Unexpected Perks of Self Employment

I'm halfway through my third week week of self-employment, and I've noticed some advantages I wasn't expecting when I gave up my old job. I used to drive, get a lift or take the bus to work, clocking up around sixty miles a week in our car, and probably only walking ten miles a week in total. I no longer drive to work, so I'm saving the environment ever so slightly, but more importantly I'm doing more walking, with frequent trips into town and to the Post Office sending copies of It's Alive! and I walk over to Paul's for our Wednesday afternoon playtesting. I reckon I'm walking nearer to twenty miles a week now. Seeing as walking is my only form of exercise at the moment, this is a good thing. In addition, my lack of willpower regarding food led to almost daily trips to the tuck shop at work for snacks and a can of pop. Without easy access to tempt me, I've been eating much better (and cheaper!). Between the two of them I've lost 3/4 of a stone (10 pounds / 4.5 kilos) over the last couple of months - excellent. I expect you all to compliment me on my svelte new physique next time you see me ;-) Because I don't have a commute I'm also getting more sleep, which is great, I hated getting up at 6am.

In other news, I've made some more changes to the website today, incorporating feedback from The Wife and my Dad over the weekend. I've also contacted GS1UK about getting some barcodes so I can put them on my boxes. I'm also continuing to contact more distributors, trying to drum up interest in Carpe Astra.

I didn't get as much of the flavour text done as I wanted to, due to the website work, but I'll post the first character preview tomorrow. There won't be any artwork yet, but a description and the flavour text.

Full Day!

It was nice to get to spend a full day on the company today. My first task was to respond to a bunch of pre-orders for Carpe Astra that resulted from yesterday's newsletter. I also had a couple of It's Alive! sales to prepare and dispatch.

Most of the morning was spent on a few changes to the website suggested by my Dad on the weekend. I had a couple of CSS bugs to fix, and I wanted to make the page a bit more resilient to font size changes in a user's browser. I've got them done, but I've not posted them yet, I'm going to have The Wife have a look at them first.

This afternoon was spent contacting distributors and shops to start the ball rolling on Carpe Astra, and also preparing the flavour text for Carpe Astra. I need some flavour text on each of the 97 cards, plus a little blurb for each of the characters to go on the player guides. I'm about halfway through the cards at the moment. The flavour text serves a dual purpose, it's there to get players into the mood of the game, but also to provide a suggested narration for the game. An optional rule is to describe how you've made the connection with the Guilds, the flavour text give you an example if you're not confident making one up. Tomorrow I hope to finish the flavour text, and come up with some example layouts to show the artist next week when I meet him. I'm going to leave the layouts with him (just pieces of card showing where I want all the components of the artwork) so that I can start laying things out up here, knowing that they'll fit the artwork.

Here's a couple of flavour text examples:

• Network card: Connect yourself with The Military, Traders and Politicians. I lobby the Senate for reduced trade tariffs for military purchases.
• Slander card: Connect an opponent with The Military and Politicians. They are using Marines to coerce Senators to vote in their favour.
• Event Card: Pirate Attacks. Get an extra credit every time you score The Military or Traders. Piracy is on the increase, freighters are vulnerable without military escorts.

Of course, you can make up a story that describes how you're taking advantage of the event to gain additional power.

Ding! Ding! Round Three!

I'm now in my third week of working for myself, and I'm really enjoying it. When it's your own money on the line, it really brings your time management decisions into focus! This week I'm starting the consultancy for my old company, today I had a meeting in London (an hour walking to and from the station, four hours on the train and two hours in a meeting). I can only bill for two of those hours, but at least the time on the train isn't a write off - I can work on there with my laptop, especially as there's now free WiFi. In fact, I write this very post in the vicinity of Peterborough on the way home :-). I'll be working several hours again on Friday, though thankfully that's in Yorkshire, so the travel time is less. Then next week I've a two day meeting on Monday and Tuesday. The extra money will come in handy, it's going to be a while before Reiver Games can support us.

So, what am I up to? I've posted the Dutch translation for the It's Alive! rules, which has generated some useful feedback on BoardGameGeek and I've announced Carpe Astra on my website, which has been tweaked a little to make it slightly more flash (what do you think Mal?). The Carpe Astra logo, banner and teaser image are just placeholders until I can get something official from the artist. I did the stars background myself from this tutorial which is pretty cool. I did mine in an hour, I didn't want to spend too long on it, as it's only temporary. I've also started getting pre-orders for Carpe Astra. I'm offering a discount for pre-orders which I hope will lure a few people in, but the lion's share of the sales will have to be to shops and distributors. I need to start contacting them soon, so I can build up a list of orders and get ready for the end of July when I hope to be shipping Carpe Astra to retailers.

