Daniel Solis

I loves me some RISK: Legacy , as do the Diana Jones Awards. Lyndsay Peters and Logan Bonner got into the habit of playing Dominion Legacy. And no discussion of destructible game objects would be complete without mentioning Kevin Allen Jr's Sweet Agatha , which predates RISK: Legacy by several years. I wondered aloud when larger studios would actually start picking up on this idea in non-RISK games. Sure enough, Asmadi stepped up to the plate with We Didn't Play This: Legacies . As Chris Cieslik mentions in the video, writing things in Sharpie is fun! Much like deck-building became the hot mechanic following Dominon's release, I continue to wonder how Legacy mechanics might be used in future big budget or indie games. In particular, how those mechanics could be used by smaller, independent outfits like my own. I'll discuss my own ideas in a future post, but for now let's Legacy some existing games. Scrabble: Legacy Keep a Legacy document in the game box. (...

Origins Game Fair starts May 30 in Columbus, OH. If you're in the area, stop by the Dice Hate Me booth #809. My good friends there should have the Belle of the Ball prototype should be floating around. Check out their other games while you're there, too! I've personally played Viva Java and highly recommend it. Megan recommends Pulsar , too!

Back of the Guest Cards County: Wineberry. Mood: Chatty. Interest: food. Power: Mingle. Popularity: 2 County: Dundifax. Mood: Flirty. Interest: Music. Power: Mingle. Popularity: -1, +6 if in a group. County: Boarbottom. Mood: Chatty. Interest: Drink. Power: Extra Invite for Richminster. Popularity: 0, +2 if in a group with a Boarbottom. Drink Ribbon: Awarded to the player who has the most guests with Interest: Drink. Back of the Belle Card Belle Bonus: Have the most guests from County: Crawhole. Belle Bonus: Have the lowest Popularity before any Friend Bonuses. Above is a sample of the current card designs for Belle of the Ball. One thing I noticed from the SuperiorPOD prototypes was that large fields of solid color tended to have a subtle cloudiness. That's common with any digital printer. The easy way to get around it is to use naturalistic textures to mask those imperfections. However, I use naturalistic or photorealistic rendered textures a L...

Many thanks to the good folks at Pruvop for hosting the most recent playtest of Belle of the Ball. Lots of excellent feedback! » Follow the rules changes » Download the Current Beta Rules PDF [Prototype H] » Download the Print-and-Play Cards PDF » Follow the conversation on BoardGameGeek . Before I dive in any deeper, a disclaimer: All these plans and estimates are tentative, I just wanted to give you all an update on what the kind of planning is involved in producing even a simple card game like Belle. PRODUCTION ESTIMATES I've spent the past six weeks requesting estimates from various printers with and without experience producing board games. I tried to find the best deal that would allow us to set an MSRP of no more than $20. I really tried to find a domestic printer who could meet those requirements. But when all the numbers came in, it was only feasible to go print overseas. Here is the best estimate I have so far. 2000 COPIES 108-Card Decks*     ...

You may recall my last post on the freelance market around Kickstarter . There I mentioned Lyndsay Peters of Dragon Chow Dice Bags . She works with a lot of Kickstarter projects these days. So many that she now has a reputation as a go-to source for high-value pledge tier rewards. The problem is that sometimes, Lyndsay finds out she's hired for a project after the Kickstarter launches. For one reason or another, the project creators assumed she was available without further confirmation, with no further details on estimates, quantities, or timelines. So far it's been fine, but eventually Lyndsay will get roped into a project she doesn't want to do or she won't have time to do. How embarrassing will it be for the creator to have to say "Sorry, we actually can't offer these super-awesome dicebags after all." This little anecdote shows how fraught the burgeoning semi-pro economy can be for a freelancer. I worry about inexperienced project creators ge...

Sometimes when I'm exploring game mechanics, I get an urge to mash up two otherwise unrelated mechanics just to see what happens. This time, I wanted to mash up a memory game with an action selection game. Here's where my brain wandered. TILES There are 54 tiles. The tiles show one of six words (six tiles of each word) and one of four colors (twelve tiles of each color and six rainbows). SETUP Shuffle the tiles. Place 36 of them face down in a 6x6 grid. Deal three tiles to each player's hand. Keep your hand secret. Split the remaining tiles into three separate draw decks. The draw decks should be as equal as possible, but do not have to be exact. PLAY On your turn, reveal two face-down tiles from the board. If either of the words match each other or a tile in your hand , you may take the matching tiles and place them in your scoring pile for the whole group to see. If the words do not match each other or a tile in your hand , you can do eith...

