Daniel Solis

  In Belle of the Ball , guests have special powers that are triggered as soon as they create a group of friends, join a group of friends, or have a new guest join their group of friends. That's a tough set of conditions to state succinctly. (See my previous posts on over-coding and under-coding in card game design .) For now, it's worded as "When this guest is friended," which is awkward and very distinctly modern. Ideally, I could just consolidate that whole line into a simple symbol, so I can refer players back to the rulebook where I have more room to state things in more detail. (It also makes the game easier to translate for foreign markets.) Oh hey! I already have that symbol on the cards. It's the little icon of two stacked cards that appears with the Friend Bonus. That'll work. There is also some space on the lower left corner where I could insert an icon or some other bit of information. This would be great in play because you can stack a...

Heyo! Belle of the Ball has gone through several more beta tests and it's polishing up to be a very fun light strategy game. » Download the Current Beta Rules PDF » Download the Print-and-Play Cards PDF » Follow the conversation on BoardGameGeek .  Term changes: "Couples" are now "friends." Up to three guests may be in a "group of friends." Adding a guest to a group of friends is "friending," until we can find a better term. "Social activity" is now "mood." "Physical activity" is now "interest." "Attracting" is now "calling." Each player gets two Belles – one public, one secret. This allows multiple ongoing strategies, offensive countermeasures, and keeps a bit of deduction that was fun from previous versions. Four of the Belles are replaced with Ribbon tokens, each linked to a different interest. Ribbons  reward you for gathering the most guests of a particular i...

as observed by John Stavropoulos ( Source ) TOOLS The actual components of play, like character sheets, cheat sheets, boards and bits. TEXT The actual documented rules and how they are presented, including exact wording, procedures and game terms. RULES The parameters of play as best recalled by the players. Less formal than text, but more formal than the basic design intent. INTENT The assumptions of how a game would be played, often expressed directly by the designer with minimal formal documentation. “Dice,” “Pencil” symbol from The Noun Project collection. “Paper” symbol by Tom Schott, from The Noun Project collection. “Quote” symbol by Henry Ryder, from The Noun Project collection. “Note” symbol by Brendan Lynch, from the Noune Project collection. “Pawn” symbol by Kenneth Von Alt, from The Noun Project collection. “Dialog” symbol by Dima Yagnyuk, from The Noun Project collection. This graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. So, a lit...

Here's a new time-lapse video of my vector illustration process using the weird and now-defunct program Macromedia Freehand. I'm waiting for the time when I update my OS and I can't run Freehand anymore. That will be a very sad day. But this has been fun practice for character design that isn't a bunch of circles. :P Mainly, my process has been finding really good illustrators and learning from their character design as much as I can. I've been drawing off and on since art school, but I never mastered those little touches that make a real professional. Hands are a particular challenge, so I spent a lot of time sketching different poses and shapes. Hats are also tough, with weird contoured brims and odd dents. In the end, I had to rely on other artist's sketches from the sample art I've collected on my Pinterest board over the past few weeks. I tried not to just straight-up copy or trace over their work, though. Like I said in ...

Pedro Gabriel was kind enough to translate TALK FIND MAKE into Portuguese. Check it out here: FALE ACHE FAÇA . If you'd like to translate any of my games into another language, ping me at gobi81 at the gmail.

I'm still gathering estimates to hire illustrators for Belle of the Ball's card art. Understandably, 108 unique portraits can quickly add up, even with the most generous estimates. To assemble the team I want on this project, it'll take significant amounts of up-front funding. Kickstarter seems like the most obvious option, but I don't want to start a campaign until the game is more polished. The most recent playtest session put a nice polish on the midgame strategy, endgame conditions, and overall phase structure. It could still use another handful of playtests before I'm fully satisfied. If you're interested in joining the public beta, see the details here . But yes, as for the actual art, I'm cobbling together eyes, noses, mouths, bodies, and attire from lots of different vector stock illustrations. I tried to follow a clear system: Social activity expressed in the face, county expressed in the body, physical activity expressed with the right hand (...