Next up is the graphic design and artwork. R H Aidley, the artist who did It's Alive! is going to do Carpe Astra too, he's busy until the end of the month with a couple of children's books though, so the artwork will have to wait until then. The layout can be started now however, so it won't delay me. I was going to do the same thing as It's Alive!, and get him to do all the art, and then do the layout and text myself. I'm now thinking that I can get him (at extra cost!) to do the layout for the cards, scoreboard and player guides. It will look at lot more professional than the semi-transparent boxes I'd have done, should be really cool.

In business, people tend to ask you what your 'differentiators' are (or similar, they probably use a made-up word such as that!), what makes you different from your competitors. That's a question I need to answer. Why should people spend their money on a Reiver Games game, rather than one made by someone else? Obviously I need to make great games or I'm stuffed, but great games alone won't cut it, lots of companies make great games. I'm thinking that art will be one of my differentiators. Lots of German games have terrible art. Truly hideous. The big American companies have technically good art, but not very exciting, innovative or 'arty'. I think that's an area I can compete in successfully. Although I'm not a competent artist, I think I have a fairly good eye for these things, plus I've got The Wife (who's officially my Art Director :-D) and my Dad (a retired art teacher) who also give me really good feedback on the aesthetics of my games. Border Reivers was pretty weak in the art stakes (with the exception of the box art that my Dad did), but I love the art on It's Alive!

It's not perfect - I'm not 100% happy with the box art, a few of the cards get confused easily (legs & arms being the classic example), but it stands out. It's comic-like (which I wanted) while being different enough that it looks a little unusual. And the outside of the player shields are fantastic!

Last time round I was fairly easy going, I described to the artist what I wanted, got some sketches (including fantastic ideas I'd never have thought of), picked my favourite and that was it. The net result was a couple of things I wasn't completely happy with, but I didn't say anything. This time round I want to be a bit more pushy, if there's something I'm not happy with, I want to get it fixed, even if it costs more. As part of this I've arranged to meet the artist next Wednesday to discuss the art, I'll take prototypes and layout guides and spend a couple of hours discussing ideas with him. Hopefully it'll be a really good meeting, and lead to a great looking game.

Busy Few Days

I've spent thirteen hours at hospital this week including travel time, which has obviously had an impact on the amount of progress I've been able to make, but even with that I've managed to get a lot done. Plus the treatment seems to be making a difference so that's worth it too.

Tuesday I managed to make my Codename: Network prototype a little nicer looking in preparation for a playtesting night with Paul G, Greg and Lisa. It was (believe it or not) the first time I'd played 4-player, and as a result we made a couple of changes to make player interaction a bit easier - all good stuff.

Wednesday afternoon, I got confirmation from the designer of Network, Ted Cheatham, that he was happy with the name and the contract, so I can now confirm that Network will be the third game released by Reiver Games in July of this year. I want to call it 'Carpe Astri - Seize the Stars' but apparently the correct name is 'Carpe Astra', someone spotted the error on BoardGameGeek and I checked it with a Professor of Latin at Cambridge University! I'm hoping to have the professional run ready to ship pre-orders (at 30% discount) at the beginning of July, sending copies out to shops at distributors at the end of July/early August. If you're after a copy please either email me to go on the pre-order list, or contact your favourite store and ask them to stock it. I expect it will cost somewhere between £15 and £25 GBP, but I'm waiting on a quote from the manufacturer before I can confirm that.

Wednesday afternoon also featured another playtest, this time with Paul W and Lisa, giving the new 3-player layout a test. Again it went well (plus I won 3/3 :-) ), so that was really useful too. Wednesday evening Rich tried it out too, he enjoyed it as well, which is a useful barometer as he's not a game geek like the rest of my playtesters.

This afternoon, I finally got to meet the sales guy from the manufacturing company. That was a really useful meeting, I got to enquire about what affected the price (and by how much), show off a couple of prototypes and generally get a lot of my manufacturing questions answered. I've not gone down the professional route before, so I don't know much about it. The more I can find out quickly, the better.

