Daniel Solis

Here's a quick overview of the game I'm tinkering with for UnPub4. This could technically be my first board game that could use an actual board! The game focuses on one small valley over the course of several generations, as tribal populations wax and wane, trying to keep a sustainable balance with the local ecosystem. The board is comprised of a 3x3 grid representing a misty valley. In each cell is two randomly drawn cards, one on top of the other. The bottom card is face-down and represents a conditional effect, sort of like "terrain" of the valley. The top card is the actual resource up for bids in an auction. To start the round, each player rolls 3 standard dice. This represents the population of your particular tribe this generation. The lowest total population takes the first turn. On your turn, place one die on a vertex of the grid. You cannot place a die on an occupied vertex. Certain faces have certain abilities based on the reputations you...

In 1324, Musa I, the king of Mali , set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Unfortunately, the Mali empire left behind few written records, but we do have the eyewitness accounts of Musa's extravagant procession of 60,000 people and animals. All carried large quantities of gold bars and gold dust that were given to the poor along the way. In fact, Mansa Musa singlehandedly depressed the value of gold across the Mediterranean for decades after his pilgrimage (and supposedly inadvertently helped fund the Italian Renaissance). I've been fascinated with this story mainly from a science-fiction perspective. I'm reading Iain M. Banks' Culture novels which mostly concern an interplanetary post-scarcity utopia. It's kind of like if Star Trek's Federation, the Borg and Kahn all teamed up to make the universe a happier, more peaceful place. I'm mostly interested in seeing how citizens of the Culture value their time and possessions when neither are in scarce supply. ...

I've been playing Seasons a lot lately on Board Game Arena. Gosh, I am terrible at it. Not sure what it is, but I've been finding it a really difficult game to wrap a strategy around. Oh well, at least it's introduced me to some interesting rondel mechanics I'd like to explore further. Rondel mechanics and card drafting seem to be all the rage in game design this year. Here's a loose idea for a game that adds area control to the mix. Players are asteroid miners laying claim to 54 big rocks orbiting the central planets of the solar system. The big rocks are code-named according to the cards in a standard deck. 2Club, JackDiamond, Joker-1, etc. Your goal is to lay claim to the asteroids and earn the best profit after three years. This board represents is an asteroid belt. The center rondel rotates one increment per round, highlighting six distinct regions of the asteroid belt at any one time. (Note the wavy, dotted and solid lines.) I think the Rondel will a...

Folks ask me all the time where I get game ideas, whether it's mechanics first or theme first. Sometimes it's a little of both, as we'll see here. One of my favorite recent mechanics comes from Doug Bass' Garden Dice . In that game you roll four dice to plant crops on a 6x6 gridded plot of land. The dice tell you the coordinates of where you may plant. You can do other actions based on the remaining two dice results. Choosing which dice to use in which capacity is a big part of the long-term strategy. So I spent yesterday thinking a few ways to use this basic skeleton for other purposes, the first of which is a dice-based resource acquisition game. This begins without a theme, but in exploring the mechanics, we start to see how a theme naturally emerges. Play centers on a 6x6 grid from which you can acquire resources: A, B, C, D, E, and F. The intersections of each row and column show combinations of two resources and double-resources along the diagonal from to...

It's Thanksgiving week in the states! A time for plenty and gratitude for food, friends and games! Alas, most board games take up a lot of space on the table, leaving little room for the bountiful meals. Here's a racing auction mashup that should only take up a narrow sliver of space in the middle of your table. The theme is that you're racing along a store aisle on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Taking time to gather the best combinations of gifts can score big points, but reaching the finish line can double or triple that score! You'll need 2-4 players A unique meeple for each player. 5 sets of uniquely colored chips, 15 chips in each set. The boards and cards in this PDF. Each player gets a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 card, as shown above. Setup Place the meeples at the start of the track. Place a stack of randomly drawn chips beside each space of the track. Each stack should have one more chip than the number of players. Play Each tur...

Clops are one-eyed creatures with lots of personality. You're going to move them around and collect groups with matching faces. Score points by collecting lots of Clops! Score bonus points by collecting Clops with the same likes! Clops have three main characteristics: Shapes, Faces, and Likes. First, Clops come in three shapes, either circles, squares or triangles. Second, Clops have five faces: Angry (Red), Worried (White), Serious (Blue), Bleeeh! (Green) and Happy (Yellow). And lastly, Clops have five likes: Sunshine, Apples, the Moon, Stars, and Books. » Development Status: Beta, Dormant » Illustrations: Kari Fry Stuff You Need A supply of 90 Clop Tiles [These designs are very beta.] 2-4 Players Set Up Arrange a grid of 8x8 tiles, randomly drawn from the supply. Make sure they're all rotated in the same direction. Click to enlarge How to Play Each player takes turns, starting with the youngest player. 1) Swap two Clops On your turn, choose two Clops...

