Welcome to “Board with Myself,” a feature in which I talk about solo board games and board games with solo modes. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of friends. Sometimes you don’t have many friends at all. That’s when you have to be board with yourself.
I recognize that the title “Board with Myself: Palm Island” sounds like the worst and/or best Literotica story. But I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, Palm Island is not an erotica story. The bad news is, Palm Island is not an erotica story.
Instead - segue! - Palm Island is one of the simplest, fastest, and altogether best single player card games that God has ever allowed to see light in his kingdom. $25 for a box of two decks of cards sounds insane, but it’s worth every Amazon credit card point. If you emotionally live alone on a metaphorical island, Palm Island has you covered.
Yes, the box says one or two players, but the game is really designed for one, just the way my circle of friends (meaning myself) like it.
The game flows like this: You have a deck of cards all aligned with their starting symbol on the upper right corner. Shuffle ‘em. Shuffle ‘em real good. On the top of this deck, you place a card that’ll count your turns as you play through the game. At the end of eight turns - that is, eight runs through the deck - your game ends and you tally up the score.
How do you score? How do you play? Glad you asked.
You hold the entire deck of cards in your hand the whole game. The decks (the game provides one for each player) are small enough so this isn’t a whole to-do. You either play the first or the second card at the top of the deck. If you can’t play either - or don’t want to play either - you can move the top card to the back and start again. Eventually, the counter card pops up and you’re back at the beginning of the ol’ deck.
Meanwhile, some cards have resources on them - fish, stone, or wood. Think Catan but simpler and more fun and not like Catan. Smaller resource cards are free. You turn them sideways so you know they’re available as they move through the deck. You can spend these resources on more useful cards that give you more resources and/or add victory points. When you buy a card, you turn the original resource cards used for payment back upright. Then you either turn around or flip the card you bought, revealing whatever new ability, points, or resources are available.
I’m not explaining it extremely well, but fuck it’s addictive. Full games only last about 10-15 minutes, so you’re not putting in a huge amount of time. Failing and having a shit round is bound to happen with the randomness of shuffling a deck. Sometimes you find all your useful resources behind the cards you want to buy, meaning you’ve got to roll through an entire turn before you get the scratch you need to upgrade. Sometimes you get all what you need upfront.
The game is fast. I wouldn’t say “furious,” since the theme is a beach. But ripping through game after game feels fun and refreshing. Cleaning up means just returning all the cards to their original alignment. Fortunately, the decks are small enough that the game includes a little plastic wallet that (albeit barely) stores one so you can even carry it around without the box.
Yes, it’s a high score game, and I know people tend to frown on them for whatever reason. But even the scores serve a function - allowing you to “earn” extra items and abilities between games if you reach a certain point or condition threshold. Naturally, you could just cheat and add the extra abilities but who cares? Why would you do that? What does it matter?
Palm Island is a fantastic game to play by yourself, a soul-dead nightmare trying to pass time before the end. It takes almost no setup. It moves fast. It’s extremely portable. And the theme is actually kinda nice and relaxing.
Palm Island.
Who’d have thought.