Diceocracy
- Designer: Tobias Hall
- Publisher: All or None games
- Players: 1-4
- Age: 12+
- Time: 90 minutes
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
Ever since you were a kid, your mama told you that you’re destined for grand things! So you’re pretty certain that things can only be better with more “you” in it! Well, it’s finally time for more YOU …in the name of democracy! It just so happens there is an election in the city of Dicetopia coming up! As one of the promising stop-for-nothing candidates, you call for change and aim to enlighten the public of your magnificence… and you know, also make some stuff… better! It’s only one teeny tiny little ”problem” – Democracy is kind of up to the people, and the people are in this particular case… well, DICE!
In Diceocracy, you will use your political skills to attract voters from different districts and introduce them to your jaw-dropping politics by ”any means necessary”, you know, as long as you can get away with it anyway. The goal of the game is to get the most votes by just being YOU, with a fair bit of stern persuasion and political tricks. Throughout the game, players will send out their representatives to recruit followers and influence the political landscape with different clever actions. Players will manipulate dice values and positions, take control over districts and shift representatives around. They will fundraise, advertise and use their dice followers to achieve populistic goals for increased popularity. By the end of the game, votes are counted from successfully pulled off political stunts, secret agendas, controlled districts and popularity among the different demographic groups!
Solo Gaming 2026: The First Four Months
The new era of well-designed automata and solo modes for multiplayer games, coupled with excellent new solo game designs, is actually quite heartening to someone (me!) who finds something very satisfying about physically playing a game: shuffling cards, moving pieces, seeing it all spread out in front of you. (I will note that the new era has also brought some really weak solo modes for games that probably shouldn’t have had a solo mode in the first place, but I’m trying to focus on gratitude rather than griping in 2026.)
Solo gaming is now a decent-sized chunk of my gaming experiences – while I still play a lot of games with friends and family, 20% of my gaming in the first four months of 2026 was solo. Last year is was over 30% for the first few months, so this is a bit of a drop-off. For comparison, the yearly total for 2025 was 24%, the yearly total for 2024 was 31%, 2023 was 20%, 2022 was 22%, 2021 was 33%, 2020 was 19%, and 2019 was 6%. I’ve actually more opportunities for both online play (BGA and playtesting games on TTS) and in-person play this spring.
So, what follows are my thoughts on the twenty-five (25) different solo games I’ve played so far in 2026 – ordered by the number of times I’ve played them. (Note: this is not necessarily how much I like a particular game for solo play – for example, I think Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread is an excellent solo game design but I haven’t played it [yet!] in 2026.)
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