After Splotter Con 2025 and the successful publication of my book, Splotter Unboxed, I decided I needed a new challenge. One of my all-time favorite games has long been Splotter’s 1999 classic, Bus. I had never fancied myself a board game designer, but the idea of creating a Pittsburgh map immediately got me thinking about how the city itself might change the game.

A Pittsburgh version of Bus had to feel like Pittsburgh, so two ideas came almost immediately: bridges and one-way streets. One-way streets restrict the direction buses can travel through parts of the city, while bridges create important connections across Pittsburgh’s rivers—and new considerations when building and operating a bus line.

But I didn’t want this to be simply Bus: Pittsburgh. I was creating the map as a complimentary gift for attendees of Splotter Con 2026, so it seemed fitting to work a little of the convention itself into the game. That led to perhaps its most distinctive addition: Splotter designers Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga join the passengers moving around Pittsburgh. They generally behave like passengers, but getting them to the airport introduces another wrinkle: alongside getting Pittsburghers to work, home, and the pub, you may find yourself worrying about whether Jeroen or Joris are going to make it to Splotter Con on time.

While these ideas were still brewing—and less than a month after the 2025 convention—I visited Chicago on a trip connected to graduate school and spent some time with friends who had all previously attended Splotter Con. I didn’t even have a board designed yet, but I asked if they would humor me by playing Bus with one of my proposed rules: one-way streets. We had such a good time, and the idea received enough positive feedback, that I decided there might actually be something worth pursuing.

From there, Bus Pittsburgh became a real project. I designed the map and began playtesting repeatedly with different groups around Pittsburgh, refining how its geography and new rules affected the familiar rhythms of Bus. I even made a special trip to Northern Virginia to put it in front of some particularly competitive and experienced Splotter players.

The result is not intended to reinvent Bus. At its heart, this is still the wonderfully mean, interactive game Splotter designed in 1999: players build bus lines, expand the city, bring new passengers into play, and compete to deliver those passengers to the places they want to go—all while trying to anticipate, exploit, or completely ruin one another’s plans. Bus Pittsburgh instead asks a different question: what happens when that system has to contend with Pittsburgh? Rivers get in the way. Bridges become precious. Streets don’t always take you where you want to go. And occasionally, you need to get a Dutch board game designer to the convention.

It turns out that Bus feels remarkably at home here.

~Dean Brandt