Five New Solo Board Games I Would Buy at Essen If I Could Go

What if the best new board games coming out at Essen don't need anyone else around the table? Essen is the biggest board game fair in the world, with hundreds of new games across one weekend in Germany, running from October 22 to 25. I can't afford to go. If I could, these are the five solo games I'd be hunting down, and if I could only bring one home, it would be 7th Seal.

These aren't reviews, because I haven't played any of them. I'm looking at what people who have played them are saying and trying to live vicariously through them. I always look for solo board games or solo RPGs at conventions, because I like to be alone. These are the five that made me think I would buy that and go looking for it, which, fortunately for my bank account, I can't. One of them has beaten someone five times without them getting past the second boss, and somehow that's the one I want the most.

Much of this hobby has always been solitary for me. It's one of the reasons I started doing this in the first place: at the time I didn't have many people around me who wanted to talk about Warhammer, D&D or whatever obscure tabletop thing I'd become obsessed with that weekend. I've also bought plenty of solo games that promised some enormous adventure and then sat on the shelf, because I couldn't face setting them up at 9:00 at night.

Thousand Year Old Vampire properly changed how I looked at solo gaming. I created a woman, and as part of setting her up I had to create NPCs who each had a purpose. One was a character she had a real relationship with. Straight away, the first prompt was to destroy someone close to you, so I had to choose that character. That sounds like a small thing, but I'd put so much thought into her, and the game made me take her away. I was sat there on my own, dictating this little journal into my phone, and it hit harder than I expected. That's what I mean when I say some games work better alone, which does sound depressing now I say it out loud.

Three of these are dedicated solo games: Familiar Feat, 7th Seal and Pasteles. The other two, Buried Memories and Fragments Solara, are multiplayer games that properly support solo. What I'm looking for is something small enough that I'll play it, interesting enough that I'll want to play it again, and doing something that feels better on a table than it would on a screen. I also don't want a solo mode where I'm playing both sides. If I've got to spend half the game running Dave the imaginary opponent and playing his turn for him, Dave can go elsewhere.

Familiar Feat makes time a resource that costs you your own familiars

This is probably the easiest one on the list for me to buy. It's by Friedemann Friese, who made Friday, one of those proper old school card games, which I haven't played. This is another solo only deck builder from him. It's 110 cards, plays in 20 to 30 minutes, and it's about 10 pounds at Essen, which is not so bad. We're already in dangerous territory.

You're traveling to a fairy tale castle that has been taken over by monsters, recruiting creatures into your deck on the way. The bit I like is that time is another resource. You want another creature, one more upgrade, just to get slightly stronger, and then you've arrived at the castle alone, because the longer you spend building your deck, the more of your original familiars you lose. I like solo games where the difficulty comes from your decisions, not from the game pulling a card that says you've lost, now go away.

This is the sort of thing I'd chuck on the table at 9:00 at night, and about 10 pounds is cheaper than some paints I've bought. At that point I'm not buying a board game anymore, I'm making a slightly irresponsible purchase. There aren't many reviews of finished copies yet, so I'm not saying this is the next Friday. But if I walked past the stand at Essen, I would probably buy it and find out whether it was good afterwards. For that price, it's a no-brainer.

7th Seal lets you build your character out of the demons you kill

This might be the one I'd enjoy playing the most. You're trying to convince a supreme being not to wipe humanity out by fighting through all the demons released during final judgment. So, a fairly relaxed Wednesday evening. You roll a pool of colored dice and use them to attack, defend and heal. When you beat a minion, you can take its die and one of its abilities for yourself, so you're building your character out of the things you've killed.

I don't want a card that says I've gone from level three to level four. I want to look down at a growing pile of dice and think, "I've killed all of you. You belong to me." People on the solo board gaming subreddit love the dice puzzle, but they did say bad rolls early can really hurt. Somebody said they played it five times and still hadn't got past the second boss, which makes me want to play it more.

