Advertising

I’ve started running ads again.

We’ve not run any since the last Gamefound campaign closed.

Sales were great for a couple of months afterwards anyway, and then we almost completely ran out of FlickFleet stock.

So no ads.

Nothing to sell.

Except that’s not true.

New game!

We have our print at home roll and writes: Rocky ‘Roid and The Planets My Destination.

We can’t run out of stock of those - they’re digital downloads!

So I’ve started advertising them.

I’m hoping to get a few more sales of TPMD.

I think it’s a better game than Rocky ‘Roid and has had great feedback.

But we didn’t crowdfund it, or advertise it at all until now.

So sales have been about 1/100th of Rocky ‘Roid!

Crowdfunding works.

Might crowdfund the next one again :/

Holiday

I’ve spent the last week away with all my family again.

19 of us.

2 years to 78 years in age.

It was great to see them all.

Hang out.

Explore south Wales.

Play some games.

But most of all to see my dad doing better after his recent operation than he has been in years.

Seeing him standing and walking unaided.

With more energy.

Staying up later.

The marvels of modern medicine.

Home now, and need to crack on with fulfilment.

First up, mopping up that last of the errors from the Gamefound campaign.

Error

It's been a mixed week.

The boxes have arrived. 

Paul's house is rammed again.

One of many stashes!

We're just waiting on the delayed baggies before we can start making everything again.

And start fulfilment.

But most of the week has been fixing my error.

Last week I found out that we'd overcharged 150 people on the latest Gamefound campaign.

My mistake.

I reduced our prices, and missed the pledge level itself.

So I took some time to find out exactly who was affected and then emailed them all.

Offering a £5 refund, or a £5 add-on.

It's taken a long time to update the spreadsheets with those answers and issue the refunds requested.

But it's all my own fault.

Our customers are awesome though.

Everyone's been nice about it.

Some offered it as a tip or a charity donation.

We're lucky to have them!

Feaster

Paul and his family are visiting for the Easter weekend.

Feaster.

A weekend of feasting, catching up, and gaming.

It’s great to see them all.

Catch up.

Plus, play some games.

We’re teaching each other new games.

Playing a lot with the kids.

Plus a bit of playtesting.

Roll and Write 4 is only a couple of weeks old. But Paul’s enjoyed it and had very few suggestions for improvements.

I love that I can turn roll and writes around quick enough that we can play it again.

But different.

On the same weekend.

Action

I've been feeling a bit jaded the last few weeks.

It's sapped my enthusiasm.

I've not made much progress.

Things we're piling up in front of me.

I needed a change.

I took Wednesday off work.

Cracked on with those tasks.

New versions of a couple of roll and write prototypes.

Sorting out a couple of FlickFleet fulfilment tasks.

Started writing the 3rd edition rulebook.

Made decent progress.

Carried that into the weekend.

Had two hours to myself during Daughter the Second's dance rehearsal.

Spent it playtesting.

Made changes. Tried them out. More progress.

Got home. Made more changes.

I made a note once. I think I read it from Shane Parrish.

Action leads to Progress. Progress leads to Momentum. Momentum leads Motivation.

I think it might be true. 

It's been a good week. Things are picking up.

Deficit

Historically, our website sales have been very low.

Very low.

We lived from Kickstarter to Kickstarter.

Suddenly, last year we started getting some great FlickFleet reviews. 

And since May last year website sales have been amazing. Like two orders of magnitude better.

At times that made sense: a great review, some TikTok coverage, running ads during a campaign.

But it kept going. Once the ads stopped. 

Still amazing.

That great run finally came to an end in February.

Bit of a blessing really, we’ve run out of most things.

But now we’re running at a deficit.

Overheads outstripping sales.

It weighs on me. Saps my motivation. Eats away at our cash.

Takes me back to the dying days of Reiver Games, watching the money pour out of the account.

While I wallowed in self-pity.

Need to get my mojo back.

We should be getting the boxes and the baggies we need to start making everything again just after Paul gets back from his holiday.

That’ll help.

I’ll have to start running some ads again then.

Take some action.

See if we can get it to pick back up.

We need to be covering our overheads at a minimum. 

Again

I like to do things again.

I re-watch TV shows.

I re-read books.

I like to return to places I’ve been before.

I play games tens or even hundreds of times.

With the endless stream of new games coming out, I think that makes me a bit weird.

People try to play all the new stuff. Just once or twice and then move on.

I’m sure my terrible memory plays a part in it: I can enjoy a TV show or book again and I’ve forgotten a decent chunk. Even on the third or fourth time through.

Still, a bit odd.

Playtesting roll and write 3 in the pub last week

So why do I enjoy playtesting so much? Every play is different. 

