Multi-player Solitaire? Nuh Uh!

The term "multiplayer solitaire" is often used (mostly by people who don't like them) to describe games where there is no direct player interaction - you can't steal my food cubes or blow up my tanks, because we are each working on our own grand master plan for our own area of the world.

Coincidentally, the games the term is often applied to include most of my favourite games.

What these games typically offer, is ample opportunity for indirect player interaction. Often, this comes through competing with other players - for goods, for resources, for actions, for control of an area.

The games reward planning - often long-term planning - but also the flexibility to respond and react to others' actions. While they are less dynamic than some other types of games, players can still have a significant effect on one another's success or failure.

In my experience, while the first few times with a new game often play out as essentially multiplayer solitaire, with experience and increased skill players will watch what other players are doing and respond/react/block/move appropriately. In other words, a game will become more interactive as you play it more and more. This can take time - and it's easy to write a game off after one or two plays without really exploring the strategies and tactics that underpin it.

Moving a game from multiplayer solitaire to a more interactive experience may have a long learning curve, but it is well worth it to someone who (like me) enjoys these types of games. The interactivity enriches the game experience and deepens the thinking involved in playing the game - or at least, in playing it well.

In bad news for designers, there doesn't seem to be a way to shortcut this process - although some seem to be having success by providing solo rules, or versions of the game with less complexity than the full game, to give players an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the game in stages.

I've looked at a handful of these games and have tried to rank them, starting with the most solitaire. Your experiences will likely vary - I'd bet, according to how often you have played the various games I list.

Crayon rails games
You could call them multiplayer solitaire because: The interaction is really only in where you build (taking the best routes into and out of a city) and in taking the goods that other players want.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: I've only played this 2-player so far, but I imagine with more players there could be more opportunity to block other players out of a particular city or to force other players to use your existing train lines.

Ingenious
You could call it multiplayer solitaire because: The game can be played almost co-operatively, with each player placing pieces without regard to their opponent's scores.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: Blocking!

Thurn und Taxis
You could call it multiplayer solitaire because: Each player plays their own hand, without restrictions on how many pieces may be played on a particular city. The high level of chance in the flow of cards (particularly if you choose the 'replace the 6 cards' option) makes it hard to block, especially in a multiplayer game.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: Card hogs! If I have all the cards for Lodz or Sigmaringen, you don't have much of a chance. Also, the need to keep up with other players' carriage cards means that you are under some pressure to play cards and not just to wait for the next card to come along.

Pillars of the Earth - reduced by the random draw of master builders but still very competitive. Has the feel of an auction game in many ways
You could call it multiplayer solitaire because: Each player is working to make the most of their own set of cards.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: Card selection/choice of actions - it is possible to take the action that another player wants. Watch how many workers they have left and make sure you take the only stone they can afford. Block their access to key resources like metal. Watch whether they have enough money to place their master builders.

Notre Dame
You could call it multiplayer solitaire because: Each player plays their own hand of cards on their own section of the board. There is no restriction on several players choosing the same action.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: Card drafting phase. If the next player is out of money, it might be safe for me to pass her a Notre Dame card if it means I can keep a money card out of her hands. Also, the carriages.

Carcassonne
You could call it multiplayer solitaire because: Each player builds their own structures on the board - there's no trade or opportunity to influence your opponent's tile draw.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: Blocking! Stealing cities, pointing roads at cities - there are ample opportunities for evil play.

Princes of Florence
You could call it multiplayer solitaire because: Each player is building his/her own buildings and playing cards.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: The Auction phase (and the restricted supply of some cards for the Action phase) allows you to take choices away from other players. The Recruiter card also offers an interactive element.

Agricola
You could call it multiplayer solitaire because: Each player is building their own farmyard. Unless you are using the I deck, you have little to no direct interaction with other players.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: Taking resources and actions that other players need. Early complaints about cards being overpowered seem to stem from this problem - if one player has a card that makes clay super-valuable for them then the other players should adapt their strategy to ensure that the first player doesn't get the chance to get a lot of clay. That's hard to do while you're still learning the ropes, which is where the family game should get solid play from gamers who are just starting out with this game.

Tigris & Euphrates
You could call it multiplayer solitaire because: It is possible to play this game without ever entering into any direct conflict with another player.
Opportunities for interaction with other players: War! Two different types, even. It doesn't get much more direct than that - yet the first few times you play you will almost always stick to building up your own civilisation.


What other games attract this label? And does the experience = interactivity rule hold true?


Melissa

The Holy Grail of Solitaire Gaming

(Apologies for the late post. I couldn't connect to upload in the airport. I can claim its still Wednesday in the time zone where this was written!)