I've also contacted a group who might offer me a grant to help with exporting, on the advice of my small business advisor. They offer grants to do things like visiting potential overseas markets. If I can get an all expenses paid trip to the States to visit distributors that would be awesome!

New Website

I've not changed any of the content, just migrated it to PHP, to remove some duplication, making it easier to add new games in the (near!) future. If you get a chance, check out the site and check I've not broken anything!

Games Day

Yeay! 400th post!

I went round to Paul W's this afternoon for a games day. I missed the morning, so I turned up halfway through a very entertaining game of Pirates. Paul's 3-D scenery looked really cool, as did playing on a blue surface, they really set the scene. When they'd finished we got a 4-player game of Network in, which was really useful. I've not actually played it 4-player yet, and it was good to see that it worked as I'd envisaged. I'm thinking of tweaking the scoring a little more, but I'll get a chance to do that on Tuesday (play-testing with Greg, Paul W & Paul G) and then again on Wednesday afternoon (with Paul W). It's so nearly there! We wrapped up with a couple of games of Guillotine, which I love (and recently bought for Paul G for his birthday).

It's been a cracking week for It's Alive! too. I sold more copies this week than in the preceding three put together, and the two weeks before were pretty good. If sales continue this well I'll sell out in three weeks! To be honest I doubt the next three weeks will be consistently as good as this one, but it definitely feels like I'm on the finishing straight. If you're after a copy I wouldn't wait too long, they'll be gone soon.

In other news, today is my MS-versary, I was diagnosed a year ago today (on Friday 13th April - how auspicious is that?).

A Week of Working For Myself

My first week at home is nearly done. It's felt good, but also slightly strange. It feels a bit like taking a week off, in the past I've taken a week off work to construct lots of games in preparation for a big convention. I think it'll take a few weeks for it to really sink in.

I've spent most of today working on Network. I was concerned that the version that Paul and I came up with on Wednesday could be broken if one player played a particular strategy, so I tried it out today and I was right :-( I've spent most of the day soloing various versions, trying to simultaneously fix the strategy problem and tighten the theme up a bit. Nothing major, just changing hand sizes, scoring mechanisms and also trying out some extra cards that the original submission also came with, but I'd taken out. Network is so nearly there, but it's difficult to stop playing with it and call it done. I guess I'm a perfectionist, or an inveterate tinkerer - one of the two! I'm trying to tie the game tighter to the theme by tinkering with the scoring, so that it 'makes sense' in the context of the game. It's also possible to do it by adding flavour text to the rules, or just rewording things, an example from the Network rules: replacing 'replace a piece' (the mechanic), with 'bribe an opponent's operative'. I'm hoping to do some playtesting on Tuesday night, and I'll take it along to Paul's on Sunday, if people are interested it will be really useful to get more multi-player games in.

Shush! I'm Working!

It's amazing what counts as work these days :-)

Yesterday I spent the morning starting to go through the rules of the submissions I have requested, they've not all arrived, but those that have arrived I can take a look at. It's much slower going than the first pass, I have to read the rules, figure out in my head how I think the game will work and then make a decision. So far I've asked for prototypes of three, and rejected two.

At lunchtime I stopped to print, cut out and write some new cards for Network in time for an afternoon of playtesting with Paul. I had a new idea that I wanted to try out, I was worried the game felt a bit too random, a bit out of control. Also, I was worried that a run away winner could not be caught up. Paul and I spent the afternoon trying out variations on that theme. The version we ended up with at the end of the afternoon worked really well two-player, I've not had a chance to try it out with more yet. I had a really good afternoon, Paul make a great playtester (load of really useful ideas and insightful probing of potential problem areas), and it was nice to just hang out playing games - while working!

Today I did a bit more on the submissions, then I had another idea for Network. I printed, cut out and wrote some more cards. Tomorrow I'll solo them to see if they work at all, and try it with three and four (virtual) players. I hope to try it with real people on Sunday and Tuesday next week. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it out with both three and four players.

In other news, I've now lined up meetings with the manufacturer and my small business advisor for next week, that'll be all three of the meetings I wanted to organise sorted.

36/24/25

That's 36 submissions, from 24 designers, 25 of which I've accepted on the first pass.

