Daniel Solis

After playing Wolfgang Kramer's Top Race the other day, I'm thinking about racing games again. In Top Race, each card moves several colored cars through the track as far forward as possible. Because you're betting on the race results as well as controlling your own car, you're still invested in the outcome even if your car is trailing behind. Controlling opponent's cars is very valuable and fun way to stay engaged throughout the game, which is a common problem in racing games. I got to thinking about how to capture that same versatility and engagement with a card-driven racing game without the betting element. One way I thought about was using conditional positions instead of specific colors. For example, say I establish these key terms. You: A car or cars you control. Straggler: The car in last place. Leader: The car in first place. Chaser: The car in second-place. Follower: The car immediately behind your car. Pacer: The car immediately ahead of your ...

Unpub 6 is in just under a month! I'm bringing almost all of my self-published games to pitch and present, but here are 6 games I'd like to highlight in particular. You may have seen my last post on the subject of "sale sheets" or "summary sheets" , but I've since expanded this to a whole series of at-a-glance summaries for handing out to publishers. Curse You, Robin Hood! You’re a merchant of Sherwood Forest trying to get rich while dodging those thieving Merry Men. Get as much treasure as possible, but not so much that Robin Hood notices you as a target! Koi Pond A zenlike, fast-flowing card game. Collect colorful koi fish and keep your pond as balanced as possible. Monsoon Market In 1405, a Chinese emissary sails the Indian Ocean, reporting the quality of each market along the way. It’s time to get busy! Earn a reputation for accurate orders or rush off any old goods in bulk. It’s a race to earn the fastest fortune in the Monso...

Happy new year, everyone! It's been a long time since I've done a proper sales report, which probably foreshadows the transitions from 2015. I kicked off the year knowing that I couldn't repeat the same pace I held in 2014, releasing one new game or product each month via DriveThruCards' POD service. That wasn't sustainable for the long-term, but it really yielded great rewards and I'm glad I did it. Without further ado, let's look at the numbers and break down some context. The Numbers Here are the sales numbers for each product in 2015 (in red) compared to 2014 (in blue). The good news is that every product that existed in 2014 sold more units than it did in 2015! Across the board growth is very positive. These are the gross sales numbers for each product in 2015 compared to 2014. As you can see with some small low-priced products like the Koi Pond promo cards, the sales numbers far exceed their actual dollar gross. These numbers fluctuat...

( Photo Source : +Michael Harrison  ) The Game Designers of Carolina held a great UnPub Mini event at Atomic Empire last Saturday. This is the third year for an UnPub Mini at Atomic Empire , the second organized by GDoC, and it's grown each year. We had fifteen designers with full tables for nearly the entire event. ( Photo Source : Matt Wolfe) My plan for playtesting A La Kart was to run two concurrent two-player demos of Fish vs. Chips at the AutoBun and Sugar vs. Spice at the Sundae Speedway. I made significant edits to Fish's deck after March's extensive outside playtesting revealed how overpowered it was. I made some minor tweaks to the other decks as well, and kept track of win rates for each deck over the whole day. Sugar and Spice went back and forth a lot over the day, with minimal repeated final scores. That says to me a lot is riding on each player's decision and a little bit of luck, so I feel pretty good about where they stand now. He...

Thanks to all the playtesters who have joined in the March playtests for A La Kart so far! It's been wonderful seeing so many people take interest in this odd little idea for a card game series. I paid a visit to The Dice Section podcast headquarters last week to talk about how the playtests are going. You can listen to that episode here. We talked about classic video games, playtesting with a large community, and just general geekery. It was a blast! Also! This is just a reminder to sign up if you want to access the live rules doc, download print-and-play files, and join discussion about deck balance or card redesigns. Sign up today!

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 ...

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 ...

Just another little peek at the art I've commissioned for A La Kart. These sprites come from Fabio Fontes , whose pixel art you may recognize from Pixel Tactics. ( Now on kickstarter! ) I usually do not recommend getting art too early in game development, but in my case it helps to keep my design direction clearer. In this case I'm reminding myself to keep true to the Mario Kart inspiration: Approachable premise Simple mechanisms with fast interactions Variable terrain tactics Frequent opportunity for little victories  That's the goal! So far so good.

I'm really pleased to share the first look at the branding and concept art for A La Kart , the racing card game currently in development. The game is designed to be accessible, affordable, but with the customization options of a light CCG. It will be released as a series of 2-player duel decks starting with Sugar vs. Spice at Sundae Speedway . Check out the concept art of the first two racers from Kaitlynn Peavler and Kristina Stipetic !  The Sugar deck is for the defensive player. She's sweet on the surface but always just a few steps behind the leader of the pack, ready for an opportunity to take the finish line at the last second. She's got great recovery, but a low maximum speed. The Spice deck is for the speedster player. She's optimized for high-speed straightaways and reckless daredevil maneuvering. She's vulnerable to hazards, but her accelerates fast once she's recovered.

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...

Remember last month when I kicked out this quick idea for a racing auction game , but couldn't figure out a theme that really captured my interest? Well, like all breakthroughs, my wife came up with the best name EVAR. We've been playing a lot of Mario Kart Wii, and she suggested "A La Kart." The ideas started flooding in after that. It's basically a food-themed racing game, in the spirit of Sugar Rush from Wreck-It Ralph. This would be less focused on candy specifically though. Instead, each suit of the game represents a flavor: Sour, Spicy, Sour, Savory. (I may use Bitter as another thing, but for now I'm sticking with four S's.) I'd love to hire Miranda Dawn Yeo for the art. She drew the Sugar Rush avatar for my wife you see above. I think that art style would be a blast. The Basics A La Kart is a racing-themed auction game. There is no track board, though. Each racer is represented by a unique pawn (or maybe a card?) set in a row, ...

Here's a sort of auction, trick-taking, racing mechanic I've been mulling over the past couple days, in an attempt to make a racing game  Each player has two pawns representing their racers. They are placed in a line in a random starting order. Each player begins with a hand of five standard playing cards. The goal of play is to win the auction for leadership position. Whoever is in the leader position wins most points for the turn, but may be subject to unexpected hazards. HOW TO PLAY The leader begins by bidding an amount in the suit of her choice. She may play one or more cards as long as they're the same suit. In the example above, the yellow player bid 10 diamonds. Each player then takes turns counter-clockwise (like a racetrack) for an opportunity to bid a higher amount of the leader's chosen suit. If someone does establish a new high bid, then each player gets another opportunity to out-bid that high bid. This continues until no one wants to out-bid the...