Daniel Solis

Megan Getting married was certainly the biggest personal event of 2010. If we could survive organizing this event while also planning a move to a new house, a trip to Seattle and publishing HBR all at the same time, we can survive anything. Speaking of which, just a split second after the above photo was taken a tornado siren started blaring in the background. No worries, just a drill. Here are the pics and vows . Seattle And then there was the honeymoon in Seattle, where we saw the sights, heard the sounds, met the people, and ate everything we could fit in our eager stomachs. We're eager to return soon to absorb every inch of that lovely city and its colorful characters. Pics here . Happy Birthday, Robot! With the help of more people than I can count (but at least 110 ), I published my first game. For as much time as I once spent trying to design RPGs, then board games, it's funny that my first game would be an odd off-shoot of both species. As usual, you can find...

Speaking of sustainability , I came across this lovely gem on Swiss Miss . Each unique Time Rings Puzzle is made from naturally fallen Cypress trees. Designed and handmade by Manu Rapoport and Martin Sabattini, a design duo that use Patagonia’s sustainable natural resources and materials. I'm not usually one for "art games," per se. Too often the message overrides any sense of actual fun to be had in the game. What I find interesting here is that there is no real message surrounding the puzzle. It is simply a lovely toy with a unique production model. That being the case, you bring to it what you have in mind. Let me put on my art student hat for a moment. Putting together this puzzle is a thoughtful metaphor for repairing natural ecosystems. Even when the puzzle is complete, the pieces don't fit together perfectly. Our effects on the environment will never totally be erased. The resemblance to a broken glass pane doesn't go unnoticed here. Okay, taking off a...

A Spooky Outhouse forum member posted an actual play report of Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple back in October. How did I not catch it until now? Anyhoo, here are his comments. It was fun. I'll definitely play it again. [...] I think you could use the game as a very effective method for creating a back-story or setting for another rpg campaign. [...] It took about an hour and a half. We used one of the stock letters on his site. Our Pilgrims were terrible helpers. As with so many games, it was derailed immediately. The author of the letter didn't even show up in our story until about a third or halfway through because we were busy with hilarious trouble. We had Pilgrim Noisy Lantern , who gets in trouble by talking too much and helps people by guiding the way; Pilgrim Squishy Octopus , who gets in trouble by being indecisive and helps people by bringing them together; and Pilgrim Sloshy Boot , who gets in trouble by drinking and helps people by walking. It was int...

Following up the previous post , here's a new video of me making a second prototype game box. This time, I printed the template on kraft paper and spray mounted it onto cardstock. Please ignore the band-aid, by the way. It's an unrelated Jungle Speed injury. » Music: Neverhood Soundtrack - Olley Oxen Free

Got a couple of board games as presents for my co-workers, both made of renewable bamboo resources. The games, I mean. Not the co-workers. The co-workers are made of meat. The games' small form-factor was quite pleasant. 5"x5"1.5" kraft paper tuck boxes with real wood bits packed into a very compact package. I got to thinking this might be a package I could put together at home for my prototypes. Making a tuckbox with these dimensions would be impossible on an 8.5"x11" letter size sheet of paper. Drew up some plans on some legal paper. (You can find a PDF of the finished template below.) Turns out I can make a top and bottom lid out of a letter-size sheet with extra room for bleed. Grabbed some scotch tape and scissors to see how this worked in three dimensions. After cutting the outlines, I folded along the seams as shown above. If you're using thicker material, you should score along these edges so that you get clean folds. And taped the t...

This is a story created by playing Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple . » Previously... Episode 1 The Pilgrims Pilgrim Hesitant Goggles gets into trouble by having a hard time deciding what to do and helps people by seeing things clearly. (Anders - Absent) [1] World Destiny: 4 Temple Destiny: 3 Pilgrim Rolling Star gets into trouble by being clumsy and helps people by guiding them to new ideas. (David) World Destiny: 0 Temple Destiny: 5 Pilgrim Yellow Moon gets in trouble by being afraid and helps people by shining light on their problems. (Jamie) World Destiny: 3 Temple Destiny: 6 Pilgrim Shiny Pen gets in trouble by being too flashy and helps people by being a great writer. (Daniel - New Addition) [2] World Destiny: 0 Temple Destiny: 0 The Letter " Worlds Collide " by Colin Fredericks The Story Pilgrim Yellow Moon visits Yotta and tells him, "Yotta, maybe you should accept the words of your great sages, and learn to live in the moment." Yot...

