Daniel Solis

The ENnie Award nominees and judge spotlights were announced today, which is why I can finally reveal to you the medal design I did! A few months ago, Campaign Coins came to me with the opportunity to design the medal to be used in the ENnie Awards for the next five years. It had to be an evergreen design that still highlighted the awards' roots in RPGs. I hope you dig it!

They're here! Finally! Trickster is a fun pub/strategy card game that's easy to learn and quick to play for 3-7 players! Each set of Trickster cards is a standalone game featuring seven heroes from a different genre or unique setting. You can mix up heroes from different sets to customize the game for your group! Trickster: Fantasy features a Knight, Bard, Mage, and other familiar fantasy heroes. It's a good introductory set for new players, with simple effects th at sync together for a lot of fun light strategy. You can get it here: http://www.drivethrucards.com/product/148126/Trickster-Fantasy?src=newest Trickster: Tianxia features Wuxia-inspired heroes from Vigilance Press' role-playing game. It's a fast, highly competitive take on Trickster's gameplay. Good for players comfortable with a little "take that" in their game night. You can get it here: http://www.drivethrucards.com/prod…/151157/Trickster-Tianxia ...

Last week Paul Dean published a really interesting article for Rock Paper Shotgun about board game publishers, Tabletop Simulator mods, and copyright. He asked for comment from several smart people in the board game industry, and also me for some reason. Go check it out then come back here. When Paul interviewed me for his article, I admit that Tabletop Simulator wasn't really on my radar. I found the Steam interface rather opaque, so I never really explored that marketplace much. I knew Tabletop Simulator was out there, though, and this was as good a time as any to finally deep a toe into that pool. As you might have seen from my rather permissive stance in the matter, I see TTS modding as something similar to print-on-demand. Both are emerging technologies with creators trying to get  tabletop games out faster and more affordably. Both are still very niche media channels, too, so I feel a bit of kinship there. After having been approached by many digital app studios th...

I just ordered Trickster: Fantasy and Trickster: Tianxia proofs this weekend, so if all goes well I'll have both games ready to launch around July 1. For now, I have a BoardGameGeek page up for Trickster: Fantasy . If you've played the prototype print-and-play, I would very much appreciate your rating there!

At the last Game Designers of Carolina meetup, four of us (Burke Drew, Mark McGee, and Josh Mills) went aside and playstormed a few different ideas using cards with only numbers and colors. One was this oddball little social game that I'd like to explore further. Each Round Setup Four players were each randomly and secretly assigned Red or Blue team. We had deck of cards with 13 red cards and 13 blue cards, each numbered 1-13. We were each dealt a hand of five cards, with the remainder set aside from the game. Each round began with a trading phase, which was divided into turns. During each of these turns, players negotiated openly and said whatever they liked about their team allegiance or what cards they wanted. Trading Phase Turn 1: Each player traded one card from their hand with their neighbor. Turn 2: Each player traded one card from their hand with the player diagonally across from them. Turn 3: Each player traded one card from their hand with the player facin...

JoyPie was kind enough to send me some photos from a public event where they were promoting their games, including the Chinese edition of Kigi . Check 'em out! I'll never get tired of seeing my games played on the other side of the world. :D

Great news! My new card game Trickster is just about ready to go live later this month. Until then, you can find the live google doc of the rules and print-and-play files here . Good and generous friend Ruth Boyack will also be floating around Origins 2015 this week, where she'll have my prototypes on-hand to teach and play. Thanks, Ruth! Now I have to think about release schedules. Each Trickster set is meant to be a standalone game, with its own set of thematically related characters. If you have several decks, you can take characters from different decks and mix them together. I still intend to self-publish on DriveThruCards, as I have done with several of my other card games. POD has a lot of strengths, like immediate release and minimal overhead. But the biggest setback is the cost of shipping. It's a big sticker shock, especially overseas, so anything I can do to encourage impulse bulk orders is good. This is why most of my products are under $9.99 and wh...

For the past few weeks, Planet Money has been running a fascinating series of reports about the history of machines taking over human jobs, starting with the original Luddites who rose up in the 1700s when textile factories switched to mechanical devices. It was like a Georgian-era Detroit, as middle-class workers were suddenly displaced en masse. Planet Money closed out the series with a debate about whether this time was different . Would the next generation find new jobs after the current phase of contraction? They pointed to the last few cycles of recession and recovery, in which the economy recovered with fewer jobs available than before. It was a really interesting series, and I encourage you to listen to the whole thing. That got me thinking about the extreme conclusion of this trend: What do we do when billions of displaced workers with nothing to do, families to feed, and an economic system that hasn't caught up with a post-employment era of human civilization. Th...

It's been a long time since I talked about Princess Bride: As You Wish , but I'm happy to say it's finally coming to stores. Ask your local game retailer to carry it! More info from the publisher here . And below are some photos of the cards: In As You Wish , you're remixing scenes from the story to suit one of the ten characters. Each round, one player has a hand of cards, each with their own scene and a bit of game information. She puts them all down on the table, but keeps some face-down. Each player takes a card and adds it to their tableau. The dealer drafts last, but gets to keep two cards in her tableau. When any player takes a face-down card, she must reveal it as soon as it enters her tableau. If you ever have too many skulls in your tableau, you must turn over those cards face-down, where they won't score points! Each character has their own desires for their story. Buttercup seeks Love and Glory, Westley seeks Love and Fights. Whoever your ...