Hasty

I've spent the last week fighting with my bank.

Mano-a-telephone.

Toe-to-handset.

I lost.

Despite last week's blog about how we would pay royalties that week I'm still in limbo.

Eventually I pulled the money from PayPal, rather than pushed from the bank.

It's left the bank.

And now it's in the ether.

The bank says they have fond memories of it.

PayPal say we await it patiently.

It'll arrive in a week or two.

Where the hell is it?

The ether.

So the royalties are still pending. Until the money is in the warm embrace of my PayPal balance.

Which could be another week or two.

I can only assume someone is carrying it on foot.

In the meantime, I've been working on my third print at home roll and write again.

And the troll game.

And planning 2025.

This weekend we're going to York to spend 'Fauxmas' with Paul and his family.

There will be food and presents and games and playtesting.

And more work on the next FlickFleet campaign.

Royalties

Box of Flicks 2 was largely designed by fans of the game.

A fan contributed to Box of Flicks 1.

There was lots of fan content in the Box of Pirate Flicks too.

We make a big thing about how we credit them and pay them royalties.

Their names on the boxes.

We've been meaning to pay the last lot for a while.

It includes the last year's reprint and this year's Box of Pirate Flicks.

So it's quite a lot of money.

Things started going wrong at the beginning of the year when we ran out of FlickFleet for a few months.

So web sales tanked as we had nothing to sell.

And overheads started eating into the profit from the Pirate Flicks campaign.

Website sales were pretty slow all summer.

The pot dwindled further.

When it came time in August to ship the Pirate Flicks games to the US we had three options.

We choose the fastest.

And most expensive.

Then VAT bit us.

The quotes were excluding VAT. I forgot that.

We had to pay them, and another £1,500 in VAT.

We'd get most of that back. In early December.

We've been almost out of cash for five months.

I've had to lend the company money a couple of times to pay the bills.

We've just got the VAT back!

And had our best ever week of website sales. And another really good one.

It's time to pay the royalties!

A weight off my mind. I hate owning people money.

I've spent most of the weekend trying to sort it out. 

The transfer to PayPal was blocked by the bank as a suspect transaction.

I'm hoping I'll have the money available to pay out this evening...

Seven

This week has been bizarrely good for website sales.

Last three weeks have been within 50p of each other.

This week was more than double them!

And I’ve no idea why!

Not complaining though.

That’s eased our ongoing cashflow issues.

And it’s, in combination with the VAT rebate that’s coming shortly, means we can make some long over due payments :)

But that’s an aside.

The main focus of this week has been…

FlickFleet SEVEN.

Our seventh FlickFleet campaign.

The campaign is created.

There’s a very basic holding page.

Which already has over 100 followers!

In addition to starting work on the campaign, I’ve been reviewing the fan submissions.

Starting to shortlist them.

Playtesting is next :)

Sirens

This week has been all about sirens.

The Ancient Greek kind.

I had an idea for a Siren themed game a couple of years ago.

I wanted it to feel like Guillotine and 6 Nimmt.

Funny. Chaotic. Sweary.

I made a first version.

Tried it.

It was bad.

Made a second after chatting with Casey at work.

Better, but the cards were way off.

Then it languished for a year or two.

At Newcastle Gamers a couple of weeks ago there were six of us and that second version was the only six player game anyone had brought.

So we played it.

The cards were still way off.

So I started on a new version.

Got that ready last weekend.

Played it at work on Tuesday.

It went better.

New ideas for cards.

Made a new version Friday.

Soloed it Saturday.

Made a new version Saturday night.

Very quick turnaround.

Hopefully I can play this one at work tomorrow…

Despondent/Enthused

It’s been a weird week.

I’m still trying to get to the point where web sales cover overheads and we have a viable business that doesn’t rely on Crowdfunding to keep us afloat.

I’ve upped the ad spend, hoping to boost sales.

Now sales are just covering ad spend instead.

And with Trump on the horizon our games are about to get 20% more expensive for Americans.

That’s half of our customers.

Could have been worse: at least we don’t make them in China.

I’m feeling a bit despondent about it.

On the plus side, I finally joined Bluesky.

Come find me!

I moved from Twitter to Threads a while back.