My first pass through the list is looking at a couple of paragraphs the designers sent me to see whether I'm interested in seeing the rules. At this point I'm considering the theme, mechanics and components. Here's the criteria I use to rule games out:

• Theme. I'm looking for fun themes (rather than abstracts), nothing too distasteful or which I find un-interesting - e.g. sport games.
• Mechanics. Mass market games are right out, I don't have the clout to compete in the party game/mass market arena, Hasbro would eat me alive! You also need to make massive runs to make it affordable, I don't have the capital for that. I'm not interested in wargames, or card games based on a standard deck of cards, nor anything that sounds too light (not enough meaningful choices) or too heavy (very long or complicated games).
• Components. I don't like using generic boards, I'm trying to position Reiver Games as a company that makes attractive but unusual games, I can't do that using a chess board as the playing area. If it requires hundreds of plastic minis that's out too.

Also games that the designers freely admit to not being especially well tested fail the test too. I'm after games that are ready to publish. While I don't mind doing a bit of development if a game is almost there, I don't want to be doing the designer's playtesting for them. That's what they get paid for.

I've done the first pass through my submissions, now I need to look in more detail at the rules for those games that make the cut.

In other news, the meeting with the new bank manager went well and was useful, and I'm hoping to meet the manufacturer towards the end of this week too. I need to get a lot done this week, as it now looks like I'll be spending a decent chunk of next week in and out of hospital :-(

The Best Laid Plans...

Well, my first day working as a game publisher is over. 11 hours! Still, it doesn't feel like work :-)

I used (in the bad old days of employment ;-) ) to check my email while I ate breakfast so if I needed to package copies of It's Alive! to post at lunchtime I could. This morning I didn't turn the computer on until I was ready to start work. And what a great start it was! I had four sales of It's Alive! waiting for me in my inbox when I turned the computer on. Fantastic start to the business. Auspicious. During the day I sold another (my first sale to Estonia!), so five in total, that's more than I sold last week, in my first day :-) Needless to say it gave me a real spring in my step.

I'd started the day with only two finished copies of It's Alive!, and only a single padded envelope, so my plans for the day went out the window. Instead I started the day with a trip to Staples to buy more padded envelopes (they'd gone up - d'oh, but were on a buy one get one free deal - yeay!). I then spent the rest of the day making It's Alive! to make the copies I'd sold and build up some stock again. I paused briefly to pop to the Post Office to post those copies in the afternoon - postage has gone up too. Then back to construction.

I did, however, manage to get one of my tasks done - I've a meeting with the new bank manager tomorrow morning.

I'm off to Paul's now for games night. Man, I'm obsessed!

The First Day of the Rest of My Life!

Dramatic enough for you? It's true though, today I'm no longer employed, I'm self-employed. It's going to take few weeks to settle in, but when it does it should hopefully feel very different.

A couple of things are going to make the transition easier:

• Work want me to come back part-time as a contractor/consultant. It's far fewer hours than I do now, but at a far better rate, so it'll give me a chance to acclimatise myself to being on my own more, as I can wean myself off office life to some degree. Plus the money will help, allowing us to survive a bit better or give me longer to get the company off the ground.
• I'm due a pay rise at work, back-dated to August, it looks like it going to be around £680 after tax, and will turn up at the end of June, again the money will be welcome.

I'm trying to have the weekend mostly off (though I've been checking my email compulsively as usual, and I've corrected the German rules for It's Alive! on my website again). Monday will be the big kick-off. I've arranged to see Paul on Wednesday for playtesting, before then I want to print some more cards for Network to try out a new idea. I'm going to create a spreadsheet of all my submissions. Until now I've been fairly cavalier about managing them, but with the vast number I've received over the last week I need to be a bit more organised.

That's it from me for the moment, I'll let you know how Monday goes...

One More Day...

It's my last day at work tomorrow. One more day before I'm a professional board game publisher. Exciting! I've been getting as much stuff ready as I can, I want to be busy next week, rather than just sat around twiddling my thumbs.

Here's my todo list:

• First pass through my submission list. Since my request for submissions last night I've had around forty. They've been coming so thick and fast that I've not really had time to look at them. One of my first jobs is to go through the list as a first pass, asking for rules to the ones I'm interested in.
• Codename: Network. I need to start publicising this. The steps are: choose a name, list it on BoardGameGeek, nail down the rules and components, get a quote for manufacturing, start a pre-order list and start recruiting shops and distributors to stock it.
• Make the last copies of the It's Alive! handmade limited edition, and sell them.
• Meet with the small business advisor, my new bank manager and the sales guy from the manufacturer.