I'm noodling a little mechanic in my head and I'm not sure how well it works in actual play yet. And of course I don't have the time to really experiment with it at the moment. I'm posting it here so you can give it a shot. Like some of my previous thought-experiments , let's use a stock market theme for the time being. Each player begins the game with ten chips, a personal "Portfolio" board and a pair of dice. The players share a "Market" board and a general supply of chips from the bank. Both the Portfolio and Market boards show dice results 1-6. These represent six different stocks. The Portfolio board is where you keep track of how many shares you own in those stocks. The Market board keeps track of the value of each share in that stock. The Market board An example of a Portfolio board, with three shares in [1], one share in [3], one share in [5], and two shares in [6]. On the first turn, roll the dice first. The two results...

For independent or DIY game designers, there haven't been many affordable options for printing card games until recently. I decided to try out SuperiorPOD mainly because their pricing structure was clear, their interface was easy to use and their templates were super-helpful. Here are the results of two separate card orders. These cards are pretty thick and sturdy. They're not matte or linen, which would normally be ideal for game cards, but they still shuffle extremely well. Above, you see the thickness of a full 108-card deck, which is the largest deck SuperiorPOD offers on their website. The first order printed much brighter and yellower than I intended. That order was printed from a print-ready PDF (PDF-X 2008 Protocol). I suspect some of those vector elements just rendered unexpectedly. In the second order, the files were simple flattened TIFFs. Larger file size, but also simpler to render. As you can see, the reds, grays and oranges are mostly the same in bo...

FULL TEXT: FEEDBACK LOOPS IN GAME DESIGN as observed by Jesse Catron, Jay Barnson, Kyoryu Design: Daniel Solis (danielsolis.com) In a feedback loop, the output affects the input. POSITIVE FEEDBACK AMPLIFIES the output and tends to destabilize the system. For example, the runaway leader. One player takes an early insurmountable lead. In Settlers of Catan, the player with the most productive settlements will generate the most resources, which enables him to build more settlements and gain even more resources. NEGATIVE FEEDBACK DIMINISHES the output and tends to stabilize the system. For example, a “take-that” mechanic that gives trailing player’s more opportunities to constrain the leading player’s efforts. In Settlers of Catan, players are less likely to accept trades with the leading player. The leading player is more likely to be targeted by the Robber. Balancing feedback loops is an important skill for all game designers. DECK BUILDING [ + ] You can use low val...

Because there are some obvious copyright problems with the title "Dung & Dragons," I've been calling the game "Dragon Ranch Co-Op" as a bit of a joke. It's a co-op game about a co-op ranch. Get it?... Okay, maybe it's only funny to me. Completely by accident, this name abbreviates to DRCO, just one letter shy of "DR A CO." My mind wandered across various options until "Anarchist" popped up. I thought that was funny, too. What if the theme wasn't just a simple co-op ranch, but an anarcho-utopian commune as well? How that might affect the mechanics of the game? As you know from previous posts , the central mechanic of Dragon Ranch is everyone choosing actions, then the number of matching choices affecting the potency of those actions. For example, sometimes more people on a task is good, like shoveling poop from the stables. Sometimes it's not, like feeding the dragons too much and causing them to get sick. Everyone d...

Head's up! I'm running a live playtest of Belle of the Ball with a brand new group of gamers at the Pruvop offices! Interested? I'll have several prototypes available for simultaneous groups if there's enough turnout. As always, you can find the most up-to-date info on Belle of the Ball here . BELLE OF THE BALL PLAYTEST Thursday, May 10 6pm • Each game lasts about 30-45min. 200 N. Mangum St. Suite 201 Durham You have to call to get into the building. If you're interested, email me at gobi81@gmail.com to get the secret digits!

Wow, check out the promotional items Evil Hat has coming up soon. These two beauties bear the Century Club logo from not so long ago ! Follow Fred for new info.

