iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by ryan

davemakes🔶 @mixolumia.com · 27/06/2025

Curse Match is out and free to play in your browser! Drop blocks, match colors, and choose your curse each level. Survive with the help of bombs and spells as you rack up combos under ever-shifting circumstances until you escape or become cursed forever. davemakes.itch.io/cursematch

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

anyone looking for board game marketing model talent? 😘 babe got a new outfit and I immediately connected the color vibe :p #boardgames someone get 2tomatoes on bsky

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Planet Unknown the one remains in my top ten! breezy but satisfying numbers-go-up polyomino optimization game I think the rover element is what really differentiates it<3 I did _horrible_ with my goals this time. whiffed all of them 😅 timing of the bad events was brutal #SoloYear #boardgames 32/

ryan posing in front of completed game of Planet Unkown board is a planet with polyominoes arranged on it.

completed game of Planet Unkown board is a planet with polyominoes arranged on it.

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Tokyo Highway: Rainbow City finally arrived! new edition of TC with rubberized cars and rubber road tips make things really stable! the solo mode is surprisingly effective? play 4 colors, colors are assigned direction limitations such as "road must go north" + Rainbow! #SoloYear #boardgames 32/

ryan posing in front of complete game of Tokyo Highway board game, tons of sticks and cars interlaced

Tokyo Highway solo game start, four player colors facing each other

Tokyo Highway early game, some highways crossing each other

close up macro shot of Tokyo Highway with many highways crossing each other

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Skoventyr another whim pickup. cute light coop with scandi foklore! and great art! badgers as protagonists? hell yeah feels very Oniverse: Nautilion with the ring chase & Sylvion w/ forest health cardplay has tough tradeoffs and great risk pulls. I lost badly : p #SoloYear #boardgames 31/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of Skoventyr board game

top down photo of Skoventyr end of game state. six cards with images of trees are in a ring to represent an abstract forest

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Cthulhu: Death May Die my first crawler of the year. got a steal on the recent KS super clean compared to other crawlers the stronger-as-you-get-closer-to-loss player arc is exhilarating. <90 minutes to go from "this looks impossible" to "I am a god". last minute win >:D #SoloYear #boargames 30/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of Cthulhu: Death May Die board game. board is made up oflarge monster miniatures and dungeon board tiles.

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs Truly impressive how they crunched the core GH experience into an iiitty bitty living space. I do with the full rules were printed tho 😒 I appreciate the GH system (I mostly finished JotL) but I get too loss-averse to fully enjoy it. #SoloYear #boardgames 29/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of game Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs on the table

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

nakedly apparent, but I lost my daily #SoloYear streak towards the end of Jan. add me to the study on new year's resolutions 🙃 had a rough personal start to feb but gaming again and I _think_ I can keep up to the 365 cadence by the end of march ; D I'm even saving my roll-and-writes for later :p

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Ginkopolis this is I think my favorite game and I don't know how it took me so long to try the solo! she's a bit _too_ easy to dodge since you choose which of your 4 cards to give and can usually dump an ineffective urbanization I trounced, but will try again w/ hard #SoloYear #BoardGames 28/

ryan posing with peace sign above board game Ginkpopolis midgame on table

close up photo of board game Ginkopolis midgame

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Solutions 1st play and I was surprised to see this was a kind of coop Timeline but with climate impact mitigation projects (try to place in order of efficacy) it's cute! best game I've seen yet for an educational setting! solo definitely lacked the intended discussion #SoloYear #boardgames 27/

ryan posing with peace sign in front of table with the board game Solutions displayed mid-game

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

me: hey! @nictringali.bsky.social! let's do something stress-free like a casual game of Can't Stop me: rolls a 12, followed by a `6,6,6,6` double 12 us: cool cool cool cool nic: crushes a really solid 6,7,8 first turn with so much safety in pushing a roll nic: rolls a 6,6,6,6 and busts us: wtf

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Samurai Spirit fun lil base defense coop! cardplay is mitigigable blackjack. you want enemies that _just_ meet your threshold, but you can/need to sideline some the variable powers are a good mix, and I'm a sucker for "losing? get more powerful" w/ the animal form bit #boardgames #SoloYear 26/

ryan posing with peace sign in front of game mid-play of Samurai Spirit

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Sol @prismofeverything.bsky.social orbital concepts are so seductive but sol is the only one that's has earned it for me solo is cute! I was surprised it existed. exceeded expectations multiplayer, this game is 💯 doppler effect applied to infra investment #SoloYear #boardgames #sologaming 25/

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

White Castle love how much this crunches into "9 actions" very combo-y but fun and just short of annoying bot can be swingy with how often it doubles actions, but it was very polite this play. lost by one!!! #SoloYear #boardgames #sologaming 24/