[ In the spirit of Earth Day this week, I'm going to brainstorm some ideas for games with an ecological or natural theme. Imagine these games printed on 100% recycled chipboard . Also see my post on sustainable game components . ]   And now we come to the last in this series. Hope you've enjoyed this idle brainstorming this week. Half the fun of this exploration has been figuring out mechanics for non-combat, non-colonial themed games. It was in that "non-colonial" direction that I started considering the opposite of colonization: Evacuation. You know me, I'm a big supporter of getting off the rock . The notion of a massive planetary evacuation was a very tempting idea. This has the ingredients of a very interesting big box board game, too. First, start with a basic world map and divide it up into distinct regions. Does this need to be countries as in RISK? Cities, as in PANDEMIC? Not sure, but there is some serious juice in literally playing on a world ...

[ In the spirit of Earth Day this week, I'm going to brainstorm some ideas for games with an ecological or natural theme. Imagine these games printed on 100% recycled chipboard . Also see my post on sustainable game components . ]  I read a story once about counterfeit wine bottles. Some unwitting collectors will buy these fakes without realizing it. The funny thing is that the bottles are worth more when you're not certain that they're fake. So, collectors keep these and/or sell these suspected forgeries, all the while never knowing if they're legit. It's like "Schrödinger's Cabernet." There has to be a game here. Maybe an auction game? Let's explore. Assume there is a deck of double-sided cards, or "bottles." The "back" of the card shows a vineyard and the estimated value of wines from that vineyard. The "front" of the card shows the value of that specific bottle, which may be much higher or lower than the e...

[ In the spirit of Earth Day this week, I'm going to brainstorm some ideas for games with an ecological or natural theme. Imagine these games printed on 100% recycled chipboard . Also see my post on sustainable game components . ] Let's take this "Earth Day" theme to the distant cosmic past, when Earth and planets were still coalescing around our sun. In this game, you and the other players gather stardust to create asteroids, planetoids, and other stellar bodies. The game is comprised of the board shown above and a block of 36 dice. You can play with 2-4 players. On your turn, roll a die. Place it on an unoccupied space on the board. You may not place a die in the center space. Collapsing: If you create a contiguous adjacent group of three or more dice with matching results, remove all the dice in that group except the die you just placed. Raise that remaining die's result by one. So, if you make a group of 1s, the remaining die is now 2. If you make...

[ In the spirit of Earth Day this week, I'm going to brainstorm some ideas for games with an ecological or natural theme. Imagine these games printed on 100% recycled chipboard . Also see my post on sustainable game components . ] A while back, I had this loose image of a Pre-Columbian village on the Pacific coast of South America. The village doctors would travel from the coast, past the Andes, into the Amazon basin looking for strange and mysterious ingredients for potions. That idea stuck in my head for a while, but now I'm thinking about a slightly different theme. The game is set in more modern times. The Amazon rain forest has potentially life-saving medicinal plant life. Each player is a doctor, traipsing through the Amazon and discovering patches of plant life. You are trying to collect just the right kind of plants, but still leave enough behind to regrow over time. With the right plants, you can cure certain patients and they'll return the favor in various w...

In a series titled More Like This Please , Tracy Hurley has cataloged good examples of depicting strong women in fantasy art.  Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor is also great reference source for how to do this right. Alas, the Escher Girls are more common than depictions like below: Illustration: Jason Chan / © Wizards of the Coast Illustration: Guillaume Bonnet Illustration: ~nathantwist As Tracy says: "More like this, please!" That's why I'm happy to support the Prismatic Art Collection . We're commissioning more diverse depictions of fantasy heroes from a diverse community of artists. All the art we commission will be released to the Creative Commons, so you can use it in your games, books, and websites. Our first goal allows us to commission at least 20 new pieces of art. I say "at least" because we're also licensing existing art and several artists have generously donated their art, too. We'll end up with way more...