It’s been fine.

But I missed my gaming chums.

The vast majority of the #CraftWednesday crew weren’t there.

Within hours of joining Bluesky, it felt like I’d found most of them again.

I’m feeling enthused.

I’ve found my team again.

Roots

I started computer programming when I was ten.

Both my degrees are in it.

Almost all of my day jobs have been doing it.

For the second time in my life I'm now a manager of a team of programmers.

I don't program at work any more.

I've been doing some for Eurydice Games this week though.

I had to get the books completed up to the end of October so our accountants can do our VAT return.

That included 102 Gamefound orders for Away Team Bingo.

I can download them from Gamefound as a spreadsheet.

I need to get them into our accounting software.

I can import them to it as a spreadsheet.

A different spreadsheet.

Over the last few years I've written a few programs to move orders between the various spreadsheet formats we use.

This week I've been tweaking them to support the latest changes.

And then getting those orders into the books.

Around that I've been tweaking my Sirens game.

We played it at Newcastle Playtest on Tuesday.

There were six of us, and it was the only game present that went to six players.

I knew it needed work.

So we played it.

Needs some work!

Now I have some ideas of how to work out the kinks...

YorCon

I’ve spent the weekend in the middle of nowhere.

Playing games with an awesome bunch of people.

Lots of new games.

My favourites were Lord of the Rings Duel and Space Base.

We went for a couple of walks in the countryside.

I played a couple of games of Jotunsaga.

Gaming designing in progress

With other designers.

It got really good feedback.

And spawned a bunch of new ideas.

I took a Sharpie, a pen, and some blank cards.

So I could make a new version.

And try that too.

And there’s Newcastle Playtest tomorrow.

It’s coming on nicely…

Split

My focus has been split this week.

Photo by Lena Taranenko on Unsplash

Partly trying to fix the issues with the ads.

Partly preparing for next weekend.

For the third year running Paul has booked a remote lodge for a long weekend of gaming.

It's in the arse end of West Yorkshire.

Surrounded by the Yorkshire Three Peaks.

It sleeps about 40 people in bunks.

There's no mobile signal, and the first year there was no WiFi either.

Just gaming.

With great people.

All friends of Paul's.

I'll be there for 48 hours.

Driving down after work on Friday, coming home on Sunday night.

I'm really looking forward to a weekend of gaming with great people.

Some walking in the wilds.

And maybe even some playtesting.

When not focused on fixing the ads, I've been trying to get a new version of my troll game ready.

For the weekend.

Fingers crossed!

Cashflow

Businesses live or die on their cashflow.

We're lucky that we've been profitable for five of our six years.

We had to replace a laser-cutter in the other one.

But cashflow is a continual problem.

We go from feast, after a crowdfunding payout.

Photo by Sarah Agnew on Unsplash

To famine.

Most years Paul and I have had to lend the company money to stay afloat.

Or fund crowdfunding advertising.

The last few months have been hard.

Larger than expected bills.

Getting used to paying VAT.

I've had to cover bills from our savings a few times.

And we owe people money.

It's stressful.

My goal this year is to get the website sales to cover the overheads and make a little positive cash every month.

I ran the numbers.

Worked out what we'd need to spend on ads to hit that point.

I started slowly increased the ad spent so we didn't drop back into the learning phase.

It dropped back into the learning phase :(

Ad performance has tanked.

I've had to lend the company money to cover the ad spend.

Really hoping it gets out of the learning phase soon.

Gamble

Board game publishing, well any publishing really, is gambling.

You back a horse.

By choosing a game to publish.

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

You bet a stake.

By paying for marketing and artwork.

Kickstarter has improved things, since you no longer have to gamble the manufacturing and shipping costs upfront as well.

And then you find out how your bet did.

When you sell the print run, or run the crowdfunding campaign.

If you’re a big company, you hedge your bets.

Back many horses.

Hoping some of them win big enough to cover any losing bets.

We’re small.

One bet at a time.

Each one needs to cover the stake really.

Away Team Bingo is live on Gamefound now.

It finishes tomorrow.

And it’s tracking towards just covering its stake.

Rough

This week I've mostly felt rough.

