Been a while since I last wrote anything. Haven't been able to put a lot of time into Nebula lately, but there have been a couple of developments.

Goals Redux

So, the mission cards I posted about last time didn't really work out. I stand by the idea; I think it was a neat concept. And players liked how they gave you a sequence of goals to follow and injected some story into the game. However, they were too complicated. That material would be better left as an expansion, something to add in once the game starts getting stale. They definitely aren't suited for new players.

So, back to my previous idea. I'm going back to the goal tiles, which always worked reasonably well but just had some balancing issues. Hopefully I may have figured that out?

This latest iteration of the goals has two goal tiles dealt out in the center of the board. Each goal tile has two pieces of information: a 'metric' that refers to a player's progress in one aspect of the game, and a 'minimum' that represents a threshold for that metric. For example, a metric could be 'number of repaired pink spaces' or 'number of marks on the track with the least marks'. The threshold is just a number... 3 or 5 or whatever.

Under this system, scoring goes as follows: for each goal, each player with at least the minimum amount of whatever metric the goal cares about gets 8 points. Then, the player with the most of that metric (or tied for the most) gets an additional 8 points. So each goal is worth up to 16 points, and there are two goals, so 32 points total for getting everything.

This system actually worked better than I expected. The minimum threshold gives players some low-hanging fruit to score, and the 'player with the most' comparison gives a target for overachievers and players who like to outdo others. Adds in a tiny amount of players interaction and forcing awareness of the overall game while not absolutely demanding it; players can ignore some or all of the goal points at their own discretion. While I think the point value is too high (32 points is huge for a game with average point totals in the 60s), the mechanic seems to be sound and I think all it needs is some tweaking.

On top of all that, the system is much simpler compared to previous iterations. Each goal is worth the same number of points. Each goal has the same two comparisons, 'minimum' and 'most'. The goals are balanced for all players; no goals are specific to a player. I think the only potential problem is some goals might not play nice together, but that shouldn't be too complicated to work around.

I hope this idea holds, because I really want to lock this mechanic down.

Center, Left, Right

The idea I had for the cube draft from last time is still there and holding. (Each player pulls three cubes, keeps one, then take one from the player to the left, then from the player to the right.) It's definitely an improvement from the cube market from previous iterations; it flows much faster and encourages all players to participate simultaneously. However, it is apparently a little confusing to keep track of. Both in the digital version of the game and the physical version, there are often some instances of an overzealous player rushing to take their three cubes and potentially grabbing something before the other players are ready, and then a slower player comes along and is lost trying to figure out what happened.

I'm not really sure what to do about this... I did get some compliments about the mechanic; it gives players some agency about what free cubes they get, and encourages a little bit of player interaction. The criticisms though are that it's unnecessary (since later in the game players are getting so many cubes that the colors of the first few are inconsequential) and physically awkward (since players are occasionally reaching past each other). I've been thinking if I can do anything about that, and aside from changing the draft to a bland pick-and-pass system, I don't know how else I can resolve it. So, this mechanic is still not solidified, though it is in the running.

In-Person Meetups

Speaking of a physical copy, just this week my Orlando designer group meet up again, for the first time since COVID hit. It was fantastic to get out of the house and back with my friends! Sure, things were a little different; masks and vaccinations were required for everyone, and we had to pack up when the store was close to closing time instead of the store owners holding the place open for us for a while. Still, it was totally worth it. We're only meeting once every two weeks for now, but it's nice to see reality starting to get back to nromal, at least a little. Looking forward to the next one!

(P.S. I might have another design bubbling in the background, and it might end up showing up at one of these in-person meetups, and it might fit into something a publisher is doing. TONS of speculation and vague possibilities here, but we'll see.)

Spaceship Architecture

I'm not sure what to do with one other idea that I got from one of my recent playtests. I haven't done any implementation of it yet, and I'm not sure that I will, but it's one of those feedback bits that caught my attention and just refuses to let me forget about it.

I had one of my playtesters mention that they liked the crawlspaces mechanism. As in, really liked it. So much so that they wished that that was a larger part of the game. As in, they wanted the ship to have more 'rooms', more discrete areas that can be individually repaired, and maybe more rewards or incentives related to repairing these regions.

While I don't really know what form these areas would take, one positive thing is that there would be little to no mechanical change to implement this; this is entirely a content change. It would amount to rearranging the ship layouts and adding in some strategically positioned walls, probably with some other minor adjustments. I'm a little wary of doing that at the moment, since generating and balancing the ship layouts is a surprisingly large amount of work. Still, I can't think of any specific reason why I shouldn't give it a try, other than the amount of effort it will take.

