iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

There are 5 colors, the sides are curved and the bottoms are rubberized… I couldn’t have designed these better. I guess they could come in black.

Top down view showing a single bowl has a large enough diameter to contain the whole deck of cards.

Side view of a bowl alongside an Altoids tin showing the bowl to be slightly deeper.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

THE ABSOLUTE PERFECT BIT BOWL FOR BOARD GAMES HAS ARRIVED AND IT’S $1.50 AT DOLLAR TREE! Not an advertisement but definitely an endorsement; I just bought all five. www.dollartree.com/greenbrier-k...

Five “Cat Bowl”s from Dollar Tree and a deck of cards for scale. One bowl is overturned to show the rubberized bottom. Each bowl is a different color.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I do have a beekeeping suit, but I have ZERO of the real associated knowledge, skills or equipment.

Demoing BEEEEES! at Gen Con in a full beekeeper’s suit. Gloves on the table next to the board game bits.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Just found out: 1. My house came with one of those fake plastic rocks you can hide stuff in. 2. It’s a big one. 3. Big enough to contain a beehive. 4. It in fact, does contain bees. 5. They were happier when that was a secret only they knew.

A deceptively rocky flowerbed which secretly contains bonus bees.
What a treat.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Sidebar: Enjoy this gonzo box cover with me. And this one has TWO spinners for double the fun.

Box cover of Barbie Dream Date from 1992.

Back of the box for Barbie Dream Date showing a full color board and heart-shaped double-locket spinner.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Next: I’d find someone to modernize this absolutely correct idea from 1986. Like it can’t be a spin and move snooze, but the theme is 100% Barbie. I’m not the person to make that game, but a good one should exist.

The box cover for the Barbie “We Girls Can Do Anything” Game.

Back of the box showing the classic spinner board gameplay.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Feels kind of obvious, but first order of business I’d make a Hot Wheels race game that lets you use your own cars for game pieces.

A selection of my own Hot Wheels collection. These 40 something are just the EVs.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

So I went to Walmart (plus a couple extra stores) and did some market research. No wonder Mattel is looking for a games lead. They almost exclusively sell UNO variants with a spendy license +one extra rule and call it a day. Otherwise their games are very old and surrounded by new ideas from others.

Walmart aisle display with recent releases for a number of publishers. Mattel isn’t even listed as Mattel Games, just UNO between Hasbro and The Op

The card game section at Walmart focused on Mattel’s almost exclusively UNO offerings. Games from other publishers are much more varied.

Another expanded view of the same section. Phase 10 Tiles (practically the same game as the cards in plastic form) and an older print of SkipBo are the only additional Mattel titles visible.

I don’t know how many times normal people want to own a new, very slightly different copy of UNO, but it’s probably 3 or less.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I don’t know if they ever saw my video, but they did mostly fix the cards.

2025 version of Skip Bo from Mattel with totally revamped graphic design. All hint corners have the card value and each value of card has its own color. The Skip Bo wild card back and front are completely different and easily distinguished.

Red/Green colorblind simulated view of the same cards showing a clear difference in most cards that had issues before. Six and nine are still a bit close.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Hey do you feel sane? No? Okay, don’t buy a water distiller. It works great, but you’re gonna find out what’s in your tap water and you are NOT GOING TO LIKE IT.

A water distiller.
A truth teller.
A peace disturber.
More information than you require to live a life of joy.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I’m just sad they weren’t enough of these weirdos.

A comically sculpted T-Rex and Triceratops with oversized heads are posed riding chopper style motorcycles. They’re adorable.

Card showing the woefully incomplete Push-N-Go Dino friction powered vehicle collection. Needs a brontosaurus and a stegosaurus to be perfect/complete.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Still don’t have the game yet, but I found these at the dollar store. They’re mostly the wrong colors, but that’s a temporary problem I’m taking care of.

Several dinosaur figurines placed near a palette of acrylic paint on a work surface. There is green splatter from the brontosaurus painting in progress.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Vote with your dollars / Scream into the void (tip jar at Spielbound)

Voting Tip Jar at Spielbound
Split choice question: who would win?
Jar Jar Binks vs Waluigi

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I have seen the Star Trek (and even as a person who actually liked sillier episodes like Rascals or Move Along Home) I have some thoughts for Paramount:

Paper bag with eyeholes cut in it as if to be worn as a mask. The bag has “SELL THE TEAM” in big bold letters on its front.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Currently playing Obsession with friends and I can’t help wondering what it would be like reskinned with Klingon events and houses.

