January Report

Another mixed month. It got off to a great start, playing games with the in-laws over my extended Christmas holiday, and building up quite a stock of Border Reivers (I took a bunch of copies with me to do the tile-cutting down in Bristol). From a playing point of view it continued well, I got a trip to Beyond Monopoly in, went round to Paul's and Dave's for games, had Mal down for a weekend and hosted a games night at mine. From a creation point of view it was mixed, I've not touched Jorvik, Sennon or Artist really since the holidays, I've made some decent progress on Monster, and had an excellent week of Border Reivers sales after a slow start to the month.

Play

I had a good month of playing games, I played loads including quite a few new ones. At Paul's games night I was introduced to Falling an utterly chaotic game in which you have to play certain cards quickly on yourself and the other players, in a bid to be the last to hit the ground. Despite the madness of it all we played six games that night, so it was a bit of a hit. I went round to Dave's for games as well, and Dave introduced me to Memoir '44 (which I'd seen played loads of times before, but I'd never played myself. This one was good fun - nice and strategic, but with a healthy dose of luck and a quick play time. I definitely enjoyed it. That night we also played Railway Rivals a game where you draw your railway routes on a wipe-off board with a felt-tip pen. It was an interesting change from the handfull of other railway games I've played, and I like the two stages - build and then race. Also new to me in January was Villa Paletti, a very colourful dexterity game with some similarities to Jenga. My favourite new game was Memoir '44 I think, I really liked the speed and balance of strategy and luck. I can see why the Battlelore spin-off is generating so much interest.

The games I played the most this month are Pitch Car again, my new game which is getting a lot of table time, and Carcassonne (an old favourite).

The final breakdown is:

• Pitch Car: 13 plays
• Falling: 6 plays
• Carcassonne: 4 plays
• Border Reivers: 3 plays
• Villa Paletti: 2 plays
• Memoir '44: 2 plays
• Power Grid: 2 plays
• Lost Cities: 2 plays

And one each of: Railway Rivals and Diamant.

I still haven't managed to play Canal Mania, Space Dealer or Die Saulen Der Erde, maybe this month...

Creation

It's been a mixed month on the game creation front, some ups and downs, and some games I didn't do anything at all on. My new job at work involves a fair bit of travel, so I've had less time available.

Border Reivers

After a good start getting a load of tiles cut out in Bristol, I had a few quiet weeks of no sales and very little construction. That all changed when I offered free shipping to America for a limited number of people, racking up five sales in twelve hours - equalling my best ever week of sales at a convention! I went on to sell a few more copies that week setting a new record of eight. It's generating a bit more content on The Geek now, which is nice.

Monster

It's been a good month for Monster, I've been trying to price up components to see how much it would cost to make, and I'm strongly considering making a run of 300 copies. I've spoken to an artist about getting the artwork done, and started drafting a contract to offer the designer. I've played it now with up to five players and it still seems to work, but the designer played it with six and didn't like it, so I'm going to reduce the components and limit it to five players. Hopefully I'll have some news in a month or two...

Artist

I played Artist with Mal when he came down and I've got some ideas to improve it - I just need to find some time to make a new prototype.

Sennon & Jorvik

No progress on either of these this month.

This month I'd like to nail stuff down on Monster, and make a decision on whether or not to publish it, and I hope for another good month of sales on Border Reivers, building on January's strong sales.