Calliope friends, this week’s game variant comes directly from Enchanted Plumes‘s designer, Brendan Hansen. When I (Risa) reached out to see if he had any ideas for a solo variant of his game, he said that not only did he have ideas, he had a full game! He and his wife recently had a baby, and the solo version of Enchanted Plumes came about during late night feedings. How perfect!
Rather than me try to retell the rules, Brendan created his own post on BoardGameGeek, which he has kindly offered to let me repost here. Enjoy!
(If you don’t know how to play Enchanted Plumes yet, you can check out our Quick Start Guide first!)
Enchanted Plumes Solo Variant
In the months since Enchanted Plumes was published the response has been fantastic. I’m so thrilled that so many people have been enjoying the game and getting it to the table. However, I wanted to be sure that all of you have the chance to get it to the table even more, if you’d like to. To this end, I’ve designed an official solo variant that I’d like to share with everyone to accompany the official rules of the game. If you’re able to beat an average score of 100 points after your first 10 games, you’ll have me beat officially as well. Then the luck of the peacock might be yours everlasting!
Solo Rules are as follows:
• Utilize the deck as setup for 2-players (all values 0-6)
• At the end of your turn, after you replenish (draw and/or swap), discard the rightmost card from the train to a facedown pile. Then, take your turn with a train of 4 cards. At the end of your next turn, after you replenish, discard the 2 rightmost cards from the train. Now play your turn with a train of 2 cards. Finally, after you replenish, discard the 2 remaining cards in the train and refill the train to 5 cards from the top of the deck and begin your next turn. Repeat this cycle until the game ends.
• If the Peahen is revealed when you’re refilling the train, the game ends immediately.
• All other rules remain the same.
• Check your score against the below rankings, a score of 96 or more is considered a win.
🦚 65 or less: the Peahen ignores you
🦚 66-75: the Peahen is less than enthused
🦚 76-85: the Peahen is intrigued
🦚 86-90: the Peahen is interested
🦚 91-95 the Peahen is super into you, but not quite ready to commit.
🦚 96-99: the Peahen is mesmerized by your near perfect plumage
🦚 100+: It’s love at first sight! This is the Peahen you’ve been waiting for all your life!
To help with the visuals of what discarding parts of the train looks like, here are some handy dandy round samples!
Round 1:
The player plays 2 cards, and then swaps cards to get the Purple 6 and the Blue 1.
Â
Round 2:
The rightmost card is put in the discard pile. The player plays the Blue 1 they just swapped for, and then draws 2 cards.
Round 3:
The rightmost 2 cards are put in the discard pile. The player plays the Purple 6 they swapped for, and a Turquoise 0 they drew. They then draw a card, and swap for the Purple 3 before it gets discarded.
Round 4:
The player discards the last two cards in the train, and deals out 5 new cards. Play then continues, playing cards, swapping/drawing, and discarding parts of the train until the Peahen is revealed!
After you’ve given the Enchanted Plumes solo variant a try, let us know your score! You can post it in the comment section here, on BoardGameGeek, or on any of our social media pages. We’d love to know how you did!