Back, Briefly

It's been a whirlwind few days.

First my father-in-law and his partner visited us for a few days.

Then we went off to the Lake District for a end of holiday weekend with friends.

Now The Wife is in Dublin for a week.

Then she gets back and Paul arrives and we're off to Tabletop Scotland in Edinburgh.

We're on stand C1-02!

We'll be running our FlickFleet competition for the first and last hour of each day, and demos the rest of the time.

While The Wife is away, I'll spend by evenings and possibly lunch breaks finishing off the Exodus from Reynoldsworld campaign page.

There's just over a week to go before it launches.

It, like our other print and play games, is tariff-free for our American fans, despite the recent changes :)

Woods

I’m in Devon.

In the woods again.

Away from the stressful day job.

And most of the Eurydice work.

Relaxing.

Recharging.

Spending time with the family.

Bracketed at either end with a visit to the in-laws and my parents.

It’s good to have a break.

Wales

I’m on holiday for a week.

In Wales.

With 18 members of my family.

Parents.

Brother and sisters and their partners.

Nieces and nephews.

Plus The Wife and our kids.

19 of us. And a dog.

Aged 3 to 79.

After a busy weeks at work and our Gamefound campaign, the break is welcome.

Some downtime.

I will keep up my games design streak though.

I’ve brought some prototypes.

And some prototyping materials.

I’ll make some things.

And do some playtesting.

Here.

2025

Not much to say this week.

I’ve been celebrating Christmas.

First with my family.

Then with The Wife’s.

Lots of time in the car.

But also eating, drinking and hanging out.

Plus a little gaming too.

Just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support in 2024.

Paul and I really appreciate it.

And to wish you all a happy, healthy, and fun 2025!

Fauxmas

We've spent the weekend in York.

Visiting Paul and his family.

For Fauxmas, our fake Christmas.

Complete with Fauxmas Eve, Fauxmas Day (including presents and Fauxmas Dinner) and Foxing Day.

It was a lovely weekend.

A great chance to catch up.

Play games.

Drink.

Eat.

And be merry.

We played lots of games. Mostly including at least one of my kids.

So lighter games.

Lots of Apples to Apples, Codenames, Just One, A Fake Artist in New York and UNO.

But also Las Vegas.

And I got to try the latest version of Jotunsaga with Paul.

Get his feedback.

Discuss some new ideas.

I've got a new version to try now :)

Plus some weeding of the many ideas for FlickFleet: A Box of Xeno Flicks 1.

A great weekend :)

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!

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.

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!

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.

Trains

We’re on our way home now.

Via Paris.

But we still have 15 hours on trains.

I’m putting the time to good use.

Designing games.

Cicadas

For the first time since our honeymoon 20 years ago, I’m on holiday for two weeks.

We travelled to the south of Spain by train.

Stopping in a couple of places.

We’re now in the mountains.

I can hear nothing but cicadas.

It’s very peaceful here.

I will crack on with the Gamefound page when I return, but for now, I rest.

Return

I’m driving home from Bristol today.

The Gower was lovely

Back at work tomorrow.

And back to Xeno Wars.

The pledge manager officially closes today but we still have 95 people who haven’t completed it.

Once that’s done we can place the orders.

We also need to finally choose a new box maker and place an order.

Lots to do…

Holiday

I’m away for the week.

In (old!) south Wales.

We’re taking some family time.

When I’m back I’ll be closing the pledge manager and starting to order everything.

Xeno Wars will begin to take shape.

Until then I’m relaxing.

Density

I’ve spent the last week in Shropshire with the entirety of my family.

Was great to see them all - we’ve not seen much of them for a couple of years.

The kids were delighted to spend time with all their cousins.

It was great to meet my youngest nephew.

I took a bag of games of course.

We played a couple of games of Outfoxed with the younger kids.

Century Golem Edition with the older ones.

And a lot of FlickFleet: Xeno Wars. A lot.

This kitchen island saw a lot of FlickFleet action!

It was great to really thrash Xeno Wars - trying out a few of the playtesters ideas and getting in a bunch of multiplayer games.

Then when I got back my next door neighbour came round for a Star Wars Rebellion rematch.

It’s been a gaming-dense week :)

Pause

We managed to get away.

After a 40,000 mile drive, we arrived in Bristol yesterday evening.

We have a couple of days with the in-laws and a couple of days with my full clan.

I might play some games.

I might just chill.

Hope you’re all enjoying the holidays.

The Wave

Omicron is breaking on our shores.

We plan to go to Bristol for Christmas to visit our families.

But my parents are in their 70s and my dad was shielding last year due to an auto-immune disease.

I'm really uncomfortable going, but they are really keen seeing as we missed last year.

We can take precautions of course. But they're not fool-proof.

And omicron is huge and spreading rapidly.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai

Of course, it might all get taken out of our hands.

Omicron is spreading so rapidly it will inevitably overwhelm hospitals and cause severe staff-shortages across key services - see the recent Major Incident declared in London.

We will need to tighten restrictions to minimise that.

I doubt our PM has the guts to do it before Christmas, though it might well happen soon afterwards.

We're supposed to be travelling on the 26th and meeting up on the 28th and 29th.

It might be illegal by then.

At least we had Fauxmas with Paul's family last week...

Fauxmas!

A couple of years ago my family and Paul’s family got together near Christmas.

So we had a fake Christmas: Fauxmas!

With presents and food and games.

We missed it last year because of COVID.

This year we did it again.

There was much playtesting.

All hands! Repel boarders!

Things are coming together nicely :)

Return

Today we’re driving back to the North.

I’ve a bunch of housekeeping tasks to do on my return.

And then the invoices. Still thinking if I can somehow automate that process to save time in the long run.

Next up after that is Xeno Wars. And Coalescence.

And we need a better web shop setup. Our current one is pants.

We’re starting to pay Paul from next month. We need the website to support sales between Kickstarters - not to hinder them.

We also need to get the next Kickstarters lined up ready to go.

Absent

I’m away.

Relaxing.

Seeing some family for the first time in 18 months.

Seeing my 9 month old niece for the first time.

See you in a bit!