Micro Rome

Among the print and play games there are gems for solo play that should not be omitted.
Micro Rome by Michael Bevilacqua, and it's expansion Aegyptus is such a game.

The game is fairly simple. It contains 17 two sided cards. The player draws a card, selects which of the two available sides to use, and places it over previously placed cards following simple rules (at least 3 fields of the earlier placed cards need to be covered, buildings need to be covered completely, etc.)

Expansion brings 8 new cards, new placement rules and scoring possibilities.
And that is it. Simple but effective and highly addictive.
Micro Rome can be played as light pastime in 15 minutes, or as a serious brain burner, in which case it will take more time to decide the best placement of the drawn card.
Anyway, no solo gamer should be without a copy of this game in the collection. Files for this game are free on BGG, so go get them.

Highly recommended.

Alien Worlds with 6 years old

Looking for the game to play with my six years old son, I recently discovered a SF game called Alien Worlds by Echidna Games.

It is a very simple game, but it has possibilities for tactical decisions, and that is just what I was looking for.

Similar to SBH, it uses stick for measuring distances, but here it is just one stick that measures 1/6 of the playing field. Model can "leap frog" stick for ease of movement. Shooting is possible up to two sticks. For combat resolution player rolls 1d6, adding and removing one or two modifiers. There is no defense roll. Very simple, but still satisfying. My kid had a blast.

We played using pre-painted Star Wars miniatures.

In other news, my Boardgames collection is now richer by another solo game - it is Imperial Settlers by Portal Games.