Familiar, sure, but different. The rules change a bit every time.

My brain is strange.

After last week’s release of my second roll and write game, I’ve come up with a fourth roll and write idea.

Looking forward to starting testing of that shortly. It’s heavily inspired by Star Trek away teams :)

Seven

I've just published my seventh game.

The Planets My Destination.

It's another print at home roll & write game, like Rocky 'Roid.

This time it's a 3X (there's no eXplore!) game about colonising the solar system.

Like Rocky 'Roid I've aimed for more player interaction than you often see in roll and writes.

You share the dice each round, but can personally modify them.

There are bonuses for arriving first at any of the locations you can colonise.

You can work together to collaborate on projects more quickly that going alone.

And you can wade in with your fleet and conquer an opponent's colony.

I've been worth on it for about eighteen months.

The last couple of months have been finalising the graphic design and the rules.

It's done now.

I've an eighth underway now!

I love the pace you can achieve with roll and writes.

So quick to iterate an test.

Origin: Paul

I’ve always loved playing games.  I have many happy memories of playing Risk (and other games, even Monopoly) with my parents and of playing D&D (a lot of D&D) with friends after school.

Work and life got in the way of gaming for a few years, until I read about Carcassonne.  My wife encouraged me to ‘try it out’ by going to Beyond Monopoly! a gaming club where I live in York.  It rekindled my love of playing games.

I started a weekly games night with friends (and friends of friends)… and through Beyond Monopoly!, I came across this nice chap, Jack, who was looking for someone to help playtest his game.

I’d won the lottery, of sorts.  Suddenly, my life was busy with a lot of gaming and I found that I genuinely enjoyed playtesting and developing games.

But even more suddenly, I became ill with Limbic Encephalitis.  I had to give up work, and my memories of the previous day would vanish overnight.  But I had amazing gaming friends, who would still come round for games night, and patiently reteach me the rules of a game I’d learnt the week before.  And in time I recovered, retrained for a new career, and got a job as a teacher.

Then I changed jobs from teaching to working on a project to help teachers teach computing. And of course, those weekly games nights continued.

Throughout it all, I remained friends with Jack... even after he moved away from York.   In fact, we’d spend perhaps even more time together, staying for the weekend with our families at each other’s houses.  We would stay up late… long, long after the children had gone to bed, playing games and playtesting.

It was one such weekend visiting Jack, that I had an idea for a game.  Inspired by a game the night before, which had promised so much but never quite made it for me. Jack and I talked it through, designed it together, and FlickFleet was born.

I won the lottery, of sorts, again when Jack asked me to join Eurydice Games. No longer on the sidelines, playtesting for him, but instead a partner with him in our games company. 

We endured a nail-biting 4 weeks for our first Kickstarter and just managed to fund.  And suddenly there I was, with a laser cutter in my garage which I needed to learn to use.

We had more successful Kickstarters.  I was balancing the laser cutting, and bagging of components, around my day job.  But it was getting harder to fit it all in.

And then I won the lottery, of sorts, yet again.  The contract for the project I was working on ended.  But Jack and I calculated that Eurydice Games could pay me just enough that I could focus on manufacturing games… and my wife was OK with the drop in our household income.

And I love it…  the manufacturing, the playtesting, the demoing at events, even the packaging and posting. I get to do my dream job.

I’m so lucky to be here, doing this.

Origin: Jack

I’ve always made games.

It started out as board games as a kid.

Then for a long time bits of computer games.

Then I had an epiphany.

Playing Mighty Empires. With Dunc and Tim. The best men at my wedding.

We played all weekend. Like 36 hours all weekend. Stopping only to sleep and eat.

A random event took the winner from 1st to 3rd place. He didn’t recover for the remaining 12 hours.

Then we ran out of time. And stopped.

“I can do better,” I thought.

So I did. Border Reivers. Took 20-45 mins to play.

Similar feel. Could be pretty swingy.

It sat unloved on a shelf for a couple of years.

Then I made 100 copies by hand.

And sold them all over the world.

Yehuda Berlinger sent me a game which I published as It’s Alive!

I made 300 copies by hand.

Sold them all over the world.

Then I won the lottery. Of sorts.

I got MS. My life insurance paid out. We paid off most of the mortgage on our tiny flat, and I went full time.

At times it was glorious. I made four games. Three professionally in factories. I had distribution on three continents. Sold thousands of games. Went to Essen twice and the first three UK Games Expos.

At times it was grim. The MS caused vision problems and I couldn’t drive for a while. It caused incredible fatigue. New symptoms every few months. I was glad I didn’t have a day job. And, once the 2009 financial crash hit, I watched my company die by a thousand cuts as overheads far outweighed sales.

