Daniel Solis

The British Museum's online catalog has a great collection of 16th century game boards. On top of that, they'll send you high-resolution scans for free! Search for 'game board' 1500 to 1600 and admire the pretty. » Thanks to Joanna for the tip! » The British Museum Collection Database Search

(Click to embiggen!) I ordered etched Utara dice from GameStation and they just arrived! (You can see the bidding process in this post .) So, for those of you who want to venture in the wild and wooly world of dice games, I'll share some key info. Here was the timeline: March 4: Sent request for estimate to GameStation. March 6: Receive quote from GameStation. (Next business day, basically.) March 17: Call GameStation toll-free to order 30d. Get a digital proof same day! March 28: 30 custom dice arrive in the mail. Here are the specs and final numbers: 16mm square-edged opaque blank dice Custom face on each side Etch only Cost+Shipping: $81 I'm happy with my purchase. The rep at GameStation (Jason W) was prompt and very helpful at every step of the process. Plus, the dice look fantastic. I don't know why the etching option is lower-priced. We've roughed up these dice quite a bit over the past few days and show no signs of wear. The price of the or...

Giullina shared this photo of Renato Ramonda teaching Utara at PLAY! Modena . So much of this piques my interest. One, are those paper prototypes? Two, is that a printed rules sheet? Three, they're playing Utara overseas?? Awesome, awesome. Renato shares more on his tumblr : "People gathered around and demanded to play too: we quickly played a good number of games and tried all the variant Sun/Moon options. I can definitely say that the game is fun, extremely simple to teach and learn, has a nice tactile element and when playing with the “advanced” rules I think a nice element of lightweight strategy: will I take this two dice or will I take only one but negate a Day or Tide to my opponent?" Renato and friends also tinkered with a new variant that allows you to change the compass. You can see more on that in his post. » Renato's Tumblr Post » More photos » Janus Design » Official Rules for Utara

Lyndsay Peters models her "My Favorite Game Console" shirt. It took a while to get through customs – and she says it smelled of celery when she got it – but now she proudly wears it at her D&D game. Speaking of making a sartorial splash at the table, check out her Dragon Chow dice bags. Durable, double-layered, flat-bottomed drawstring pouches perfect for carrying your arsenal of polyhedrons. Your friends will be envious of the awesome. » Here's more about the Dragon Chow dice bags. » Here's a complete list of sizes and styles of the shirt.

In Belle of the Ball , there are six different families, each noted by a unique symbol+color. The illustrations are also color-coded, using only the palette associated with their family. Each family also has a unique upper border, pattern and ornate family crest behind the illustrated portrait. And if that wasn't enough, I made each guests name alliterative, based on the first letter of their family's surname. All those things make the families distinguishable from each other even without being able to distinguish the colors. Each guest has up to two actions they may be doing at the party: Either flirting, snubbing or neither, and either eating, drinking, dancing, or neither. For example, a guest may be flirting+eating, snubbing+drinking, just dancing, just flirting or none of the above. Imagine these category 1 as A, B, C and category 2 as a, b, c, d. The symbols for either action will always go directly beneath the suit, but they are not color coded. They are dark, bold...

Yesterday I wrote a long post on the value and methods of double- or triple-coding your game's visual language. Now here are some pitfalls to watch out for, using some real world examples. Above is an example of undercoding. Apples to Apples uses only two types of cards in play, each one is a different color: Green and red. Like apples, get it? Makes sense for the theme, but it's also the most common type of color blindness. Take a look at the same image on the right and see if you could distinguish the types of cards at a glance. Solutions: These cards could have been doublecoded by using a unique illustration for each deck or rotating the layout on one of the decks so it's horizontal. And here's an example of overcoding. Megan and I really tried to learn Race for the Galaxy from the rules document. We eventually figured out how to make it through a few sessions, but each time we spent a lot of energy just deciphering the numerous symbols and icons. In the e...

