Preview

Our next campaign, for our 4th print at home roll & write game is now in preview.

Exodus from Reynoldsworld

Exodus is a 1-6 player roll and write that takes 15-30 minutes to play.

You're a starship captain, saving the population of a planet under threat from an approaching alien armada.

In the first half of the game you build a ship. Do you go for fast and sleek? Or slow and capacious?

Then you set out on the dangerous journey from Reynoldsworld to one of six nearby habitable worlds.

There's a big bonus for forming the first colony, plus arriving first at any of the six planets gets you another bonus, so watch where your opponents are heading.

After dropping off your cargo of colonists and supplies to get them started, you can return to Reynoldsworld for more, or head straight on to another nearby world to try to get there ahead of your competitors.

Will you end the game as the saviour of Reynoldsworld, or will they just name a park after you?

Follow the campaign to be notified when it launches in September.

While I've been focussing on Exodus, Paul has been busy too.

We've now started shipping the playmats from the Box of Xeno Flicks 1 campaign, and we're receiving the final materials for the campaign early this week, so manufacturing can begin in earnest shortly too.

Busy, busy!

Next

This weekend I’ve started work on the Gamefound campaign for our next print at home roll and write game.

It’s called Exodus From Reynoldsworld.

You have to save the population of a planet.

Under threat of an alien armada.

Build a ship.

Do you go small and fast? Or slow and capacious?

Over-index on engines and fuel to go faster?

Or cram in as many people as possible?

Build shields to protect your cargo?

Or accept the inevitable attrition of a dangerous crossing?

Once you built your ship, choose a destination.

Try to get there first and get the founding bonus?

It feels a little like Galaxy Trucker.

Coming to Gamefound next month I hope, assuming I can get the page finished in time.

Culmination

It feels like I’ve finally broken the back of my involvement in our latest Gamefound campaign.

The graphic design is done.

I’ve placed the final printing order.

I’ve order the playmats and tubes.

The last acrylic order is just awaiting final colour selection for the planets.

I’ve made the changes to the app that builds the fulfilment spreadsheet.

And tested that it works.

Just waiting on the last four backers to complete their pledges, so I can run it for real.

Then that’s me done until we start getting the orders in the books as they ship.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

I’m looking forward to having some free time again for game design.

And maybe starting the next Gamefound page.

For a fourth roll and write…

Diversify

I’m back from my holiday.

Rested.

And raring to go.

I have two things to focus on.

The pledge manager for Box of Xeno Flicks 1.

And global diversity.

55% of our sales go to the US.

Trump’s tariffs don’t affect us yet.

But he’s unpredictable and anything could happen.

So we need to diversify.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Away from the US.

And our reliance on FlickFleet.

We have three other products. All print at home roll and write games.

Which are tariff-free.

And easy to sell to anywhere.

I’m advertising those in our top fifteen countries.

The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a chunk of Europe.

Added bonus: there’s no cost of goods sold or shipping to pay for.

So the ads don’t have to cover those costs.

But I also need to focus on the pledge manager.

Coming within a week or two I hope…

Crescendo?

Our seventh crowdfunding campaign finishes tomorrow.

It started slower than the last few.

But we didn’t start advertising until a few days in.

It’s been doing better than the rest during the quiet period.

We’ve been ahead of Box of Pirate Flicks on the equivalent day for the last couple of days.

We might have a strong finish!

Could be our second or third best campaign, with luck!

Fingers crossed!

Just over 24 hours left if you're interested...

Launch Week

Our latest FlickFleet campaign goes live on Gamefound tomorrrow. 

The rollercoaster begins. 

We use crowdfunding to raise the funds to reprint most of the expansions at once. 

Amortising costs. 

Some small economies of scale. 

Because of that, we need a to raise a lot. 

Not millions.

Not hundreds of thousands.

But certainly tens of thousands. 

All but one of our FlickFleet campaigns have been the best ever (at the time). 

The last one was second best. 

We’re now in the lull, before the launch. 

Will it do well? 

Best ever? 

Enough to fund the print runs and shipping?

Not enough? 

Soon we’ll know. 

There are some encouraging signs. 

We already have our second best number of pre-launch followers. 

And we’re not far off best ever pre-launch follower count. 

Will it be enough? 

Soon find out…

Ticking

I've finally finished the campaign page for the sixth FlickFleet expansion: Box of Xeno Flicks 1.

It's been a long time coming.

Once again, real life got in the way.

It's been a hectic month or so in the day job, which has eaten into my Eurydice Games time.

But it's done now.

And sent for approval.

With just over a week to spare.

If you're interested in FlickFleet it's a great way to get the base game and/or Xeno Wars.

With discounts.

And subsidised shipping.

If you're already a fan of the game it introduces 14 all-new ships to the Xeno Wars factions.

Ten are already included in the box.

The remaining four can be unlocked as stretch goals.

The more backers we get, the more you all get in the box.

As two guys making a game in a garage we have very little capital.

The only way the company works is by using crowdfunding campaigns to combine our several small print runs into one larger one, getting us some small economies of scale.

