Game: Cascadia
Designer: Randy Flynn
Publisher: Flatout Games, White Goblin Games
Player count: 1-4
Set-up time: ± 3 minutes
Play length: ± 18 minutes
Win condition: beat your own score, win/loss when playing a scenario
AI/automa: no
how the solo game works
In Cascadia you'll set up like you would a two player game. Place the habitat tiles to the left of the play area.
On your turn: select a tile plus token, or spend a nature token to select what's not paired up. Then discard the rightmost tile and token, fill up from the left and take another turn. Continue until you can't fill up the row of 4 tiles, then proceed to scoring.
When scoring, add 2 bonus points for each habitat type sized 7 or more.
solo rulebook
Solo play is explained in a clear way on page 10.
missing in solo
Drafting, tile placement, pattern building; all mechanics are unchanged in solo play. According to the rules, achievements and scenario's aren't for solo. See the houserules for a possible way out of this.
In solo play, you'll know exactly what consequences your choice has, which tile and token will be taken out next, but the draw is still random.
solo thoughts
positive
This game flows effortlessly and there's hardly any upkeep between turns. Making up for other players consists of taking the rightmost token and rightmost tile away, and sliding everything to the right.
Laying the tile puzzle is really satisfying, and because of the pattern building with animals and the habitat enlarging with the tiles at the same time, this game never disappoints.
The beautiful artwork on the scoring cards is by Beth Sobel.
negative
There are three types of achievements: scenarios for solo play, achievements/normal game and achievements/rule restrictions. There's an achievement track where you can track your progress, but both the normal game achievements and the rule restrictions achievements aren't for solo play, according to the rules. Which would mean you can never reach the wetland study goal on the track when you're only playing solo.
house rules
I propose you solo achievements/normal game (no adjustment needed) and achievements/rule restrictions as well, the latter just using a beat your own score. It's not the same, but I'd still like to try out the rule restrictions, and imagine I'll play two games in a row to see if I can beat my first score.
verdict
This is a very relaxing, puzzly tile laying game with tons of replayability due to 4 different score cards per species (5 if you have the KS promo's). Even if you continually score high on the charts, this is still a puzzle.
There's always tension between creating the largest habitats and taking the animals you need for your pattern building, so there's never a clear path to victory. This is the one game where I don't mind doing good every time, because I can always do better.
Worried the scoring is too much to handle at first? Play in family or intermediate mode.