One added benefit to doing this is that I can inject a little bit of flavor in this way. Instead of just having a loose cluster of green spaces, now I can have a 'medbay'. Or the orange spaces at the bottom can be an 'engine room'. I can even switch it up between ship layouts; the Xyxyx (insects) ship can have a 'hatchery' for life support spaces, the Rhox (angry anthro rhinos) ship can have an 'incinerator' for power spaces, etc.

Laundry List

Feels like there's so much left to do on this...

• Finish rewriting the rulebook (very close on this one!)
• Update my google form for receiving playtest feedback
• Finish cleaning up my Discord server so that it can be used for playtesting
• Set up blind playtesting sessions
• Advertise blind testing on social media and Discord
• Re-open my mailing list for signups

And that's just to get the next phase of playtesting going. I had been saying for a while that I wanted to launch a Kickstarter in 2021...  that's seeming increasingly unlikely, considering the number of steps I have left to do. Still, even though I'm going more slowly than I would like, at least I'm still going. Which means I'll make it to the goal eventually.

So, I've been wanting to do an upgraded version of Manaforge for a while. I have a bunch of ideas of components that could be improved. Replace the cardboard gem tokens with acrylic gems. Make the dice be multicolor swirled instead of just a single color. Add the mana abacus accessory in as a printed board. I have a fairly good idea of what each of those would look like, and as far as the acrylic gems go, those are easily obtainable in small enough quantities that I could make a few 'upgrade kits' and see if anyone is interested in them.

The one thing that's been a little more elusive is coming up with good tokens for the mana prisms. I actually have an idea for what would look good there, too. Since I'm looking for tetrahedrons, what better place for a gamer to start with than to look for blank d4s? Chessex makes d4s in some gorgeous colors, but there doesn't seem to be an option to order those without numbers directly from their site. I sent a couple of inquiries a while ago about getting a few made but never heard back. Just as well, I suppose, considering that they'd probably want a minimum order of a thousand dice or something like that.

Since a lot of my friends have had luck creating their own game components using 3D printers, I figured I'd give that angle a try. I don't own a 3D printer myself, but there is this really nifty service out there called Shapeways that can do it. Hmmm. So I went to Thingiverse, found a blank d4 model, uploaded that to Shapeways' site, and had a few printed. Pictured is the result.

Thoughts:

• The size, shape, and weight of these is perfect. They're slightly heavier than most d4s I own, but that's fine.
• They're kind of an off yellow. I don't know how I'd make them the rainbow colors that the game's mana prisms are.
• They're mostly smooth. A little bit of texture to them, and yes you can see the printing layer lines if you look hard enough, but overall they're well made.
• Too expensive. This batch of four cost a lot more than I was expecting, and there is no economy of scale that I'm aware of. It would be cost prohibitive to make the 20 needed for a copy of Manaforge.

I'm debating getting a 3D printer myself. I don't mind soaking the cost, as I could use it for other projects too, but I don't know if it would be good for running off a limited number of sets of prisms. Having never used this kind of printer before, I'm a little concerned about the associated learning curve.

Maybe if I'm good, I'll get one for Christmas. We'll see how it goes. :)

So, 2019 has been off to a slow start. Not for lack of trying, just that there hasn't been much progress to report. Most of my efforts have been going into trying to design the expansion for Manaforge. Feels like I've gone through a lot of ideas and iterations. I don't think I'm quite where I need to be yet, but I haven't given up.

Iteration 1: The initial theme of the expansion was supposed to be Dark Magic. Going on the feedback that the game does not have enough player interaction, I wanted to add black dice to the game that gave each player the ability to meddle with other player's turns. Steal a gem, exhaust a card, force someone to reroll their dice, etc.  I was also considering adding in a 'darkness' tracker that keeps track of how often you mess with other players and changes the game's balance if you get too high on the track. (Meaning, cards might cost more but give you more points or something like that.)

Result 1: Someone rightly pointed out that, while this approach would definitely solve the interaction problem, it would also alienate a lot of the game's loyal players, as the core game was not intended to be combative. So, idea one was out.

Iteration 2: This was an attempt to address a lot of the feedback that the game 'needs more cards'. So I designed a huge number of cards to add to the item deck. I also focused the new cards on player interaction, but not destructive interaction. I had item cards that would trigger and give you bonuses when other players performed a specific action. I had other item cards that were deliberately powerful but also gave bonuses to other players when they were used. And I added more cards where other players could participate when they are built. Plus, I also added hidden goal cards, special cards that were dealt out at the beginning of the game and would reward you for having certain combinations of cards or resources at the end of the game.