A five player spread of Obsession, a board game about Victorian courtship and social events

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

So... that listing disappeared for ✨ REASONS ✨ (My accounts are being monitored, my friends are truly incredible and I’m enjoying my birthday month quite a lot, thank you very much.)

A new in shrink copy of Stamps, the 2011 Japanese rerelease of Dr. Reiner Knizia’s Modern Art from Oink Games.
The relief of grail regret is almost as good as the gift itself.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

But *I’m* not doing that. We’re gonna have a whole point system and each round’s worst finisher chooses the next flavor of the game we’ll play. (Dice and Golf definitely get the weird points).

The UNO championship belt, presented behind 8 different UNO games.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Currently bringing chaotic energy to the family group chat.

The UNO Championship Belt and a classic UNO deck in rather dramatic lighting.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

I am still working out how to make this new “dedication platform” work on the table in the play space. It will probably need to be a great deal smaller, but my current coil that activates the LEDs is a table hog that also needs a wall outlet.

A retail copy of Lanterns placed alongside a printed image of a river on an acrylic sheet with plastic lantern pieces atop it. Each lantern is internally lit by a small LED. Several of them are in a plastic container and a few others in a bag.

The coil that activates the wireless LEDs integrated into the lantern pieces is shown along with a green lantern piece and a bare led

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Enough suspense: The new “nobody asked for this, I’m just doing this for me” project is an upgrade for the modern classic - Lanterns: The Harvest Festival (2015) from @renegadegamestudios.com. I’ve always liked the game and found the box cover quite inspiring. So naturally…

3D printed game pieces for Lanterns sit on their card-based counterparts. The resin plastic pieces are lit internally by LEDs.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Another thing I’m doing probably won’t be ready in time: I’m working on another game design appreciation project in the same spirit as my Modern Art and Acquire showstopper pieces.

A painting and gameplay/title card from Modern Art: The Exhibition. The game is an authorized copy of Reiner Knizia’s 1992 masterwork Modern Art featuring 70 original oil and acrylic miniature paintings made with the cooperation of 5 independent artists.

A ridiculously overproduced copy of Sid Sackson’s Acquire (1963) made from a vintage iron floor grate. The showcase production features original pop art hotel share designs, poker chips appropriate to the game’s design era with wooden tiles and hand-carved hotel chain markers.

Just a hint about what I’m planning next. Some roundish purple game pieces sit on a tray shaded by a much larger round white object which can only be partially seen.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I’m having to recreate some components since the game is wildly out of print and resale prices are frenzied.

Very rough looking silicone mold in process of being fabricated. Hot glue gun and foam board pieces are visible.

Three original Dynamite mover pawns and the silicone molds they were used as masters to form.

Clear resin with red dye drops added to it in a plastic cup. The cup is surrounded by various other components of the mold process: the resin bottles, dye bottle, a mixing stick, a pair of scissors and the empty silicone mold.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

I’m just asking for the workout routine to achieve these results.

An ad from Ali Express featuring a woman with impossible body standards

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Me: I think I might like to see Weird Al. Ticketmaster:

Rich Uncle Pennybags (AKA The Monopoly Man) with a mask over his eyes dual wielding some absurd automatic weaponry

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

You can be awestruck and excited and happy to work in a tiny room (or really do anything in space! In zero g!) at every moment for 10 days. Very few people could keep that kind of energy up for a whole pregnancy cycle’s worth of time.

Movie poster for Nine Months. Hugh Grant is smiling big in ways an astronaut absolutely wouldn’t.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Still the best idea Taco Bell has ever had.

The Taco Bell Doritos Locos Taco unwrapped and in its cardboard carrier.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

I don’t know how to live in a world where Jenga needs an expansion.

The Jenga Downfall Funky Blocks & Sabotage expansion photographed in store.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

$5 IMAX ticket? Don’t mind if I do… Going again on Saturday

T-Mobile T-Life app screenshot offering a $5 movie ticket for Project Hail Mary

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

As best I can tell, my favorite was discontinued so I bought as many as I could find at the time. Will probably have to switch to 4 when I run out.

A pristine 4 pack of uniball insight fine point black ink pens still in the blister pack. Truly a divine sight.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

When I had to prototype hexes I used magazine board from the local comic shop. It’s thick enough to work like tiles, but thin enough to cut with scissors. Printed my game elements on label paper and just applied them to the board before cutting.

An unopened, shrink-wrapped stack of 100 magazine boards.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Got my designer copies in, so now I’ve added Jingle Bell Roll to the published game shadow box collection.

