I've just played a quick five turn game of the starter scenario. This fratures two sides with identical forces of one fighter, three missile troops and three shield armoured troops. I played solo double handing both sides and had themed them fantasy-wise, though I didn't make any use of the prototype fantasy rules. Once I got a hang a rules, which didn't take long, the game ran swiftly and smoothly. There's a nice, elegant system here that feels like it runs itself. Of course this was just the first starter scenario; the consequent scenarios add increasing numbers and types of troops which will add more complexity, but the core mechanisms are no doubt just as simple and elegant. Once you've mastered the introductory scenarios there is a smorgasbord of scenarios and campaign play, including advice for gamemastered play and experience and reward for warbands and individuals. Enough to allow for hours of fun gaming. I haven't had the opportunity to play against another player, but i can imagine that it would be great fun and fairly quick to teach/coach. Highly recommended.

Planet 28 is a narrative skirmish game using dice and miniatures. Death on the Periphery (DotP) adds a simple solo/co-operative mode to the game. Essentially, this boils down to rules for a warband to have a single character, an optional table of agendas for co-op play (which are great! I really like the Pacifist one), a tweak to spice up activation for the non-player artificial intelligence (AI), and a very simple AI for the baddies. The AI basically uses as many opportunities as possible to attack the player's warband, with no variation for different mindsets (cautious, methodical, etc). Having said that, the warband creation rules in the main rulebook includes traits such as coward, so you can just create your enemy as you wish them to act. The supplement ends with a short campaign of three linked encounters, with full stats for two different enemy types. The campaign is designed to be played solo or co-op and it looks like it would be a great intro to the game. For a competetive or co-op game I think the crunch is probably just right. I do worry that there's a bit too much dice rolling crunch for solo play though. I've found that I only want small warbands to cut down on the amount of dice rolling. Death on the Periphery adds even more tools to the toolbox that is Planet 28. I think that you can do pretty much what you want with this game and it's dead simple to hack. The vague setting is implied to be murder hobos in space I think, but the rules allow for fantasy, pulp, modern, ancient, etc with a minimum of hacking.

Simple little skirmish rules with plenty of detail in very few pages. No setting is implied but the artwork suggests a grim old scool feel. Abilities and arcane powers add variety and there is a list of simple weapon types. Simple scenario and campaign info is included too. Bring all of your D&D dice because you'll probably need them all. One of the bonuses is the lack of tokens. But that requires bookeeping as you record your troops' hit points. I haven't tried the solo rules yet.

I backed this on Kickstarter and can't say a bad thing about it. This is essential for both solo RPG and games mastering fantasy RPGs. As others have said there is so much information on each card with absolutely no wasted space: random names, directions, smells, belongings, dice rolls, elements and many more. This is a very well-thought through system and is essentisl for any fantasy RPGs.

ALONe comes with a promo version of the Games Master's Apprentice (GMA) and both work together as solo roleplaying game. Rules include character creation and lots of examples and explanation of how the game works. One of the wonders of this system is that it can also be used as a solo GM emulator for other RPGs. The GMA can also be used to aid a games master in any RPG adding flavour and randomisers (directions, names, runes, elements (literally, as in air, earth, fire and water), smells, belongings, etc.).

I've used the system a couple of times for solo play and find it inspired; one of my favourite aspects is tension levels and the ability to add random events using the GMA.

This is a beta version and I know that the creator is going to be working on it soon, however I feel that it is perfectly useable as it is. The GMA deck that comes with beta is only half the size of the standard deck but allows huge amounts of utility. The full GMA deck is an indespensible tool for both solo gamers and games masters. There are also decks that are genre specific such as fantasy and sci fi.

Bottom line: this beta is free and fantastic. I can't recommend this product highly enough: get it now!