January 2021 Update

Happy 2021 everyone. I hope the holidays gave you some time to get some games to the table and hopefully make some good memories.

Onto the update. I'll go in order of what I've been spending my time on lately.

"Count of the Nine Estates" is an expanded (18 cards) and improved game based on my 9 card game, Count of Nine. Button Shy Games will be publishing this in a couple months. Over the last few weeks, I have been chatting with Jason Tagmire from Button Shy, discussing tweaks, playtests, graphic design, etc. Every question I ask, Jason has a very well thought out answer. It is clear that he and his team know what they are doing. I guess that is to be expected when they publish games so frequently.

The cards for the game have been re-designed and I think they have a cleaner look to them that I like. Here is a preview of a few of the cards:

There will also be more player choice in the game. The "major structures" (now called Estate cards) will be separate from the 9 card deck of resources and structures. As the player builds one estate card, others will be eliminated, so there will be a bit of a puzzle deciding which estate cards to target.

The cards will be sent to the printer this week. Hopefully, the game will be available in February or March.

Pocket Landship is rolling toward its second Kickstarter campaign. There is not a set date that I know of, but hopefully February or March. The game will be printed and published in England, so our friends in the EU will have to see how Brexit impacts it.

Word Forge Games and I are still finalizing the new cards for the expansion, but there are currently a couple new Shock Troop cards planned to be added, plus new Commander and or Driver cards, and something that I really like, a Weather card.

The Weather card will be optional, but if used, the player will roll a die to determine the weather for the game, with effects that will help or hamper the player or the enemy in small ways.

Drakard was a simple, solo adventure game I designed for a BGG 24 hour design contest almost a year ago. I have taken those ideas and fleshed them out and expanded them into, basically a new game, but I am still calling it Drakard, because I like the name. And, a playtester has helped me catch some mistakes and offer some improvement suggestions (thanks Oliver).

To defeat the beasts in the game, the player must roll a dice palindrome (symmetrical), like 2-5-2, or 3-6-6-3. So, Drakard is a palindrome name for the "boss monster" dragon in the game. I will be entering this game in TheGameCrafter's "Community Anthology" design contest, where each game most be contained (including rules) on 2 pages, and use a subset of common components: click here for more info .

depleted is also progressing. I have been lucky enough to have someone playtest the game and offer some very good feedback (thanks David). Mostly minor tweaks to gameplay. But, I have been trying to make the game look better. So, I improved the player mat, I think, and also the cards some, which were very basic:

Not awesome, but better, I think.

I think that's all I have for now.

Thanks.