Had a bad cold at the beginning of the week, and then my COVID and flu vaccines at the end.

I've taken a lot of Lemsip!

We've still made progress though.

Paul's been building up stock.

Including of the new Box of Pirate Flicks - so that's now up for sale on the website.

I've been finishing off the Away Team Bingo campaign, ready for Tuesday's launch.

At this point it looks like it's going to under-perform Rocky 'Roid.

I just hope it breaks even!

I've also opened a Gamefound store.

And been working on Jotunsaga.

#

New terrain cards, might make them hexes.

Incorporating feedback from last weekend's playtest with the public, and last Tuesday's trip to Newcastle Playtest.

There's no rest for the mildly ill!

Six/Seven

Our sixth financial year finishes today.

Seventh if you count the year I ran it on my own at the beginning.

Before Paul joined and we became the home of FlickFleet.

It’s been another pretty good year.

Made a profit.

But nearly ran out of cash twice.

Did ok.

What will next year bring?

Hopefully more conventions.

Maybe a new game?

I was playtesting Jotunsaga at the North East Tabletop Expo on Sunday.

Feedback was positive.

It’s improving.

Progress is being made.

Video

I’ve spent the week doing stills for the Away Team Bingo video.

A still!

And shipping a lot of games.

We had our best week of orders since November!

And with Paul still away, I was shipping them.

The stills are good progress, but I also need to film some video.

And that’s been a challenge.

Finding the time.

During daylight.

When I’m not shipping games.

My day job have recently changed the benefits package to give us an extra day off per year.

So I’ve used mine today.

To do the filming.

And then hopefully the editing too.

Here’s hoping for a day of solid progress.

Growth

Last week I talked about how I’m chasing growth.

Not for the reason you might expect though.

Not to win capitalism.

Or sell the company to Asmodee.

But to get to the point where it’s really working.

Currently it almost is.

Almost.

We pay Paul a (meagre) salary.

We’ve grown every year so far.

Except this year

We’ve been profitable 5 out of 6 years.

But we’re not stable yet.

Web sales need to be greater than overheads.

So we can survive between crowdfunding campaigns.

Sometimes they are.

Sometimes they aren’t.

And then we’re bleeding cash.

The last couple of years we’ve had to lend the company money to do things.

Or stay afloat.

We haven’t this year.

But at one point we had less than £150 in the bank.

With bills to pay.

I want to grow.

So that doesn’t happen any more.

That’s why.

Fool

I’m an idiot.

I’ve been fixated on our financial year.

This one is going to be worse than last year.

Not by much.

Only 5% or so.

But I’ve been trying everything I can to close that gap.

Or even squeak out a sixth consecutive year of growth.

Web sales have more than doubled this year.

But that’s not enough to counteract the Pirate Flicks being our second best campaign, not a sixth consecutive best ever FlickFleet campaign.

Plus we’ve missed a couple of conventions this year.

Away Team Bingo was a chance to close that gap further.

The game is ready.

So I’ve rushed the campaign.

I’ve been trying to get it delivered by the end of this month.

To hit this year’s numbers.

That’s doing it a disservice.

The campaign is far from ready.

No high ink photos.

No video.

Reviews aren’t ready yet.

Artwork is pending.

And I haven’t run any ads.

Because the campaign isn’t ready.

I’m a chump.

I should push it back.

By a month. Or six weeks.

And do it properly.

Give it the attention it deserves.

Growth isn’t everything.

Weird

It's been a weird week.

Didn't know what day it was at the beginning due to three days camping in a forest.

Thursday to Sunday.

Then a Bank Holiday Monday.

Since I've got back I've been working on Away Team Bingo's crowdfunding.

Got some initial sketches from the artist! 

And setting up a Gamefound store.

And trying to learn to Tiktok.

And planning a campaign video.

And thinking up a (fifth!) print at home roll and write while lying still for 45 minutes in an MRI.

And making some sizeable changes to Jotunsaga.

Feel a bit all over the place.

Not sure whether I'm coming or going!

Away (Team Bingo)

I’ve been away again.

My second camping ina forest trip in two weeks.

I’m back now.

I spent the few days in between trying to get up to speed on Away Team Bingo.

Over 100 followers now!

