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A Gaming Life
Friday Night Shots – Should Solo Games Exist?
Last week, I was reading a Boardgame Geek forum post that I thought would be a goldmine for some Friday Night Shots posts.
And it is!
The thread is entitled “Do you have an unpopular opinion that is TRULY unpopular?”
As opposed to those “unpopular opinions” that people put forth that, in reality, most people agree with.
There may be more coming from this one, but tonight I’d like to talk about one post in particular, from Boardziggy: “Solo gaming shouldn’t exist. That’s what apps and videogames are for.”
Are they taking the piss? Or is that a serious thought in their mind?
Let’s take it seriously just for the sake of this post.
Reading that, it’s unclear exactly what they mean by that.
Do they mean that solo games themselves shouldn’t exist? That publishers should never publish a solo game?
Or do they mean that adding solo modes to otherwise multiplayer games is a waste of time and resources?
Taking the statement as written, it sounds like it’s just the very existence of solo games that is the problem.
(Note: I have not read further in the thread before writing this post, so I have no idea if anybody has actually discussed this or whether it’s gone further than this. I’m using this as a springboard for my own post).
With the thousands of games every year that are published, it’s flat out insane to be saying that they shouldn’t exist at all.
One of the finest games I know is Final Girl, a wonderful solo game that wouldn’t exist if this person’s opinion were to become law.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to make it larger)
But let’s extrapolate further and instead talk about solo modes in games.
Are they useful?
Should publishers spend time and resources trying to include a solo mode for those gamers who prefer to play alone?
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 3501-3600
No time warps this time, hopefully.
There wasn’t last week, anyway.
Yes, doing these centuries (that’s 100 games for those who have been wondering) of Boardgame Geek game rankings have been really interesting and fun to do.
But writing them ahead as I do, I sometimes run into the problem of one of the games I’m talking about suddenly not being in the century by the time it posts.
So far so good on last week’s, though.
And hopefully this week as well.
I’ll keep writing these as long as you’ll have me and as long as I’ve actually played some of the games in the century.
This week’s list is here, though keep in mind, as usual, that things may have changed by the time you’re reading this.
In case you’ve been in a coma for a year and are just catching up on my blog.
You have a lot to read!
This week is a bit of a lean week, with me only having played 5 games and own (or previously owned) 2 of them.
Still, doesn’t mean there aren’t some interesting games down here, including my previously-owned one!
But yeah, not so much.
Getting close to the introduction word limit, so let’s just get started.
Read MoreJune 2026 Gaming
Happy Canada Day!
June was a weird month for gaming.
It had a full convention, a 3-day weekend of wonderful gaming with friends as well new acquintances.
However, that convention was full of long plays so the number of games played wasn’t as high as it has been in previous convention months.
That’s not a bad thing!
It just means the numbers aren’t as high.
Add to that Father’s Day where we didn’t game at all (though I did get a Final Girl game in!) and work weeks that didn’t have a lot of games for various reasons, and you’ve got a relatively normal month of games instead of the usual convention bonanza.
Not that I’m complaining, because the month was fabulous from a gaming standpoint.
Overall, I played 25 games a total of 39 times (down from 30 games 44 times last month).
Of course, Final Girl led the way again (will I play it this often when I am finished reviewing the films? I hope so), with no other games getting more than 2 plays.
Here’s the list of games I played in June.
And here it is in grid format.
Many thanks to the incredible Boardgame Stats app for this beautiful summary!
Don’t forget that you can click/tap on a picture to blow it up.
Also, any new to me games played this month will show up in my post next week.
Let’s get to the highlights, as I did manage to get a few games that I haven’t played in a while under my belt.
Read MoreCorny Terror – Final Girl – A Rotten Harvest Review
I grew up in a state that was full of corn fields, though I never actually experienced running through them in terror, being stalked by some creature of existential dread or anything like that.
You know, like Steve King.
(Editor: “Only a certain subset of people is going to get that joke”)
No, I was a city boy.
But I saw corn fields!
And they could still be terrifying.
The next Final Girl Series 4 feature film that I have completed is A Rotten Harvest.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
The film was designed by Ryan Jorjorian with artwork by Ondine Champetier de Ribes.
