Daniel Solis

Howdy folks! Just a head's up that a ZEPPELIN ATTACK! from Evil Hat Productions is now available on Kickstarter! I'm glad to finally see it live in the wild. This is by far the most layered and details card design project I've had so far. There are several categories and sub-categories of information, all overlapping at times, further sub-divided into starter decks, and expansion decks. Whew! You can see a fuller overview of the cards on my portfolio site . I basically used every trick I knew to make sure all the information on each card was as easily accessible as possible. Color-coding, icons, textures, borders, typography, the whole bag of tricks to do the game justice. Christian St. Pierre did a kickass job with the original art, too. He set them up on transparent backgrounds, so I could have the freedom to do the cool overlapping effect that's popular in card games these days. Find out more about the game on the Kickstarter page !

Sometimes a game idea just lingers in your head for a while until one little spark finally brings it to life. In this case, I was mulling over A La Kart , the food-themed racing game inspired by the Sugar Rush arcade game from Wreck-It Ralph. Originally, I planned on it being a simple numerical option. If you bid the highest amount, you go to the front of the pack. Like any good racing game, it really needed a catchup mechanic. So here's the idea: In actual real-life racing, there is a concept called "drafting," in which racers will trail closely behind another racer to take advantage of aerodynamics. At a critical point, after the lead racer has borne the brunt of working against the air resistance, the rejuvenated trailing racer can leap ahead at the very last minute. And, of course, card games have their own concept of "drafting," in which players take one item of their choosing from a set presented to them. Why not combine these two types of drafting

Wahoo! The first expansion for KOI POND is now available on DriveThruCards. Click here for KOI POND: MOON TEMPLE and expand your Koi Pond game to five players, plus some enhanced strategy with rainbow koi, shrines, and new characters. Check it out.

  Given the changes to the River Ancient noted in my last post, it seemed much more feasible for me to release this game as a POD card product instead of expensive custom-shaped tiles. The board is a randomized lane of 4 cards/player each round, with no branches or other direct player-involvement in the setup. Players each get five dice, which they will roll at the start of the round. Each player also gets three Wisdom tokens. Players each start with one random Trait and one random philosophy. Further rules are as follows: To start a round, roll five dice in your color. Your lowest dice have your first Trait. The second-lowest dice have your second trait, and so on. On your turn, place one die... on the corner of any card, thereby founding that many villages on the river; or beside the philosophy deck. Draw that many philosophy cards, and keep one. Any dice placed on a Hill get +1. Any dice placed on a Mountain get +2. These bonuses are cumulative. You may gr

It's been a week and I've finally had a chance to digest some of the UnPub feedback from the River Ancient playtests. The notes below are from 20 feedback forms submitted. Overall takeaways? Match Gameplay to Objectives Every action in the game should link clearly and concretely to an objective in the game. Without this connection, you waste players' time. For example, I had players place tiles and place dice, but the dice were far more important and obvious tactically. Instead of adding more objectives to an already bloated game, I am just randomizing the tiles without player involvement. Find Universal Comments Every playtester is different, and will offer different types of advice, but look for any comments or suggestions they hold in common. These are the heart of any problems or features for your game. For example, my playtesters all loved the dice-placement mechanics and how traits made these placements even more tactically interesting. Cut, Cut, Keep.

See my previous posts on this game about the pre-European trade ties between Swahili coastal nations and dynastic China through Indian Ocean trade routes. I swear it's less dry than it sounds. The basic idea remains a card drafting game with a twist: At the beginning of the game, you have a hand of cards much like in 7 Wonders or Sushi Go, but you also have a personalized Ship card in your hand that is in your player-color. You also have a personalized tableau representing your port. To play, players pass their hand to the left and trade one card from the new ship for one card from their port, then pass again. Thus, each hand remains the same size throughout play and eventually ships will return to their home port, carrying an eclectic mix of cargo. One problem with this idea is that the tableau is public information, so savvy players may see what an opponent is giving up from their tableau, then change their mind about their own trade. This little dance could continue in

