My idea of a solo variant is that it must capture the essence of the original game's designer's intent. No strict rules, but yes general vibe and type of strategy in mind.
The original rulebook (top) vs. to the solo design
Core experience features of the VIDEO game
1. Happiness is king, don't just survive but get your dwellers happy.
2. If dwellers are not happy, they will leave you.
3. Threats are threatening, and you must WANT to deal with them.
2. If dwellers are not happy, they will leave you.
3. Threats are threatening, and you must WANT to deal with them.
New variant flow
When the threat deck runs out, you win if you have built 12 rooms and have more happiness tokens than the AI player.
You lose if the threat deck runs out before you completed 12 rooms, you have completed 12 rooms and scored lower than the AI, or you lost all of your dwellers.
Setup - 2 elevators, 1 board, 2 dwellers
Rules change - the "1st player" token cycles through room cards.
Turn sequence -
1. (skip for the first round) Spawn/move threats - roll the dice per level. If a threat is already at the spot, move it 1 space toward the elevator. Otherwise, spawn a threat there. On a roll of 7 move all the threats on that floor towards the elevator. A moving threat can skip over another threat in its way. If the elevator is occupied when a threat would move into it - nothing happens. (I don't like how complex this is and should work to smooth it out)
2. Penalty - the AI scores 1 happiness token per threat card in the vault.(losing resources proved to be too punishing when you also have a goal of building 12 extra rooms. Also the accounting slowed things down)
3. Placement (no change)
4. Recall - an injured unskilled dweller is killed instead (removed from your dweller pool). (This turned out great, I preferred not to deal with the threats as not to lose my dwellers, which made them more threatening)
After the last round is over, deduct happiness tokens from your pile per remaining threats in your vault.
NOTE - Whenever games do that ol' "skip for the first round" thing I got to ask if there isn't a better way. Personally, I would have skipped this and started with threats showing up right away by providing the player with 1 of each resource during setup.... but this will be one extra rule change so I didn't bother with it.
You lose if the threat deck runs out before you completed 12 rooms, you have completed 12 rooms and scored lower than the AI, or you lost all of your dwellers.
Setup - 2 elevators, 1 board, 2 dwellers
Rules change - the "1st player" token cycles through room cards.
Turn sequence -
1. (skip for the first round) Spawn/move threats - roll the dice per level. If a threat is already at the spot, move it 1 space toward the elevator. Otherwise, spawn a threat there. On a roll of 7 move all the threats on that floor towards the elevator. A moving threat can skip over another threat in its way. If the elevator is occupied when a threat would move into it - nothing happens. (I don't like how complex this is and should work to smooth it out)
2. Penalty - the AI scores 1 happiness token per threat card in the vault.(losing resources proved to be too punishing when you also have a goal of building 12 extra rooms. Also the accounting slowed things down)
3. Placement (no change)
4. Recall - an injured unskilled dweller is killed instead (removed from your dweller pool). (This turned out great, I preferred not to deal with the threats as not to lose my dwellers, which made them more threatening)
After the last round is over, deduct happiness tokens from your pile per remaining threats in your vault.
NOTE - Whenever games do that ol' "skip for the first round" thing I got to ask if there isn't a better way. Personally, I would have skipped this and started with threats showing up right away by providing the player with 1 of each resource during setup.... but this will be one extra rule change so I didn't bother with it.
