Columbus Day is just around the corner! I’m taking the day off work.

Did Columbus discover America? Certainly not. People had been here for thousands of years before he arrived.

Did Columbus discover America for the Europeans? Well, probably not–the Norse were in Newfoundland probably and Greenland definitely before Columbus.

What Columbus definitely did was bring back the idea that the New World could be exploited. And without European exploitation of the rest of the world, where would we be? Certainly without such fantastic games as Puerto Rico, Goa, and Taj Mahal, just to name a few. So let’s pause for a moment to remember… well, I’ll call him Lolumbus, in honor of the fact that rape and exploitation is actually nothing to base a holiday around.

Notwithstanding! Speaking of exploitation, I have finally finished the prototype of Invasion. The tables are turned, and aliens are exploiting Earth. The Earthlings try to fight back, but not with much success.

The story of the design is this: The original design for the game had about 7 separate decks of cards, one each for each of seven different game mechanics. Well, it turns out making cards is actually kind of a pain, what with creating a custom script to output a PDF, printing them, cutting them out, sleeving them… and I was in eternal procrastination mode. Well, then I bought these awesome plastic centimeter cubes in 10 different colors from an educational supply place (highly recommended) and it made me want to finish the game so I could play with them. But how to make those irksome cards? I was thinking about ways to substitute a die roll for the card draw when it finally occurred to me: the die roll is better because all the possible outcomes are right there, no need for players to be surprised when a card comes up! The dice are color-coded so you roll them all at once and then put them in the appropriate place on a playmat (printout taped to foamboard).

Photos will follow in a day or two.