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

just gotta relearn and play The White Castle in the next 22 hours so I can land the Shei/Isra quadfecta before January ends

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Shinkansen: Zero-Kei reading rules, I thought this would be _too_ much of a plate/pancake/glaive spinning type of game but it blends much better than I thought I got lucky w/ draw but it's _brutal_ to have bot lock out carriage swap right out. that's kind of the game? #SoloYear #boardgames 23/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of board game Shinkansen: Zero-Kei mid-game

Close up photo of board game Shinkansen: Zero-Kei with box cover in background

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Flatiron tight 1-2p tableau-building worker placement to build a shared building I _really_ dig the knife-fight from the different color pillar requirement, especially since the color point values are asymmetric also, what a visual! #SoloYear #soloboardgames #boardgames 22/

Ryan posing with peace sign in front of Flatiron board game mid play.

closeup photo of flatiron board game at end of game with layers of wooden cylinders precariously holding up layers of cardboard floors making up a loose representation of a flatiron building structure

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Twilight Struggle: Red Sea lean version of twilight struggle which does the original great justice! very funny to play only two hands, but it surprisingly works the first time I played, the bot stuck in a loop that I couldn't help but cheese. good challenge this time! #SoloYear #boardgames 21/

Twilight Struggle: Red Sea board game setup, Ryan posing in front.

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Half Price Books strikes again! I've been looking for Ares Project (from Brian Engelstein & @gengelstein.bsky.social) ever since trying to learn it from a con library >10 years ago asymm mech rts-like, iirc. can't wait to try I got lucky with a good deal and! unpunched / shrink cards #boardgames

photo of The Ares Project board game box opened with components spread out. four decks of cards are in shrink and punchboards are unpunched.

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Dual Powers light area-influence Russia 1917, first time the MP game is mostly about the secret objective "headline" card choice but solo gives you a face-down one and are forced to spend a precious action to inspect. bot getting will of people automatically is punishing #SoloYear #boardgames 20/

Ryan posing in front of board game Dual Powers mid play

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

The Wars of Marcus Aurelius from @rdeleskie.bsky.social & HS haven't played in a minute! had some nasty rolls (shh about the empty Quadi), but this one's really fun. I like the dig-your-own-grave temptation of unlimited cardplay while your draw dwindles #SoloYear #boardgames #sologames 19/

Ryan posing in front of in-progress game of The Wars of Marcus Aurelius

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Irish Freedom great topic! only played once before when it came out. both times I think tooooo swingy out of the gate for me. need to try again soon to try to make it to the second half of the game ; D #SoloYear #boardgames #sologames 18/ (ugh, bad photo, sorry)

Ryan posing with Irish Freedom game mid-play

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

DerrocAr sick theme, knife fight for pres succession in Argentina 2000-ish. it's Pax Munchkin? That's mean. but set collection gotcha is core. the political aspects make it _very_ interesting novel solo what's procedure flowchat uses and plays _your_ hand. fine solo? #SoloYear #boardgames 17/

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Jump Ship! cheat game because I spend the whole pm reading Cardboard Ghosts and couldn't be bothered to learn something picked this up as a prospective game with kid. idk? can't see any cyoa being worse than this. lacks narrative viv, idk what else to say #SoloYear #boardgames 16/

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

oh hell, I've got a lot of posts to catch up on. I broke my one-a-day-streak but I'm well ahead of cadence for one _per_ day, #SoloYear posts incoming! ps: america's bad right now, you shouldn't do it like we done it

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Reposted by ryan

onion person @junlper.beer · 22/01/2025

i have been following politics for 15 years, started when i was 14, because i was a transgender bisexual teen in a world where christians went on every news channel using the bible to explain why we don’t deserve rights or respect. not much has changed so i will continue to hyperfix about politics

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Reposted by ryan

nic tringali @nictringali.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

So in my evaluation of this sicko game, I learned its map is extremely hard to interact with as a game. So I set out to maybe redesign it? and mostly failed? here's a blog about that:

blog.enceledean.com

Redesigning A Sicko Board Game Map

is a 1984 game by Greg Costikyan and West End Games. It is a space opera wargame, with the enticing subtitle "Earth Between Two Foes", and in many ways ...