It was published by Van Ryder Games in 2025.
It takes place in the nice, peaceful farming town of Shady Acres, where one of the farms contains an altar to the old gods, where children are disappearing, but then coming back…to sacrifice others.
And that doesn’t even involve the killer!
No, a guy with a sinister flaming pumpkin head is also stalking the farm, killing people.
What’s a small town in rural America supposed to do with two maniacs surrounding them?
Put them in the White House?
Anyway, Grimlash is making his presence felt, and you’d better get running through those corn fields to see if you can stop him.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Lifestyle Games
Lifestyle games
What does that mean and are you into them?
At Bottoscon (not just last weekend, but every time, along with Terminal City Tabletop Convention as well!), a dedicated group of gamers play nothing but 18XX games.
(18XX games are train games where you are building train routes around the area the game is about and with years in the 1800s, like 1830, 1846, 1862, 18MEX, 18HOWMANYGAMESARETHERE, etc, and you are also investing in companies and stuff like that)
I look at these guys who show up bright and early on Friday morning (or Thursday morning for November’s convention), all set to go, with four or five different games ready to go, all in the same series, and they are doing that all weekend.
It made me stop and wonder, not just about conventions, but also about games in general.
This is the very definition of a lifestyle game, where that is basically all that you play.
Sure, you can play a few other games here and there for spice.
My friend Tony is one of these 18XX players and he’ll occasionally join us for a game of something else.
I really can’t imagine spending a whole weekend playing one series of games.
Yet people do!
Maybe my lack of imagination is because of the subject matter.
These games just seem so dry and boring to me, though I know people who love them to death.
But what about game systems like Advanced Squad Leader?
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 3401 – 3500
Another short turnaround time for this Boardgame Geek century of games post, because I have another Friday Night Shots post ready to go, so I didn’t want this to go out on Friday too.
You all are getting so lucky with these!
Or at least you haven’t taken me out to the corn field and put me out of my misery, anyway.
This week, we go even deeper into the Boardgame Geek game rankings to see what might be out there.
There are a bunch of mediocre games here, at least as far as the ones I’ve played go.
But there are still a lot of them!
There hasn’t been a week yet where I’ve only played one or two games.
I don’t know if that means I’ve played a bunch of games or if it means that I only play relatively highly-ranked games.
You be the judge!
Here’s the century that we’re talking about today.
Keep in mind if you’re coming back to look at this some day in the future (maybe some rock musician sent you after notifying people that they won’t be attending GenCon 2029?), the numbers will have changed.
That’s the nature of things!
Here are my numbers for this century: 8 games played and one of those owned.
With that short introduction done (yay, I have more words to talk about games!), let’s go!
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 04 – Closed for Renovation
Sometimes life just hands you an impossible task and you have to do your best at it, even knowing that you’re probably screwed.
Sometimes wargames are like that!
Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of the best games out there run by the top-notch Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.
Go check the channel out to see a monthly game from the ladder in action in addition to my wonderfully-done (but not video!) after action reports.
It’s what got me into the ladder!
June’s scenario is a really tough one from the original base game of Combat Commander: Europe.
A force of American elite units is trying to capture a large chateau in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. The occupiers are some German elites of their own, with two Heavy Machine Guns.
The win-loss ratio in this one currently this month is something like one win for the Americans and a million wins for the Germans.
I could be exaggerating…but not by much!
(ok, a second American win was announced while I was editing this).
Anyway, my opponent this month was the veteran Larry S, who I haven’t had the pleasure of playing before.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
See all that open ground with a few trees to hide behind for the Americans? And that long path down the left side that’s immune from fire from the chateau because of the stone wall?
Those will become very important.
The Germans (Larry – grey) set up first, except for the Infantry gun and crew, which can set up after the Americans.
They can set up 9 hexes deep (just before the Americans), but why would they do that?
Larry set up both of his HMGs in the chateau with decent lines of fire toward the Americans, along with a couple of token squads manning the right side of the board.
And wire all in front of the chateau, to make things even more difficult.
The Americans (Me – green) then set up one hex deep, so basically right on the edge of the board.