While covering shipping as Paul was also away.

He’s back now too.

So I get a reprieve.

And can focus on the ATB Gamefound campaign page.

There’s several bits still to do.

And just over a week in which to do it.

It’s getting close now!

Need to get more photos up.

A couple more sections.

And hopefully some reviews.

Time to crack on!

Interruption

Last week I was ina camping pod in the forest.

Next weekend I’m camping in a different forest.

I have five days to make as much progress as possible on the Away Team Bingo campaign.

And Paul’s also on holiday.

So I’m shipping the website orders.

These are some of the orders going today!

With the stock he gave me a couple of weeks ago.

While stocks last.

I’m running very low on a few things already!

Oaks

I’m away for a week.

In the Lake District.

My happy place.

Our view is oak trees.

I need to relax.

There’s been loads of bookkeeping to do before we left.

Plus the day job has been a nightmare for a couple of weeks.

A whole week of relaxing.

With the family.

When I get back it will be time to crack on with the Away Team Bingo Gamefound Page.

But for now, relaxing.

Preview

Away Team Bingo is up on Gamefound.

The preview is pretty bare bones at the moment.

Early preview

But it’s there.

Available for people to follow it.

Slowly accruing followers.

I wonder how it will compare with the Rocky 'Roid campaign?

Or The Planets My Destination?

There's only one way to find out.

I'm splitting my time between fleshing out the campaign and the last campaign.

I've over 200 orders to get in the books for the Box of Pirate Flicks now they've shipped.

I've written a program for it.

I'm now meticulously checking that it's worked correctly.

I'm getting there.

But it's slow going...

Families

This weekend we spent in York with Paul and his family.

Now we’ve shipped all of the rewards for our last Gamefoumd campaign, there was room in his house for guests!

We spent the weekend chatting, catching up, scheming about Eurydice Games’ future.

And, of course, playing games.

It was lovely.

Now we’re back, I’m cracking on with Away Team Bingo.

Taking shape!

And sorting out the GamesQuest onward shipping.

Meanwhile Paul is building up stock so we can meet up again in ten or so days’ time.

And he can give me some stock to cover his forthcoming holidays.

They are well earned!

Progress

It's been a week of great progress.

Paul has parcelled up and shipped three pallets of games to GamesQuest.

On their way!

Two will cross the Atlantic by boat and then go via road to their US hub.

Then be broken down and shipped across the US and Canada.

The third will be broken down and shipped to the EU from their UK hub.

That's over 85% of the rewards of the last campaign shipped.

The last few will probably go in the next week or so.

Meanwhile I've been doing the proper rulebook for Away Team Bingo.

My next print at home roll and write game.

The low ink rules are finished!

Now I can send it out for review.

Last time I tried this I got no reviews back.

Hoping for better luck this time...

Rules

I’ve almost finished the graphic design for the Away Team Bingo player sheets.

The four low ink ones are done. 

Two out of four high ink ones are done too.

Next up is the rules.

Rules are hard

I’ve a pretty spartan rulebook that went to the playtesters.

But I need a new one.

With diagrams.

And examples.

It takes time.

It’s my current focus.

Next up is review copies and the Gamefound page.

It’s going to be a busy couple of months.

Let The Good Times Roll!

I'm done.

Away Team Bingo is finished.

My third roll and write game.

You are sending teams of crew to explore a planet three times.

To find the most impressive discoveries.

But lots of locations aren't safe.

Will you pick the right mix of crew for the mission?

It's a press your luck game.

You want to stay as long as possible to maximise your rewards.

But staying too long can be costly.

Or catastrophic.

Now the game is finished, it's just graphic design, finishing the rulebook and doing the crowdfunding page.

The top of a low ink page - getting prettier!

There's a start of a Gamefound page taking shape.

The graphic design is coming together.

Then it'll be the rulebook.

It's going to be a busy couple of months!

Learning

Our ads are stuck in the learning phase.

At least partially because I’m still in my learning phase.

Our ads should be showing FlickFleet to those people who might like it.

At the moment it’s either not showing them to the right people.

Or not interesting to the right people.

Not working yet…

I need to spend some time working out how to improve the targeting.

Or improve the ads.

