Solo Chronicles – Mephisto

One of the best parts of the board gaming experience is finding a fun group of people with whom to play! Sometimes, though, coordinating a game night is easier said than done. We all must occasionally forego the group experience and face the world as the Lonely Only. But fear not! The world of solo-play is a vast and exciting realm! What follows is a chronicle of my journey into the solo-playing world – notes on gameplay, mechanics, rules, difficulty, and overall experience with solo variations of commonly multiplayer games! I hope this will provide some insight as you continue to grow your collection, or explore your already owned games!

You have made a deal with Mephistopheles – collect souls for him and he will grant you ultimate powers! Unfortunately, you’re not the only one vying for his favor… Prove your worth by undermining your competition and coming out ahead in the end! If not, you’ll be stuck serving Mephistopheles as one of his cronies forever!

In Mephisto, a game of card drafting and hand management, players take turns drafting cards and playing them to their available lanes in the dungeon to fight monsters and collect their souls. To play cards, players must discard the requisite number of cards from their hand – more powerful cards require a larger sacrifice! Some cards may be used to buff other cards, and some can even be used to interfere with your opponents cards. Be careful though – most cards have limited durability and too much use will take them out of your arsenal! As a solo game, Mephisto is played generally the same way, with a few tweaks in the rules. The game ends when a certain number of Soul Points are acquired, but your success depends on the number of cards remaining in the draw deck – the more cards that are left, the higher your score because you were able to strategize and beat the game faster! The other difference in solo play is that before you start each new turn, you draw a card from the deck and either replace or discard a corresponding card from the dungeon – this simulates other players taking cards from the dungeon before you have a chance to do so.

When it comes to actual gameplay, I like Mephisto as a solo game. It plays almost the same way as in group play, so you don’t have to remember lots of solo-specific rules. The only difference has to do with replacing/discarding cards between your turns, but once you get that step down, it just becomes a habit! The gameplay is the easy part. The hard part of Mephisto is actually scoring well at the end of the game. This is 100% a card game – there are no other components. So that means the entire game is based on the luck of the draw. And depending on how well (or poorly…) you shuffle the deck, your game could be easy or brutally hard. No doubt you have to be quick-witted and adaptable with your strategy depending on what cards are in front of you at a given time, but sometimes it can feel like you’ve hit a wall with the current cards in play. And that means you have to burn turns getting cards out of there, which in turn depletes the draw deck and counts against your end-game score. Maybe with more plays, I’ll get a better grasp of the nuances of the game, but so far I have not had much luck in scoring well. Not necessarily a knock on the game itself, just the nature of card-based games in general I guess.

The biggest drawback for me with Mephisto as a solo game is that the solo rules are not included in the box. You only get the 2-player rules. You have to go online to find the 3-4 player and solo rules. It was just a little frustrating when I pulled out the game, excited to play, and then had to get out my iPad to pull up the website and solo rules. I get the allure of keeping the game in a small tuck-box, but at least include the rules for all variants and setups with the game. The solo rules themselves seem a little ambiguous, too, at first. The language isn’t 100% clear, and led to some confusion during my first few solo plays. I think I’ve got it down now, but a little editing could have made it more understandable from the get-go.

Overall, I like Mephisto as a solo game. You can’t pick one strategy for the win – you’ve got to constantly be adjusting based on the current cards in play. There’s some strategy and a bit of luck, and that keeps the gameplay interesting and engaging. I rarely score well, but I keep coming back to this game, which is a testament to its gameplay. Once you’re able to understand the rules (I found some clarification on a few BGG forums myself), it’s a fun game to play. I’d recommend this game as both a solo and group game. It’s fun, yet challenging, at all player counts.