similar to Imperium in in game play but it's not a rethe it's much more than that it's a completely new game designed on the things we learned from Imperium and that is a Star Trek captain's chair I'm so happy that I can finally talk about about it in public I've been

25:29 whispering in people's ears in secret dark alleys for a year now but I can finally say it in public so so great it's both imp and Captain share are what we call heavy deck builder Tableau Builder hybrids which for those who don't know what that is it's like imagine if you were playing uh a deck build game with magic cards that's the easiest way to picture it and everybody played with a completely different deck where your cards had nothing to do with my cards so that's that's where we're starting and and and the system is just allows us to do so much and and everything is theme first designed and yes it's it's it's effort to get into but in return with Imperium we calculated that there is more than 2,000 unique setups of the game before shuffling the cards oh man so means you can play the game for seven years and never set up the game twice the same way and that's not something any like certainly none of my games have that kind of variability but I would bet most other people don't have most other games don't have that kind of variability Captain share is you know the first six decks have just been announced and uh these need to to be successful before we can do more so that

27:01 one doesn't have 2,000 setups yet but I hope one day it will too are you a big Star Trek fan like have you watched all of the series yeah yes what's your favorite I I did not need to consult with almost anyone on on the theme I I just like I vaguely remember a person who did something like that in one of those episodes on the third season okay let's and them I pulled up the Memory Alpha page and then went from there so yeah so yeah that most of the series is is in here which is my favorite is is ask me which day of the new stuff strange new worlds but but I really like obviously lower deck is hilarious but I like Discovery a lot more than the average seems to like it uh of the old ones Enterprise holds a special place in my heart that was the first series that I watched as the episodes were coming out oh okay and of course deep face 9 is deep face 9 and and well I grew up on babyon 5 before I knew what star TR was so so d69 did it well I am excited for this game and canot wait to try it uh and it comes out it comes out is it Gen Con we'll demo at Gen Con we'll definitely not have like enough copies to sell a jenon I don't know what the kid is planning for Essen I can't comment on that but they said that it

28:32 releases in shops in Q4 so October November hopefully before Christmas uh thank you so much David for joining us for this talk I hope uh people got to know you a little bit better very engageable because I'm addicted to online interactions so you know tag me on you can't tag me on B but get my attention on B tag me on Facebook tag me on ready to I'll be there thank you everyone for joining us uh thank you so much David for taking time out of your day it was so great to chitchat with you I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day and see you on the next episode bye everybody all right another great show yes yes yes yes kicking it off with Jen and her touring machine uhhuh on BG uh BGA yes she did a really great job yes she did a really good job yeah then you came through yeah I came I was a little little little short but I wanted I want to give my love for solo I want to give my love for solo so that's what I wanted to do yeah we appreciate that you stepping in when we need so much a solo list and then last but certainly not least oh my Lord Amanda Panda amandaa her interview with David tury the solo man he is the solo genius yes now he's a game designer from Hungary who's currently living in the Netherlands and he has done countless solo modes countless yes and I've played

30:03 most of them and I love them I mentioned that on on my top five was Imperium Imperium all of them all of them and he did all of them because you have a chance to play the system that he created with different you know factions and there a ton of factions and it's so enjoyable it's a little it's a hard you know it's a hard game you know but hey when you get it down it's fun to play it is fun to play I love and he's also done solo modes for nucleum and teeko and Tower T suu Star Trek captain's chair which is coming out which is coming out and and more I mean acrimony and void fall I mean it's a whole list go to BG G and check out his list he's solo man I just call him solo man yes yeah I am so happy Amanda got him to interview with her it's really great we love being able to share other people in the hobby you know whether it's from game designers to you know artist cont creators we a to share them on thisat and Amanda does a great job she does a great interview job she's interviewer I love it I love it now stala what about our merch tell us about that well if you're looking for a shirt or a cup or pillow or something from ofg orpg voices check us out on Spring do now we also have an exclusive shirt forg on BGG online so go to their online store and check out our exclusive shirt and you know get a shirt for your family your friends take a picture send it in so we can share with the rest of our

31:34 audience okay and family subscribe please subscribe to this orpg our Regular Show do that subscribe and try to get some more people in to subscribe too we want a whole big old Community let's keep doing it now next episode is July 10th family and the topic dice games so we can have stal come back into the mix she come back it's dice games now that's nice game cuz we kind of lost it with this you know a couple of episodes do solo you know if you don't do solo at all Coop our Co-op so we lost it for a few so now she going to come back she going to come back dice she loves dice games yes now star where can they find orpg and orpg voices out here well if you're looking for our family play games and orpg voices you can find us on Facebook Instagram Twitter yep right here on YouTube right here on our website website and Tik Tok Tik Tok Tick Tock thank you so much f for coming thank you to our sponsors thank you so much for sponsoring and don't forget mercenaries be sure to check out Gloom Haven buttons and bugs from seir games see Gloom Haven buttons and bugs used to be a fan game called gloom Holden but now it's finally gotten its proper spot in the Gloom Haven lineup as an official game which is now buttons and bugs and contributors tributors yes definitely check them all out please do and also if you have any questions or comments please please put it down below and family always know and always remember we love you bye everybody

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