The seeds of Automa Factory were sown in February 2014, when Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games reached out to Morten Monrad Pedersen and asked him to make a solo mode for Viticulture.

A year later Morten founded Automa Factory where he together with a team of freelancers have made solo modes for games such as Scythe, Terra Mystica, Wingspan, Glen More II, Patchwork, and Tokaido.

In addition to the solo modes, the team has designed the Ignorance is Bliss expansion for Stonemaier’s Euphoria and the Circle of Automa expansion for Van Ryder Games’ Hostage Negotiator and in 2023 inPatience published Morten’s game Skoventyr.

The Automa Approach

Most Automa Factory solo modes are designed based on a specific design philosophy that aims to give the solo player the full experience of a game by using an artificial opponent to mimic the core interactions of the multiplayer game.

These are the 6 guiding principles:

1. An artificial opponent, the Automa, takes the place of a human player in a multiplayer game.
2. The human player must play by the same rules as in the multiplayer game.
3. The important player interactions must be simulated. This includes keeping the win-lose criteria.
4. The player must face the same decisions as in multiplayer.
5. The player must not make choices on behalf of the Automa except in rare cases where it makes sense because of a cooperative element or for thematic reasons.
6. The Automa rules must be as streamlined as possible while achieving the above. This for example includes removing the internal state of the opponent that does not directly affect the player, e.g. the Scythe Automa doesn’t have a player mat.

The word automa is the Italian word for automaton, chosen because the first one was made for Viticulture, a game set in Italy.

If you’re interested in designing your own Automas, you can read more about the Automa Approach on Morten’s blog that also hosts Morten’s posts on (solo) game design in general.

Website credit

The design of this website is based on a theme by Sidharth R. and made with assistance from Karel Titeca.