Result 2: Great ideas in theory, but I misjudged the effect of flooding the deck with all these new cards. The balance of card elements was completely hosed; certain elements came up too much, others not at all. And all of the player interaction I tried to build in barely had an effect. Meh...  idea two scrapped.

Iteration 3: This built on the ashes of the previous iteration. The hidden goal cards were a step in the right direction, but the game needed more. The hidden goals became public goals, re-imagining them as 'customers'. Each customer wants specific resources (themed as the customer wants a specific item made), and pays out a reward for getting what they want. After a customer's demands have been satisfied a certain number of times, the customer leaves play. Paired with that, I wanted to re-use the darkness track idea from the first iteration, so I made 'element' track boards for each player. Two tracks per player, fire<>water and earth<>air, with a tug-of-war relationship between them. Build a fire card, and you move towards fire and away from water. Get high up on the fire track, and your fire cards start getting bonuses, but building water cards becomes more difficult. Again, I wanted there to be a way to customize the game that you're playing, so that your experience feels different that the other players', and different than the other times you played.

Result 3: The customer cards actually worked out pretty well. The effects need a lot of tweaks; some of the customer costs consist of getting points from cards of a specific element, which is an awkward mechanic. But the cards that consume straight mana or gems are solid; not only do they give an alternate source of points, but they give you something to do with your resources at the beginning of the game, when resource outlets are scarce or nonexistent. The element tracks were a flop, though. Too much fiddlyness for not enough payback. Players would often neglect to move their tokens on the tracks and would ignore the rewards.

Iteration 3.5: Keeping the customer cards and element tracks, I reworked the effect of moving around on the tracks. I figured if there was a bigger carrot, that the players would be motivated to pay attention to them. I added square 'element path' cards, made so that each side of the card had an effect corresponding to one element. Move up past one of the three threshold spaces on a track, and you get to take a path card, meaning you can have a maximum of three per element (six overall). Each path card gave a special ability tied to that element, such as a free mana of that element or the ability to turn gems of that element into points. A couple of my designer friends have been making games that allow you to customize your abilities, so I thought the approach might work here.

Result 3.5: Nope. More interesting decisions doesn't make a fiddly interface any more interesting. Plus all of the combinations of abilities were too much to keep track of; when you can do twenty things each turn, and the order in which you do them matters, how do you work it all out? Too much brain melting.

Iteration 4: Okay, customer cards = good, element tracks = bad. Trying the same general idea from a different angle, I tossed the tracks and path cards and added tarot-sized 'relic' cards instead. These cards were loosely inspired by Magic's planeswalker cards. Some number of relic cards are dealt out next to the board, with all players being able to access them at any time. Each relic card has a requirement you must meet before being able to take it (something like 'have three fire cards'), and once you have a relic, you are stuck with it; you cannot change it out or gain another. In exchange, each relic has an 'energy' track, and several abilities that cost varying amounts of energy. Each relic also has a recharge cost; pay the mana or gems or whatever the relic is looking for, and its energy starts to tick back up. A good use for whatever spare resources you have left over at the end of your turn, plus abilities that should tie into particular needs. I had relics for generating mana and relics for turning mana into points, with various flavors of each.

Result 4: A solid 'meh'. The overall idea of the relics was good, but they didn't have enough of an impact on the game. Gaining a relic was not necessary to win, and the relics were mostly about optimizing your available resources instead of giving you something new.

Iteration 4.5: Fine, the structure of relics is okay but they're not impactful enough? Turn them up to 11! Really pulled in the balance of planeswalkers here. Reworked the relics so that they lost a couple of their less-relevant abilities, removed the cost to recharge them and gave them a way to recharge themselves, gave each one a 'super' ability that can change the balance of the game, and gave them end-game victory points. And all of those tied to a particular strategy! I've watched Manaforge being played dozens of times and I have a fairly good feel for the ways in which a player might build a successful engine, from focusing on one color to going crazy on gems to buying all wands. For each of those that I could think of, I'm going to create a corresponding relic that not only helps you do that thing, but rewards you for doing it. Yes, it's essentially locking you into a strategy, but the required board state for each relic is basically an indicator that you're going for that particular strategy anyway, so this is just helping you to your goal. And there will be more relics available each game than the number of players, so even the last player to get a relic will have options.

