Solo board games ranked by solo gamers

Solo Mojo provides single-player tabletop game ranking and analysis based on rating data from the solo-gaming community

Top 10 Solo Games

As of April 2024

The number to the right of each title indicates the game's current rank using Solo Mojo's methodology. The value in parentheses shows the change from previous ranking.

Over 4,500 solo-friendly games are currently ranked using ratings from 15,000+ solo gamers. Rankings are also provided for segments of the solo-gaming community, including 1 Player Guild members, Rolling Solo fans, Dungeon Dive fans, and Solosaurus fans. Rankings are based on the exponentially weighted moving average of the Solo Mojo score; unadjusted scores are provided separately for comparison. Finally, games that lack a single-player mode but have ratings from solo gamers are not ranked.

Methodology

Solo Mojo ranks solo-friendly games using data from the solo-gaming community. Solo games are identified using publisher-provided player counts along with player count poll data from BoardGameGeek (BGG). The solo community is defined by guild membership and badge ownership on BGG. Solo-friendly games are ranked using a time-weighted, binomial proportion confidence interval based on game ratings assigned by solo gamers.

What is a solo game?

A solo-friendly game is any tabletop board or card game that can be played by a single human player while maintaining the rules and spirit of the game. Solo games include single-player games where the player attempts to maximize a score, cooperative games where a player controls one or more in-game personas (with minimal hidden information between personas), as well as competitive games with an artificial opponent that behaves similarly to human opponents.

Solo Mojo uses publisher-reported player count minimums and player count poll data submitted by BGG users to determine if a game is solo-friendly. BGG users can vote on whether a game is "Best", "Recommended", or "Not recommended" for each possible player count. Games published for 1+ players are presumed to be solo-friendly; however, if enough BGG users report a game is not "Best" or "Recommended" at 1 player, the game will become inelligble for inclusion in Solo Mojo rankings.

By default, the Solo Mojo inclusion filter uses the lower bound of a Wilson score interval (WSILB) where "Best" and "Recommended" poll votes are treated as positive outcomes and the total number of poll results in the 1 player category is the sample size. If this value exceeds 25%, the game is elligable to be ranked. If the game is published for 1+ players, the WSIUB (upper bound of a Wilson score interval) is used instead of WSILB. Both the low threshold value and the shift from WSILB to WSIUB for published 1-player games creates a bias toward inclusion – a game will be excluded only if the BGG community is confident it is not solo-friendly. This approach helps account for community-made solo modes while still allowing community opinion to overcome publisher-reporter player counts for games that are unplayable solo.

What is the solo community?

As far as Solo Mojo is concerned, anyone who enjoys playing tabletop games as a solo player is a member of the solo-gaming community. BGG is, again, the best source of data. BGG allows users to purchase badges to indicate areas of interest and hobbies. In addition, BGG allows users to organize themselves into interest-specific guilds, much like a gaming group or club. Both of these are mechanisms that allow users to self-identify as solo gamers.

Solo Mojo rankings are based on game ratings from BGG users who belong to the below solo-gaming guilds and/or own the following solo-gaming badges:

Guilds

Badges

This approach offers a consistently computable mechanism to find enough members of the solo-gaming community to create a statistical sample.

How are games ranked?

Solo Mojo ranks games in the order of those most likely to have the highest fraction of "very good" ratings if every solo gamer had rated every solo-friendly game. To achieve this, a statistical method is applied based on the number of ratings assigned to a game above a target threshold by the solo community. Here, the target level is an 8 on BGG's scale indicating a game is "very good, enjoy playing and would suggest it".

Solo Mojo scores are calculated using the lower bound of a Wilson score interval (WSILB). The calculation treats ratings of 8 or higher as positive outcomes and the total number of ratings as the sample size. Several score adjustments are then made. First, ratings at or above 8 but below 9 are treated as slightly "lower quality" than ratings of 9 or higher. Second, ratings of 4 or lower are treated as "penalties" that lower a game's score.

