This is a one player variant for playing Squirrel Island where you will face off against your longtime rival. The only extra component needed is an 8-sided die or other way to randomize number 1-8. The game play much like a two player game only when it is the rivals turn you will control its actions. Roll an 8-sided die to see what happens. The rival does not gain any effects unless it is a sabotage effect and does not have the abilities from any unique squirrels it has. The rival starts with nuts in their collection and the only two ways the rival gain nuts is when they are asleep and exhaust their squirrels, or if they play a Sniper or Slingshot (see sabotage effects at the bottom of this page).
Begin playing
Set up the game as you normally would for 2 players. Only difference is that the rival always start with the first player token and with 25 nuts already in their collection. (You can raise or lower number of nuts to adjust difficulty.)
The rivals stamina bar represents how many squirrels the rival will play each day. Put its stamina token on 2 for the first day, on 3 for day 2, on 4 for day 3 and on 5 for day 4.
After you have set up the game and you have gone through the morning phase, the rival then takes the first turn. The rival rolls the die and takes the card from the Island board that match the number on the die. If an Island card hasn’t been revealed for the number then take the top card of the deck.
If the card is a squirrel the rival puts it in play and lower its stamina with 1. No matter what the squirrel actually cost the stamina is only lowered by 1. The rival do not resolve the play effect unless it is a Sabotage effect. The rival also do not collect loops from its squirrels during the morning phase.
If the card chosen is an Item then do not lower the stamina. Put the item in a discard pile without doing the play effect unless it is a sabotage effect.
Each time it is the rivals turn: roll the die and play the chosen card. When the rival plays its second squirrel it is placed to the right of the first one. Remember to lower the stamina by 1. On the first day this takes it down to 0. Always place new squirrels to the right of any that are already there.
When it is the rivals turn and it doesn’t have any more stamina then do not roll the die. Instead the rival will go to sleep and exhaust its leftmost squirrel and gather 1 Nut. The rival exhaust one squirrel and gain one nut each turn it is asleep. The rival can not refresh its squirrels so put the exhausted ones in a discard pile. As usual, the player who goes to sleep first will start the next day after everyone has gone to sleep.
Game end
The game ends as usual when you and the rival have gone to sleep on the 4th day. You will add any stashed nuts to your collection and then compare the final score. If you won you can raise the difficulty by raising the amount of nuts the rival starts with! As a suggestion you could raise the start value with 5 if you win and if you lose you can lower it with 1 the next time you play.
Sabotage effects
If you play a Sniper or Slingshot you choose any of the rivals non-unique squirrels, then exhaust it and collect its loops. Since the rival can’t refresh the exhausted squirrel it is discarded. If you play Shovel, Lumberjack, Bully or Guardian the rival will always try to exhaust squirrels before losing any nuts. Start checking from the left. If the rival can’t exhaust the correct squirrel or don’t have enough squirrels to exhaust it will lose 1 Nut.
If the rival plays Sniper or Slingshot it will collect 1 Nut for each loop on the exhausted squirrel. It does not matter what resource the loops actually provide. You have to exhaust a squirrel with 2 loops if you have any, if not then exhaust one with a specific loop by following this order: first stamina loop, then nut loop, then card loop, and last coin loop.