2026 Design + Channel Check-In

0:00 Hey gamers, this is Liz David from Beyond Solitire and I thought this was a good time for a channel update, a design update, just kind of a overall um look into how things are this year and there's been a lot going on. So, I'm not going to bury the leader. Uh I will of course just start this video by noting yesterday there's a press release that announced that Leader Games is splitting into two studios. So, we're going to have Leader Games and then Cole Kyle and some of the staff are going over to do a new venture called Buried Giant. Um, for those of you who are hoping for some hot goss, I'm sorry, but also pleased for myself to report to you that there isn't any. Um, this is just a very typical creative direction splits, and I think that everybody's going to be fine in the end. Nobody did anything evil, and if you like actually lay out everything, it's just not that dramatic. So, that makes me happy because it means I can just keep working.

0:50 Um, so the first design I'm going to talk about here is what am I doing at work? Um, my current work project is root clockwork. And so those of you who've been asking me about bots over the last several months, um you'll know that those products are out of print. People ask about them periodically. Uh we have just let them be out of print because now that oath stuff is getting out the door and I'll be finishing some final editorial stuff for that for Barry Giant. Um we can now turn our attention to root clockwork and Benjamin and I have been talking about it for a while. I'm really excited to be working with him. Um, you know, we are looking to get all the bots condensed into one box with a bunch of clean bots. So, you know, you don't you won't have to be looking for the director's cut on Board Game Geek anymore to find the best version of the bots. Um, and we're also going to see what other goodies we can fit in there. So, we have talked about, but not actually done stuff for hierlings, new maps, um, landmarks. We're going to see what we can pull off. So, I don't want to make any specific promises, especially because this is not an official Leader Games outlet. This is just me talking about my life at work. But, I can tell you that Benji and I are committed to releasing a very clean, very comprehensive uh Root Clockwork Box together, and I am super excited about it. I think it's going to be really good. Um, I've been doing some testing already in the new year, and I've been happy. So, um, yeah, that's that's what I'm up to at work right now. I also have a couple things I'd like to propose for our pipeline at work, but Root Clockwork is my priority on the job at this moment. Uh, I also have a couple of

2:21 finished designs. So, one is Queen of Spies, which if y'all were following the Gamefound campaign, that just wrapped. If you missed it and you want to go try to lay Pledge or something, that'd be great. Or hopefully it'll be at Gin Con and you can get it directly from me. Uh, but Queen of Spies is a solo game that I did with David Thompson, uh, about running a spy ring in World War I. And I'm really proud of our work. I'm super happy to have had my first game c gamefound campaign. Uh, and hopefully it's just the first of many experiences that I'll have that are positive and fun and involve getting my games out into the world. I also want to update on Night Witches. So Dave and I finished the design on Night Witches a long time ago, but it's taken forever to come out. You know, art has taken a long time. Um, I don't have any definitive announcements about exactly what the timeline is, but there is movement in the right direction because as Kevin Bertram of Fort Circle noted in his most recent uh newsletter about his about Fort Circle and about their publishing pipeline, uh games that were delayed because of tariffs and trying to figure out what to do about that are now in print at the factory. So, he'll be shipping some of his stuff that was kind of backlogged. And also, I know that Ian Oul and the person who's going to do the rule book for Night Witches are in contact. So, what that means is there is movement and hopefully it's like a bunch of good movement and we'll have a nice year. I can't promise, but I can hope.

3:41 So, let's not jinx anything together, but please let this be the year that Night Wishes makes it out. Um, because I'm so proud of that game, and I've been waiting to share it with the world for a long time. I also have some ongoing designs. Uh, one of them is Foxes and Lions, which is a Here I Stand series game I've been working on with my friend Paul Wright. So he and I have got a game going that is uh it's like a hero I standard version queen system game uh but it's about the Italian wars and also we took out the religion stuff and added a bunch of political stuff and like a nasty florin economy that makes you bid for mercenaries. Uh the game is in development. Um we are in talks with the publisher. Uh I hope that we have some definitive fantastic news uh in the next several months. So, that is underway, ongoing, and I'm really proud of the work, and hopefully I'll be able to share far more of that with you um as we hit kind of the middle of the year. The other in progress I have going uh that I don't talk about a lot, but it's time to start talking about it, is called The Big Year. So, I got into birding in the last couple years. Um this is how we know I'm reaching middle age. Like, I started making games like I made a game about World War II as my first game design with David. And uh yeah, I never really expected that.

