Time

With the new job, time is tight.

I’m having to get my head back into programming.

As well as learning all the new domain and our suite of applications.

I’m tired and I’ve not been sleeping well.

There are several upsides though.

I’ve found a couple of gaming buddies and am frequently gaming at lunchtime before walking home.

We even playtested Rocky ‘Roid last week when I forgot to take in Lost Cities.

I’m getting loads of exercise.

I’m enjoying the job way more.

I’ve also arranged a FlickFleet tournament on our next Connection Day when they try to get everyone into the office :)

Let’s see how they fare at this!

In other news, Paul is frantically laser-cutting and we’re making progress on fulfilment.

Not helped by the Royal Mail ransomware attack though - they still can’t accept international parcels :(

And I’ve restarted the Newcastle Playtest group :)

My new daily habits mean I’m making decent progress on 2 games and have another ready for playtesting.

Plus another I’d like to get to prototype stage soon too!

Shipping

Xeno Wars is now shipping.

The non-EU playmats have all gone.

Simple orders to the UK have gone too. 

We’re ready to send the non-EU international simple orders.

But there’s been a ransomware attack on Royal Mail, so they aren’t shipping internationally at the moment.

Hopefully they’ll fix it soon.

Or we’ll need a backup plan.

In the meantime, it’s great to see peoples’ excitement when it arrives.

Wooooo! by Kris Mackie via Facebook

Thanks for sharing!

Progress

Paul has been sick between Christmas and New Year. 

He’s still not right now. 

But he’s getting better. 

The last few non-EU playmats shipped this week. 

Freeing up valuable space in his house. 

Next up is starting to tick off the deluxe rewards. 

Meanwhile I’ve been cracking on with the scenario booklet. 

The Rift

Testing the scenarios. 

Tweaking them. 

Testing again. 

I’ve almost finished. 

Next up is some more coding on our internal tooling. 

To save me time that I can then spend on game design. Or graphic design. Or Gamefound pages.

Changes

I started a new job on Tuesday. 

For the first time in a couple of years I’m in an office (in the morning at least!). 

I’m walking 4 miles a day which is great. 

Or will be, once I’ve broken in my new boots.

But I have less time for Eurydice Games. 

And it’s harder to work on it during my lunch break since that’s when I’m walking home. 

I need to find a new rhythm. 

I’ve managed to playtest Rocky ‘Roid a bunch of times last week though. 

Sat in the office cafe, eating my lunch. 

Under construction!

I’ve also spent several evenings this week testing the FlickFleet scenario booklet scenarios.

It’s coming together.

I’m going to be busy again soon though as Paul steps up shipping too.

I need to find my new rhythm.

Notes

After playing with Evernote and Notion I’ve gone back to the iPhone Notes app. 

The free one from Apple. 

In the last month I’ve taken notes on 7(!) different games. 

This is prolific for me!

Only two of those have been prototyped though.

It’s time to move from notes to games. 

Broken games. Dodgy games. Boring games. 

But no matter how much you think about it, it’s not until you make a prototype that you start finding the kinks and working them out. 

I’ve ordered 500 blank cards to save me some time.

New job starts tomorrow, so I’ll be tight for time again.

2023!

I hope all of you that celebrate it had a fantastic Christmas.

2023 is on the horizon.

Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

As a lad who grew up in the seventies it sounds very futuristic.

Looking forward to my flying car.

In all seriousness I'm really looking forward to 2023.

I have so many game ideas buzzing in my head now.

After some very slow years.

COVID and the job I wasn't enjoying sucked all the creative headspace out of me.

I've found my mojo again.

Hopefully I can get some of these ideas completed.

Fingers crossed!

Four

I'm actively working on four games.

Rocky 'Roid is with playtesters awaiting feedback.

Siren Song I've tried a couple of times solo. I'm making notes and I'm almost ready to update the prototype.

Border Reivers has a page of notes.

And I'm doing the Scenario Booklet for FlickFleet.

I'm loving this burst of creativity.

Really enjoying the designing and prototyping of games.

Paul gave me a 10x10 game tracker he'd made me for Christmas.

I'm using it to track prototype plays.

Plenty of space at the bottom!

Too much of my time over the last few years has been swallowed by running the business.

And trying to stay sane during COVID.

Creativity

Following some advice I got via Daniel Pink I’ve started a chain.

Just trying to keep a streak going of things that are important to me.

Game design. Exercise. Physio for my leg that is weakened by my MS. Meditation.

