Daniel Solis

(Photo: Alex Boerner) Sayaka Matsuoka from Indy Week did a special article on the tabletop game community in the Triangle area. She interviewed local game designers, store owners, and players! Check it out!

Woot! BoardGameGeek just posted Branching Out from Kigi to Kodama, my designer diary outlining the history of how Kigi 's international licenses eventually led to domestic development for Kodama: the Tree Spirits . Check it out!

I'm so honored to see Rodney Smith teach how to play Kodama: the Tree Spirits . He really sets the standard for all other video tutorials for clarity, brevity, and thoroughness. Check out the video embedded above to see Rodney teach the game far better than I could. :D

Action Phase is at GAMA this year promoting their line of really cool games, including my own Kodama: the Tree Spirits ! Check out the recorded Livestream at the link above or click here . Starting at 1:56:55, you can watch Nick Little and Eric Martin from BoardGameGeek talk about the history of the game's development and design. It's really cool! You can pre-order the base game from Action Phase directly here or the deluxe edition here . As an added bonus, you can see them enthusiastically discussing Trickster right after that demo!

The mailing address surveys just went out to Kodama: the Tree Spirits backers! Check your filters and respond ASAP. Eeee!

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...

I was very lucky to sit down with Beth from BoardGameGeek at the Action Phase BGG.con booth to do an overview of Kodama: the Tree Spirits . Action Phase says Kodama was a very popular demo at the show with a lot of customer and retailer interest. You can still pre-order Kodama: the Tree Spirits at the Action Phase Games website here. On a personal note, I've seen so many of these convention overviews on the BGG youtube channel that it's a little surreal seeing myself on one. I was a little nervous, which you can probably tell, but hopefully it's a clear enough overview of how the game plays. I'm really looking forward to seeing Kodama hit many game tables soon.

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!

Kodama: the Tree Spirits is now live on Kickstarter! In this game, you and the other players are caretakers of the forest and its inhabitants. You must grow a tree as a new home for Kodama, the tree spirits. Each Kodama has its own preferences, so you'll have to grow carefully and select the right adornments to get it just right! I'm so pleased with how much Action Phase Games has put into this project already. Watch the video below for an overview: Here's the rulebook or watch the tutorial below for how to play: To find out more about how Action Phase and I developed a new game based on Kigi, check out this designer diary on BoardGameGeek . And, of course, back the project to get your copy! US shipping is free and it's EU-friendly! Thanks so much for your support! 🌱

Hello! I'm Daniel Solis, the designer of Kodama: the Tree Spirits , but really it's been a team effort with strong direction and development from Travis R. Chance and Nick Little at Action Phase Games . This is a brief history of how the game came to be. Early Days Kodama: the Tree Spirits began as another game I self-published called Kigi , released as a print-on-demand game in late 2014. Since then, it's licensed and translated in Japan, China, Poland, and Germany. It's a pretty big hit by any measure of POD success. Action Phase Games approached me several months later with a clear enthusiasm for the core mechanics of the game. They had just as much enthusiasm for developing and overhauling everything else about the game, too. I was cautious at first. "After all," I thought, " Kigi is such a hit everywhere else until now, why change things?" Well, a day or two later, Travis R. Chance and Nick Little came back to me having already pla...