Solo modes are genuinely everywhere in this hobby now, half the boxes on my shelf ship with an automa deck or a bot AI or some clever little system for playing against the box itself, and I understand why, plenty of people don’t have a reliable second player on tap every week and a good solo mode is a real design achievement, I’m not knocking the craft that goes into one. I just don’t use them. I own maybe four games I’ve actually cracked open by myself, ever, and honestly most of those were to learn the rules before teaching someone else, not because I wanted the experience solo for its own sake.

I’ve tried to figure out why this is a hard line for me and I think it comes down to what I’m actually there for. The mechanical puzzle of a game is real and I do enjoy it, genuinely, I’ll sit and think through an engine as hard as anyone. But the part that actually gets me to the table on a Tuesday isn’t the puzzle, it’s watching Renata’s face when she spots a combo I missed, or my sister’s specific, slightly insufferable little laugh when she pulls off exactly the kind of aggressive play she always pulls off. A solo mode gives you the puzzle and takes away the only part of it I actually show up for.

There’s also just a practical thing, I get plenty of alone time already, reading is my solitary hobby and I guard it fiercely, quiet hour with a book and nobody needing anything from me. Gaming has ended up occupying the opposite slot in my head almost by accident, the social hour, the one that requires someone else in the room by definition, and I think keeping those two things cleanly separated is part of why neither one has started to feel like a chore. If I let gaming bleed into solo territory too, I worry it stops being a distinct thing and just becomes more reading-shaped alone time with dice.

I know plenty of people whose solo plays are the actual core of their hobby, a quiet evening working through a campaign box by themselves, and I don’t think that’s lesser or that they’re missing something. It’s just not what I’m doing here. If you hand me a box with a beautiful automa system built in, I will absolutely compliment the automa system, and then I will wait for Tuesday and play it with an actual human across the table instead.