Daniel Solis

Howdy folks! Just a head's up that a ZEPPELIN ATTACK! from Evil Hat Productions is now available on Kickstarter! I'm glad to finally see it live in the wild. This is by far the most layered and details card design project I've had so far. There are several categories and sub-categories of information, all overlapping at times, further sub-divided into starter decks, and expansion decks. Whew! You can see a fuller overview of the cards on my portfolio site . I basically used every trick I knew to make sure all the information on each card was as easily accessible as possible. Color-coding, icons, textures, borders, typography, the whole bag of tricks to do the game justice. Christian St. Pierre did a kickass job with the original art, too. He set them up on transparent backgrounds, so I could have the freedom to do the cool overlapping effect that's popular in card games these days. Find out more about the game on the Kickstarter page !

There is big news from Evil Hat's Fate Kickstarter! The latest stretch goals include a new Do game built from the newly streamlined Fate Accelerated system. This is great news gamers out there who loved Do 's Avatar-meets-Little-Prince setting, but wanted a more character-focused style of play. This is also great news for the legions of Fate fans who haven't yet had a chance to explore the worlds of Do . In Do: Fate of the Flying Temple , the Flying Temple has mysteriously drifted away from its home in the center of the sky. It's up to the Pilgrims to explore the worlds of Do to uncover the mystery. Along the way, they must raise a young dragon left behind after the temple's disappearance. Pairing that approachable rule set with a family-friendly setting like Do feels like a perfect fit! If you want fresh new Do , go back the Kickstarter now and tell your friends!

The title pretty much says it all! I'm designing a deck of playing cards for Evil Hat's Fate system! Well, technically it'll only happen if the Fate Core Kickstarter reaches its stretch goal . What's so special about this 100-card deck? The back can be used as a handy-dandy Fate Point chip. The faces show one of 81 possible combinations of a 4dF roll. The faces also have colorful phrases to add even more flavor to your results. PLUS: We're still figuring out ways to layer in even more information on the face of each card for even more cool game potential. What you see above is all I've designed so far as a quick example. If you want to see the whole deck layed out, go back the Kickstarter now and put me to work!

Now that we've reached 100 backers, it's time to lift the curtain on something we've had in the works. When this project first kicked off, Evil Hat Productions (www.evilhat.com) offered to sponsor whatever amount we fell short of our fundraising goal by. Thanks to your enthusiastic generosity, that just wasn't necessary. But Evil Hat has stayed interested since that point, looking at ways we can work together to make sure Happy Birthday Robot reaches as many fans -- and kids -- as it possibly can. Today, I can confirm that with Evil Hat's help, Happy Birthday Robot's first printing will run over 500 copies, making it possible for the game to have a broader reach -- getting into game stores, schools, and libraries as well as direct to fans on the web. Once the book is released, copies will be available for purchase through Evil Hat and through Evil Hat's distribution partners (Indie Press Revolution, Alliance, Esdevium, and others). As far as branding go...