iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Broke out some more designs last week at Protospiel Wisconsin: The Little Red Book of Bristol and No Triumph: a new trick taker concept where everyone plays with face-up hands .. V2 actually works but I need to pick a restriction but not sure which is best yet 🎲✂️

board game showing orders and storage as players vie for spots at a fair

some reused skipbo cards used in a trick taker where players came change trump and what wins

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Broke out some old designs for more feedback at last week’s Protospiel Michigan .. Fano Plane, Dog Toys, In The Still of the Night 🎲✂️

table show a triangular fano plane with colored dots arranged on the table

table showing domino shaped cards with each end showing a dog breed and a dog toy

board showing a track and cubes to collect ingredients to brew spirits as a bootlegger

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

You can now pre-order FlipDraw: Mondrian for only $15 as part of the Concrete Canvas Backerkit! concrete-canvas.backerkit.com/hosted_preor...

image showing papers and crayons with people making Mondrian style modern art

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

The Galacterra prototype is finally rebuilt and ready for testing in Proto Alley at #GeekwayToTheWest .. Think Castles of Burgundy meets Terraforming Mars but engine building instead of the cards 🎲✂️

space game showing planets and ships in six sectors around a sun

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Crazy to see my first game Diplomacy: The Golden Blade Card Game now available in store at Barnes & Noble. :)

Picture of The Golden Blade on a store shelf

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Thanks to everyone who read the Designer Diary and left comments! Diplomacy: The Golden Blade is now in The Hotness! Check out some of the play throughs and interviews on YouTube too. Thanks so much for all the love and support! ❤️

picture of the board game geek Hotness top 5

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

First playtest of @unpub.org is an updated version of Barn Quilts .. I’ll be testing it all weekend if you want to check it out!! 🎲✂️

table showing multiple colored barn quilts

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Had an awesome time at GAMA Expo with @intersectiongames.bsky.social demoing FlipDraw: Mondrian (coming to retail in the fall) .. Also, check out Concrete Canvas, a game about being a graffiti artist in NYC including unique art from Chris RWK (coming to Kickstarter this month!!)

a convention booth showing a drawing game where you made actual modern art

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Surreal to see my first published design in final production form at GAMA .. A lot of people have already received their preorder copies of Diplomacy: The Golden Blade .. Much excite!! 😀

sales shelf showing diplomacy the golden blade card game

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Squeezing some play testing in while at GAMA .. Barm Quilts as a flip’n’write continues to improve, just need to the bonus powers now

paper showing 3 barn quilt patterns partially colored in across six colors

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

First play test reimagining Barn Quilts as a flip’n’write .. Great start and already have v2 ready to test 🎲✂️

image showing 3 barm quilt patterns in several bright colors

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Ready to test a new party game called This Is Not Red @ TantrumCon; lots of laughs and a bit of deduction 🎲✂️

grid of cards showing a color word on each one but lettering is a different color

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

At Battlefront: Dayton for the first public demos of The Golden Blade .. Surreal to see your game design now available as swag 😀

image show Diplomacy: the golden blade swag

image showing golden blade trophy and tshirt

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

At an awesome design retreat this weekend and got to test 2 new designs: Pickup Artist: a small box cards only pick up and deliver game where you deliver art to museums Magnificent 7: A super gamer roll n write with an approachable Yahtzee inspired base 🎲✂️

magnificent seven: image showing a sheet with numbers in rows 1-6 and scorings goals below

pick up artist: a grid of museum cards and mini paintings cards to deliver

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Had a great playtest of Londonium on Sunday .. Really happy with everything about this game, just need to test at. some other player counts 🎲✂️

image showing a player board with storage and coins plus a set of boats for shipping resources for money or points

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Got some new designs tested last night .. KY Blackjack, which is a bidding and bluffing game; went great just need to figure out the end game condition .. Londonium, which is kinda a speed version of Puerto Rico (apparently); didn’t have enough tension but I have some ideas to iterate on 🎲✂️

game showing okaying cards and poker chips

boatd showing resources and meeples. players have a warehouse board and there are ships for shipping goods

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Tested out a new resource acquisition system tor Mouse Pad that uses mazes .. It worked really well, just need to clean up some UI .. Also, tried a new filler called 5th Street which a drafting and score builder in the vein of Arboretum but more approachable 🎲✂️

a mouse pad showing polyomino pieces and some central mazes with resources

cards showing numbers 1-9 in several different colors with half circle scoring dots along the edges