Then I won the lottery again. Of sorts. I managed to get on a clinical trial for a new MS treatment. My MS has been in remission for fourteen years. Years!

I’m so lucky.

Three months after shutting down Reiver Games I started designing games again.

Then I co-founded Newcastle Playtest.

We played Zombology every month for years.

I decided to start another company to publish a small hand-made run of that.

Eurydice Games. Don’t look back.

Then Paul had the idea for FlickFleet.

We designed it together. He joined Eurydice Games. We kickstarted it (just).

The rest is history.

If I won the lottery a third time, with all that financial freedom I’d still make games. Ditch the day job and do what I love.

I spend a lot of my free time on Eurydice Games.

And I love it. The game design. The graphic design. Playtesting. Iterating. Demoing to people who love it. Even doing the books doesn’t sap my enthusiasm.

I’m lucky to be here. Doing this.

Pallet

I’ve just ordered a pallet of acrylic.

Last year’s pallet

1,100 sheets that fit on our laser-cutter.

Cut down from 20 sheets that fit on industrial one.

We order big volumes from a place that only deals in full sheets.

So multiples of 55 for us. Just red, grey, blue, and last time green and purple.

Next up are the smaller orders. Some of which are still pretty large.

I also need to sort 4 print runs of rules and dashboards with our local printer.

The first has been ordered.

Going to make a few changes to some of the other rulebooks first.

To reflect changes over the last few years.

Obstacle rules.

A streamlined end game.

Ship classes.

Ordering

I’m now at the ordering everything stage.

The wooden bits and baggies have the longest lead time (and we’ve run out of baggies so can’t make a few things we’ve got acrylic for).

The next longest lead time is the boxes (and we’ve almost run out of FlickFleet ones!).

Both of those have been ordered.

The dice have arrived.

Ever wondered what 4,000 dice look like?

Next up is acrylic (from three different suppliers!).

And five separate print runs of rules and dashboards.

The acrylic and printing has a pretty quick turnaround time :)

It’s all coming together.

Essen?

Last year we attended 3 shows.

AireCon, UK Games Expo and Tabletop Scotland.

They were all good in their own ways and we enjoyed them all.

This year we can’t make AireCon or Tabletop Scotland due to family holidays.

This weekend at the National Space Centre was great.

All set up at NSC!

But we might have room in the calendar for one more…

Could this be Eurydice Games’ first Essen?

There’s loads of things to work out. Tax. VAT. Customs. Costs.

But we’re looking into it for the first time…

Space

I have been fascinated by space for as long as I can remember.

I love sci-fi stories and films.

Maybe you can tell? FlickFleet? Rocky ‘Roid? The Planets My Destination? Coalescence?

My favourite game is Race for the Galaxy. (And I bought Ian O’Toole’s amazing BGG Artists Series reimagining of the box art for that).

Every time we drive to Bristol to see our families we pass a sign for the National Space Centre.

It’s been on my todo list for a long time.

This weekend I’m finally visiting it!

We were invited to demo (and sell!) FlickFleet there as part of their To Boldly Game event.

Needs more Star Wars

I’m so excited!

Ending

The pledge manager for the Box of Pirate Flicks closes in about 24 hours.

Last chance to get heavily-subsidised international shipping on all things FlickFleet.

Then I’ll be ordering all the things we need to make 1,200 boxes worth.

Or maybe 1,500.

I need to decide on final numbers.

Hence closing the pledge manager.

I’m also getting a new Coalescence prototype together.

This one was too small!

And finishing off The Planet My Destination.

Then we’re off to the National Space Centre for their To Boldly Game event.

It’s a busy time!

Culmination

I have two games nearing completion.

The Planets My Destination, my second roll and write.

And Coalescence, a dexterity game of solar-system building.

TPMD has frequently got great feedback. 

I’m finalising the graphic design now.

I might just release it on the website.

Rather than crowdfunding.

Rocky ‘Roid made very little money after ad spend and Gamefound fees.

Coalescence has been 4 (5?) years in the making.

It’s worked for most of that time, but was missing the spark that makes it super fun. The highs and lows.

And it was nigh-impossible to manufacture.

I think I might have cracked both.

Needs a new prototype. 

And more testing.

I’m working on both.

Might even enter Coalescence into the Cardboard Edison award…

2024

Another year.

Can it be better again than 2023?

For me?

For my family?

For Eurydice Games?

I’ll do what I can to achieve those.

Not with resolutions.

But with habits.

My daily habits have slipped over the last week.

I did six out of nine.

So I lost my streak.

52 days.

Now 0 again.

I’m going to restart.

Can I beat 172?

Reach 200?

We’ll see…

Happy New Year all! I hope your habits propel you to excellent things.

Photo by Eyestetix Studio via Unsplash