Daniel Solis

( 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...

Monsoon Market at UnPub Mini at Atomic Empire was great! Matt and Marcy Wolfe organized it way better than I did last year. (They had a raffle!) There were at least double the designers and double the playtesters. I had about a dozen individual playtesters across ten playtests. It really helps to have a short game at UnPub. Players get a tantalizing taste of gameplay and sometimes want to play a second or third time. That was really good data. Some changes I made based on feedback, which I still need to finalize and clean up with further testing tonight. Make points lower and rounder: In the first few tests, winning scores were in the high 70s. No one wants to do an arithmetic test after a light strategy game, so I'm cutting those down to the high 20s. No Bonuses...: Bonuses work best in slightly longer engine-building games. Because this game can end in as few as five rounds, there wasn't much time to actually score anything for bonuses. ...Only Actions: ...

(Photo: Playtesting Monsoon Market with Alec Nelson, Jon Bolding, and Joanna Bolding) Monsoon Market will be at the upcoming UnPub Mini at Atomic Empire in Durham, NC! I've got the core mechanics pretty much ready to go for the event, I just really need some play-hours to refine the point values and distributions. The basic gameplay is pretty familiar to most trading game fans. You've got several types of goods in your display (your tableau) and in your storage (your hand). There is a central lane of three Order cards, representing boats who have come to port to fulfill orders. There is a central market tableau of goods cards, too. On your turn, you can: Trade any goods cards from your display for an equal number of cards from an opponent's display. Steal one goods card from an opponent's display.* Buy goods cards from the central market. Discard a goods card. Its rank is the number of cards you can take from the market.* Fulfill orders and take Orde...

UPDATE: Koi Pond: A Coy Card Game is now available on DriveThruCards! Chris Norwood was kind enough to play prototypes of Suspense: the Card Game and Koi Pond Card Game and include previews on his most recent podcast ep . He also spends some time talking about the Unpub Mini event I ran two weeks ago. Suspense gets previewed at 10:03 The Unpub section is explained at 32:39 36:14     - Roman Conquest 39:22     - Duck Blind 41:57     - Dorobo 41:57     - Acute Care Koi Pond ( nee Coy Pond) gets mentioned at 45:26 Give it a listen!

The Unpub Mini at Atomic Empire in Durham was a big success. We had seven designers registered and the whole game room was at full capacity for most of the day. It helped that there was a Netrunner tournament and a 3d printer visiting for the first few hours. Both to brought in lots of walk-through and crossover traffic. Between tournament rounds, we had a lot of gamers coming over for a quick demo or play session. In total, we collected 86 feedback forms from individual playtests. I'm pretty sure we had at least twenty more playtesters in attendance who for whatever reason didn't fill out a feedback form. In terms of numbers of feedback forms, the big winners were Fog of War with 17 forms, Duck Blind with 20 forms, and Havok & Hijinks for with 27 forms. I thought at first that a party game like Havok & Hijinks would be the runaway leader. Short games with lots of players, usually party games, are be able to turn over way more playtests than another g...

(This week I'm highlighting games to be presented at Atomic Empire Unpub Mini on March 2, 2013 . Unpub helps game designers get their unpublished games in front of players. Unpub makes good games great. We have seven designers presenting on Saturday, so bring lots of gamers!) Havok & Hijinks Designer: Adam Trzonkowski Contact: ferrel@epicslant.com Website: Epic Slant: http://epicslantpress.com/ Players: 2-4 Time: 15-20 minutes Ages: 13+ Havok & Hijinks is a fast paced, humor-focused, card game designed for people with a little time to kill! Havok & Hijinks is scheduled to appear at the Atomic Empire Unpub Mini on March 2, 2013 !

(This week I'm highlighting games to be presented at Atomic Empire Unpub Mini on March 2, 2013 . Unpub helps game designers get their unpublished games in front of players. Unpub makes good games great. We have seven designers presenting on Saturday, so bring lots of gamers!) Dorobo Designer: Rocco Privetera Contact: me@privetera.com Website: Mighty Fist Games: http://www.mightyfistgames.com/current-games/dorobo Players: 2-6 Time: 30 minutes Ages: 10+ A push-your-luck dice game with a Japanese Ninja theme about stealing from houses; has strategy and player interaction but only 21 dice and is simple to learn. Dorobo is scheduled to appear at the Atomic Empire Unpub Mini on March 2, 2013 !

(This week I'm highlighting games to be presented at Atomic Empire Unpub Mini on March 2, 2013 . Unpub helps game designers get their unpublished games in front of players. Unpub makes good games great. We have seven designers presenting on Saturday, so bring lots of gamers!) Roman Conquest Designer: Josh Young Contact: joshyounggames@gmail.com Players: 3-6 Time: 30-60 minutes Ages: 12+ Each player is a Consul in ancient Rome with a small support base. Grow your support base by recruiting Legions to conquer new lands, building towns and cities, or improving Rome itself. Gain the support of Senators, or bribe other player’s Senators to expand your support base. Roman Conquest is scheduled to appear at the Atomic Empire Unpub Mini on March 2, 2013 !

Mark your calendars, folks. I'm running an UnPub Mini at Atomic Empire in Durham, NC. The Unpub games festival helps game designers get their unpublished games in front of players (and sometimes publishers). Unpub Minis are smaller events where local gamers can help local designers make their games great. Atomic Empire 3400 Westgate Dr. Suite 14B Durham, North Carolina 27707 Saturday March 2 1pm to 8pm We've already got seven designers registered for the event: Roman Conquest by Josh Young Dorobo by Rocco Privetera Havok & Hijinks by Adam Trzonkowski Fog of War by David Perry Cows vs. Chickens by Matt Wolfe Hunting Dice by young Zachary Gurganus Duck Blind by his father Tom Gurganus If you've been to Atomic Empire before, you know how big and inviting their play space is. It's going to be a fun time! The event is free and open to the public, but Atomic Empire has a wide selection of games so you'll probably come away buying something...