Your first 10 sessions of solo board gaming
Solo gaming has a specific learning curve: the first game is a mess, the second game is when you start making real decisions, and by the fifth you understand why people love this.
By Colin B. · Published June 11, 2026
The first time you sit down alone with a board game, two things happen: you feel slightly self-conscious about playing by yourself, and the rules make a lot less sense than they seemed during the how-to-play video. Both are completely normal. Both pass quickly.
Solo board gaming has a real learning curve, but the plateau is short. By the time you’ve finished your tenth session, you’ll understand why this hobby has its own subreddits, its own YouTube channels, and a community of people who specifically prefer it to group gaming.
Here’s what those ten sessions actually look like.
Sessions 1-2: Survive the rules
The number one mistake new solo gamers make is reading the rulebook cold. Don’t. Find a “how to play” video for your specific game on YouTube first (Watch It Played and JonGetsGames are the best channels). Watch the full tutorial, then open the rulebook as a reference while you play. The video gives you a mental map; the rulebook gives you the details.
Your first game is a teaching game. Play it openly. Look things up. Misunderstand rules and notice it mid-game. Some people call this “playing wrong” and treat it as a failure. It isn’t. It’s how you learn a game faster than any other method.
The specific things that will be unclear on session one:
- When exactly you take your main action vs. bonus actions (every game has its own terminology)
- How the win condition actually works in practice (the rulebook describes it abstractly; you’ll get it after you see it happen)
- What the automa does when you’re not sure (default: check the BGG forum for your game; someone has asked your exact question)
Sessions 3-5: The real decisions begin
By session three, you stop reading the rulebook mid-turn. The basic action sequence is in your head. Now you start making actual strategic decisions instead of procedural ones.
This is when the game reveals itself. Most good solo games have a core tension between two things you want: building your engine vs. responding to the threat the game poses. In Wingspan, that’s placing birds for long-term engine power vs. responding to the automa’s round goals. In Spirit Island, it’s developing your powers vs. immediately pushing back invaders.
Don’t optimize yet. Play the way that seems interesting. Lose. Understand why you lost. That understanding is the game teaching you.
What “losing” means in solo gaming. Solo games have no opponents to blame. If you lose, it’s your choices. This sounds harsh; it’s actually one of the reasons people like solo gaming. The feedback is clean. You made a suboptimal decision in round four; the game shows you the consequences in round seven. Once you start seeing these chains of cause and effect, the game transforms from a random outcome into a puzzle you can actually solve.
Sessions 6-10: You know what you’re doing
Around session six or seven, something clicks. You sit down, set up without consulting the rules, make a plan on the first turn, and feel the game responding to your decisions rather than overwhelming them.
You’ll start noticing the second and third layer of strategy. In most good solo games, there’s an obvious first layer (place the high-point card, push back the invader, build the engine), and then there’s a subtler layer under that (when to pivot, which end-state you’re building toward, how to read the automa’s trajectory).
The replay value question. People who try solo gaming and don’t continue usually cite two things: “I beat it and now it’s done” or “I always lose and it feels punishing.” Both are solvable.
If you beat a game and feel finished: increase the difficulty. Most solo games have escalating difficulty settings. Winning on the base difficulty is session one of a harder game, not the end of the hobby.
If you always lose and it feels unfair: you’re probably playing a game that’s too complex for where you are. Back up. Play Cascadia or Friday for a few weeks. Come back to the hard game with more understanding.
Around session ten, you’ll know whether you want to go deeper or try a different game. Both are the right answer.
What to track while you learn
Most solo games come with score sheets or a way to record your result. Use them. Write your score, the difficulty you played at, and one sentence about what felt wrong. This sounds like homework; it actually accelerates your improvement dramatically because most solo game mistakes are subtle and repeat across sessions.
For games without built-in score tracking (Wingspan uses a physical scorepad; Spirit Island does not), a piece of paper works fine.
When to add a second game
The instinct is to buy more games faster than you’re actually playing them. Resist it. The BGG community calls this “the pile of shame” for a reason.
A good heuristic: when you’ve played your first game fifteen times and feel the replay value narrowing, that’s when to add a second game. Not at five plays, not at three. Fifteen plays is where most good solo games have given you most of what they have at the base difficulty, and you’ll have the experience to know what kind of game you want next.
Ready to buy your first game? See our solo board gaming gear guide for the games we recommend, plus the sleeves, dice towers, and organizers that make the hobby click.