Liz Hooper just sent me her final inked illustrations for Belle of the Ball . I have worked with her on Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple , so I knew she could produce good facial expressions and characters with strong personalities. In the game, each Belle represents a different set of victory conditions, reflecting their unique personality. As always, Liz knocked it out of the park. Check out her finished work below: » More about Liz: lizhooperdesign.blogspot.com/ » Belle of the Ball Beta Test Rules » Mori McLamb's art for Belle of the Ball

Join the Leftovers as they journey deep into the underground lair of that most unholy of monsters. The creature so terrible – with such sharp teeth, with fur so fuzzy, a nose so nibbly – its true horrors cannot be named. Well, okay, it's a rabbit. It's really quite vicious, I assure you. Enter this two-page mega-dungeon and test your wits against the Monster once again. » Download: The Leftovers in "The Bunny's Burrow" Page 1 and Page 2

Added an artist directory to the sidebar. These are artists I've hired or worked with over the years. Here are links to their sites and games with their art. Liz Hooper Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple , Belle of the Ball Liz is a long-time collaborator and friend. She always brings professional, carefully executed work. Rin Aiello Happy Birthday, Robot! Rin's adorable illustrations helped define Happy Birthday, Robot! Her work was critical in Kickstarter fundraising. Mori McLamb Belle of the Ball Mori's an up-and-coming artist with clean lines, elegant character design and reliable work ethic. Kristin Rakochy Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple Kristin's cartoons and animals are a neverending delight. Jake Richmond Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple Jake did the earliest promo art for Do and helped crystallize the vision. Dale Horstman Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple Dale is a Swiss Army Knife of illustrators, able to work in many media. Craz...

I'm still tinkering with that organic, gridless version of Pente I posted a few moons ago. Here is where the game stands now. It has problems and I am weighing possible solutions. Stuff You Need 2 or more players Each player needs fifteen stones, each set a different color Any play area, like a table or floor Placing Stones The game begins with one stone for every player placed close to each other on the play area. (See top left.) Play proceeds in turns. On your turn, you may place a stone anywhere on the play area as long as it is touching another stone. (See sequence above, arrows noting new stones.) A stone cannot touch more than two other stones, so long strands start to form. Capturing If a pair of stones of the same color are "sandwiched" between two stones of another color, that pair is removed from the play area. Return those stones to the player of that color. (Above: The red player sandwiches a pair of black stones and returns them to the black p...

It's nasty business when the fiercest MMBA fighters from across the industry meet on the TradeShowdown floor. Just remember the first rule of business: A. B. C. Always. Be. Crushing. TradeShowdown is a dice game that uses real business cards to represent fighters in a knock-down, drag-out battle for business supremacy. Stuff You Need 2 or more players Each player has a business card representing his fighter. Each player has a pencil and eraser. Each player has ten dice. These may be any size from four-sided to ten-sided. How to play Each player goes through the following steps at the same time. If you're playing with two players, assume your fighters are attacking each other. If there are more than two players, then each player declares who their fighter is attacking for this round. Step 1: Roll Pull up to ten dice from your supply. Roll them. For example, the blue player pulls six dice from his pool and gets the following results: 164888. The violet player ...

After you make a pilgrim, you start seeing pilgrim names everywhere. Pilgrim Jumbo Shrimp. Pilgrim Multipurpose Paper. Pilgrim Green Tea. Sometimes even another game can sound like it was tailor-made for a pilgrim's name. Case in point: Luke Crane's Burning Wheel . Señor Crane gave his blessing to make Pilgrim Burning Wheel a sample character for Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple . I put out a call for ideas on Twitter and got back these ideas. olde_fortran: "Pilgrim Burning Wheel gets in trouble by swimming and helps people by giving them a bonus dice (or two)." jcdietrich: "Pilgrim Burning Wheel gets in trouble by starting fires for fun and helps people by improving their self esteem." grahamwalmsley: "Pilgrim Burning Wheel gets in trouble by giving in to anger and helps people by telling stories of faraway places." AskALich: "Pilgrim Burning Wheel gets in trouble by necromancy and helps people by speaking with the dead." ...