I'm playtesting this last iteration now. Fingers crossed that it goes well. :)


​P.S.  Oh yeah, and I haven't given up on Sky Pirates. It's slow going, but I've been chipping away at getting some prototype copies made, have those sent out for playtesting. I haven't put in as much time as I should there lately, but that will change soon.

Ugh, it's been too long since I posted again. I thought I was getting better at this, but I guess not. No worries, tho... I have been busy.

The bulk of my attention is still devoted to developing Sky Pirates. I'm hoping that by the end of this year, I will be able to print a few early prototype copies and send them out for blind playtesting. Part of this process is writing the rulebook, which I have started on, even if it's really early; at this point I'm just deciding on how I want the rules to be organized. At least there I can start with how the Manaforge rulebook is set up (which I think came out passably good) and work from there.

However, the rules for Sky Pirates are still evolving, if only a little, and so I need to make sure those are stable before I can really write the rulebook. The tokens shown above are one of the ways that the rules have changed since I last posted.

Sky Pirates has always had one glaring flaw: going first is a disadvantage. You become the automatic target for scouting by everyone else, and you get fewer chances to react to everyone else's plays. My first attempt to get around that was the addition of a '6th round' to the game, where instead of playing cards, everyone gets one free scout effect and that's all. I figured that would give the first player a chance to scout something put down by the other players on the last round. It helped a little, but it always felt really awkward having an extra 'turn' that didn't really do much. And I don't think it went far enough.

Additionally, and not related, I also had a couple of people complain that it was easy to get a run of bad cards. A bad hand at the beginning of the game could easily put you behind, and bad draws throughout the game could mean that you have no way up keeping up with everyone else. (Of course, I'd like to think that there are no 'bad' cards, but I know on some level that's not exactly true. At best, there are cards that are only situationally useful, and it's those that you don't want to get too many of.)

At some point, I had an epiphany. The extra scout was useful but the 6th round didn't work, so that needed to change. I got the idea of pulling that mechanic out of the turn structure and creating a player power out of it instead. So now, each player gets one token (called a 'command' token in this iteration, though that will probably change) that basically says 'scout once'. You turn in the token and you get a free scout, with no time restrictions at all; you can use it literally any time, even if it's not your turn, up until the game ends and all the cards are flipped over.

Plus, to address the problem with drawing bad cards, I added a second option to these tokens. Instead of scouting once, you can 'recruit' twice. (Recruit being a keyword in the current iteration that states 'draw X cards, then discard X cards'.) So you have the option of improving your hand, or gaining information, usable any time, but only once.

I think the addition these tokens definitely improved the game, addressing three different problems all at once. Players each have one more option to fix a bad situation. However, there was still traces of the original problem lingering around, where going first is a disadvantage. I had someone suggest that the command token for the first player should be buffed up a bit to try to compensate for that. So I'm currently at this latest iteration, where I now have a pair of +2 and +1 command tokens, given to the first and second players respectively, that are stronger than the standard ones. Additional scouts or recruits, plus a third option: each token has some attack power symbols on the opposite side (not pictured here) that you can add to any fleet. Again, each can only be used once, and only for one of their options, but it hopefully will offset the going first penalty somewhat. I'm a little concerned that I made them too strong, but I can only determine that by playtesting.

With fingers crossed, I'm hoping the rules will settle down soon. It seems like I'm close; it's all balancing changes at this point. With a lot of luck I will be able to launch this as a Kickstarter in the first half of next year.

So, my attention has been split a lot lately. My current 'main' project is Sky Pirates. That one is going well, with a slow but constant flow of positive playtests and minor tweaks. I've also been in design mode for the Manaforge expansion. I've had to change direction on that one, as some of the feedback I was getting made me realize that I wasn't designing for the correct audience. Progress there has been slow but at least it's going.

However, there has also been one more distraction to work around. With the proliferation of roll-and-write games coming out on the market right now, plus a couple of the same currently being designed by my friends, somehow I got it in my head to try making one of my own. Normally I would've ignored the idea, as I have little experience with that type of game. However, this was another one of those persistent ideas that kept calling for my attention, and I've found that the best way to get rid of those is to get it out of my head and make a prototype. (But then, that's how Manaforge started.) So, here's my prototype.

