Solstice
- A game by David Bradbury
Summary
A table-top board game for two to four players, each player plays the role of a farmer. Players get a plot of land to do as they please with the ultimate goal of bringing in the most amount of money over the course of 5 years. At the end of the 5th year, each player sells off everything they have and the farmer with the most amount of money wins!
[Solstice is] a great game for the family! It's like owning a real farm, but a lot more fun.
~ K.H.
Background
Solstice was a curious challenge for me. As a student working on a degree in music, the process of putting together a game from start to finish was a task I never had strongly considered. I have always loved games, starting when I was very little. I had played many systems by the time I got to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), but it was that sunny day when my parents had gotten me my first NES (packed with The Legend of Zelda of course) that really got me into the world of games.
From there it wasn't a strictly electronic route. My interest ranged from cards to board games, to basic table-top strategy. While entertainment was always valued from these games, I always had something in the back of my mind asking me why the games were fun. Fast-forward to now. It was early July 2009 when I had read an article on a website called Board Game Geek. It looked interesting to me and I browsed through it as I found my favorite games quite quickly. A couple days later, I was browsing a website named Delicious, and on the front page was a new website called The Game Crafter. I immediately thought I was in some sort of fantasy. Here we have a website where you can develop and create your own game with only trivial limitations, you keep the rights to your game, they manage the printing and shipping, and you split profit 50-50.
Having art and programming as a hobby for awhile, I had already programmed a few games myself. From this point I spent most of my free time (where work, family, and my social life allowed) working on research for making a board game. After many, many late nights, a prototype was ready. From here it was print, play, test, edit, and repeat. Various forums and chatrooms including the Board Game Designers Forum were incredibly helpful for refining gameplay and rules. After the rules were set, and the design and mechanics were ready, the game art was ready to start. With a bunch of sketches, Mayang's Texture Library, and computer in hand, it was time to work.
I never really thought about how much art would have to go into this. I started simply by designing general pieces I knew I'd need. Animals and buildings came first. I had an idea of the art style I wanted to use quite early, which I later realized was influenced quite a bit by Mario Paint for the SNES later on. The many long days of making a masterpiece by filling in coloring pages with various colors and textures really proved to be an asset this many years later. I went to do the crops after this, only to realize it would likely be best to do the board first. All the while, I knew working in a 300 dpi resolution would be a nice challenge, but I was so ever thankful to have two monitors when I opened up the template to take on the board.
The 3000+ px file was a challenge I hadn't worked with before. Typically speaking, my digital artwork is usually done at about 1000x1500px, so handling the scale of it was a unique issue for me. (If it isn't now obvious, I hadn't done much print work at this point). After getting the board's base done (which would mostly be re-used a number of other times), I continued on to crops. I'm particularly fond of the way the raspberry turned out, although as a whole, the crops were more tedious than the other parts (especially the cabbage!). The cards would prove to be even more tedious, but the realization the game was nearly completion moved me forward. Over the next few days, everything finally came together and while there were a few small glitches loading everything to TGC, in all I'm quite proud of the result.
Since putting it up, I've been continually pleasantly surprised by the reception. Not a day after putting it up I got my first sale and have been humbled an honored that people value my game enough to buy their own copy. It was certainly an exciting project and I have learned much from it. Do more games await in the future for me to create? Definitely.
I truly appreciate your time spent visiting this site and reading what I have to say. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please feel free to contact me! I hope you enjoy the site, and I hope you enjoy Solstice as much as I enjoyed creating and playing it myself.
~David Bradbury
Purchase
Solstice can currently be purchased through The Game Crafter for $35. Click the chicken bellow or click here to be sent to the store page!
Download
Solstice - The Rule Book
A full download of the Solstice rule book, yours for the taking!
SolsticeRules.pdf - [282 KB]
Solstice - Print and Play, donate if you like it!
Download the whole game, print it off, cut, and play! (maybe tape if you need the included die!)
-Make sure to download the rules too!
Solstice_PrintAndPlay.pdf - [3.9 MB]
Note: Please right-click and "Save As"! This is will save me bandwidth and make it easy for you to print off
any lost pieces you may have later! (Or to print copies for your friends!)
Solstice In Action
Any amounts much appreciated, I hope you enjoy the game!
Didn't like it? Please see below to send me suggestions on how to improve!
Contact
Have any questions or comments for us? Have suggestions for new gameplay ideas, or maybe you caught an error in the rules, game, or website? Please don't hesitate to e-mail us... well, me... at DavidMBradbury+Solstice(AT)Gmail[DAWT]com - Do replace the obvious parts with the obvious symbols though! Ah, spam protection at its finest.