Today brings you three tales of Happy Birthday, Robot! courtesy of very creative players ranging in ages from single-digits up to grown-ups. (Also some advice about recurring mature-ish themes in actual play.) First on the lineup, a story from Petrie's, a store with a strong focus on community-building around gaming. Together with three kids, they wrote two great stories. Happy Birthday, Robot! Tiny Robot plays with balloons... Oh, happy Robot! Robot’s friend plays balloon-catch and tag. The dog ran and ripped the balloons which scared Robot and his friend the goofy-looking professor. “Aah!” said Robot and he blew out the flower cake’s candles. It was time to open the sparkly presents. Robot happily played with his shiny new toys and said proudly “Happy Birthday to me!” Robot’s doggy kept trying to take Robot’s toys with another happy robot. The End It's cute when you can tell a player just wanted to use an extra word. That's when you get stuff like "flower ...

The last Marain font was so popular , I decided to take another stab at it in a different style. This time, the letterforms are based on Herculanum. (Herculanum is sort of a younger sibling to Papyrus in that it is often over-used, but not nearly as egregiously as its big sister.) As with Marain Script, I imagine this font being used by an ancient culture (lowercase-c) who adopted the language of the Culture (capital-C) long ago. This time, the font actually has all the proper Marain characters, too. They're mapped according to the chart on the right. Once again, I used Fontifier to create this font. I am looking for another font creation tool that won't make the characters so pixelated. (Update: Mark Sherry was kind enough clean up the o, O and @ so they're a bit less pixelated.) If you have any suggestions that are just as easy with better results, I'm open to any ideas. » Free Download: Marain Ancient » My previous Marain font: Marain Script » More about ...

Still tinkering with the color for the art in Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. The last round got some people saying the contrast wasn't quite high enough. Also too much yellow and perhaps it could use a touch of blue for really dark, darks. You can see below the progression that's happened so far. The first pass had too many pure black shades and all the pilgrims were too much into the foreground. The second pass went too far in the other direction, making everything sort of muddled into the dark paper texture. The third pass seems somewhere in between. The pilgrims are clear, distinct, but the ones in the back are much further recessed with atmospheric perspective. The darks aren't as severe as the first pass, but just enough to call out things like the hair and so forth. I also took the liberty of coloring the bits of the most foreground pilgrims differently here and there. It's nothing scientific, as you can see in the video above, just going on gut instin...

Back in October, I sent out a call for artists for Belle of the Ball 's prototype tiles. Many talented illustrators answered the call. The selection process was tough, but I finally chose two artists. One is Liz Hooper (now Liz Radtke , thanks to one lucky gent), who did most of the illustrations for Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple . You'll see her Belle work soon in a future post. I also chose artist Mori McLamb, who has proven to be a skilled, directable and professional young illustrator. From the very first sketches, I knew she'd be a great fit. I loved her clean lines and expressive character designs. Her assignment was to do six of the guests, getting as much variety in ages and demeanor as possible. Boy, did she deliver. The farm boy in the ill-fitting suit on the far left will be a member of the Goatsbury family. The older gentleman in the center has the look of a Boarbottom. The rogue on the far right is likely a Dundifax. The older woman with kooky ey...

Case Study At a Glance » Project: Create icon set for a new sci-fi RPG. » Researched euro-futurist, modernist and post-modernist media. » Collaborated long-distance, on-budget with regular updates. » Produced a suite of vector icons. » Freemarket sold out of all stock in its debut at GenCon. History Jared Sorensen and I first worked together on the layout for the new version of his game Lacuna. A few years ago, he and his partner-in-crime Luke Crane were teasing "Project Donut." A secret new game in development, with little public branding besides enigmatic blog posts and images. Jared and Luke are no johnny-come-latelies to the game business, publishing over a dozen successful indie games between the two of them. Jared and Luke provided these icons as examples of what they had in mind. Project Jared and Luke asked me to create a suite of icons for the project. I was eager to get started just to learn more about the game itself. The game was Freemarket, set i...