I set up in two groups to make sure I had everybody in command, with Lt. Wray tasked with attacking the chateau and Sgt. Buehler and his men tasked with forcing a path down the side of the board.
Maybe exiting, or maybe hitting the chateau from behind?
They also have a radio that can provide smoke.
Not many special rules in this one.
The wire must be placed next to a building hex because it represents rubble from earlier shelling.
The Americans get another leader with two squads and two flamethrowers on Time 3.
That can come in handy.
The only two objectives basically make holding the chateau a 30-point swing if the Americans can take it.
Is that possible?
Is the Pope Irish?
Let’s see how everything went.
Read MoreThe Uprising Will Be Televised – App Expansion Review – Dune Imperium: Uprising
Back in the early 2020s, Dire Wolf Digital had a huge hit with Paul Dennen’s Dune Imperium, a classic blending of deckbuilding mechanics and worker placement that quickly rose into the Boardgame Geek Top 100 and currently sits in the Top 10.
They came out with two excellent expansions, Rise of Ix, and Immortality that just seemed to make the game better.
For whatever reason, Dennen and Dire Wolf decided that this wasn’t enough.
Why not get two games into the Top 10?
Why not keep the same basic mechanics, even (mostly) the same starting cards, and just remake the board and add a bunch of fun stuff, like sandworms?
Thus was Dune Imperium: Uprising born in 2023, with wonderful artwork by a number of great artists.
Dire Wolf has also become kings of the digital boardgame world, so it was a no-brainer that they would bring all of this to Steam and mobile platforms.
Immortality came out last June and in June 2026, Uprising was released as an expansion to the Dune: Imperium app, rather than as its own app as happened with the actual boardgame.
I’ve played it once on the table, but now that I’ve put the app through its paces a bit, let’s talk about it.
It’s good!
Read MoreFriday Night Shots (Saturday Edition) – Long or Short Games at Cons?
It’s been almost a year since my last Friday Night Shots post (though yes, it is Saturday), but last weekend’s convention gave me a couple of ideas to explore.
Though sadly the bar is closed, the whiskey does keep flowing!
And producing boardgame thoughts to explore.
The first subject I wanted to talk about is conventions and long versus short games.
I know I’ve talked about game length before (in a Friday Night Shots post!), but this is specifically talking about at conventions or some other long-term gathering (not just a 6-hour game day).
I’ve mentioned in that post that my preference, even at conventions, is for shorter games.
Longer than maybe we play at our Sunday game days, but not super-long games that go on for 4+ hours.
I’ve always been a “play as many games as possible” guy rather than “play a long game that will keep us all together for hours and maybe require a dinner break” guy.
But something last weekend changed a bit, and it wasn’t by design!
There have been shades of this in the past (Dominant Species, anyone?), but for the most part, I’ve wanted to play roughly 2-hour games as a chance to get something played that doesn’t come out at our regular game days.
Or maybe something a bit more brain-burning than is usual.
The fact that it wasn’t by design is because I wasn’t planning on spending 3.5 hours on a game, or 5 hours on another one.
There was even a 3-hour game and a couple of 2.5 hour ones.
But it did happen, for various reasons.
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 3301 – 3400
One of these days, I’m going to learn that doing these Boardgame Geek century posts too early is possibly going to cause a rip in the space-time continuum, like what’s happening right about now.
What, you didn’t feel that?
We’ve all traded places with our other selves from an alternate universe.
Just because I want to get posts in the can early so I can get ahead and actually rest!
(I’m sure you’re wondering where this beard I’m sporting came from)
Since we are getting deeper and deeper into the BGG rankings, I’m expecting fewer and fewer games to be on my played list.
But not today!
Instead, there are enough that I’m not going to talk about them all, or I wouldn’t actually end up talking about games I might be interested in.
Nobody brought out the gong after last week, so it’s time for another BGG century!
The list I’m taking these games from is here, and if you can’t get it through your head that the numbers could change if you’re reading this a year or so from now, then I can’t do anything.
This week, I’ve played seven of them and own three, but there’s that rip in the continuum that makes it so I’ve actually played eight and own four (I’ll get to that in a minute).
No games that I own but haven’t played this week, so that’s a good thing.
I’m getting close to my introduction word limit, so let’s begin!
Read More