In a word, UnPub4 was a crucible . The game I brought Saturday morning was quite different than what came out Sunday night. It emerged sleeker, simpler, and more fun. Here are four reasons why UnPub4 was such a success, and some takeaways to make your next UnPub a success, too. Small sample of on-the-fly edits to my components. #1 MacGyver Factor Because I was limited to whatever I had available to me at the event, I couldn't fall into the trap of just adding new mechanics or components to fix problems. Instead, I had to trim, edit, revise, and tweak. If point values were a problem, I used white-out or adhesive stickers to make edits. If components were a problem, I just removed them instead of wasting time between playtests. Takeaway : Bring tape, white labels, white out, glue sticks, and markers in multiple colors. Make your prototype easily editable to respond to playtester feedback. Teaching The River Ancient (Photo: Brad Smoley ) #2 Variety of Play

Look for my Miyazaki-inspired euro game The River Ancient this weekend at UnPub4 ! Photos below and above are of the prototype I'm taking with me to the event. After some very rigorous playtesting, it's in a state where I think I can get the most useful feedback. It's a little different for me than last year since Belle of the Ball was a) mostly finished, b) a very short game, and c) I was seated near the front door. This time, the game isn't quite as polished, it takes roughly 45 minutes to play, and I'm in the far back of the room. I really hope I get as many playtests in as I did last year, regardless. Now, pictures! I used just about every scrap of cardboard in the house. It's pretty rough and handmade, but hopefully playtesters won't mind. See you at UnPub!

When I was developing the first Koi Pond expansion, I knew I would need some help with the new artwork. Fish are one thing, but this expansion introduced human characters, so I had to call in some help. So, Jared Axelrod just sent me his excellent Abbot , Monk , and Novice art for the Koi Pond expansion. Here we have a Novice, who may be placed in your house, pond, or river. Wherever the novice is placed, you score 1 point for each 1-koi card in that place, regardless of their suit. For example, if you have two 1-red cards, one 1-blue card, and a novice in your river, you will score 3 points. The Monk and Abbot are the same as the Novice, except they score points for 2-koi and 3-koi cards respectively. The other cards in the expansion are the Shrine , which may be placed in your river, house, or pond. It doubles the quantity of koi of that suit in that place. You've already seen me talk about the new 4- and 5-koi cards in a previous post . The rainbow koi are spe

Just a quick update today to show off some of the new koi art for Koi Pond: Moon Village . These are the new koi cards featuring 4 and 5 koi on a card, to really boost those koi scores or ramp up competition for ribbons. They're a little rarer than standard 1s, 2s and 3s, so use them wisely.

A while back, someone asked me to predict what the big thing would be this year. I said if I knew that, I'd be doing it by now. Snark aside, there is one trend that I do hope gains some momentum, which I'm calling Chibi Games . "Chibi" comes from anime and manga, and is often conflated with the "super deformed" style of art where characters have giant heads and eyes, with little bodies (and often no fingers, oddly). But in this case, I'm focusing on the "cute" aspect. Technically, I could call these Kawaii games, but "Chibi" is just more fun to say. Chibi Games wear their inspiration on their adorable little sleeves. They're based on popular games which are great in themselves, but can be a little hard to approach as a newcomer. Chibi Games take the fun elements of those games, distill them into a few simple modes of interaction, and retheme it with cute approachable art. Chibi Games use very few components, take up very

Following up on yesterday's post about balancing single-resource card games, here's an example of a game using the mechanic I described. The theme is silly, but I think it has enough of a unique spin to get attention of even the most jaded gamer. God Jobs Did you think Thor has always been god of thunder? Did Neptune rule the seas when he was just starting out? Nope, they had to ascend the corporate ladder, starting as mere gods of haircuts and sandwiches, before they could get to the big gigs. Now you can, too! This game uses poker cards to represent the menial domains of the lesser gods just starting their careers. Domains like Humidity, Farts, and Paperwork. Players invest followers to get new and better domains, eventually earning new followers in the long-term. Stuff You Need 1-4 Players A standard poker deck, including jokers. (Rank cards represent domains, face cards modify how many followers you earn from domains you already have.) A six-sided die A big suppl

Here's what I love about Lords of Waterdeep : After a few plays, I saw through the "Matrix" of the quests. You're spending cubes and coins, which have their own flat universal point value, in order to buy quests which typically have a far greater point value. The challenge was acquiring the right combination of cubes and coins. What I love is that the conversion rates are idiosyncratic enough to be interesting without being unpredictable. That said, I'm curious if such a game would work as well if there was only one resource: Points. Place an agent on a space: Gain x points. Completing quests then becomes a cold exchange of one small quantity of points for another larger quantity of points. Domesticate Owlbears Spend 3p. Reward : Gain 10p. Even if the game did work that way, it would be so dry. The different cubes and coins in Waterdeep are great because they're liquid and thematic. They can be spent and invested, while straight VPs cannot. The