I've managed nine days so far.

And it’s been amazing.

I’ve made a new version of Rocky ‘Roid and sent it out to playtesters.

Written a load of notes for a second edition of Border Reivers.

Come up with a new idea for a game about sirens and Ancient Greek sailors.

And made notes.

And a quick hand-drawn prototype.

And played it at Paul’s this weekend.

And come up with ideas for a new version.

I haven’t been this creative in years.

Something about it is working for me!

Finished

National Game Design Month is over. 

The first half was great - loads of progress and fast iterations. 

After Paul’s mini-convention I stalled. 

There was urgent Eurydice work to be done. 

Plus the feedback I received at the convention has left me struggling to find a next step. 

I have ideas. Thoughts. Notes. 

Nothing concrete to implement though. 

On the plus side, I’ve made loads of progress on it this month. 

First since January. 

Now I need to unblock the market. 

TGWAG was disappointing this year. 

In previous years I’ve had many players who were quite engaged. 

Only two this year. 

Mal won it. 

I’m working on a prize for him now…

TGWAG: Final Week

I'm still looking for playtesters and feedback on my roll & write design.

It's come on a lot this month! 

As part of National Games Design Month I've been running The Game Within A Game (TGWAG).

In previous years we've had several entrants and some competition for the prize.

This year it's only been two.

There's still time to be in with a chance to win the prize!

In the meantime, I need to evolve the scoring.

I'd appreciate any feedback and ideas on it.

Name	Rank	PIPs
Mal	Recycling Pipework Technician's Mate	3
Kylef	Recycling Pipework Technician's Mate	2

Stalled

I made good progress on the roll and write (Rocky ’Roid?) up until last weekend.

Can I unblock and get one last iteration out?

Over the weekend I played three games.

Two with other designers. One with a roll and write fan.

I got a lot of feedback.

I made rapid changes, improving things as I went.

Afterwards, I saw some opportunities to improve things further.

Even started updating the player sheet.

But I’ve stalled.

I know what I need to do: simplify the scoring.

But keep the interaction.

And some variability between games.

Plus there’s Gamefound fulfilment stuff to do.

Which is urgent.

I need to unblock.

Get moving again.

Only four days left in NaGa DeMon…

Gaming

Paul organised a mini-convention this weekend.

In deepest, darkest Yorkshire.

Him and 20-odd of his friends including me.

I knew a couple of them beforehand, but they were all lovely.

I played a lot of games.

Many for the first time.

But even with the prospect of 48 hours of gaming (and optionally some sleep!), I found myself gravitating to shorter games.

I don’t play long games any more as ‘I don’t have the time’.

I think I need to change that.

I just prefer shorter games now.

I also playtested the roll and write with a couple of other designers and a roll and write fan.

Evolving again!

Got some useful feedback.

We completely changed endgame scoring. Twice.

And it’s better for it.

New version coming soon…

Theme II

The game boxes have arrived at Paul’s.

1,425 of them.

His house is rammed.

The focus now must be shipping rewards and clearing some space!

Since Wednesday’s playtest I’ve done nothing with the Roll & Write (Ursa Miner?)

But Mal’s name suggestion has given me ideas.

A slightly different theme is taking shape in my brain.

It’s percolating.

Meanwhile I’ve been going back to my roots.

Writing a little app to convert the Gamefound fulfilment spreadsheet into our fulfilment spreadsheet.

I used to do it by hand.

Silly really.

This will take some time, but save a lot.

Even more in the long run.

Now the boxes have arrived, Paul needs it now though.

Roll & Write will have to wait!

The TGWAG scores at the end of week 2 are:

Name	Rank	PIPs
Mal	Recycling Pipework Technician's Mate	3
Kylef	Recycling Pipework Technician's Mate	2

Theme

Mal mentioned during last night's playtest that I've not mentioned the Roll & Write's theme on the blog.

We played three 3-player games

There's a reason for that.

The lack of a name is probably related to it.

The game works mechanically.

There's a lot of room for improvement, but in essence it works.

There's decisions to make.

A race of sorts, to collect resources before time runs out.

A few little decisions every turn: which dice? which direction? which distance? which resource to collect?

And one big one: do I have enough resources yet to profit more than my competitors?

Then scoring.

And more small decisions. 

Which trade to make? Shall I pass and the risk of an opponent blocking a future move? Or take the guaranteed lesser pay-out now?

The current theme is weak.

