Daniel Solis

The British Museum's online catalog has a great collection of 16th century game boards. On top of that, they'll send you high-resolution scans for free! Search for 'game board' 1500 to 1600 and admire the pretty. » Thanks to Joanna for the tip! » The British Museum Collection Database Search

(Click to embiggen!) I ordered etched Utara dice from GameStation and they just arrived! (You can see the bidding process in this post .) So, for those of you who want to venture in the wild and wooly world of dice games, I'll share some key info. Here was the timeline: March 4: Sent request for estimate to GameStation. March 6: Receive quote from GameStation. (Next business day, basically.) March 17: Call GameStation toll-free to order 30d. Get a digital proof same day! March 28: 30 custom dice arrive in the mail. Here are the specs and final numbers: 16mm square-edged opaque blank dice Custom face on each side Etch only Cost+Shipping: $81 I'm happy with my purchase. The rep at GameStation (Jason W) was prompt and very helpful at every step of the process. Plus, the dice look fantastic. I don't know why the etching option is lower-priced. We've roughed up these dice quite a bit over the past few days and show no signs of wear. The price of the or...

Giullina shared this photo of Renato Ramonda teaching Utara at PLAY! Modena . So much of this piques my interest. One, are those paper prototypes? Two, is that a printed rules sheet? Three, they're playing Utara overseas?? Awesome, awesome. Renato shares more on his tumblr : "People gathered around and demanded to play too: we quickly played a good number of games and tried all the variant Sun/Moon options. I can definitely say that the game is fun, extremely simple to teach and learn, has a nice tactile element and when playing with the “advanced” rules I think a nice element of lightweight strategy: will I take this two dice or will I take only one but negate a Day or Tide to my opponent?" Renato and friends also tinkered with a new variant that allows you to change the compass. You can see more on that in his post. » Renato's Tumblr Post » More photos » Janus Design » Official Rules for Utara

Lyndsay Peters models her "My Favorite Game Console" shirt. It took a while to get through customs – and she says it smelled of celery when she got it – but now she proudly wears it at her D&D game. Speaking of making a sartorial splash at the table, check out her Dragon Chow dice bags. Durable, double-layered, flat-bottomed drawstring pouches perfect for carrying your arsenal of polyhedrons. Your friends will be envious of the awesome. » Here's more about the Dragon Chow dice bags. » Here's a complete list of sizes and styles of the shirt.

In Belle of the Ball , there are six different families, each noted by a unique symbol+color. The illustrations are also color-coded, using only the palette associated with their family. Each family also has a unique upper border, pattern and ornate family crest behind the illustrated portrait. And if that wasn't enough, I made each guests name alliterative, based on the first letter of their family's surname. All those things make the families distinguishable from each other even without being able to distinguish the colors. Each guest has up to two actions they may be doing at the party: Either flirting, snubbing or neither, and either eating, drinking, dancing, or neither. For example, a guest may be flirting+eating, snubbing+drinking, just dancing, just flirting or none of the above. Imagine these category 1 as A, B, C and category 2 as a, b, c, d. The symbols for either action will always go directly beneath the suit, but they are not color coded. They are dark, bold...

Yesterday I wrote a long post on the value and methods of double- or triple-coding your game's visual language. Now here are some pitfalls to watch out for, using some real world examples. Above is an example of undercoding. Apples to Apples uses only two types of cards in play, each one is a different color: Green and red. Like apples, get it? Makes sense for the theme, but it's also the most common type of color blindness. Take a look at the same image on the right and see if you could distinguish the types of cards at a glance. Solutions: These cards could have been doublecoded by using a unique illustration for each deck or rotating the layout on one of the decks so it's horizontal. And here's an example of overcoding. Megan and I really tried to learn Race for the Galaxy from the rules document. We eventually figured out how to make it through a few sessions, but each time we spent a lot of energy just deciphering the numerous symbols and icons. In the e...

In the video above, Pandemic creator Matt Leacock discusses the value of double-coding your game's visual language. By "double-coding," he means using multiple unique methods of visually communicating a game's concepts. Usually this is done in the service of color-blind or otherwise visually impaired players, but when done well, it helps all players navigate your game more easily. Let's take some lessons from good examples out on the market. Pandemic is a great example of double-coding. In this case, four types of disease are each color-coded, but also given unique, simple and big symbols. This helps the visually impaired, but also let's players collaborate across a game table. Because infection cards and player cards share these symbols, but do not get mixed together, each deck is distinguished with white or black borders and a vertical or horizontal layout. The cards in Magic: The Gathering are also noteworthy for their use of doublecoding. Each type...