4:55 So clearly I'm hitting middle-ag already by getting into World War II. And now I've started to notice birds. Um so there you go. Uh Liz is aging everyone. But the big year is actually a game that I'm making with David Thompson again and with Roger Tankersley who he and I like got really excited about this idea because it turns out that he's also a burer but like way more experienced than I am. Like a huge burgerer. So he and I talked about birds lot and then we uh decided it'd be fun to make a game about a big year and we dragged David into it. So for those of you who don't know the having a big year is like a real life game that people with a lot of money or a lot of time play where they travel around the United States and try to see as many bird species as possible in a single calendar year. So we have created a game that we'll be showing off soon that we'll be testing at larger player counts soon. So, uh, wait, uh, for maybe requests from me to play hopefully. But, um, the game is literally about traveling around the country and trying to see as many bird species as possible.

5:54 And it has some strong semi-ooperative elements because you can see more birds when you're coll when you're colllocated with another person, but that also means that they're seeing the same birds and you have to split off sometime if you want to see the most birds. And so I've never paid so much attention to another player's turn during a game in my entire life and I hope that other people have that experience when they play the big year. So that's one that we're working on. I've been really enjoying it. Um it is fun to both actually go looking for birds and then to play a game about looking for birds. And um hopefully y'all will enjoy that too if you are at all interested in such things. And then the other ongoing design I have going on is an experimental project with David. I'm just like not ready to talk about it in public yet because I don't know how or to whom we would sell this, but we're working on something that I'm really excited about that involves a whole lot of writing. Um, and so I've been having a great time with that. And then for upcoming designs, of course, David and I are always working together.

6:54 So, we have a couple possibilities for our next game. And basically what he and I do is we research things and we like pitch them to each other and then we just kind of decide what order we want to do stuff in. We have a list like a mile long of games that we would like to make. Um, but right now there's the possibility of doing a Gettysburg game together and there's also another historical topic that we've both gotten a little obsessed with um that could come to the the forefront uh in the coming months. So, we want to kind of finish the stuff we have going on to an extent that will let us work on a new game, but we have stuff in the pipeline. I also have a couple things of my own. Um, so I want to get back to my prototype about Agraina. Like basically I have a prototype of a game that it's just it's got some thoughts in it but it needs to get developed out but it's about being Agraina um the younger who is Nero's mom and it's like a game about trying to maintain political power while also not pissing your son off so bad that he tries to murder you. Um and I want to revisit that prototype because I just haven't paid enough attention to myself and my personal projects the last several years. And so I would like to go back and see what's there and see what I can pull out of it now that I have a lot more experience and a lot more thoughts about game design and development that I did when I first made it. Um, and then uh I also have a non-historical idea that is like very nent, but I want to see what I can do with it and then I'll talk about it more. I don't like to talk about things too early in too much detail because I don't want people to expect things uh and then I changed my mind, but uh there will be more stuff.

8:26 Uh and then if you're just interested in the channel in general, um podcast season 12 is currently kicking into gear. I've begun scheduling interviews for that and the first ones are getting recorded next week. So I'm hoping to run an episode the last Monday of January and if it doesn't happen then it's going to start February. So the podcast is returning. I've already contacted several people I'm super excited to talk to. So everything is going super well with that. And then, you know, for my YouTube channel, it's been kind of a stressful transition both to full-time game design and then I live in the Twin Cities. So, if you've been watching the news, uh I'm under tremendous stress. Um but I'm also searching for joy, which is actually making me want to YouTube and play and read like more than ever. Um and you know, I've been in a transition period where I wasn't sure how to talk about work because I knew that stuff was ongoing. But uh we are in a fresh year.

9:16 We're in a fresh period of transition. So I'm hoping to kind of recommit to my YouTube channel and we'll kind of see what that looks like. I don't want to pressure myself to the point where I am ruining playing games for myself at this time because it's already my job and I want to make sure it stays my hobby. But I really want to release more gameplay videos and interviews and just thoughts about games this year because I want to be thinking about games and I think that making YouTube videos helps me do that. You're also going to see more stuff about books because I've just been reading really aggressively in the past year and into 2026. Um, it makes me feel a lot better to be reading literature. Um, it is very comforting for me to think about the world through somebody else's like really good writing. And so I'll be continue to do that and I'll probably talk about it. But yeah, that's where I'm at. Um, I am optimistic about the new year. I'm nervous about several things in the world, but I'm also determined to keep doing what I'm doing.

10:15 I have the great blessing of being somebody who gets to make games for a living and then gets to talk about them when I get off work and make even more games. So, I'm going to live this life and enjoy the hell out of it and share it with you. So, uh that's all I got to say for now. Thanks so much for watching and uh happy gaming everybody.