Let's take a look at this preview art for Regime , the card game that expands on Suspense 's deduction mechanics and takes them in a slightly different direction. You are diplomats sent to a mysterious nation that has just opened its borders after a long seclusion. Being experienced diplomats, you know the public faces are just puppets and the true power brokers are somewhere behind the scenes. You and the other players try to deduce who is the true power behind the throne. I'm carrying on the high-contrast, brushy look that I proposed in this earlier post. These are 36 different characters, each of whom might be the true power behind the throne. Their names are just for flavor, which is why they're so small. The important bits are their suit, their title, and their rank. Each round, the dealer knows the secret victory condition: The card with (highest, lowest, most, or fewest) (suit or title) (in play or in hand) is the true power behind the throne. Whoever

This is another one of those just-literally-dreamed-it game ideas, so excuse any fuzziness in the specifics. The aesthetics of it is just intriguing to me as an abstract gamer and art major. De Stijl This is the art genre created by, and pretty much synonymous with, Dutch abstract expressionist Piet Mondrian. You've seen his art on all sorts of merchandise, I'm sure. Here's a game loosely inspired by that art style. Each card in the De Stijl deck is a 2x2 grid of five possible colors: Yellow, Red, Blue, Black, White. Each card is unique, so this creates a deck of 78 cards. Each player has a hand of three cards at all times. Each round, each player takes one turn. On your turn, play one card from your hand onto the table, trying to make the largest contiguous color. Whoever last added a cell to the largest contiguous group will win all those cards, while the other players score 1 point per cell in that group. In the example at the top of this post, the player

It's time for another monthly sales report! ( You can see past sales reports here. ) December 2013 was an odd month since no new product was released. I had planned on getting Koi Pond: Moon Village out, but it had to be delayed because of my freelance work load. My goal remains late January so I can kick off 2014 on a monthly schedule. But enough about the future, let's look at the past month! 12-2013 42x Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game +27 from Nov 10x Koi Pond: Four Walls (Promo Card 2) +2 from Nov 11x Koi Pond: Four Winds (Promo Card 1) +4 from Nov 4x Suspense: the Card Game -10 from Nov 12x Nine Lives Card Game -7 from Nov $822.98 Retail $305.98 Royalties Grand Totals for 2013 502 Products Sold $3,302.11  Retail $933.86 Royalties Earned Clearly Koi Pond was the big hit of the holiday season. Good thing the expansion will be coming soon to treat those new fans! Alas, Nine Lives dropped a bit and Suspense had a precipitous drop in sales. Not sure what

I played Troll's Dilemma with a small group of six players, using red and blue chips for the binary choice instead of heads/tails. We played two games, five rounds each, with the highest individual scorer being the winner. Some players employed the "honestly, always choose the same color" strategy while others randomized blindly, while still others went blindly random, and others kept a strategy of switching periodically. With this small of a group, it's hard to say whether any of our results will scale up. It seemed to some that random choice is only slightly worse than an actual conscious strategy. Scores were within five points of each other at the end of each game, but there was always a clear winner, even if they only won by 1 point. Some tweaks to consider: Formalize the discussion phase so it's a simple statement: "I choose red/blue." I think I'd go so far as to give each player a badge or card that they can visibly flip

I'm developing a Mononoke/Nausicaa-inspired game for a debut at UnPub4. (You've seen previous posts about this here , here , and here .) For now, I'm calling the game The River Ancient . Here's where it stands at the moment. Overview of Play Players are guardian spirits guiding their adopted culture towards a balanced and virtuous existence on an ever-changing river. At the start of the game, each player rolls four dice, each pip representing a village. On your turn, you can place your die on... A NODE, where the corners of the river-squares meet. This is a long-term bid to claim the virtues or powers offered by that card: Health , Peace , Love , or Work . Placing on a HILL gives you a +1 bonus. Placing on a Mountain gives you a +2 bonus. A RIVER SPIRIT, in the center of a river-square. There are four river spirits who will each bestow a special action upon your culture: Give a Virtue to another player, Steal a Virtue from another player, Change one of