Making the game affordable for us.

We really appreciate your help with that!

Thank you in advance if you're considering backing the campaign.

And please share it with any friends or family you think would enjoy FlickFleet.

Stealth

I’m working on the next FlickFleet Gamefound campaign.

Beavering away behind the scenes.

But there’s not much to show for it.

The draft has hardly changed in a couple of months.

I’d hoped to make really good progress this week.

The Wife was away for work for three and a half days.

But solo-parenting is time-intensive.

Didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped.

I think I need to push the campaign back a bit.

I have made progress this week though.

Getting prototype ship outlines designed.

Then Paul added etching.

And cut them.

Need these for the page design work.

It’s getting there.

Stealthily. Behind the scenes.

Back!

I'm back!

Happy New Year all.

After a week or two of Christmas preparation and then visiting Paul, Christmas itself, then visiting my family and then the in-laws.

I'm back.

Cracking on with the Gamefound campaign for Box of Xeno Flicks 1.

Finally making good progress.

I'm loving their new import/export feature for rewards and add-ons.

It's saved me a ton of time.

I could export the rewards and add-ons from the last campaign.

Tweak them.

Then load them back in :)

Next up is the graphic design for the rewards/Box of Xeno Flicks/Shipping sections.

And getting some details up about the new ships you can vote on :)

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 :)

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!

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...

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!

Demand

We ran some ads during the Gamefound campaign.

Which is still open to late pledges

The ads led to a bump in website sales as they always do.

The ads finished when the main campaign finished - at the end of October.

But website sales remained high.

Higher in fact.

The average for the last eleven weeks has been double the average of the preceding quarter.

Which itself was crazy high.

Website sales have been amazing.

And I’ve no idea why!

No ads.

The traffic comes from mostly Google.

With Paul having been ill, then hospitalised, then recovering, then at mine last weekend, then recovering again, we have struggled to keep up with demand.

We’re on top of it again.

Thanks to a quieter week this week.

I’m guessing the Christmas present traffic has peaked now.

Still don’t know where they heard of it.

Or what drove the demand.

Very grateful though, whatever it was!

Pledge Manager

My focus is now setting up the pledge manager.

It’s a bit of a faff.

Gamefound is getting better though.

We’re still a bit unusual though.

Lots of stuff that we re-enter every time.

Because it’s essentially the same game.

We can’t turn it on before the 15th.

I’m hoping to hit that date.

Or thereabouts.

Plus Paul and I have a date to finalise all the ships.

A day of playtesting on the horizon

So I can do the dashboards and rules.

Once the pledge manager is up.

Making solid progress.

Surprised

With much cheaper shipping, 

And double the ad budget, 

And better graphic design, 

And great new reviews, 

And Stretch Pay, 

I thought we’d get more backers who were new to FlickFleet. 

Not big pledges. Just the base game. 

Or maybe with Xeno Wars. 

At this point we have about 240 backers. Which is a lot less than last time. 

And 150 of those are existing fans getting the new stuff to add to their collections. 

Every time I run a campaign I’m surprised by something.

I wonder what put the new people off?

Fast. Slow. Fast?

We’re in the middle of the campaign.

After a great start, it’s slowed to a crawl.

I knew it was coming.

Happens every time.

Still hard though.

Watching the total tick ever so slowly up.

And occasionally down due to a cancellation.

We’re still tracking ahead of every campaign we’ve previously run.

Just.

No idea where we’ll end up.

Probably similar to Xeno Wars.

A bit up on it.

Or a bit down.

All depends on the last couple of days now. 

Until then we wait.

Watching it tick up slowly.

And occasionally down.

Launch

Our fifth FlickFleet campaign launches tomorrow lunchtime. 

I’m a bit worried about it. 

It’s a weird one. 

A new expansion for true fans of the game. 

But there’s not a huge number of them. 

And the new expansion doesn’t really make sense for new backers unless they go all in. 

Which is expensive now. 

And not possible until we unlock a lofty reprints stretch goal. 

We’ve only sold about 1,500 copies of FlickFleet in total over the last 5 years. 

I’m utterly convinced there are thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who would love FlickFleet if they played it. 

The challenge is finding them. 

And getting them to take a punt on a game made in a garage. 

I’m nervous. 

I hope tomorrow goes well.

VAT

Value Add Tax.

Not an exciting subject.

But one that is very much in my mind.

We will be registering for VAT shortly.

We're nearing the threshold where we have to.

But we're doing it voluntarily.

Most of our costs will reduce by 17%.

We'll make 17% less on UK sales though.

There's an opportunity to make more money on exports.

Or pass on the savings.

I've been trying to work out how best to pass on the savings on Gamefound.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

I've got two blunt hammers to play with:

Product discounts - which affect everyone, including the UK.

Shipping discounts - which can be tailored by region, but don't directly connect to the order value.

Two blunt hammers.

And a sculpture to carve.

I think I have a solution.

A bit of hammer A, a bit of hammer B.

Cheaper prices for most people.

I hope I get it right and it doesn't end up costing us loads of money!