In the video above, Pandemic creator Matt Leacock discusses the value of double-coding your game's visual language. By "double-coding," he means using multiple unique methods of visually communicating a game's concepts. Usually this is done in the service of color-blind or otherwise visually impaired players, but when done well, it helps all players navigate your game more easily. Let's take some lessons from good examples out on the market. Pandemic is a great example of double-coding. In this case, four types of disease are each color-coded, but also given unique, simple and big symbols. This helps the visually impaired, but also let's players collaborate across a game table. Because infection cards and player cards share these symbols, but do not get mixed together, each deck is distinguished with white or black borders and a vertical or horizontal layout. The cards in Magic: The Gathering are also noteworthy for their use of doublecoding. Each type...

I couldn't resist continuing work on Belle of the Ball last week. I made several changes based on people's suggestions from the last round of design . The primary suggestion? Move all the relevant game data up to the top, so players can fan their cards and see what they have at a glance. Opinions differed on whether to place data on the left or right. If you go by Hoyle playing cards as a standard, it's obvious to put the data on the top left. If you go by Magic: the Gathering or Pokémon , then it ought to be on the top right. I decided to go with the classics. So now the nameplate is way up at the top. That left the flavor text block at the bottom of the card, kinda lonely. I would've left it there if I didn't run into another problem. See, I was never really satisfied with the action symbols being in those white circles in the previous round of design. It just felt too tacked on. All my solutions felt tacked on, really. A bookmark hanging from the family s...

An alien lurks in a tiny arctic town surrounding an archeological dig. The alien is jumping from host to host, turning the archeologists and locals into insidious spawn. Even the soldiers called in to contain the situation may already be infected. Will the town collapse into paranoia? Will the humans defeat the hostile alien threat? Earn each other's trust. Find the Alien. Don't act suspicious. » Development Status: Dormant, but welcome to comments. » Inspired by John Carpenter's The Thing and Werewolf/Mafia games » Originally created as a part of the Luchacabra project. » Resurrected by Luca Ricci's request. Stuff You Need A room with 15-25 players. One person to be the moderator. One role card per player. Half the cards say " You are a LOCAL. You have one vote and one trust token. " One quarter say " You are a SOLDIER. You have two votes. " One quarter say " You are an ARCHEOLOGIST. You have two trust tokens. " Setup Befo...

While Tim and the Ludo Dojo guys played Utara, they were deciding which moon variant to use. One of the players proposed using the moon's actual phase. In this case, the moon was almost full, so they used the Full Moon variant. That's when I realized just how much "Play Here Now" is embedded in Utara's design. To "Play Here Now" means you're playing something that elegantly reminds you of where you are in that place and in that time. The phrase itself is inspired by spiritual teach Ram Dass' 1971 book Be Here Now . Though the Buddha reputedly discouraged games as a distraction from true awareness, I'll humbly submit that a game can be the spoonful of sugar to help the existential medicine go down. Obviously, the "here-ness" is inherent in using compass directions as a part of gameplay. You could, as I've often done, arbitrarily choose any direction as "North" and begin the game. But there is a very nice element o...

So yesterday Tim Rodriguez of Dice+Food+Lodging drops this on me: "Tonight I'll be part of a short playtest/discussion taping of Utara that's going to be used as a lesson in something my friend Scott is working on called Ludo Dojo . Utara I think hits his hotspots for games that are interesting and very good to analyze for their instructional qualities. It's a really elegant game where you can make small tweaks and instantly see how that affects play. Plus, handfuls of dice." Ludo Dojo is heavily involved in teaching game design and connecting new creators with more experienced vets. The founder, Scott Price, has a lot of experience in marketing and development of games with broad appeal. Tim was kind enough to record the audio of that session. That very large file can be found here . Scott Price will be editing together a video as well, which I'll link to as soon as it's available. I haven't had a chance to listen to the entire recording yet,...

Each unit would have about 20 dice. From talking to players at Dreamation and checking out the price point for Steve Jackson Games' Zombie Dice , I sense $10-$15 is the sweet spot for unit pricing. That means each die must cost me less than 50¢. A more reasonable cost would be something like 10¢, to create margin for the costs of packaging, storing and shipping. Plan A: Print a single prototype with the ultimate goal of licensing the rights to a larger producer. Higher cost per die, but lower total cost. Use the prototype to run demos and make promotional videos. Plan B: Produce a short run for direct sales to consumers. Hope to break even within a year, either by selling out of the product or licensing the rights to a larger producer. Lower cost per die, but higher total cost, plus work of marketing and fulfillment. I sent out a request for estimate with the following specs: 16mm six-sided dice Opaque Blue or White Unique design on each face Quantity: 20, 500, 1000 V...

