Dumb Ways to Build Solo Play: Freeze, Checkpoints & Tips

The game is built around four-player co-op, but PlaySide’s official FAQ says it can be played entirely single player. Solo Play is its own mode with two extra rules.

Solo Play is not the same as an empty lobby

If you pick Host Game and nobody joins, you are playing multiplayer by yourself, without the solo rules. PlaySide’s support centre gives three ways to tell you are in real Solo Play:

• the pause menu has no proximity voice chat settings in the top left and no Room Code,
• you have Checkpoint Passes, shown in a different colour from Revive Passes, and
• the phone in the lobby cannot be used to invite friends.

The freeze

In Solo Play, press Ping while holding a building object and it freezes in place for a short time. That stands in for a teammate holding the plank while you nail it. A launch streamer showing it off on PC used the middle mouse button, and it can be remapped under Settings > Controls like every other input.

If the freeze does nothing, you are almost certainly in a multiplayer lobby on your own. PlaySide asks players who are definitely in Solo Play and still cannot freeze to report it as a bug through the support centre.

Checkpoint Passes

Instead of Revive Passes you get Checkpoint Passes:

• interact with a Port-a-loo to set your checkpoint,
• when you die, one pass is spent and you respawn at the last Port-a-loo you used.

Walking past Port-a-loos is the classic solo mistake. One streamer showing Solo Play on launch day pointed out that he had not used a single one, so every death would have sent him back further than it needed to.

Levels are adjusted for one player

PlaySide’s support centre says some levels have changes to account for there being only one player. It does not list them yet, so we are not guessing which obstacles differ.

Time trials alone

After finishing the three Jobs in a four-player crew, a launch streamer tried Solo Play and argued the time trials would be easier alone: freeze a plank, nail it, move on, with nobody to wait for. That is one player’s opinion. The limits read on stream were 20, 25 and 30 minutes; the jobs page has each one.

What you cannot earn alone

Restroom Rescue needs three other Beans to revive with one Port-a-loo use, so it needs a full crew. Living Legend asks you to be the only surviving Bean when a Job is completed, which implies other Beans. Everything else on the achievements page looks possible solo.

Do you need an internet connection?

PlaySide says an internet connection is needed to play with other people and does not say more about Solo Play. We have not seen it confirmed either way offline, so plan on being online.