Without going into too much detail (it's a novel idea and I'm not ready to tip my hand yet), I did manage to get one playtest in of this monstrosity. It went better than I expected. That does not mean it went well; this game is boring. I noticed several players quickly stopped paying attention, making a long game drag out even longer. I ended up calling it off after a few rounds. However, while the execution is very flawed, everyone there agreed that the core mechanic is solid, and I just need to make the decisions more interesting. High praise for an almost completely untested game by a designer with little experience in the genre.

I definitely need more experience with roll-and-write games, so I've been picking up and playing a couple just to see what makes them tick. Looking at those, I think I see some of what I did wrong with my game. I'm paying attention to the way the scoring and player special ability mechanics need to interact, and I have many ideas for how my initial prototype could be improved. All things considered though, this is just a side project, so I don't know how much attention it will get right now. But, good or bad, it is one more thing that I'm officially 'working on' right now. We'll see where it goes from there.

[Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the artwork pictured here. This art is being used for prototype purposes only and will not be a part of the final game.]

Here is another photo of my Sky Pirates game prototype as it stands right now. This has evolved slightly from the previous post I made about it on here. Some of the significant changes I have made from the previous version are:

• The location that each ship is going to has been removed from the ship cards themselves and placed on separate location tokens. This is the most important change from the earlier version in that it solves several of the problems I was having. One location token is now played together with the first ship of every new fleet, and the locations are separate scout targets from the ship cards.
• Each location now has a 3rd place VP value, only used when playing with 5 players. Only the 1st place value is used when playing with 2 players.
• The "no token no treasure" rule: if you don't have a fleet pointed at a particular location, you cannot gain VP from that location, even if you manage to win due to just long-range attack power.
• The wall of text has been removed from the cards' rule boxes and replaced with equivalent keywords. The effects of each keyword are spelled out on a separate cheat sheet.
• The point values of the locations and the power values of the ships have been rebalanced.

I have playtested this new version a few times. Overall, the changes have been positive; there is less confusion about how to stack the cards, and more meaningful decisions for the players. The ship cards are apparently still not quite balanced correctly; some cards are definitely better than others, and even with a new card cycling ability added is it still possible to get stuck with a hand of bad cards. I still need to play with the card numbers and abilities. However, the core mechanics of the game seem to be solid. You know the game is making progress when you are no longer making major structural changes and are instead just doing balance tweaks.
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Now I just need to figure out what route I'm going to take with this. While Manaforge is definitely *my* game and I am publishing it (and its expansions) on my own, I am open to the idea of handing Sky Pirates off to another publisher. (My free time is finite; should I spend it publishing or designing more stuff?) Anyone know of a publisher looking for a filler card game? :)

[Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the artwork pictured here. This art is being used for prototype purposes only and will not be a part of the final game.]

So this is a photo of the game that's currently at the front of my queue. Being an early state prototype, it doesn't have a proper name yet; at the moment I'm just calling it "Sky Pirates". Dunno if I'm going to keep that or not; I assume it's being used somewhere else so I'll have to see if I can get away with using that name or not. A quick description for Sky Pirates is that it is a hidden information, area control card game that can be played with from two to five players and that plays in less than a half hour.

The theme of the game is that each player is a pirate lord, hungry for treasure. The setting is a steampunk world with cities in the sky; some are built on islands of floating rocks, others are complex contraptions that simply hover in the air, and a couple are built on high locations such as the tops of mountains or a giant pillar extending from the ground up to the clouds. Regardless of where they are, each location has loot that the players are trying to obtain.

In order to get loot, players must deploy their ships to go and get it. Ships consists of basically anything that can fly; blimps, airplanes, helicopters, and even personal flight packs all serve to get your underlings to the loot. Unfortunately for the players, there is only enough treasure at each location for two pirates. The players decide who gets the loot by calculating which players have the most firepower at each location. Each of the ships cards has a combat value that indicates how much it contributes to the fight. Cards are played into stacks, with the top card of each stack dictating the destination of all of the cards in that stack; each card has a location printed on it, and the location of the card on top overrides those of the cards underneath.

There is a catch, however. Cards are played into their stacks face-down! When an opponent plays a card, you don't know how powerful it is or where it's going. That is, until you 'scout' it. Each player gets a limited number of scout actions that can be used to flip up one of an opponent's cards. Worried about that huge stack that an opponent has in play? Scout the top card so you can figure out where it's headed? A couple more scouts will tell you if the cards in the stack are tiny or powerful. But be warned that the opponents are trying to do the same to your cards.

