Daniel Solis

A bunch of DriveThruCards titles are deeply discounted today! This sale is on top of the already deep discounts for my card games like Trickster: Starship and Koi Pond . These make great stocking stuffers and deliver within at most 2 weeks for most locations in the continential US. Plenty of time to wrap them up as a gift! Enjoy!

I've been told in the past that speed puzzle games don't really sell well, but I saw a lot of Dimension and Dr. Eureka being played at BGGcon, so surely there's some room for that category in the market. Here's a quick idea for a speed puzzle game: You have 16 discs featuring conceptual pairs on either side of each disc: cat/mouse, dry/wet, sun/moon, city/country, plus/minus etc. Flip a puzzle card. Two teammates must arrange the discs in the correct shape, with the correct sides visible, within the 30-sec time limit. In the example above, you'd score 1 point for for each disc in the correct position with the correct face visible. Then you swap out teammates La Boca style and tally individual points across several puzzles. It's a start, but the kind of component-based design I'm going to develop more often as I explore game ideas beyond the chrome ceiling .

Alrighty, time for some more long-form thoughts on how BGGcon went for me professionally. I spent most of my time approaching publishers with my prototypes or demoing my self-published games at the main hall with new friends. I had enlightening conversations with several very smart experienced members of the community, including Eric Lang and Kevin Wilson. I thought going into meetings having just finished a $99,000 kickstarter campaign would be a boost to my credibility, but more people came by talking about my blog, tweets, or my new youtube series. More than once some famous games person came by while I was pitching to a major publisher and say nice things about the game. It was pretty dang awesome. I got some sobering feedback about the current state of my portfolio, but hopeful advice about the future. Let's start with the sobering stuff first. The Chrome Ceiling There was one bit of advice that kept coming up as I worked through each presentation: My games are...

Hello! This post comes to you the day after BGGcon when I'm still bleary-eyed and recovering from a fast-paced four days of pitching and playtesting. It was a wonderful experience and I'm sure lots of folks will have much better documentation of the event than I do. Instead, I wanted to show you a snapshot of what it was like with such a critical mass of game designers in one place. Emerson Matsuuchi, Chris Rowlands, Adam S., Mark Streed, and I were hanging around the main hall on the last day. I pulled out a deck of cards and openly noodled a few different interactions I've had tumbling around. In particular, I had idea of being a merchant in Nottingham trying to earn wealth, but not so much that Robin Hood would steal your ill-gotten gains. Sort of the inverse scenario of Sheriff of Nottingham. Here's what we came up with after lots of playstorming and collaboration. I can't claim sole credit for this game, it was definitely a collaboration between all fiv...

It's time for another preview of the art coming up in Do: Fate of the Flying Temple, the new Fate-powered RPG set in the Do universe. Y ou saw Jacqui Davis' cover last time , so this time I wanted to show off Dionysia Jones' amazing work on the double-page spreads. Here was my art direction: The three pilgrims gather in the middle of ancient ruins to discuss what they will do now that the temple has disappeared. They agree that their mission of helping people in need should continue, regardless of the temple’s existence. It’s just the right thing to do. They agree to this new pledge with an all-together handshake as shown in the placeholder art. [1] In the distance, amidst the ruins, we might see the silhouette of the dragon observing this pledge intently. The dragon will be learning from the pilgrims while they go on their adventure, so they must set an example for what will potentially be a very powerful force in the universe to come. Still, each pilgrim approaches...

Hello folks! It's a new episode of Card At Work , my ongoing series of lessons on graphic design in tabletop games, particularly cards. This episode introduces the basics of using DataMerge to create prototype cards. This lesson covers how to make simple resource cards like you might find in a euro strategy game such as Settlers of Catan. Please like, share, and subscribe! Support further episodes at http://www.patreon.com/danielsolis Thank you!

Whoa. That's all I can say for how amazing the Kodama: the Tree Spirits campaign has been the past 30 days. Hard to believe what began as this weird little idea a few years ago has grown so big. As of this post, we're just over $90,000 and 3000 backers with 14 hours left. This is by far the most successful project I've been a part of and a wonderful way to close out the year. If you haven't backed yet, please do so! And tell your friends! Thank you!

Here's a quick idea for a little tavern-style card game where everyone has a hand of cards, but one of which is moving around secretly from hand to hand. I imagined it as a stowaway on a boat sneaking around trying not to get caught. --- The Stowaway A tavern-style card game for large groups, from 5-10 players. You’re the crew of a pirate ship hiding an innocent stowaway. The Stowaway sneaks from one dark corner of the ship to the next, trying to avoid being caught by the cruel Captain. Eventually the crew will have no choice but to point out where they think is currently harboring the Stowaway. Setup: From a standard deck of cards, gather two cards per player, minus one. Take the joker and add it to these cards. The Joker is called the Stowaway. Shuffle the cards (including the Stowaway) and deal two cards to each player’s hand. If you ever hold the Stowaway, you’re called an Accomplice. Gameplay: Each player simultaneously and secretly passes a card to the p...

W. Eric Martin had a very, very good interview with legendary game designer Reiner Knizia. You can watch the entirety of it above or at the original BoardGameGeek post. I pulled out a handful of quotes that I thought were relevant for designers at all levels of their career. On understanding the production side of things: "If you’re going to do good game design, you must understand a lot of things. What can be afforded, what can be put in, how quickly can you do it if you work to a deadline." On global licensing: "Once you have put in a lot of energy into creating an IP, creating a game, it is most natural to not only market it in one market, but to market it worldwide." On starting with small publishers: "Getting your first game published is always a very wide step. I was lucky that I went with small publishers. If you go with small publishers, they take you seriously and you learn from them. A small publisher cannot afford a flop." On ...

I'm going to BoardGameGeekcon for the first time this year and I'm a little nervous! I'm pitching games in a more formal context than I've ever done before. Until now, I've sold three US card games and several international licenses without going through the usual face-to-face pitches and meetings. But it's time to step up a little and do more legwork. Part of that is making a sale sheet for the games I intend to pitch. Usually sale sheets are sent from a publisher to a distributor as a promotion to get the products out to retailers. In this case, my sheets are one step before that process, going from designer to publisher. Different demands in that case. I followed advice from Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim back in this post from five years ago . I also looked at the Akrotiri sale sheet posted a year later, since I'm a big fan of how that game ended up. As Jay and Sen recommend, I'll be bringing this sheet and others along with me as a quick pi...