Daniel Solis

Less than a day left to jump in on the Pod-X kickstarter! Check out the links here for the PnP preview, the rules, and a play overview. Appreciate your support!

Button Shy's been teasing the release of POD-X, coming to Kickstarter in July 5 through July 16, 2016. It's their 3-4 player adaptation of my microgame Suspense, using the original "Escape the spaceship" theme I had waaaay back at UnPub 3. I'm super excited to see how it turns out. Hope you dig it too! In Pod-X, players are trying to escape a fallen spaceship on the last escape pod. One player knows its  location, but is keeping it secret to themselves. What a jerk! All the other players are trying to deduce and bluff their way to the secret location in this quick parlor-style card game. Fair warning though, this is basically the Dark Souls of deduction microgames. It rewards repeated play and familiarity with the card deck. We hope you'll play again and again, developing your own mini-meta within your group. Look for POD-X next month!

It's crazy busy here at Smart Play Games HQ, so I only have a few bullet points before I head back to the quarry. :) Until midnight tonight, Belle of the Ball is available on MinatureMarket.com for just $10! Next month, I'll be releasing a version of Suspense on DriveThruCards featuring the art from the Brazilian FunBox edition. The Chinese edition of Kigi from Joy Pie is 381% funded so far! Trickster is almost ready to go to print, I just need your eyes on the rules doc one more time to find any errors. Please leave comments in the doc. Thank you!

A few months ago, Brazilian publisher Funbox Jogos licensed Light Rail as Metrocity and Suspense as Emboscada . They had a Black Friday sale to launch both products and it's safe to call them both a smash hit. Within 24 hours, nearly a fifth of both print runs were sold out! That's a hell of a start for any product launch. Check out these preview videos for Metrocity and Emboscada (Portuguese).

Edo Reviews' presents his first guest reviewer, Derek Guder! Derek says some very nice things about Suspense: the Card Game ! Just in time for the release of the second edition! Woot!

Hey all, just wanted to give you a head's up that a second edition of Suspense will be coming next week as a part of the DriveThruCards Halloween promotion. Can you believe it's been a year since Suspense first came out? What's new in the second edition: Slightly different card size: euro poker instead of US poker. I've also updated the rules cards to follow the standard formatting of my more recent games. This includes rules for 4-6 players, which you can see a preview of below. VARIANT: 4-6 Players Setup: While setting up a round, shuffle cards from an extra deck of Suspense cards depending on the number of players. 4: Black 1 and 6. Red 1 and 6. 5: Black 1, 2, 5, and 6. Red 1, 2, 5, and 6. 6: Black 1–6. Red 1–6. END OF ROUND: The sum of numbers in play that triggers the end of the round depends on the number of players. 4: 27 5: 33 6: 40 SCORING: If multiple players win a round, all score points noted on their winning cards. END OF GAME: Continu...

I've got two big pieces of news for Suspense fans and fans-to-be! EMBOSCADA or " Ambush " is the Portuguese language edition of Suspense, just signed to Funbox Jogos. They're the fine publishers who also just picked up Light Rail! In the rethemed game, players are trying to deduce the secret weakness of a hidden medieval army. Suspense: Second Edition For production reasons, I'm resizing the standard size poker cards of Suspense to Euro poker size (2.48" x 3.4"). Looking back over those old production files, I realize how many improvements I've figured out in presenting rules and gameplay on cards. So I'm taking this opportunity to rebrand Suspense with a new edition. The game is mostly the same, I'm just making the rules easier to understand and cards easier to read. Hope you dig it. :)

Just because I can't make it to Origins doesn't mean you can't get a great deal on my card games ! Until June 15, I've slashed prices on all my card games, up to 25% off ! If you've been holding out to pick up any of my games, now is the time! Come and get 'em!

Hayato Kisaragi and Seiji Kanai released an interesting experiment in card game publishing last year called Lost Legacy . The game itself is what you might expect from Kanai, the designer of the hit microgame Love Letter . Lost Legacy is a 2-4 player deduction game designed around a deck of sixteen cards, with some slight twists in the endgame that set it apart from Love Letter . Where Love Letter is a standalone game, Lost Legacy is designed with expansions in mind. Each expansion has its own set of sixteen cards which means they can be played as their own game. You can also combine the base game with expansions under certain rules, ultimately making your own custom sixteen card deck to play. In essence, Kisaragi and Kanai have combined the wildly successful "microgame" format with the commercial appeal of Fantasy Flight's "Living Card Game" format. Each set remains a fun and affordable standalone game for casual players, while die hard fans and complet...

Hooray! I'm very happy to announce SUSPENSE: The Card Game is for sale on DriveThruCards ! It's a tiny game for big brains, full of fast deduction and bluffing. You'll be shocked at how much fun you can get from just thirteen cards. There is a secret victory condition each round. Sometimes you want the lowest number in play, sometimes you want the highest number in hand... there are thirteen unique victory conditions in total, but only one is the actual condition for a round. Fortunately, you have some clues in your hand to help your process of elimination. Because one unique condition is noted on each card, you can look at your own hand to deduce what the condition is not . Your goal is to figure out the victory condition and also trying to meet it. There is a twist: If you're the dealer, you know the secret victory condition! Don't get too cocky, the other players will closely watch your choices for clues! Then again, you could try th...