Utara is a dice game that makes a game board from any surface on earth. The game's theme calls to mind constellations and stellar navigation. I imagine it being played by wanderers and sailors with uncanny senses of direction. » Development Status: Open Beta. » Inspired by Jorinapeka by Tony Pa. » Developed from this prototype . » Special thanks to Joe Mucchiello for suggesting use of cardinal directions. » Image: " Fishing Boat " CC-BY-NC-SA by Austin King » Utara (उत्तर) is Malay for "North." » Russian Translation: Утара — настольная игра Stuff You Need Two or more players. This is a great game for a group of friends sitting on the living room floor. Special dice. Each face says either North, East, South, or West. The fifth face has a Sun and the sixth face is Moon. You can use any number of dice to play, but you should use at least ten dice per player. More dice will allow higher scores, possibly longer games and require more space to pl...

Each player has a bridal party trying to get their bride to the chapel. The bridal party clears a safe path for the bride to travel. The first bride to make it to her chapel wins! This is a casual strategy game for couples. It's inspired by flower girls spreading petals for a bride to walk on as she approaches the altar. I hope you enjoy it with your special someone. Stuff You need • 2 or 4 players. • A chess board. • Each player needs five pawns. These are called Maids. • Each player needs a queen. This is called the Bride. Setup For a two-player game, arrange the pieces as shown above. In a four-player game, place the extra couple's pieces in the remaining corners. How to Play Each player takes turns moving one of their pieces. Each piece has special types of movement, but there are some common restrictions. A piece may not pass through any other pieces or land on an occupied space. There are no "captures." Maids move like chess rooks. That is, hor...

Pebble Rebel is a strategy game for two players. Each player has different goals and different ways of playing, but still get in each other's way. » Thanks to Pete Figtree for coming up with the title! » Original art source: Memo Angeles , Black Rhino Illustration and ensiferum Setup You need four sets of colored stones, fifteen stones in each set. Keep these stones in a bag or bowl nearby. The game board is a 6x6 grid. Arrange twelve stones on the board as shown below. Turn Order Two players take turns. One player is called Pebble. The other player is called Rebel. Pebble takes the first turn. The Pebble On her turn, she may move a stone on the board in straight horizontal or vertical lines as many times as she wishes to until the stone reaches its final destination. She may not pass through any occupied spaces along the way. Diagonal movement is also not allowed. In the example above, Pebble moves the black stone down, then left. She is trying to build a line...

Pip•Pip is a strategic board game of conversion and compromise. It is inspired in equal parts by Sudoku and Triple Triad. The game usually comes down to the wire, with the winner achieving victory by the skin of his teeth. I hope you enjoy it! Setup There are two players, both with a handful of six-sided dice. One player has light dice, the other has dark dice. Determine randomly who goes first. Play On your turn, roll a die and place it on a space within a 4×4 grid in the middle of a chessboard, making sure that the result you rolled is still facing up as you put it in place. Also make sure that the die is squared with the grid of the chess board, not diagonal or anything crazy like that. The Store After you roll, if you don’t like the result, you can set that die aside and keep it in your store. Then you roll another die and place it on the board or put that one in your store too. You may only keep up to three dice in your store in this manner. When you have dice in y...

I designed Embargo in 2006, inspired by a two-player kind of Chinese Checkers called Halma. The rules below are from an adaptation you can play online at ItsYourTurn.com . For simplicity's sake, this is a two-player version. You can play with up to four players, too, each player taking control of one of the four corners. You can play this on a regular chess board with generic tokens moving along the lines and vertices of the grid. Object: The object of Embargo is similar to Chinese Checkers: move all your pieces from your "yard" (the spots where your pieces start) to your opponent's "yard". Your yard is the light-colored section of the board where your pieces are initially placed. Setup: The pieces are initially set up on opposite corners on a 9x9 board. The screen shot below shows the starting position for Embargo: Movement: Pieces move along straight lines for any number of empty spaces, like chess rooks. Pieces cannot move through Wa...