I've certainly had an educational weekend. Right now I'm laying out three card games: Zeppelin Armada, Velociraptor! Cannibalism!, and Belle of the Ball. I'm kind of using Belle as a training ground to become a more efficient card game layout-er, 'cause damn that's actually a really a fun job. What wasn't so fun was manually inserting every digit and icon directly into the layout. It was prone to typos, misalignments and subtle printing inconsistencies. I knew the big guys at WotC couldn't be setting up their Magic cards this way. Perhaps there's a way to automate this process? I have some experience working with print houses who do what they call "variable data." It goes by several names, kind of like the Devil. Indeed, the central feature of variable data turns out to be spreadsheets. Not quite Lucifer, but close. I followed Adobe's datamerge tutorial . I managed to figure it out thanks to several video tu...

Megan continues making awesome meeple board game jewelry but now she's expanded to other board game tokens, too. Love Catan? Like, really really love Catan? This necklace is 16.25" long, sterling silver plated with a lobster claw style clasp. Available in red , white , blue and yellow .

Assume the base price for Belle of the Ball is somewhere between $15 and $20. As a part of a future Kickstarter campaign, I'm offering the option to name all the Guests and Belles. There are 96 Guests and 8 Belles. What is your suggested dollar amount for a tier with the following rewards? A copy of the game. Credit as a backer. You can name a Guest. Folks on Twitter suggested something around $50 for the Guests' names, a bit more than that for the Belles' names due to the rarity. If all the cards were claimed at that level, the total would cover the art budget! Very tempting. When I put the idea out on Twitter, a few suggested that I name all the Guests and Belles to maintain creative integrity. If that's the prevailing opinion, I may compromise and simply list the backer's name in a fancy Victorian ribbon that reads something like " Invited by _____ ." Also, if you have some other ideas for Kickstarter rewards, I'm happy to hear '...

Made a few more updates to Belle of the Ball this morning. Apologies for the rapid iteration, but it's for a good cause! The offices of Pruvop in Durham, NC are graciously hosting a public playtest for Belle of the Ball on May 10. I'm also ordering prototypes from SuperiorPOD this week. Hopefully those will be available by Origins, so you can demo the game, too! Look for more details soon. » Download the Current Beta Rules PDF » Download the Print-and-Play Cards PDF » Follow the conversation on BoardGameGeek .  Removed all card text from the guest and Belle cards. Replaced with symbols. (Thanks to all who offered feedback on the rough drafts .) The rulebook now explains the powers in more detail than was manageable in the space of a card. This also allows you to stack the cards in as little space as possible while still seeing which powers each guest has. Some powers are re-arranged so Lordhurtz and Richminster counties don't monopolize them as much. Mor...

NateStraight of BoardGameGeek just posted a Top Ten list of Designers Doing Exciting Things . He's apparently been keeping an eye on my output for a while. Apparently I'm an eclectic folk game designer. "I think we need more game designers willing to take the organic, human, asymmetric, serendipitous approach to game design that Daniel seems to be taking." Heh! Nate cites Happy Birthday, Robot! , Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple , Belle of the Ball , t-shirts , the Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge , and my various weird musings . Thanks, Nate! I'm glad he gives a shout out to John Clowdus, too. He and his wife run Small Box Games is specifically geared towards more 2+ player games with quick setup, modest footprint and rewarding replay value. (Usually card games.) Sounds like a mission right out of my own wheelhouse. I'll have to take a closer look at Bhazum especially.

I've been tinkering with my standing desk for the better part of a year. I started with some jury-rigged wire shelving, small IKEA endtables and even my computer tower itself. All this on top of my normal sit-down desk. Standing desks can be pretty expensive, so I was hesitant to go that far in my quest for the ideal standing/working situation. I didn't want to drop a few hundred bucks on a standing desk that wasn't even the right spec for my needs. It took a long time to figure out my ideal viewing height, the right height for my arms while typing, and the right height for designing. When I moved to the North Carolina office, I quickly discovered the discomfort of standing on concrete. That's when I got a set of basic floor mats available from most hardware stores. That's how it was for months. I was content with my unsightly mish-mash. Then Mego found these quite nice Closetmaid modular wooden shelving units. I tried one for my keyboard and mouse. To my...