Busy Few Days

I've spent thirteen hours at hospital this week including travel time, which has obviously had an impact on the amount of progress I've been able to make, but even with that I've managed to get a lot done. Plus the treatment seems to be making a difference so that's worth it too.

Tuesday I managed to make my Codename: Network prototype a little nicer looking in preparation for a playtesting night with Paul G, Greg and Lisa. It was (believe it or not) the first time I'd played 4-player, and as a result we made a couple of changes to make player interaction a bit easier - all good stuff.

Wednesday afternoon, I got confirmation from the designer of Network, Ted Cheatham, that he was happy with the name and the contract, so I can now confirm that Network will be the third game released by Reiver Games in July of this year. I want to call it 'Carpe Astri - Seize the Stars' but apparently the correct name is 'Carpe Astra', someone spotted the error on BoardGameGeek and I checked it with a Professor of Latin at Cambridge University! I'm hoping to have the professional run ready to ship pre-orders (at 30% discount) at the beginning of July, sending copies out to shops at distributors at the end of July/early August. If you're after a copy please either email me to go on the pre-order list, or contact your favourite store and ask them to stock it. I expect it will cost somewhere between £15 and £25 GBP, but I'm waiting on a quote from the manufacturer before I can confirm that.

Wednesday afternoon also featured another playtest, this time with Paul W and Lisa, giving the new 3-player layout a test. Again it went well (plus I won 3/3 :-) ), so that was really useful too. Wednesday evening Rich tried it out too, he enjoyed it as well, which is a useful barometer as he's not a game geek like the rest of my playtesters.

This afternoon, I finally got to meet the sales guy from the manufacturing company. That was a really useful meeting, I got to enquire about what affected the price (and by how much), show off a couple of prototypes and generally get a lot of my manufacturing questions answered. I've not gone down the professional route before, so I don't know much about it. The more I can find out quickly, the better.

I've also contacted a group who might offer me a grant to help with exporting, on the advice of my small business advisor. They offer grants to do things like visiting potential overseas markets. If I can get an all expenses paid trip to the States to visit distributors that would be awesome!