Games are then ranked using an exponentially-weighted moving average of Solo Mojo scores, sorted from high to low. Games with many total ratings will have a final ranking that's heavily weighted based on the current month's score; in contrast, games with fewer ratings will a have ranking less influenced by the current month's score. In effect, new games and infrequently rated games will climb Solo Mojo rankings slowly though all games will eventually settle at their long-term score. If two games have the same score, the following tie breakers determine final rankings:

  1. WSILB using 9+ ratings
  2. WSILB using 8+ ratings
  3. WSILB using 7+ ratings
  4. Inverse of WSILB using 3- ratings (bad ratings → lower rank)
  5. Inverse of rating count (many mediocre ratings → lower rank)
  6. Net promoter score
  7. Simple average rating

FAQs

With mildly helpful answers

Is this a popularity contest?

Popular can be a loaded term, particularly in the context of rankings. If used pejoratively, it implies a game's relative position is undeserved or reflects sales volume over quality. If using "popular" to mean "trendy" or "famous" games, then Solo Mojo rankings do not reflect popularity. Popular can also mean "beloved" or "favored". Solo Mojo rankings are closer to this interpretation because the methodology accounts for both rating density as well as rating volume.

Why use a WSILB model?

An exponentially-weighted WSILB balances value and volume of game ratings. While it is possible to rank games by average rating alone, a simple average distorts results for games with few ratings. For example, a game with a single 10 rating would rank higher than a game with 99 ratings of 10 and a single additional rating less than 10. Alternatively, Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures product favorability. NPS subtracts the ratio of detractors (people who rated a game 6 or below) from the ratio of promoters (people who rated a game 9 or higher). A game with mostly promoters and few detractors would earn a high NPS. Conversely, a game with many low ratings would receive a negative NPS. NPS is fundamentally a relative proportion and penalizes widely-distributed games – games more likely to draw higher scrutiny.

Are game expansions ranked?

In most cases, game expansions are not included in Solo Mojo rankings. However, some games are originally published for 2+ players and later made solo-friendly with an expansion (e.g. Race for the Galaxy and Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm). When this happens, the base game and solo-making expansion are bundled and ranked as a single "game". Player count poll results are pooled for the base game and expansion. The ranking system then uses the higher of the base game rating or the expansion rating from each BGG user as the "bundled game" rating. The bundling process is manual; if you know a game that fits this criteria, please submit a request for base+expansion solo game bundling.

Why are some games listed twice?

Some titles appear twice because that's how games are listed on BGG and sold at retailers. Methodologically, Solo Mojo rankings seek to isolate the effects of different content. In theory, if the first and second editions of a game contain similar content and follow similar rules, then the items should be bundled and ranked as a single "game", as described above. In practice, publishers tweak rules, upgrade components, include expansion content, and otherwise modify the game between editions such that players may perceive each game differently. For example, Mage Knight Ultimate Edition includes content from three expansions created after the original Mage Knight.

Are rankings based exclusively on solo play?

The goal of Solo Mojo is to rank solo-friendly games using ratings from solo gamers. However, solo gamers may play solo-friendly games with a group. Cooperative games, for example, are designed to scale from 1 to many players. To make things more complicated, some people may rate games primarily based on the mechanics, others focus on game art, and some raters focus on theme. These effects – including whether games are "rated for solo play" – are difficult to tease apart. However, rating aggregation dampens these individual effects and the net result reflects the complete perspective of the solo community.

Analysis

Updates and discussion

Commentary about solo games, game rankings, and the methodology are available via the Solo Mojo blog and newsletter. You can subscribe via email or via RSS to be notified when rankings are updated.

About

Hi, I'm Kurt

Hello and welcome! My name is Kurt and I am the operator of Solo Mojo. I have been playing tabletop games since the mid-1990s, starting with Star Wars CCG. I began playing hobby board games a decade later, around the release of Pandemic. Also, I once beat Snoopy at pogs during a Mall of America tournament.

I enjoy the annual 1 Player Guild Top Solo Games list and wanted to build something that is updated more frequently, using as much empirical evidence as possible. I'm an applied math and technology guy at work so this project brings together a variety of my personal interests. Solo Mojo started with an analysis I posted to r/boardgames in April 2020. The model and inclusion criteria have evolved since then but the goal is the same.

Solo Mojo is not perfect and I don't pretend it is. But, the results spark interesting conversations and feed my curiousity; in the end, that's why I do it. If you have questions, want to debate the model's precision and recall, or just want to chat about solo games, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and – of course – BGG.