A copy of Jingle Bell Roll assembled into a collage for display in a shadow box picture frame.

A collection of five games presented in shadow boxes. They’re all unplayable now as they’re incomplete copies hot-glued into fixed positions for display.
The titles top to bottom, left to right are:
-The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game
-Jingle Bell Roll
-Discount Salmon
-Letter GO!
-BEEEEES!

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

I thought these were from the same Dove, which is almost as confusing as the fact these products coexist and they are not.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

🎶 Cannot find what I want. Cannot make by myself. 🎵 Need small Rocky figure suspended in a clear d12. 🎶 Then label sides with Eridian base-6 numbers two times. 🎵 Who can make what I need, question? www.etsy.com/listing/1835... Eridian numbers: projectamaze.com/number-conve...

Project Hail Mary’s Rocky inside his geodesic spaceball from a fan made poster on Etsy.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

The nightmare fueled scoretrack I’ve been using for Worker Replacement has been deemed too difficult to read by testers, so I made a new one loosely based on a code contribution tracker.

Worker Replacement in action. This white robot is posed as a bullfighter.

The old scoretrack with the pictures and names of two dozen actual robotics projects and their (ir)responsible development companies.

The new scoretrack numbered 1-40 with several seemingly random boxes highlighted in green.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

I’m actively in pursuit of finding a mass market publisher for my robot-posing charades game. Strongly considering a trip to NY toy fair in a couple weeks, but I’m unsure if that will be the best use of my time since I’m planning it so late with no meetings lined up. toyfairny.com/tf/toyfair/h...

A green robot possibly playing Third Base somewhere

Green robot pointing at something in a walking motion while suspended in air by an armature

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

And finally, this playtesting event was in Minnesota last weekend. The vibes were tense. No matter where I went the people felt under siege, but the refrain I heard most often was “Stay Warm.” I don’t think it was entirely about the temperature.

My vantage point from the ICE Out rally from last Friday

Banner at the rally that reads WE LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Less urgently the game does need a new name that conveys the core concept in a snappier, less ambiguous way. Worker Replacement is clever, but misleading. Best idea I’ve heard so far is “Robot Poseurs” which might be too punny for the general audience, but makes me laugh.

Two robots getting ready for that photoshoot.

Two robots below a title that says Worker Replacement in a very retro electronic font. Yes, they’re shamelessly stealing the poses and aesthetic of the Codenames box. Get used to it. 🥸🤣

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

My *best* versions of these robots were *completely trashed* after one weekend of plays. The joints no longer hold position nearly as well as they did. A lot of the game requires frequent removal of limbs and the parts are just not durable enough.

That score board always got a second look when I told people what was going on with it.

This is Lead Guitarist. Just because you can’t use that leg for a leg this round doesn’t mean it’s not a good prop.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Biggest issue? To go mass I need a custom robot. This model was made available for free on the Internet and the Chinese manufacturers wasted no time making their own versions. I tried several of them: - on sprues - prepackaged in parts - fully assembled In all cases it’s unsuitable for mass market

Robot model cut in pieces and half assembled from the visible plastic injection molded sprues

Six fully assembled robots in cellophane packaging

Several robots from the retail packaging showing they come fully disassembled.

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Gameplay notes: - The satire is fine. I don’t need special rules for it. A grown man posing a robot as its own Dentist is absurd on its face (literally). - limited props are good: players used the storage crates and armatures to stand in for all kinds of things - The 2 jobs at once round is perfect

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Protospiel MN report: the game tested amazing. People were requesting to play it unprompted. Others told me they were referred to my table to play “the robot game”. At one point I had to refuse a playtest just to get a break (sorry JT!). I had to leave a copy with a friend who “needed to have it.”

I don’t remember the prompt here except that it wasn’t Marathoner and multiple people guessed that

This might have been Car Salesman, but I don’t remember for sure

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

I have these and they get my highest recommendation. Awesome product.

A selection of Ruben’s mini-chips (rails flavor) in seven denominations pictured next to a standard sized poker chip, an American quarter and a golden dollar coin for size reference. The mini chips are much smaller than the poker chip and almost exactly the size of the golden dollar

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🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗 @marcusross.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Cripes Minnesota. Do y’all really live like ❄️THIS❄️? I’ve ❄️never❄️ had to spend ❄️more than an hour❄️ at a supercharger before

Trying to charge up my car at a 250 kW supercharger. It’s so cold it’s going to take 100 minutes to do it.

I’m gonna watch Star Trek on the center console.

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