You last saw Joanna while she was playing and teaching Utara in this video . Here, she's showing off her own Utara dice she made at home to test out new rules and play with her home group. In the third photo, you'll see a wagering rules variant created by Rob McDiarmid : "Here's a thought for a gambling version. Maybe you throw half the pot on the table first, before rolling the dice. Those coins represent ports. If you cross a port, you get to collect the coin. Any ports not collected during play go to the winner. But maybe ports also end your turn." Brilliant idea, I thought. Joanna's testing out that variant right now. I think you could add even more wagering options by placing bets along the north, south, east, and west edges of the board. Any time a die leads off the board in that direction, you can collect one coin from that side. These wagering variants and other suggested rules will be included in the official rules. I can't wait to show of...

Utara was a big success at Dreamation 2011. In the video above, you can see a montage of several rounds of play. People gathered around tables to play on their own. Sizeable groups of non-convention attendees huddled to check it out. Audiences were 50/50 male/female. I consider this enough of a success that I'm looking at the math for going commercial. I'll post about that soon. Some new rules that came out of all the demos I did at Dreamation include: » Play one round for each player. » First player of first round is chosen at random. » First player of subsequent rounds is whoever has fewest points. » This game draws a crowd. Ask bystanders for Moon and Sun style. » Otherwise, first player chooses Moon or Sun. Second player chooses the other.

Just a quick progress report on Belle of the Ball. Spent the better part of last week revising the rules according to the Belle playtesters' comments. These edits included some changes to the card designs. Actually, I don't think I ever mentioned this on the blog, but I found some really good prices on printing custom playing cards as small print runs. The prices were good enough that they convinced me to go with cards instead of tiles. That mean resizing and reformatting the tiles to suit the new dimensions. Fortunately, the printer offers a very handy template for card sheets as you can see in the second picture above. The extra room also gives me an opportunity to include flavor text for each guest. I don't know yet how I'll use that opportunity. Perhaps continuing the alliterative theme from the Belle cards? I also need to finally color the great illustrations from Mori McLamb and Liz Radtke. They gave me some great material, I hope I can do them justice. ...

Bryan Hansel created a funny little story game he says was inspired by Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple and The Leftovers. High praise, 'cause this game sounds like it's a fun time: "The Alchemist is a story game set in a world where lead can become gold. You and your friends make a story about how the alchemist and his minions attempt to make gold against all odds. While the minions gather the secret ingredients and toil away, the alchemist kicks back in his lab and hands out sage advice. Find out what gets in the way as you play." He's already tested his two player rules, which created this story . » The Alchemist by Bryan Hansel

It started as a joke. I asked a simple question: "Tell me anything about the game ' Dung & Dragons '" What followed is a bubbling stream of brilliance from my friends online. » A game about managing a dragon ranch, focusing on the stable hands' daily duties » Naturally there are fundamental differences between the poop of the metallic vs. chromatic vs. mineral dragons, and each color of dragon crap differs from those of its brothers. At least some varieties need to be smeared on like face paint to work. Other types must be eaten. » Purists long for the days of 1st edition where, as they put it, they had "less crap to move around" » It totally needs rather large dragon cards (possibly the front of the egg-deck) so you can place them face up in your stable and then place foodstuffs (cubes or disks of course, wooden and in nice colors) at their heads, and then turn by turn move the foodstuffs down (I imagine, head, stomach, and ass, but there ...