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

I'll never be able to convince anyone this was unintentional. this was on my "maybe solo tonight" pile but wanted to do some "fuck the world" nails first. guess this is a War Game Nail Art account now

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

fuck that bastard and fuck you if you support him and fuck you if you equivocate for him

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

pinning this to design notes for a sloppy ragebait game

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

okay tonight's #SoloYear might be an A4 handwritten proxy of Win Lose Banana because I just want my solo activity to be crushing

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Pocket Master Builder hits _right_ at the limit of too spatial for me. the bot is a little hard to preempt. super mean flipping/denying in a great way >: D lots to juggle and it makes me _more_ reticent to take on Rome #SoloYear #boardgames 15/

ryan posed, peace sign, with initial setup of Pocket Master Builder

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

The Red Cathedral still great! I love the cadence of using delivery or claim turns to stall for when the dice are where you want but the storage space/coin game is tight. I realized bot cards should NOT be randomized as written, flop gave me way too much head start, trounced it #SoloYear 14/

Ryan in front of Red Cathedral board game

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

sorry, I did the peace selfie the first few times, it's gotta be in the rest of them, I don't make the rules

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Peak Oil: Profiteer WOAH what a surprise it's got the King is Dead / Pax Penning kind of using your tenuously favored non-player suits for gain at the expense of their future efficacy (increased cost in this case) but wrapped in a lil euro econ solo was eh, but wanna play MP _SOON_ #SoloYear 13/

selfie of ryan giving peace sign in front of finished game of the Peak Oil: Profiteer board game

photo of the front cover of the Peak Oil: Profiteer board game

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

La Granja wanted to try this since I fell in love with Cooper's Island! (also by ode.) I love some pfister/chudyk multi-use cards but I didn't feel like there were enough card-play actions in the game that I was feeling good tension there. And I was fine with any die draft result? #SoloYear 12/

selfie of Ryan posing with peace sign in front of the end game of La Granja board game

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Time Stories - Damien short promotional/demo Time Stories mission it's fine? like great production and art but it's an hourish to play what would be, no joke, a five minute point and click adventure game. I think it would be miserable with multiple players and limited comms #SoloYear 11/

selfie of Ryan giving peace sign in front of Time Stories Damien board game set up to start playing

Time Stories Damien board game at the end of play. tons of cards sprawled on the table.

photo of Time Stories Damien board game box cover

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Halls of Hegra still the best solo game I've ever played gameplay arc is: oh god I'm so stressed where do I put these plates → oh god wtf now I'm juggling plates → WHY ARE THEY SHOOTING AT MY PLATES @tompetgames.bsky.social y'all did a good one <3 #SoloYear 10/

selfie of ryan giving peace sign with the Halls of Hegra board game set up on the table. another person is beside ryan

photo of the board game Halls of Hegra midgame

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Bargain Basement Bathysphere girl, I need to play this more often. the risky delve bait gives good Dome Keeper vibes. metaprogress works great in a short campaign my partner and I played half the campaign together before [gestures broadly] but we'll have to get back into it. cute fun! #SoloYear 9/

ryan posing close to the table giving peace sign. table has Bargain Basement Bathysphere game midplay

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

A year of solo board games 🎉 #SoloYear New year! New social media! new reason to table #boardgames solo that I love and some I haven't yet had the chance to love <3 I won't struggle to find 365 games, but I'll always take suggestions ; D new post everyday (🤞😬) 🧵 1/365 #SoloBoardgames

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

I need to save these stills in my wallet for every time I'm like "what would making a board game youtube take? 🤔" @kovray.bsky.social ; D

screenshot of "2024 in Reflection" video from the Kovray board game YouTube channel with Ilya and Tylor sitting together. An overlay states that they've played 600 games in 2024

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Hegemony (take 2) finally! I should have used the basic bot the first time ;D early impressions, but I had a blast capitalist has a tough puzzle enticing the working class _just_ enough to get them to bite and still make bank. definitely coming back to this, probably as middle class #SoloYear 8/

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Castellion first play in a while. confirmed what I mentioned after Nautilion that I think it's too puzzly for me. honestly, the most friction I have with it is that the (great!) tile art is too noisy to quickly discern shape / colors Micro City cute lil resource game but kinda flat #SoloYear 7/

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Hegemony beastly asymm political euro w/ neat intersection of faction interests took me an eternity to sort everything and reread and setup, so I only got through most of a round as capitalist vs working class bot, but left it mostly set up so going back tonight >: D #SoloYear 6/

sorted components of Hegemony board game spread over table

Hegemony board game set up with Capitalist player to the left of the board and Working Class automa to the right of the board

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

oh man oh boy, I'm trying this again. fully read rules this morning and re-org'd a bunch to fit everything w/o box lift 9:29 box about to be opened 10:47 ready for start, Capitalist v Working Class bot. trying the advanced (complicated) bot, pray for me

photo of hegemony board game box on neoprene mat on table

Hegemony board game fully set up with Capitalist and Working Class factions. Working class is setup to play with the automated player.

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

so 5/365 #SoloYear was supposed to be a single round of Hegemony boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/32... to flex the game and the bots so I could play MP this week, but I forgot that I never punched nor sorted it. I did capture _that_ process which is at least more engaging than a few games I've played...

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ryan @ryanisabird.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

voted least likely to follow a repeatable post format

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