I don't mind a game beating me. What I don't like is when there was nothing I could have done about it. If I can look back and think I could have played that better, then fine, beat me, and I'll play it again. Losing after three hours because I drew some arbitrary card is just frustrating, and I'm less enthusiastic about that. There might not be loads of variety in the enemies yet, so I'm not calling it a hidden gem, but it is very much my sort of thing.

Pasteles turns pastry orders into spatial puzzles you fold by hand

This is probably the least me game on paper. You've inherited your family's little pastry shop. There are no demons, no apocalypse, no goblins, just the crushing horror of running a small business. It's from Scott Almes, who did the Tiny Epic games. The bakery isn't why it's on my list, though, even if I do love a croissant.

You've got pastry pieces that you physically fold into different shapes to fill the orders, so every recipe is a little spatial puzzle. There are 12 of them, each with two difficulty levels. That's exactly what I mean about a reason to be at a table. I want to fold things. I want to realize I've completely misunderstood the puzzle, unfold everything and then pretend that was always the plan.

It's still a proper number crunching puzzle, though. If you're expecting Stardew Valley but with croissants, that's not quite what this is. It's about 30 pounds at Essen, and it could work as a Christmas present for someone you know is into their puzzles, because it's a little different. I definitely have someone in mind who I know would enjoy this, particularly at Christmas, so it's not one for me, but I figured it might appeal to some people.

Buried Memories makes the box a dig site that tempts you into greed

This is the one I didn't expect to care about. The box is the dig site. You're reaching in and digging out tiles: gemstones, statues, vases and sometimes creatures. You can keep digging as long as you want, but two matching creatures and your turn is over. It isn't completely blind, because some tiles are face up and some are face down.

So you can see the sensible tile, and you can also see something shiny three tiles further down that you absolutely do not need, but now you've seen it. Obviously I'm taking the shiny, stupid option. If I ruin a 20 minute game because I got greedy, that's a little bit funny to me. If I ruin a three hour game because I got greedy, that's a fun evening.

There are five sealed envelopes that add new tiles and rules, and you'll have opened them all in about 8 to 10 games. That's perfect, because I love the idea of campaign games far more than I finish them. I see an 80 hour campaign on the box, think look at all that, and six months later I've only played up to scenario three. It's about 19 pounds at Essen, and it went from one I barely noticed to possibly the one I'm most annoyed I can't try at a demo.

Fragments Solara feels like a point and click adventure made from cardboard

I'm not sure this is a board game. It's somebody making an old point and click adventure out of cardboard. You find big physical pieces, turn them, look at them and stick them together, and when you work out the right thing to do, the story moves on. I don't have some amazing Monkey Island story to pretend happened to me. Mine is Fable, spending far too long convinced the game is broken rather than accepting I've missed something obvious. This takes that "what if I use this thing with this thing" feeling and makes you do it with your hands.

There's no app and no timer. It's an adventure book and, thankfully, a solutions book for when you've spent 45 minutes refusing to accept that you're not as clever as you thought. No app matters to me. I've got a PlayStation and a PC; if I wanted a video game, I'd play one. I did read a review from somebody who played it on their own and couldn't imagine preferring it with more people. They liked it on their own. It's about 17 pounds, which is annoyingly reasonable.

None of these five seems to go past 30 pounds, which feels suspicious. If I could only bring one home, I'd go with 7th Seal. Familiar Feat I'd buy without thinking, but 7th Seal is the one I want to sit down and play. The one I'm least sure about is Solara, because once I've solved those puzzles, am I ever going back to it? I'd want to hear from a few more people first, unless I was at Essen, at which point all financial judgment would probably have disappeared several halls ago.

I deliberately didn't go with the over the top, really popular games. I tried to find ones you can play alone, because as we get closer to Christmas, many of us, me included, are going to be alone. People will be meeting up and doing social things you can't bring yourself to go to, and sometimes you just want a break from your screen. So I've tried to find a couple of games that might kill a few hours and give you a break from the intensity of the other hobbies we enjoy, like Warhammer.