Meanwhile Paul is boxing and parcelling the rewards aiming to ship them in the next month.

Early.

And I’ve started the Gamefound page for my next Roll & Write.

Lots to do.

Lots to learn…

Advertising

We have a great product in FlickFleet.

It has loads of fans.

People love it when they are introduced to it at conventions.

But our ads perform pretty poorly.

I've tried something new this week.

15 second videos of the game.

Taken at the UK Games Expo.

It's way more successful at driving traffic to our website.

But not helping with sales at all.

I really wish I had the time to work out how to do advertising right - I'm sure we could do much better!

Opportunities

I've spent this week working on two things.

Some 'proper' ads.

Which aren't working well yet, but might in the future.

And a business opportunity.

Which could be transformative.

It is, yet again, a busy time.

Meanwhile, Paul has got the laser-cutter repaired.

No longer out of action

And is boxing up the US/Canadian orders from the Gamefound campaign.

Now the laser-cutter is repaired we can make up the last few things required and ship them all to GamesQuest to begin their journey to the US.

After that it will be the EU ones and the last few standard rewards.

Fulfilment is well on-track.

Catch-up

Things are flat out at the moment.

Paul is speedily shipping Gamefound rewards.

So I've got to do the bookkeeping for those shipped pledges.

We've had a run of website orders.

So I've got to do the bookkeeping for those too.

It’s not over yet!

And there's a whole heap of post-Expo tasks to do too.

Plus there's a possible game changer that's looming with a deadline of the 19th.

There's loads to do!

Awesome

We've just got back from the UK Games Expo.

Before it all began...

Four full-on days of travel, demoing & selling FlickFleet, and hanging out with my best mate.

It was awesome.

We were both a bit worried about how it would go.

Last year we had a run of great reviews in the lead up to the show.

And it was our best year ever.

No reviews this year.

It could have been disappointing.

We had no idea what to expect really.

We needn't have worried.

It ran from Friday to Sunday, and by Friday lunchtime Paul had decided to go back to York to get more stock. We ran out of some things, and were very low on others.

By the end of the first day.

Paul's return to York was well worth it!

We had our best show ever again.

Sales were amazing.

But more than that, it was awesome to spend the time chatting to people who love FlickFleet or introducing people to FlickFleet for the first time and seeing them love it.

See FlickFleet spark joy.

Playing a game and having passing members of the public stop to tell others that the game is amazing and they need to buy it. Several times.

Getting our best ever score (12!) in the solo competition, not once but twice!

And many hours with Paul, catching up, making plans and working out our next steps.

I feel energized. And enthused. And utterly knackered.

Wrinkles

Paul has started fulfilment.

But the laser cutter is on the blink again.

A bit of a pain

This one is much less reliable than the previous one was.

Until it caught fire :(

We’re getting an engineer out again to investigate.

Laser-cutting is paused.

Thankfully Paul has already cut everything we need for the UK Games Expo next weekend.

And most of the deluxe rewards.

So he can take a break from cutting.

And focus on boxing and shipping for a while.

My parents left this morning.

So I’m back at it too.

Looking forward to the Expo.

Say hi if you’re there! We’re at 2-564 again - same place as last year.

Ready

I’ve finally finished the fulfilment spreadsheet.

And Paul has finished most of the deluxe rewards.

Another very full box!

We’re almost ready to begin shipping!

And then it’s the UK Games Expo at the end of next week.

Lots to do.

But mum and dad are visiting this week, so I’ll not get much done this week.

Thankfully I did a lot of it last week.

Happy

We’ve spent the weekend in the Lake District.

I love being surrounded by hills

The Wife was volunteering there on Sunday.
So we made a weekend of it.

Friday night we went north to see the aurora for only the second time in my life.

It was better in Northumberland than when I saw it in Finland!

Then over to the Lakes on Saturday.

The weather was amazing and we did a beautiful walk round Elterwater on Saturday.

Then Sunday the girls and I did one in Eskdale.

The Lakes is my Happy Place.

It was wonderful.

Now I need to generate the spreadsheet so Paul can start fulfilment.

And get everything ready for the UK Games Expo at the end of the month.

After a couple of stressful weeks in my day job, I needed that weekend break.