Play my entry for the 2026 Bad Comet Design Contest, Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels screentop.gg/@kdonaldson/... Core Mechanisms: Press Your Luck, Set Collection, Selective Drafting

Who are they?

On the table today at PAX East Unpub is Boogie Monsters Picky Nose. You win by collecting eight Snot Globs before the other team.

You win by placing five bears on your Honey Line in ascending order. First to 5 wins. You can only place one bear per turn, and it must be the next number in your sequence. If you have bears 1 and 2 on your board, you need a 3. Nothing else works. You can’t skip ahead, you can’t place out of order.

Nailed it! I’m not sure how no one knew it was Skrillex.

Peek at a bears number, but use your manners. Say "Excuse me, Bear!" first!  Find and place bears in ascending order to practice memory, numeracy, and etiquette.

Shipping my first prototype overseas was a traumatic experience. USPS would ship for $40 but didn’t have a clue about how customs charges are handled. FedEx wanted $400 to ship the same box. In the end I went with USPS and prayer. It made it Studiogiochi for Premio Archimede 2027. God is good!

The more experienced designers always seem to have another game at the ready to throw down at a playtest. I’m trying to follow suite.

The second 2026 Cardboard Edison Award finalist to arrive is Black Ruth of Dogtown by @kddgames.bsky.social! It was handed off to us in person at Unpub this past weekend! Details at cardboardedison.com/award

One more prototype … Freak Phenomics

Binding on a budget … looking for people to try my solo scrapbooking game, “The Interval.” I'll have copies at Unpub.

New skill unlocked: making neoprene playmat prototypes

Can you quantify/predict how fun a boardgame is? A quick lit review shows folks looking at flow and engagement as measures, which I don't think I can squeeze out of a Monte Carlo simulation.

True believer

I need a seminar on taking product shots … feeling janky.

My boardgame design, Black Ruth of Dogtown, was selected as a finalist in the 2026 Cardboard Edison competition! You can learn more here: cardboardedison.com/award linktr.ee/kddgames

Who wants to see some awesome-looking game pitches? These are the finalists for the 2026 Cardboard Edison Award!!! cardboardedison.com/award

Casino Gaunlet is a speculative wagering game driven by hand management and market manipulation, where the calculated race to deplete one's hand is disrupted by a push-your-luck event system that introduces high-variance volatility into the lane rankings. linktr.ee/kddgames

Unbreaking News is a timeline game, where a bell curve scoring system creates a push-your-luck dynamic by linking the value of specific placement slots to point deductions for failure, transforming recall into informational confidence and timing-based risk management. linktr.ee/kddgames

Castellum Aquae is a tight two-player area enclosure game with a shared-pawn and hand management, where players must weigh efficiency against the strategic cost of inadvertently fueling their opponent’s card economy through shared wall contributions. linktr.ee/kddgames

Black Ruth of Dogtown is a procedural oracle system driven by a circular mancala drafting mechanism, where players construct a three-by-three grid to optimize set collection and speculative scoring in service of a final narrative divination resolution. linktr.ee/kddgames

Would love your feedback on this daily puzzle app I developed playunbreakingdaily.news to accompany my news trivia game, Unbreaking News.

It was a pleasure to learn Jason Schneider's barking and game-teaching techniques at the PAX East @happycampergames.bsky.social booth.

Look at those triple-layered player boards!!! It's super cool to see folks playing my game, Bearden. I'm looking forward to the feedback.

I'd like to thank @cardboardedison.com for the motivation to keep playtesting. 💪