Daniel Solis

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...

As part of my ongoing development of Koi Pond into a more retail-friendly product , I'm re-evaluating some of the long-standing comments about the Cats, Cranes, and Turtles. Over the years, players have said one of these animals are overpowered relative to the value of the Koi scoring baseline. The funny thing is that no one could agree on which animals were the ones that were overpowered. Was it the crane, which let players know precisely how well they'd score? Was it the Turtle, which fed off of competition for the ribbons? Was it the cat, which though unpredictable, was still strengthened by having a secretive opponent? No one could come to a consensus. That being the case, I let the issue rest on its own and the game has done very well regardless of this possible balance issue. At the time, I observed that games that have some wrinkles draw more of a community than games that are perfectly smooth. "This will just be Koi Pond's wrinkle," I thought. But...

I'm developing some variants for Koi Pond in an effort to make it a more viable retail publishing candidate. That includes more opportunities for components and as a result significant rules tweaks. I want to keep the spirit of the game intact, which makes this a significant challenge. First and foremost, I need a new way to handle the lake that works in round 1, but cuts down the analysis paralysis of selecting from a whole pile of face-up cards. Here's where I'm at right now. The New Deck My local development has been working with the full Chinese edition of the game, which includes the Moon Temple expansion. This lets me have a bit more freedom to mix up cards and set aside other cards as future chrome bits. The new main deck is comprised solely of Koi cards; no other animals. These include the 4-rank and 5-rank cards from Moon Temple as well as the rainbow 1-rank koi. This ends up being 80 koi cards, which is a little more than enough for a full game of fou...

Good news! I have a few more copies of the Chinese edition Koi Pond and Kigi direct from Joy Pie. Order ASAP if you want it at your doorstep before the holidays. These are the actual Chinese editions of both games and are normally unavailable in the US. I got a few complementary designer copies and now I'd like to send them to you! Find them at my Etsy store! Thanks!

Heyo! I'm selling the Japanese and Chinese editions of Kigi and Koi Pond on my Etsy store ! I'm also adding a few other games to the inventory as they become available. These are extremely rare and hard to find in the United States. The handful that I have in stock are the most you'll find anywhere in North America. Get them while you can! Backstory: I sometimes get complimentary copies of my games from publishers when the first print run comes out. Normally these just sit around collecting dust on my shelf, but last month I had to do an emergency replacement for my work computer. Let me tell you, it's expensive and is still hitting our budget hard this month. So I'm trying to make up for the expense a little bit and offer you something interesting in the deal. Hope you enjoy them!

JonGetsExcited is a brand new board game vlogger that is really good at energetically talking about board games in a single take. I can't tell you how hard that is to do. No ums, no vocal tics, it's so impressive. Of course I may be biased because he's so enthusiastic about Koi Pond and DriveThruCards. Check it out!

The Chinese edition of Koi Pond is going quite well. It will be published by Creative Tree and available in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. It will include the Moon Temple expansion and the two promo cards and somehow a big giant playmat is involved. They sent me a sample this week and wow this thing is huge. Are all playmats this big normally? It's pretty dang sweet and I look forward to seeing how this develops. If Koi Pond does well, it might break into a new model for me: Release affordable POD games in English for a domestic audience, then license translation rights to bigger publishers in south Asia and Europe. A bit premature for that kind of thinking, but still worth keeping in mind for the future. According to Creative Tree, the Chinese name of the game is is "JinLi." There is an old Chinese legend about the beautiful and courageous fish "JinLi" (or "koi"). If they jump over the Chinese Dragon Gate, they become real dragon...

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!

omg! My card game KOI POND will be translated and published in China by Joy Pie Game Club! Many thanks to Scott Underwood of the Jank Cast for bringing it to Shanghai. Extra special thanks to David Du for taking an interest in my little fishes. Look for more news to come. China is a huge potential market for tabletop games, so hopefully this will become kind of a big deal! :D

Wahoo! The first expansion for KOI POND is now available on DriveThruCards. Click here for KOI POND: MOON TEMPLE and expand your Koi Pond game to five players, plus some enhanced strategy with rainbow koi, shrines, and new characters. Check it out.

When I was developing the first Koi Pond expansion, I knew I would need some help with the new artwork. Fish are one thing, but this expansion introduced human characters, so I had to call in some help. So, Jared Axelrod just sent me his excellent Abbot , Monk , and Novice art for the Koi Pond expansion. Here we have a Novice, who may be placed in your house, pond, or river. Wherever the novice is placed, you score 1 point for each 1-koi card in that place, regardless of their suit. For example, if you have two 1-red cards, one 1-blue card, and a novice in your river, you will score 3 points. The Monk and Abbot are the same as the Novice, except they score points for 2-koi and 3-koi cards respectively. The other cards in the expansion are the Shrine , which may be placed in your river, house, or pond. It doubles the quantity of koi of that suit in that place. You've already seen me talk about the new 4- and 5-koi cards in a previous post . The rainbow koi are spe...

Just a quick update today to show off some of the new koi art for Koi Pond: Moon Village . These are the new koi cards featuring 4 and 5 koi on a card, to really boost those koi scores or ramp up competition for ribbons. They're a little rarer than standard 1s, 2s and 3s, so use them wisely.