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

On the way to @unpub.bsky.social the other week, I designed a game called Mouse Pad where you are a mouse decorating your pad and your player board is a mouse pad 😀 It is also my first tetromino design .. Got it to the table and things mostly worked but need to adjust the economy and recipe costs 🎲✂️

Image of a tetromino game being played on a mouse pad with a mouse in an apartment in the background

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Ran Do Robots Dream? last with a group of friends that never played social deduction before .. They immediately asked to play again!! .. This game is sooo fun !! 🎲✂️

Cards showing pro human or pro robot laws

cards showing some robot and human voting cards

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Some post Unpub content: Some more good tests of 12 For A Penny and managed to wrangle a group together to try a new social deduction concept called Are We The Baddies? 🎲✂️

wooden cassette tape board showing side edge cassette tapes

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

First 5p game of Backdraft!! Everyone enjoyed it and two different strategies ended up only 6 points apart .. (162-156) 🎲✂️ Thanks for the inspiration @tonytran.bsky.social !!

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Happy to have 2 groups willing to try Maiku .. Really happy to see people’s reaction to it.. Also got a late night test of a brand new Set Theory .. Mostly worked and some great ideas to make it hum 🎲✂️

Table showing cards with words and syllables in a haiku pattern

Cards with colors and numbers and a pile of cubes near player score boards

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

If you are coming to @unpub.bsky.social this weekend, hmu to try a new experimental mini and *victorless* game concept called Maiku .. I’m bringing 30 copies and you get to keep one if you want 🎲✂️

images showing 30 small tins labeled as Maiku

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Got another playtest of Backdraft with the DC crew .. New tiles cleaned up all UI issues .. Also played an amazing game from @jacktose.bsky.social called Under The Wire .. Beg him to play it this weekend at @unpub.bsky.social, you won’t be sorry (but you may explode 🤷‍♀️) 🎲✂️

board showing red and blue dominoes arranged in numerical sequence plus number tokens doing the same

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Some more testing this week .. 12 for $0.01 has players joining a BMG style tape club only to be forced to later buy overpriced tapes .. Worked really well just need to tweak the economy a bit .. Harmonia is about hiring a nymph army using a bump draft; goal cards need completely rebuilt 🎲✂️

board showing a wooden cassette tape rack with tapes on top showing different artists

Numbered cards showing different types of nymphs with a different area of white goal cards

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Got some Sunday play testing in .. Limbo continues to be a banger .. Merchant Sailors crashed hard 🤣 Now to rebuild it 🎲✂️

cards showing numbers in the range 1-60 and a token that shows Limbo or Hurdle

ocean board with nested tina turners (lazy susans) and a player board showing a ship and coins and cubes

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Two new games are ready for testing 😀 twist on pickup-n-deliver Merchant Sailors and drafting + set collection 22 for a $0.01 (iykyk 🤣) 🎲✂️

game board showing a cassette tape holder and tiles of 80s and 90s music

sea board showing two sets of embedded of tina turners (lazy susan) with trade routes

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Got to run a 5p game of Domination!! .. I got wrecked; people kept Sabotaging me even though I wasn’t in the lead 🤣 🎲✂️

Board showing three rows of cards representing power in Armies, Votes or Fleets

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Another great test of Backdraft .. Players really enjoyed the multi-layer puzzle and had a suggestion to make it more brain burnery 😀 🎲✂️

Image show pink and yellow numbered dominoes and central drafting boards

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Boxing up All The Games ™️ and headed to #GAMA ! I’ll be hanging in the Galt House bar if you want test or hang out 🎲✂️

lots of prototypes loaded into plastic containers

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Play test night again, this time Mega City and Cauldron Bubble .. I need to adjust the numbers on the cards of Cauldron but it presents a really interesting puzzle to solve 🎲✂️

grid of tiles show ling different types of roads and buildings on the corners

cards showing the items and chant of the witches from MacBeth

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Ran some older designs back again .. Animal Farm and New Dice City are still bangers! .. I need to get collateral ready for pitch season 🎲✂️

roll n write showing 3 streets that have been numbered

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Finally got to test Red Riichi !! .. We didn’t use all the rules as the testers were new to Mahjong .. It is doing what I wanted it to do with one exception that I need to think more about .. Also squeezed in a quick game of 5 Star Fusion that has been tweaked to be Family weight 🎲✂️