The third part of my conversation with Tim Rodriguez on Dice+Food+Lodging is now available for download. We cover a lot of topics, including finishing your game, marketing it, the problems with DIY, and my own game design role models. It's taken a while for this whole conversation to go online, so you can hear mentions of things that have already come to fruition, like the Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge and Pebble Rebel . » Dice+Food+Lodging : Episode 024 – Conversation with Daniel Solis, part 3

Here's the first pass at the backs of the Belle of the Ball cards. This branding is based on vintage labels, 19th century hand lettering, old Hollywood musicals, and a touch of wedding invitations. I'm trying to create a general vibe that is inspired by Victoriana, but isn't tied down to one time period in particular. That gives artists license to mix anachronistic fashions and fits the inspiration for the game. (The "Shindig" episode of Firefly.) I didn't record my process for this design, but you can see the elements I used here , here , here , and here . You can also see the black and white vector on the right. » Thanks to Kathleen for typographic help.

After reading my recent post On Hitting , John Harper posted an interesting Western zombie game he designed years ago. It's all centered on the assumption that you'll be shooting zombies and never missing. Possible outcomes are headshots, delayed satisfaction, and an impending sense of dreadful panic. Based on the writeup, I sense flavors of the ZOMBIES!!! board game, but with a deeper set of consequences for each shot. Every bullet counts and reloading is a tense test of nerves. My only recommendation would be that the title have a thick Western drawl. Something like "It Don't End When Ya Bury Me." A title that would be slurred around Rooster Cogburn's chewing tobacco. » IT WON’T END WHEN YOU BURY ME » Photo: " Shallow Grave " CC-BY-NC-SA Jo Christian Oterhals

"We decided to play some Happy Birthday, Robot tonight after the show because my highest aspirations in life all revolve around corrupting the architecture of what are essentially children's storytelling games to the purposes of perverts and aberrants." So begins Alexander Williams' weird tales of playing HBR with his friends. Check out the increasingly bizarre stories on the Operation BSU blog . Thanks for sharing, Alexander! If you liked those stories and want to make your own, one of the Operation BSU folks will be running three MANY sessions of HBR at PAX East. Here's the thread with all the info on Happy Birthday, Robot! at Pax East .

This is a simple way to make going to the market in your RPGs a little more interesting. It creates an inverse relationship between inventory and price of a resource, all in one roll. Quentin Hudspeth developed it into a full RPG supplement for fantasy, modern and science-fiction games. You can buy the fifteen-page PDF here: Playing the Market Stuff You Need A bunch of six-sided dice. The larger the amount of dice, the larger the market. When to Roll Use this system when the main characters walk into a shady alley to find some black market contraband, ride into an exotic bazaar for magic items, or dock at a space station to refuel. At the moment the characters search for a specific item, use this system to determine how much of that item is available and how much each costs. How to Play Roll a pool of d6s. Each die resulting in 1-3 is one unit of a resource available for purchase. Each die resulting in 4-6 is how much one unit costs. Example: You're looking to buy a s...

I'm looking hiring the services of a custom dice manufacturer to make a single prototype set of Utara dice. Above, you see the prototype I worked with during the playtesting process and which I used to demo at Dreamation 2011. Simple blank dice with stickers and hand-drawn letters. With an eye towards non-English speaking audiences, I thought it would be good to make Utara's faces non-linguistic. I based these on compass arrows. However, I realized that any time you introduce an arrow into an interface, the human will want to follow it in that direction. In the end, I figured out that there was such a thing as being too abstract. So I went back to the NESW system from the prototype, but I wasn't content with simply putting letters on each face all on their own. I needed to add a thematic element to the presentation, something harkening to navigation by the stars. I needed constellations. Thankfully, boardgamegeek member BT Carpenter offered this diagram for turning ...

The second month of the challenge has some interesting new entrants, including a high-end commercial prototype from a European game company and an abstract party game with elements from a pre-existing thousand-year game. Coerceo by the Coerceo Company The Coerceo Company sent us a lush luxury prototype of their abstract 2-player game. You can see close-ups of the individual bits by clicking the image on the right. We're concerned about the sustainability of wooden boxes, cardboard tiles and plastic pyramids, but the Coerceo Company pledges to donate any winnings to charity. That's a plus in our book. Pandora's Box: A Timeless Game of Psychology and Curiosity by Benjamin D. Stanley Now this is an interesting hybrid. Take the physical elements of an existing thousand-year-old game and use them in a highly social party game and social experiment. Throw in an ancient mythic theme and you have Pandora's Box. Great new submissions! Combined with last month's en...