Here's a solo dice puzzle for you. It's an oddly hypnotic way to spend a few minutes before giving up in frustration. Setup Gather a block of 36 dice. Roll a die. Place it on the table. On Your Turn ... Roll a die. Place it adjacent to a die already on the table. Gradually, you'll create a branching dice formation. As soon as you create a contiguous chain of 3 or more with matching results, remove all the matching dice in that chain. Chains do not count diagonally adjacent dice. Only vertically and horizontally adjacent dice count. Restrictions 1. Your formation can't extend past a 6x6 grid. Note: There is no board. The overall formation of dice simply can't extend taller or wider than 6 dice. Thus, the first die you place is technically the center. As you add or remove dice, the outerbounds of your formation can shift dramatically. Indeed, over time, the formation may seem to crawl like an amoeba over the table. 2. You may not remove any dice that wo...

Heyo! I have new interviews to share with you on this fine Tuesday morning. Get your headphones on and prepare to have your ears caressed by my dulcet tones. First up, I pay a visit to the State of Games podcast, live in their studio! We talk about Luck in Game Design . How it works, how to design around it, and how to channel it into a successful game. We also spend some time talking about luck from the game-buyer's perspective. Do you prefer to respond to luck or prepare for luck? That preference can help inform your next game purchase. » State of Games: The One About Getting Lucky Next, I talk to the Law of the Geek about the long saga of the Happy Birthday, Robot! license to the Sandstorm. I'm joined by Tim Koppang, my legal counsel during those negotiations. Together, we outline the timeline of events and the legal protections Tim made sure were in place just in case. There is a lot of law geekery here, watch out! For my own take on this legal journey, check out ...

Here's where I'm leaning for the guest cards. Granted, these aren't as ornate as the original cards from the last iteration , but the cards are being used in a very different way now, too. It's really important that the suits be visible and recognizable across the table, so they had to be big, bold and uncluttered. There is also a lot more data on the cards, including base scores, couple bonuses, special powers, and so on. No room for Victorian swirls or flourishes that could distract or obscure important information. That still leaves open room for more ornate decoration on the card backs and especially on the Belles. I'm looking at these mint tins as a source of inspiration for both. UPDATE: In addition, I went ahead and added more Victorian flourishes around the border. Turns out they're just fine as long as they're low-contrast enough to not distract from key information, like suits, point values and game text. In revising the cards, I notic...

After describing the organic " wabi-sabi " style of card game design I used in Belle of the Ball , I got some comments on boardgamegeek expressing a preference for more symmetrical deck design. Mark McEvoy : "I'm of the camp that prefers the symmetrical systematic approach because then you can be certain that specific combinations exist / are unique / are not disproportionately plentiful in your deck." David Boeren : "If there is ever a time where the different elements interact with each other then I do not want them randomly assigned. That makes it harder to balance and it makes it hard on the players who now have to remember a lot more about the deck to avoid bad play decisions." Sure, I see the appeal. But speaking as a designer, it's way too easy to get sucked into a death-spiral of perfectly symmetrical mandalas. These precious crystal structures are such fastidious distractions for OCD perfectionists like me. The example...

A Fine and Dandy Card Game for 2-4 Players » Last Updated: August 1, 2012 » Current Beta Rules PDF [Prototype O] » Download the Print-and-Play Cards PDF » Follow the conversation on BoardGameGeek . These are the public beta rules for the Belle of the Ball card game. It's been through several rounds of private alpha testing and it's finally ready for the public. I'd love your input! THE GOAL You are Belles of the Ball. Invite Guests to a lavish party. Your goal is to introduce Guests to each other, make best friends, win ribbons and build the most popular clique at the party. Download the PDFs in the links above and leave any feedback in the comments below. I plan on a commercial release in late 2012. Updates listed in chronological order. UPDATE: APRIL 30 2012 Term changes: "Couples" are now "friends." Up to three guests may be in a "group of friends." Adding a guest to a group of friends is "friending," until we ...