Daniel Solis

Many thanks to theOneTar for recording my short talk at UnPub 5, which you can watch in the video above. I must admit I was a bit nervous about this talk since I was prepping A La Kart at the same time as I was prepping this presentation. I decided to err on the side of brevity, focusing on establishing a quick baseline of best practices for typography and graphic design. With that, I could then proceed to a direct Q&A so the time could be more useful for the mixed audience. Hopefully you find this useful!

A La Kart is ready for open playtests! A La Kart captures the fast-paced tactical fun of kart racing video games in a short strategy card game. Here's a quick description of the game and what I need from playtesters. The Game Players collect tasty power-ups, modify their engine, and win trophies across three courses of food-themed racing action. This playtest pack will have enough cards for 2-4 players. Each player has their own preconstructed deck of 12 cards, tailored to a unique play style. Sugar , Spice , Fish , and Chips will be in the first playtest pack. Sugar stays in the middle of the pack, letting other reckless racers hit hazards first so she can pick up what they drop. Spice doesn't mind those hazards, she's driving full throttle all the way to claim top trophies.  Fish is the planner, diving deep into a decision-tree to find exactly the right maneuver at the right time. Chips is the wrecker, sacrificing speed for maximum impact. Who needs ...

Just some idle thoughts about the overlaps between fandom and tabletop games. House Rules = Headcanon Both are individual interpretations for how the source material is meant to operate, without much support from the source material itself. Make-Your-Own Cards = Fan Fiction The blank cards and tiles that come with some games are an open invitation for you to play around in the same universe. Games with "Mandatory" Expansions = One True Pairing There are a few games I'll most enjoy if they include a particular expansion, like Traders & Builders in Carcassonne. (Or should that be "TradersxBuilders"?)

I ran into two situations in A La Kart playtests where player intuition conflicted with how the game actually worked. In one case, I'm flexing to that intuition and redesigning a mechanic to correspond to that instinct. In another case, I'm standing my ground and keeping the mechanic the same Case 1: All that junk in my trunk When you play a card in A La Kart, any of its immediate effects are resolved in ascending order of speed, then you claim rewards in descending order of speed. Once all this is done, you "install" this card into your "engine," which is a small tableau in front of you. Consider this something like the battlefield in Magic or Hearthstone. Cards in your engine may have ongoing effects or boost the power of future effects. For example, a card's immediate baseline effect might be that you will get a speed boost while claiming rewards this turn. As a bonus, if have other cards with a particular maneuver already in your engine, you...

One of the best lessons from UnPub 5 is how difficult it is to make negative point scoring feel right. Negative Point Scoring is pretty much what it sounds like: A mechanism in which players can lose points and possibly end up in negative range at the end of the game. Let me back up a bit to give you some background on A La Kart: Hazards in A La Kart Each turn, players make a blind bid of one card. The player who bids the highest "speed" number on their card (after various modifiers based on player-powers) wins the first available prize from the track. Bear in mind that the prize cards are set in the track randomly, so the first available prizes might actually be detrimental hazards. Originally, my system for scoring hazards was that the first didn't cost anything, but the second cost one point, and the third cost two. The fourth hazard began a new set, so it didn't cost you anything, but the fifth would cost another point and the sixth would cost another two...

Well, I'm back on Earth after attending UnPub 5. With record attendance and a huge new location, it's clearly a new era for the convention as a whole. I found it a rewarding, invigorating, and exhausting experience as always. There is no better place to be if you're a board game designer looking to put your game through the crucible of rapid-fire playtesting. Every single table was occupied throughout the weekend from what I could see. Many with lines of people waiting to playtest . If you've ever lamented the task of finding willing playtesters, UnPub is pretty much heaven. Of course, playtests are very much work for the designer. I've described the UnPub weekend as a rock tumbler, where rough games eventually get smoothed out, but not without some hard hits along the way. I had done some intensive development work with the local Game Designers of Carolina before UnPub so I felt more prepared, but there was still plenty of work to do. There is a lot to ...

Check out these cards and promo art for Nick Ferris' HEIR TO EUROPA, which will be up for playtesting at UnPub 5 this weekend in Baltimore. This is the first licensed game for Smart Play Games and a really exciting start to the year. I hope to see you at UnPub! Here's more about the game. In a distant future, psychic powers make warfare obsolete across Europa... Until the ruler of disappears, plunging the entire moon into a succession crisis. Psychic scheming meets courtly intrigue in this exciting new card game of prediction and influence. Players vie to become the power behind the throne, predicting who is next in line to become ruler of Europa and manipulating the court to make those predictions come true. At the start of the game, players predict how many coteries they'll win to their side. Each turn, you play one card from your hand, representing your soliciting help from a political ally. If that ally has a special ability and their faction is still loyal...