I'm really trying to get this tiny little deduction bluffing game ready for a late October release on DriveThruCards. In November, I plan to release Nine Lives. In December, Koi Pond: Moon Village. But for now, here's a preview of the spoooOOooooky Suspense cards! This is the "cover" card on the top of the deck.             The deck will also include rules cards. I was debating whether to include them in the deck, since it slightly reduces my profits and makes the game more vulnerable to errata. In the end, I compromised by also including a link to this site for up-to-date rules and FAQs.

The wait is over! After a long period of private playtesting and development (basically since PAX East), here's the next prototype for Suspense: The Card Game . You can download the PDF from the following link: SUSPENSE: THE CARD GAME [PROTOTYPE F] This is my 13-card brain-burning deduction game where you're trying to figure out the secret victory condition while also trying to meet it. Trade information, bluff your way out of a jam, and overcome the fickle whims of fate! This little game has gone through many revisions and rethemes over the past few months, but I'm pretty settled on this silly B-movie motif. I hope you dig it, too. I had a lot of fun coming up with those classic era movie taglines. With just 13 cards, plus a few reference cards, this is a perfect back-pocket game to bring out while you're waiting in line at a convention. Give it a shot and tell me what you think!

While I was at PAX East, I playtested three other prototypes currently in various stages of development. Princess Bride Drafting Game has been long in development, but finally hitting a breakthrough now that it has departed from strictly simulating the Battle of Wits. It's now a drafting game in which players bid for milestones and landmarks to complete their personal quests while also trying to bluff their opponents into drinking poison. It's a drafting game where you're not just bidding for resources, but also turn order on the next draft and how many resources you'll get to draw. Most feedback was positive and I hope to formalize this prototype into something more pitchable soon. Retheme the cards slightly so that there are more main character options, including the villains of the story. Make the secondary characters in the deck landmark locations. Give the main characters unique abilities, like The Man in Black's immunity to poison, or Fizzik's gr...

UPDATE: Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game is now available on DriveThruCards! Chris Norwood was kind enough to play prototypes of Suspense: the Card Game and Koi Pond Card Game and include previews on his most recent podcast ep . He also spends some time talking about the Unpub Mini event I ran two weeks ago. Suspense gets previewed at 10:03 The Unpub section is explained at 32:39 36:14     - Roman Conquest 39:22     - Duck Blind 41:57     - Dorobo 41:57     - Acute Care Koi Pond ( nee Coy Pond) gets mentioned at 45:26 Give it a listen!

I was fortunate enough to play Suspense a few more times with southern gentleman gamer Jonathan Bolding . Together we brainstormed a handful of new exclamation cards to add to the basic Suspense deck for further replay value. In the base game, you just shuffle the whole deck and deal it out to each player until only the thirteenth card is left as the secret card. Out of the thirteen cards, only one isn't a number: the exclamation, which currently says "Lowest Sum of Numbers in Play." With some simple permutations, we came up with a bunch of different exclamation cards. Lowest Sum of Numbers in Play Lowest Sum of Numbers in Hand Highest Sum of Numbers in Play Highest Sum of Numbers in Hand Lowest Black Sum of Numbers in Play Lowest Black Sum of Numbers in Hand Highest Black Sum of Numbers in Play Highest Black Sum of Numbers in Hand Lowest White Sum of Numbers in Play Lowest White Sum of Numbers in Hand Highest White Sum of Numbers in Play Highest White S...

2–3 Players • Ages 10+ • 10–15 Minutes Prototype D » Download Rules PDF » Download Print-and-Play Cards SUSPENSE: THE CARD GAME is a contest of wits, deduction, and cunning!  The deck has six white numbered cards 1–6, six black numbered cards 1–6, and one "!" card which is considered a zero. Each card also displays a unique victory condition. The game is played in a series of matches . Each match is comprised of a series of turns . In the first match, the youngest player is the dealer. To start each match, the dealer shuffles the cards and evenly deals them out to the players face-down. Players keep cards in hand hidden from other players. Dealing the cards evenly should leave behind one extra card. The dealer places this secret card face-down in the middle of the play area. DEALER’S PRIVILEGE Only the dealer may look at the secret card. HOW TO PLAY Each player takes turns, starting with the dealer, clockwise around the play area. On your first turn of a ...

One of the things that came to stark relief after UnPub3 is how much the designer being present at a playtest can influence reactions to that game. It's a mixed blessing. The immediacy of your feedback is great for rapid prototyping, but it's hard to decouple the feedback to your game from your presentation of the game. Take for example the Alien-themed deduction game I posted about last week. I brought it in my back pocket as an unofficial side project to Belle of the Ball. If I saw people milling around and I had a couple minutes between tests, I would ask "Hey, want to play a 5min game?" They'd say "sure" and quickly draw a crowd. In a hushed voice, I start the magic trick. "You're trapped on a derelict space ship with a hostile alien entity. Only one of these items will let you escape. You're trying to figure out which it will be." I shuffle the deck and continue. "There are only 13 cards in this deck. There is a wh...