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Morten Monrad PedersenDenmark
Automa Factory
Automa Factory
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DISCLAIMER: This post sails smack in the middle of the waters that pay my bills, so while reading keep in mind it’s an opinion piece written by someone who has an obvious financial and emotional interest in solo modes developed independently of a game’s designer.
Thus, I’m biased and because of that I’ve argued with myself about whether to participate in the discussion. In the end, I decided to do so, because I hope that my experience with making multiple published solo modes can add something to the debate.
The reason that I got inspired to write this post is that there’s currently a thread running over in the 1-Player Guild about whether it’s off-putting that a solo mode is added to a multiplayer game in an expansion instead of being a part of the base game.
Opinions vary (well duh) and I wanted to chime in with mine, but as often happens to me, what should have been a short comment ended up being lengthy enough for a blog post
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Afterthoughts
A common criticism levied against solo modes in expansions is that they’re slapped on afterthoughts.
Solo modes in expansions are obviously not in the base game box, but it’s equally obvious that stuff in multiplayer expansions also aren’t in the base game box so in that regard there’s no difference between solo expansions and normal expansions.
For solo modes that weren’t considered during the development of the base game we can similarly say that they’re afterthoughts. But that’s again a statement that also applies to other expansion mechanisms that weren’t given much thought until after the development of the base game. So once more I see no difference between normal expansions and solo modes in expansions: Both are afterthoughts.
Now, it can be argued that most solo modes add major mechanisms significantly different than those in the base game. But can’t we say the exact same thing about many multiplayer expansions (apart from “more is more” expansions like those for the Legendary games)? Don’t many expansions add major mechanisms significantly different than those in the base game? It should be obvious that the answer is yes, but we’re clearly not calling them afterthoughts in a derogatory manner.
Cash grabs?
Another related criticism levied at expansion solo modes is that they’re cash grabs. It’s true that adding a solo mode in an expansion will bring in more sales, but there’s a risk involved. Developing a solo mode isn’t free (at least not in time), the increased price of the solo components might scare off potential buyers and adding the solo mode in an expansion risks the game flying under the radar of solo gamers.
By the time an expansion comes out the game no longer gets many “new hotness” sales and will instead depend on sales that are better researched, which will make slapped on solo modes more likely to be found out before significant sales numbers are achieved.
Therefore we should ask whether there’s any extra incentive to slap a solo mode on an expansion than to slap it on the base game? Is there some reason that solo modes slapped onto expansions will spur more sales than solo modes slapped onto base games? I’m not sure why that would be the case and I have multiple games in my collection where the solo mode is definitely slapped onto the base game.
Solo mode budgets
Continuing the point about the number of components, I know from firsthand experience that having a solo mode included in a base game limits the budget for the solo mode, because otherwise the non-solo gamers, who likely make up the majority of buyers, will have to pay a significant of money for solo mode components they won’t use.
Putting a solo mode in an expansion might allow for a bigger budget, though, because it’s optional and it be very likely to be even larger if we’re talking about an expansion containing only a solo mode. The latter is rare but it’s something I’d like to make myself. A good and as far as I know financially successful example of the former is Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm which add 2 custom dice, a mat and a significant amount of tiles, which is more costly than any solo mode I’ve made.
Component costs are also a factor in another way: If a publisher is including solo mode components with a significant cost, then it’s likely that they care about solo gaming. So, I think that checking component costs are a better indicator (and no more than an indicator) of care put into the solo than whether or not it’s in the base game.
Development time
In my experience good solo modes take a lot of time to develop and so my alarm goes off when I see a Kickstarter where backers ask for a solo mode and one or two weeks later the publisher says they have a solo mode ready. Not only is it extremely hard to make a good solo mode in that amount of time, but it’s almost impossible to do proper playtesting and I wouldn’t be backing in that case even if I was very interested in the game.
I mention this to highlight the factor the development time is a big factor in the quality of a solo mode (just as it is with games and expansions). When we at Automa Factory create solo modes, we often have a tight schedule because the bulk of our work comes after the multiplayer game is almost finished and the cashflow of the publisher won’t allow them to push the release date back 6+ months to make a solo mode. The reason we get in so late in the process is that to the multiplayer game can have huge ramifications for a good solo mode – let’s just say that we’ve learned the hard way more than once.
I’m shooting myself in my financial foot here, but I’m sure that we could make better solo modes if we had more time and when we make a solo mode for an expansion we can have that extra time, since we can work on the solo mode for the base game without being constrained by its release date and adding support for the expansion mechanisms will in my experience be much faster than creating the base game solo mode.
Thus, I’ll argue that a base game solo mode can be more likely to be slapped on than on included in an expansion, because the expansion solo mode is likely to have had a longer development period available.
An example of this is the previously mentioned Race for the Galaxy expansion for which they went as far as creating a software simulator that played tons of games to balance the solo mode. That likely wouldn’t have been possible within a tight base game solo mode schedule.
I’ve more than once played base game solo modes where I’ve encountered situations simply not covered by the rulebook even though they would have been spotted if the game had undergone even the most basic external playtesting. Similarly, I could mention games from my collection with solo modes that completely fail to account for the fact that mechanisms that are balanced in multiplayer are completely unbalanced in the solo mode because their balance is based on player interaction.
Is the game amendable to a solo mode?
Sometimes a solo mode will drop into the lap of the development team as a natural consequence of the game’s design and the presence of a solo mode in an expansion is a strong indicator that this wasn’t the case.
On the other hand, which is the better solo game: Le Havre where the solo mode is basically “play the same game just without the other players” or At the Gates of Loyang where special mechanisms is added to the solo mode that partially simulates some of the multiplayer interactions? The consensus among solo gamers is overwhelmingly in favor of Loyang.
I’ll note that both games are made by the same designer so I’m not picking on one designer in favor of another. I’ll also note that yes, I know that the Loyang solo mode is in the base game, but my point here is showing that drop-into-the-lap solo modes can easily be worse than a designed and added on solo mode.
To me it’s therefore not that important whether a solo mode comes about as a consequence of a multiplayer game’s design and it doesn’t tell us whether care was put into the solo mode or not.
On the other hand, I’ll say that a game that’s specifically designed as a solo game is obviously not slapped on and it in my opinion makes it likely that solo play is fun.
Conclusion
I’ll sum up the above with a list of the factors that are most important to me for determining whether a solo mode likely slapped on or not:
1) Are the members of the development team solo gamers themselves?
2) Have they made solo modes previously and if so are they good?
3) Was the game designed as a solo game?
4) If not is it amendable to a solo mode?
5) Does the solo mode lack important elements of the multiplayer game?
6) Did the solo mode have a reasonable development time?
7) Does the solo mode add more than a trivial cost?
Depending on the specific situations each of these questions can be hard or easy to answer. For some of them the presence of a solo mode in the base game makes a positive answer a bit more likely and for 5) I think that an expansion solo mode is more likely to produce a “yes” answer.
Overall, I don’t think that base game or expansion solo mode in and off itself gives us much information and so I think we need to ask these questions above no matter what if we want to research the solo mode of a game and figured out whether it’s slapped on.
Thematic Solitaires for the Spare Time Challenged
A blog about solitaire games and how to design them.
I'm your host, Morten, co-designer of solo modes for Scythe, Gaia Project, Wingspan, Glen More II, and others.
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