Some cards also have special abilities. However, there is a catch there too. To use a card's ability, you have to play it face-up instead! This can be powerful depending on the ability but it also means one less piece of hidden information for you to hide behind. And you don't want to reveal too much of your strategy. Additionally, some cards have special abilities that trigger at the end of the game... if they manage to stay face-down until the end of the game. So if those cards get flipped up, poof there goes their bonus.

Once the game ends, all of the cards are flipped up, and you total the combat power of each stack to determine who winds each location. Locations have loot point values printed on them, a large value for '1st place' (whomever has the most power), and a smaller value for '2nd place'. Add up the loot points and determine the winner!

So far, this game has received generally good responses when I've brought it to playtest sessions. There are definitely some glitches left to iron out, though. The way the cards have to be stacked to keep the 'top' card the same is confusing to players and will need to be reworked. The process of counting up combat values at the end of the game can get tedious and might need a player aid or something to make it easier. And players have a tendency to play the special abilities of as many cards as they can, leaving all of their information exposed and nothing for the scout effects to do. So there is definitely still work to be done, but I have received some good feedback and suggestions so at least I have a clear path forward.

I hope to work some more on this after Dice Tower, which is coming up in a couple of weeks. I don't think I'll get anything done on the game before then.

For this snapshot, I'll start by announcing that I'm planning on being at the Dice Tower Convention again this year. Yay! Five straight days of board gaming! If you like board games, live anywhere near Disney World, and have never been to this convention, then definitely do some research into it! The tickets are technically sold out but if you look around a little you can usually find someone selling some.

Okay, now for the image...

This is a photo of the stuff I'm planning on having available for sale at the convention. I will have plenty of copies of Manaforge on hand, and I'm planning on offering a small discount on any games that I sell in person. (Since I don't have to deal with shipping costs, it makes sense to pass on some of the savings as an incentive.) I also have some 'dented' copies of Manaforge that had a bit of an incident on their way to my home. If there is demand for them I might be selling some of those at a big discount.

I will have a good number of my felt component bowls (pictured top left). I'm still assembling these things and should have a lot more than is pictured here by the time the convention starts. I'm offering them for $4 each, or 3 for $10, and they are available in a huge variety of colors. (Kinda hard to tell from this photo, as the colors got washed out a little, but I think there are roughly 25 different colors.) Also, anyone that buys a copy of Manaforge from me personally gets one bowl free!

I also have seven Mystic Tiger cubs remaining (pictured top right). Handmade by the wonderful Crochet Critters, these cute and squishy blue tigers are small enough to accompany you anywhere. I'm planning on selling these for $10 each.

I will try to keep my business email and social media contacts open as much as possible during the convention if you want to arrange a meeting to buy something. I intend to hang out in the gaming area near the vendor booths if possible to run Manaforge demos, but I don't have a reserved spot so I might drift around as the situation demands.

Oh, and as a plus, I recently got my hands on a Square payment collector, so I'm able to take credit cards on the gaming floor. (Provided I can get a stable internet connection; I will definitely be testing out the wifi beforehand.)

Hope to see you at the convention!

Okay, I know I've been terribly remiss lately about posting new material on here. It doesn't help that I've been sick for the past couple of weeks, plus dealing with some family problems, and haven't had a lot of time or energy to put towards designing new stuff. I'm hoping this will help that.

I'm going to try a new format for some of my posts. Take one photo of something I've been working on over the past week or so, and write a post about that. This should be doubly helpful because I can post this to Instagram as well, a platform that I usually have trouble coming up with good content for.

So for this particular Snapshot, let's try this photo:

Yeah, I know this isn't a board game, but it's what has been taking up the majority of my energy recently. Pictured here are my take on 'bit bowls'; 6" felt squares with snaps attached near the corners. When the snaps are snapped together, the resulting bowl shape can be used to hold game components. (Like, oh say, gem tokens from Manaforge. :D )  When you're done with them, they unsnap flat to fit into just about any game box.

I've been hand-crafting these things for a while now; I have a plastic box with a few dozen in it of various colors, and I have materials for more in the way. I figure I'd sell them for a few dollars each. So far, I've had a few takers; it helps when I have them out while I'm demoing Manaforge.

I will definitely be selling these at Dice Tower Con. If you're interested in buying a few, I will try to keep them on me as much as possible, and I can probably be found in the game rooms. If I'm demoing, I will try to set up camp as close to the vendor area as I can.

I'm also considering selling these on my web store. Not quite sure how to make the shipping price fair yet, but I'll figure it out if there's enough interest. Want to see these for sale? Email me or ping me on social media so that I know that someone is listening!

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And that's it for now. Let's see if I can keep this up. :)