That's enough to be getting on with. The submissions alone will take a decent chunk of time. As for Network, the names I'm leaning towards are: Web of Stars (nicely captures the network aspect), Carpe Astri (latin for Seize the Stars) and Power Vacuum (space = vacuum geddit?). I'm going to ask for The Wife and the designer's input before I make a decision.

March Report

Big month for me! As usual, play first.

Play

By the numbers, it was a fairly average month, but in the flesh it was a great one. I spent a weekend in Newcastle with old friends playtesting games, the next weekend we were down South playing games with yet more old friends, plus there was a week when I made it to both of Paul's games nights, my last two gaming sessions with Dave before he moved down South, a night in the pub when we ended playing drinking Jenga, and a visit to Hugo's for a gaming afternoon. Here's the multiples:

• Race for the Galaxy - 8 plays
• Jenga - 6 plays
• Border Reivers - 5 plays
• N-Tropy - 3 plays
• Memoir '44 - 2 plays
• Category 5 - 2 plays

And the singles: Puerto Rico, Revolution!, Carcassonne: The Castle, Bang!, The Pillars of Venice, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. It was my first outing for N-Tropy, Revolution!, Bang!, The Pillars of Venice and Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. I wasn't a big fan of Bang! or The Pillars of Venice, N-Tropy was alright. My favourite new game of the month was Cleopatra etc. Nice theme, beautiful chrome, I like that the box is used as part of the board (like Niagara), and I love the corruption mechanic, where scoring the most points often means getting corruption counters, the player with the most at the end of the game loses, regardless of their score. Nasty :-D. Special mention goes to Revolution! by fellow blogger Philip duBarry. Dave and I played it, and I enjoyed it but felt it would be better with more players. Then I read the box. 3-4 Players. Muppet! I took it along to Hugo's but there were too many of us, so I'll have to try at Paul's instead.

All in all, it was a great month for playing games. Great to see so many old friends, and to be invited to yet more games sessions :-) Still, it was a shame to see Dave leave, I'll miss our Tuesday nights together, and our nights in the pub chatting about game design.

Creation

Ooooh. Exciting month. I finally stopped prevaricating about whether to quit my job and set up Reiver Games full-time, and just did it. I also started making a splash to try to build awareness of my company, and to drum up more submissions. I posted a few things on BoardGameGeek, which attracted attention, and lead to a brief story on Boardgame News. In total I think I've had around thirty or forty submissions. It's a bit overwhelming. For the moment I'm just replying telling the designers I'll look at them next week. At least I'll be busy in my first week at home :-)

It's Alive!

Sales have been slow since Christmas, but they've started picking up this last week as I'm more active, and making a splash about my company. I've sold nine during March, and I'm hoping that having some time to invest in publicity (and the quitting my job story) will raise awareness and lead to some more sales in the coming weeks. I've almost run out of the massive pile of finished stock I built up several weeks ago, time to get constructing again. Looking forward to next month I've a couple of appearances at the local game store (their games night and a Saturday slot) which should also lead to some sales.

Codename: Network

I've been working on this the last few weeks quite hard. I've started putting together some graphic design and been bouncing ideas back and forth with the designer. I started a thread on BGG asking for title suggestions and got hundreds. I need to pick one, and then start publicising it properly.

Codename: Jorvik

Jorvik's gone on the back-burner for now. I had some constructive feedback from Mal & Paul that made me think it wasn't quite ready. So I'll continue working on it, and release it when it is ready, rather than rush it out too soon.

In other news, all the fuss has led to the most hits in a single day here on Creation and Play. I'd like to welcome all my new readers, hopefully you'll stick around and join the discussion every now and again. It's going to be an exciting few months here on CnP I hope you enjoy reading about it.

Good Weekend

Since I decided that I was quitting my day job I've slacked off a bit. I figure I'll have plenty of time for Reiver Games stuff once I'm doing it full-time, and I've really enjoyed spending more time with The Wife as a result. We've been hanging out in the evenings more together, rather than me making games, on the computer trying to publicise It's Alive! or responding to emails.