Interstellar prospectors. Collecting bounty for the Galactic Overlords.

It might change. 

I've not really used the theme to drive the mechanisms yet.

Because I'm not wedded to it.

Any ideas?

Test

The Wife is away.

I'm busier than usual.

Doing all the housework and parenting.

But also less busy.

I've no-one to hang out with once the kids are asleep.

So I've been making progress again.

New maps!

We now have five different map ideas. All drafted and included in the download.

I've still only tested the first one.

Hopefully getting some more testing in on Wednesday...

Variety

I want the roll and write to have some variety of set-up.

The players share the dice each turn. So could always choose the same options.

So I want to encourage variety between players.

Plus try to make the game less samey, so repeated plays play out differently.

Each players gets different starting resources.

And you can choose one Overlord per player from a set of six. 

So there’s some variability with fewer the six players there.

But I want more.

So each player individually modifies their maps before you begin.

But I want more.

Two different maps now!

So multiple maps, with different special rules.

I came up with a bunch of map ideas.

Now I need to draft them and include in the download.

I’ve done two so far.

The Wife is away for a few days this week. I’ll work on this in the evenings, once I’ve got the girls to sleep…

And in other news, we've got our first taker for TGWAG!

Current leaderboard (it's a bit empty - why not join in?):

Name	Rank	PIPs
Kylef	Recycling Technician's Mate	2

Play

I've played it for the first time.

Well, not the first time. But the first time with friends.

My previous plays were with myself. As fake other players.

I hate that.

But we played a 3-player game last night.

It worked.

There were some clunky bits though. And rules we never used at all.

Streamline.

I've made changes.

Hopefully they'll improve things.

But they might not.

I need to test it again.

Or some help from others to test the new version.

I've got some other ideas to try too.

But one thing at a time.

Version 0.3 is available for download.

Evolution

It's only the second of the month and I already have an update!

There's a whole new version available here.

I've changed a few things.

Simplified set-up a lot.

Added a bit more variation between players to encourage players to take different paths.

Tomorrow I have a Games Night at my house.

We very rarely play my prototypes at Games Night.

I usually hold a separate playtesting night.

I might ask my chums to indulge me tomorrow - see if we can try out the Roll & Write and the new version of Coalescence.

National Game Design Month off to a great start.

Only slight disappointment is that we don't have any TGWAG players this year.

It's been several years since I last did it, but we had several players back in those days.

Maybe I'll just end up playing by myself.

It still might work to keep me making progress...

TGWAG: The Beginning

The Game Within a Game.

All you have to do is help me out with the design of my Roll & Write during the month of November.

You can read the rules. Playtest the game. Ask questions. Give advice. Leave comments (here on the blog please). Come up with a name.

I will take all that feedback and iterate the game as quickly as I can.

And I will give out Pointless Internet Points.

For any help provided.

Players will be ranked by their points.

At the end there'll be a (sur)prize for the highest PIP total.

But we need to start at the beginning.

Here's where we start: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pS7Uz04T1lvYy456W7O2juhTQfa6p8KR/view?usp=share_link

This zip file includes the rules and the player sheets as they are at the start of the month.

The player sheet

I've already got some ideas from previous playtester feedback.

Make the set-up far simpler. Maybe fixed Overlord demands, with different 'games' with different demands. And a different map for each 'game'.

Let me know your thoughts and I'll take it from here.

The PIP ranks for this game are:

Rank	PIPs
Overlord	46-50
Vizier	41-45
Prospector Captain	36-40
Surveyor 1st Class	31-35
Assistant Surveyor	26-30
Scanner Operator	21-25
Sensor Technician	16-20
Sensor Cleaner	11-15
Recycling Pipework Technician	6-10
Recycling Pipework Technician's Mate	1-5

TGWAG

Years ago, before I started Eurydice Games I took part in NaGa DeMon a few times.

That’s National Game Design Month.

In November.

Zombology was born that way.

In the last couple of years I’ve really struggled with game design.

COVID hasn’t helped.

But a full-time job, young family and running a company in my spare time doesn’t leave much time.

I’m going to do it again this November.

Focus.

I'll be running a little competition.

The Game Within a Game - TGWAG.

Giving out pointless internet points.

To people who help me.

By playtesting. Or proof-reading. Or providing ideas.

I’ll keep a weekly leaderboard.

There’ll be a prize for the winner.

It kicks off tomorrow.

I started a Roll & Write in January

Follow along on the blog to join in…