Head's up, dealhunters! For 24 hours only Cyber Monday (10am EST Dec 2, 2013 – 10am EST Dec 3, 2013) both Koi Pond and Nine Lives are each 10% off! Koi Pond is a zen-like card game with subtle interactions and emergent tactics. It's great for players who like to get into a flow state while they play. It can also be surprisingly cut-throat, so don't get too complacent! Nine Lives is a much zippier, high-interaction, take-that set collection game. Players are each trying to rescue stray cats from a city alley and trying not to get scratched in the process. Collect majorities of breeds, collect rare breeds, and have the fewest scratches. This is a great game for the kids, too. Thanks very much for your support, everyone!

Heyo! While things are super busy over here, I thought you'd like to see the card list for Koi Pond: Moon Village, what's shaping up to be a very big expansion for the game. 4-Koi (2 each in Red, Yellow, Blue or White): These cards count as four koi in their color. 5-Koi (2 each in Red, Yellow, Blue or White): This cards count as five koi in their color. Rainbow Koi (4): These koi count as one of any color. Apprentice (4): Play into your pond, score 1 pt for each 1-koi your opponent has in their pond. Monk (4): Play into your pond, score 1 pt for each 2-koi your opponent has in their pond. Abbot (4): Play into your pond, score 1 pt for each 1-koi your opponent has in their pond. Shrine (1 each in Red, Yellow, Blue or White): Place in House, River or Pond to double the number of koi of that color in that space. Given the spiritual nature of these characters, I might need to call this expansion Moon Temple. We'll see. I feel weird having two "temple...

Good news! Koi Pond sold crazy well at Gen Con last weekend. Bad news: It sold out on day 2! Well, there is some hope if you missed out on the promo cards from the show. FOUR WINDS and FOUR WALLS are now available on DriveThruCards . Each costs just a buck, but with shipping it would be advantageous to order another full game along with these card. Might I recommend KOI POND ?

If you're going to Gen Con, you can find my card game KOI POND for sale at Booth 1201, where DriveThruRPG, White Wolf and Minion Games are sharing a space this year. Here's a map! If you can make it there early, you can grab a free promo card made just for the occasion: FOUR WINDS. This is the first in a series of one-card promo expansions that didn't quite make the cut into the basic game. I hear sometimes that Cats, Cranes and Turtles feel more valuable than koi, mainly because they're worth 1:1 for each koi, whereas building up your own koi collections require careful balance and planning, only to get 1 point for every two matched koi. With FOUR WINDS, you get the full value of each of your koi, but only in one specific suit. Do you pursue the bonus, making your strategy obvious, or do you play it coy? Visit the booth at Gen Con to pick up your card and find out!

I just finished putting together this tutorial video for how to play Koi Pond . Hope you dig it and makes everything sound fun! Once again, you can buy Koi Pond on DriveThruCards . And there's a really glowing review for the game on the most recent episode of Gamers with Jobs , starting at 13:05 : "Extremely elegant card game with a great art style. [...] Easy to teach. Absolutely gorgeous. It's not just that the artwork on the cards look cool, but the game space ends up taking on this artistic look. [...] It's intuitive, fluid community game. Highly recommended!" Aw, you guys! :D

It’s been about six months since I started this whole full-time game designer thing, with Koi Pond being in many ways the flagship project for this experiment. Koi Pond was designed, developed, and published all in the past half-year, thanks to the coincidental occurrence of several factors. Here’s how it all came to pass and my thoughts on where it might go in the future. This is a long post, so here are the takeaways right up front:     I worked fast, playtesting and revising rapidly.     I could make my own art, which greatly reduced initial expenses.     I still hired an editor and got lots of outside readers to review text.     Because I worked so minimally, even modest sales put me in the black.     I’m re-investing those earnings to future products.     POD (unpackaged) cards are still a new model, with a small audience.     The market may grow if POD games get re...

I'm back from Toronto! Lots of stuff to share, but first I'm updating the rulebook for Koi Pond on the DriveThruCards page. I've also sent along this message of thanks to those who have picked up the game so far. ----- Hello Koi Pond Players! First, thanks so much for picking up this first game from Smart Play Games. I hope you've had a chance to play and enjoy it with your friends and family. With luck and spirit, this will be the first of many clever little card games to be released on DriveThruCards. One of the great things about releasing games through DTC is that I can respond to your questions by updating the live rulebook. Version 1.3 answers two main questions that were left a little ambiguous in 1.2. Q: If multiple players have hybrids in their rivers, who decides their hybrids' suits first? A: This can be a tricky situation if an opponent has a turtle that could score from one of your hybrids, depending on which suit you decide. This is a som...

By popular request, here's a Koi Pond tuck box available for free download. It's sized to accommodate the complete basic Koi Pond deck, plus wiggle room for your card sleeves. Below are two PDFs. The first has the art and guides on one page. If you're feeling fancy, the second link has the art on one page on its own with the guides reversed on the second page, so you can print this PDF double-sided and have a nice clean finished product. » Tuck Box with Guides » Tuck Box with Guides on Other Side