THE SOLOIST

We explore the world of solo gaming one move at a time This month: solo dexterity games

We explore solo dexterity games

We give a big shout out to the Jenga tower this month as we explore solo dexterity games. Maybe the first kind of solo gaming any of us did, the humble tower-o-blocks that you’re slowly picking apart, without knocking over, is at the heart of a challenging solitaire experience that we sometimes don’t even think of as a game. Maybe you tried to ‘win’ Jenga by yourself as a way of getting better at it, so you could defeat an older sibling, or maybe you just wanted to see how high you could get the tower. Either way, the sudden idea of adding dexterity into a solo experience suddenly makes it a lot more exciting. I write a lot in this column about finding the friction and randomness in solo games – that generative element – here it’s just your own motor skills you’re competing with.

It’s a somewhat alien experience. We’re used to focusing on point scoring, optimisation, making smart and interesting choices. And while dexterity games played

solo do often have this, there’s a sudden realisation that you’re going to have to be actually ‘good’ at something. A bit like when a squash ball comes back at you from the wall after years of not playing – there’s a weird friction of ‘oh yes, I need to move’, or indeed, ‘I need to be very quick and careful with this block placement’.

On the other end of the spectrum is the thinking man’s dexterity game, where you’re coming at it from a ritualistic or conceptual point of view. For example, the Jordan Draper designed Tokyo Coin Laundry which comes bundled with a number of dexterity games, including the very strange solo dexterity game of stacked tiny washing machines. It’s simple, move clothes from washer to dryer carefully, trying not to have the machines fall. A little like a similar push your luck game from the same box, it’s all about engaging with the ritual of what you are doing. In that game, players are putting clothes into machines based on card flips, wanting not to mix the whites with the blacks. You could do this by throwing the tiny clothes into piles, but by submitting to the fact that you’re going to close the machines and ‘put on a wash’ puts you in a completely different headspace while playing. It encourages the rhythm of the game to the front of the experience, and forces you to focus on the game itself.

Flip Ships on is a token flicking game where you fire tiny ship tokens towards a row of descending cards, hoping to stop them entering the earth’s atmosphere. Land enough of your flicked ship on the baddies to take them out, and you’ll feel the rush of being the best token flipper in that game’s timeline. If not, you’ll just be dooming the rest of humanity. So, no pressure. It’s got a super arcadey feel, which is ideal for its source material – and although I won’t wax lyrical about getting into a flow or state of mind, it’s just straight up silly fun. In the same vein, but a lot more tactical is Seal Team Flix which does what Flip Ships does for Space Invaders for Rainbow Six. Carry out covert operations and do the ‘wet work’ required by using small disks you flick at enemies to see if you hit. Different weapons use different combinations of disks, giving you scattering and tight lines of fire. With way more depth than you think it’s going to be, this is your dexterity solo game if you’re hoping to have a longer campaign experience. And finally, it’s worth mentioning Hunted:

Mining Colony 415 as featured in a previous Independent Shelf column – here you’re playing out Alien style horror, with coin flicking as your main combat manoeuvre.

However your approach to dexterity solo gaming, it’s worth gathering a few together for those moments when you want to really get into the flow of something, without the usual crunchiness of brain burning solo games.