This weekend I got to do a bit of both. Friday night we went to the pub with some friends for a birthday do, then Saturday I went to Leeds for the day with The Wife and seven of her friends. The main goal was going for sushi at lunchtime, but I managed to nip off while they were lady-shopping to visit the games and comic shop: Travelling Man. I was going to a friend's house afterwards for a games afternoon, so I had a copy of It's Alive! in my bag. While I was in there looking at comics, the Managing Director walked in. I'd spoken to him a couple of times before about making games and got some really good advice and contacts. Seeing as I was there, with a copy of It's Alive! in my bag I asked him if he had time for a brief chat. I sat down with him and showed him It's Alive! He really liked the look of the game, and was interested in stocking it. He also suggested I come along to their games night and demo it, and also demo it in the store on Saturday for a small cut. Excellent! Interesting tidbit: he asked what the rating on BoardGameGeek was. They don't stock games with a lower average than six.

After sushi, I headed over to Hugo's for a games afternoon. There were five of us, so too many for the two games I'd brought: Race for the Galaxy and Philip duBarry's Revolution!, so instead we played Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. I'd been meaning to play it for ages so I was really happy to give it a try. It was fairly long, but chromed up to the nines, and I really enjoyed the corruption mechanic. Fantastic fun, I'd like to play it again soon.

Sunday was great too. I've been busy on the Geek, writing a Geeklist about turning pro, it's generated a lot of good wishes and a few sales of It's Alive! too. Excellent. It's also led to several extra submissions which is a great bonus. Things are ramping up nicely in preparation for the week after next.

Going Full-Time: Justification

I've been thinking a lot about why I decided to quit my job and try to get Reiver Games off the ground as a full-time job. I thought I'd try and get my thoughts down on (electronic!) paper.

First I ought to give a description of where I stand now. I've been running Reiver Games in my spare time for about eighteen months. I have a full-time job that requires frequent travel to London (approximately once a week), plus infrequent travel around the world (six trips last year: San Francisco, Paris x 2, Copenhagen, Oslo and New York). In addition, my ordinary journey time to work varies between thirty and seventy-five minutes. The job does occasionally allow me to work from home though, and being civil service it comes with a great pension and reasonable salary.

In order to spend time on Reiver Games, making the games by hand, I've needed to do RG work a couple of nights a week and on the weekend almost every week for the last year and a half. I've also had to take holiday to make games in the run up to conventions so I had enough stock to take to them. This has been possible due to The Wife's PhD, which has meant she's been home late frequently, plus has trips away of her own and can't afford to take as much holiday as I can.

Things at work have been changing, with my role expanding to include some technical support for a new service we're offering. This is work I'm not so interested in, so from that point of view I fancied a change. My diagnosis with MS a year ago has led to a few minor health problems which make working from home more appealing and international travel less so, and on a lighter note, some money.

The Wife's PhD is coming to an end, and so we might have to move in a few months, which makes getting another real job awkward. Also, it will mean that she will get home earlier and have more holiday time to spend with me. At some point we're going to want kids, and so if I'm going to do this, now is the time, as this level of risk is not appropriate when you've got kids to support.

But the real question is why do I want to make games for a living? Is this some half-baked plan to have a year's holiday while quietly pissing our savings up the wall?

I've played games (board and computer) for as long as I can remember, even now when I spend an inordinate amount of time making them, I still want to play games with Paul (at least once a week) and Dave (alas no more!), at Beyond Monopoly! and with my friends further afield when I visit them for a weekend, or when they visit us. I'm obsessed. There I said it - the first stage is always admitting you have a problem.

Ever since I started making Border Reivers, I've had a pipe-dream that one day I could do this as a living. I enjoy the development of other peoples' games as much as designing my own and also get a real kick out of the graphic design and the final product. There's definitely more money to be made in the publishing side of things than designing (unless you're a really big name like Reiner Knizia, Klaus Teuber, Klaus-Jürgen Wrede or Alan Moon), but it also carries with it the lion's share of the risk - it's the publishers who invest their money in the game, and they're left holding the bag if a game doesn't sell. That makes it exciting, but also terrifying. Bigger companies balance the risk, they have enough money to invest in lots of games, some will work, some won't, but as long as more work than don't they'll make money, and hopefully some of those will be fantastically successful like The Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride, and make them a fortune. I can't afford to cock up until Reiver Games is quite a lot bigger, however.