Normal set of Riichi Mahjong tiles except more of the suited numbers are red

player board showing a restaurant kitchen with a pantry and fridge, customers, stoves .. In the center of the table is markets for new ingredients, recipes and customers

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Sumo Dice concept is ready to be tested. Players use their smaller dice to move the opponents Sumo wrestler out of the ring. 🎲✂️

box showing a sumo mat with two jumbo dice as the wrestlers. Other small dice sit nearby

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Play test of an updated Quantum Loop. A trick taking game based on the movie Source Code. Players cooperatively try to solve a murder, slowly gaining more information each loop. 🎲✂️ First approach failed but we played again and solved it this time around!!

trick taking game showing suspects, times and persons

final score sheet showing all cards for players to solve the murder case

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Play testing recap: Tweaks to Backdraft went well; happy with where it’s at .. 3p only drafting tricker The Sign of 3 was very interesting and needs more plays .. Players asked to end with Yuansu again; sooo much fun! .. Jokes led to breaking out Numberwang to close the night 🤣🤣 🎲✂️

game showing numbered dominos in pink and yellow on a player board to make sequences

Numberwang the card games showing numbers in colors with special ability gold cards

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Finally got play testing started again in 2025 .. Yuansu continues to just be lot of fun!! .. First test of Backdraft (domino drafting and set collection) went really well .. Need to redo some drafting boards and re-color the bonus dominoes for clarity .. Excited to run it again next week!! 🎲✂️

mahjong style tiles with earth, wind, fire, seasons and celestials

player boards showing pink and yellow dominoes numbered 0-9 and drafting boards in the center

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Finally got Red Riichi (a variant) built in both physical tiles and on Screentop .. Now to find some suckers er testers 😀 🎲✂️

picture showing Mahjong tiles but lots of the tiles are all bright red

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Thanks to everyone that played Yuansu at PAXU .. People loved that there is no downtime and you just get the fun of making groups the whole time .. I redid the tiles to make them maximally readable, even if the ascetics suffer 🎲✂️

image show mahjong style tiles with seasons dragons and numbers of earth wind and fires

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

First 2 player playtest of Beach House worked quite well and this is ready for PAXU tomorrow .. If you want to check it out, come to the Unpub room tomorrow afternoon 🎲✂️

Grid showing beach themed tiles with diamond shaped insets

Goal cards showing patterns of animals you can build for end game points

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Got to play with the clickity clack version of Yuansu with the family .. I drafted poorly and scored accordingly 🎲✂️

grid of tiles in rows of 7 showing dragons and sun and moon and stars and elements in counts 1-7

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

I can now fully empathize with @xopherchan.bsky.social on the tedium of stickering 100+ tiles! Yuansu is quite possibly the most *FUN* game I’ve ever designed .. I’ve played dozens of times solo trying to get better scores .. I love how it never drags into the Draw -> Go turns of similar games 🎲✂️

a grid of acrylic tiles showing dragons and seasons elements of nature showing different numbers of pips

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

I'm testing a new tile collecting & melding game called Yuansu .. A big difference from other Gin/Rummy/Mahjong style games is that this one focuses on a drafting mechanism with an interesting twist .. I'm still tweaking the completely custom tile set so hopefully I'll be happy with it by PAXU

Image showing some season icons, the sun and moon a dragon and some winds

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Riffing a bit on the classic game Set for my ButtonShy 9 card design challenge .. Holiday Hunt is quite fun and quite challenging .. HMU if you want to give it a try! 🎲✂️

a grid of 9 cards where each card has two colored numbers 1-4 and two holiday icons

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Waterlilies is a cooperative puzzle and also a piece of art! .. Despite the placeholder art, I’m pretty happy with how it looks 🎲✂️

a picture frame showing tiles of water lilies arranged in a pattern

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

First playtest session in a long while had two hits on unplayed designs .. Beach House is an entwined draft and pattern builder .. Bajong is a simplified and twisted Mahjong style game in just two decks of cards .. Players requested extra hands of Bajong to close the night 🎲✂️

player board showing floor tile shaped pieces containing beach animals in different colors

table showing a card game and the cards are similar visually to Mahjong tiles

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Rosco Schock @ GenCon 🔜 GrandCon 🔜 Battlefront Dayton 🔜 PAXU @roscoschock.bsky.social · 19/09/2024

Really happy with the modular board for Starfish!! .. Now to make the other 3 halves of the prototype!! 😀🎲✂️

Hex tiles that are in different colors with icons for starfish, sea cucumbers, crawfish, zebra fish and axolotl

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