I’ve been traveling a lot lately and, ever hopeful, I bring along a game or two “just in case” I rustle up a few people to play a game. Unfortunately, I’ve spent most of my time in hotel rooms monkeying around on my computer or reading fiction, with no gaming opponent in sight. I came to the realization that what I really needed was a good solitaire game. However, after analyzing the situation further I understood that what I was truly looking for probably didn’t exist. While there are some solitaire games that will satisfy my gaming itch, the aspects of boardgames that excite me the most just don’t translate over to solitaire play. The simple explanation lies in the joy of interacting with friends and acquaintances. A solitaire game just can’t provide the fun of hanging out with friends, and it can’t provide the challenge of playing against a creative, responsive human opponent. To further complicate things, I pride myself on being a rather persuasive gamer, which gives me a slight edge in games requiring direct player-player interaction and adding to my enjoyment of them. Ignoring the glaring lack of human interaction, there has to be some sort of optimal solitaire game. Here is a small attempt to qualify what that Holy Grail of solo gaming might include.

I always claim that I enjoy games because it gives me an opportunity to analyze a set of rules and try to put together an optimal strategy. If that were wholly true, a solitaire game would be just fine. It could contain a set of rules and I would simply do my best to “solve the puzzle” as it were. Unfortunately, I’ve never been much of a puzzle-lover and comparing a boardgame to a puzzle makes it far less attractive to me. Clearly, a solitaire game needs a random element for it to be satisfying. If the entire game is laid out in advance, the game can be completely “solved” using a single method and there is no room for responding to the game itself. Too much randomness will also doom a game. Planning and developing a strategy is a very satisfying experience, one that just won’t happen in a game where chaos reigns at every turn. Solo Yahtzee is not for me, so an optimal solitaire game must employ some randomness to force the player to respond to situations, but not so much that it eliminates any possible forward planning.

Closely linked to small amounts of randomness are multiple paths to victory. Having multiple victory paths allow players to specialize in one or more areas. Hopefully, they are trading strength in one area for corresponding weakness in others. Thus, the random events will affect the overall play of the game. One player may favor the generalist route to a cautious victory, while another may prefer a riskier specialist strategy leaving open the greater possibility of failure. While multiple victory paths will definitely increase a game’s complexity, it doesn’t preclude solitaire play. Increasing the complexity of a solitaire game is possible, but it does make balancing all the other game aspects that much more difficult.

Another aspect of games I enjoy is the snowball effect. I compare it to tending a garden, where you put in work and effort and slowly enjoy more and more of the fruits of your labor. Many Eurogames have this element. Similar to a well written story, a game can reach a frenetic climax can occur in the end game as players finish up their strategy. Again, nothing precludes a solitaire game from including a snowball effect, but balancing a system of rules to stand up to the rigors of intelligent players is a challenge. Unless everything is rigorously developed and playtested, a snowball design can end up flawed due to an overlooked rule.

One possible route to a solitaire game is by taking a well-loved game and developing a set of rules for opponents to follow. While this can be done, I wouldn’t want to include such a thing in my search for the Grail of solitaire play. At its simplest level, the imaginary opponent will either be playing randomly (and thus requiring a handicap for the human player) or it will have a complex behavior that might as well be played by a computer. I enjoy playing boardgames against the computer as much as the next guy, but it isn’t the focus of my search. Alternatively, if an opponent strategy is simple enough to not require a computer to manage it, the human player will essentially be playing against the solitaire ruleset and not the game itself. (Imagine a game of Goa against an imaginary opponent. If each tile was assigned a set value, a human player could then just try to pick up any tiles undervalued by the imaginary player’s ruleset. The game would be more an optimization of the non-player’s decision tree rather than a true game of Goa.)

Surprisingly, there is a small subset of games that comes close to my ideal solo game. Many of the games with a strong role-playing flavor either play well or can be adapted into being decent solitaire play. For example, with a few adaptations to deal with (ignore) inter-player combat, the World of Warcraft Boardgame can be played solo as a race against the event deck. Arkham Horror also makes a decent solo game. Although I haven’t tried it, I assume Lord of the Rings might be playable solitaire, but I think it would lose a bit without inter-character assistance. Leaning even more towards the role playing side of things, the old choose-your-own adventure style books that included game rules (basically role playing modules designed for solo play) worked well for a few (but not too many) plays. Each of these games have a good balance of overall thematic objectives, but also include short term random encounters or events requiring appropriate response by the player. As the characters progress through the game, they typically gain new abilities – a limited snowball effect. Role-playing style games are not for everyone, but they currently remain as the best fit for my ideal solitaire game.

When all is said and done, the best gaming moments are shared with friends. If solitaire gaming isn’t yet up to my hopeful ideals I guess I’ll fall back on solitaire “games” of unpacking and reading the rules for a new game, reading up on game-related news and discussion online, and planning my next boardgame gathering.