Working from home can be difficult, I did it for a year when we first moved to York. I hated being stuck at home alone all day - how will this be any different? At the time we were living in a small village about five miles outside of York. The village had almost no amenities, appalling bus service into town, and to make matters worse I hadn't passed my driving test yet, so I felt like a prisoner in my own home. Plus, I didn't know anyone here, as all my friends and colleagues were still in Newcastle. This time round there will be some pretty substantial differences:

• After three and a half years here, I've now got good friends in York
• We now live a short walk from town, so I have plenty of amenities within reach
• My mate Paul has offered to help with playtesting during the week

Hopefully those differences will be enough to stop me going mad!

In other news, I've started a thread on BoardGameGeek asking for name ideas for Codename: Network - it's had a lot of responses.

GameFlow

When you speak to anyone about running a business you can guarantee that 'cashflow' will be mentioned at some point. It's basically keeping track of when money comes into the company and when it goes out. You might have a brilliant idea that will guarantee a 300% return on investment, but it you have to pay out the investment up front, and you get the return over a year you might run out of money in the meantime - hence keeping an eye on your cashflow.

I'll need another measure too: Gameflow(tm). I've just coined the phrase - it means keeping your games pipeline full. The games pipeline consists of receiving submissions from designers, playtesting the submissions to weed out the inferior and improve the others, publicising the game, doing the artwork for the game, sending the game to the manufacturer, receiving finished stock from the manufacturer and then selling the stock to shops, distributors and gamers.

You need to keep the pipeline full, ensuring that you have enough games in progress that you don't end up with nothing to work on or sell.

Receiving enough quality submissions for the first stage will be hard to start off with, people with good game designs will approach the big boys (Fantasy Flight, Rio Grande Games, etc.), and most people have never heard of Reiver Games, so won't consider sending games to me. I need to put some effort into publicity to ensure that people know I exist, and consider me as a publisher for their games. I've started recently with this thread on BoardGameGeek, it has led to eleven submissions so far. Not all of them will be the sort of thing I'm interested in, but it's a start...

Google AdWords Experience

A while ago I told you I was going to try out Google AdWords, and that I would let you know how it went. Well, my £30 voucher has been used up, so now I can tell you how it went.

Setting it up was easy enough, but I found the offer email confusing, as from my reading of the email I understood it would be totally free to me, and it wasn't. I had to pay £10, the £5 account activation fee had to be paid (it couldn't come out of the voucher), and the minimum payment was £10. At this stage I was already pretty disillusioned, but I figured £35 worth of advertising might be worth it for £10 expenditure, so I went ahead and paid the fee.

Creating the advert itself was easy, just enter a title, body, keywords and how much you want to spend a month. Google recommend at least £30 per month, but I went with £15 per month initially. One minor niggle was that the use of an exclamation mark in the advert title was unacceptable, so I had to write an explanation of why I had and it took several days before the advert became available on Google's own network of hosters. Another was that I was only allowed to advertise in the UK, not further afield, I sell a lot of games abroad, and would have liked to be able to advertise in the US and Australasia - sadly not an option.

I went for the following advert:

• Title: It's Alive! Card Game
• Body: Get the Frankenstein card game for only £15 + P&P
• Keywords: Game, Card Game, Card Games, Board Game, Board Games, Horror, Frankenstein, It's Alive, Eurogames

The reporting is excellent, you can get both graphs and the raw numbers, broken down by keywords, over any time frame from a single day to all time. You get running totals of how much you've spent, and the option of an advanced mode where you can specify exactly how the bidding works for an impression. I just went for the basic mode.

Pretty early on it was clear that the £15 a month wasn't working out for me, so I upped it to their recommended minimum of £30. With this level of spend I need to sell at least £30 worth of games through AdWords to make it worthwhile. Realistically more like £75 once the cost of the games and all the fees are taken into account. For marketing purposes I ask customers where they heard of my games when they buy one, they don't always answer, but often they do, so I was able to get a pretty good idea of the effectiveness of the scheme.

The results are shown below, impressions are the number of times the advert was shown, clicks (the only thing you get charged for) are clicks on an advert that take the browser to your website.

Keyword	Impressions	Clicks	Clicks/Impression
Games	10,277	8	0.000778
Card Game	8,602	14	0.001627
Board Game	3,985	2	0.000501
Board Games	2,581	4	0.001549
Card Games	1,996	4	0.002004
Horror	27	0	N/A
Frankenstein	19	0	N/A
Google Network	191,850	48	0.000250
Total	219,337	80	0.000365

Neither 'It's Alive' nor 'Eurogames' led to any impressions. From this it looks like plurals are slightly more popular, but it's definitely worth using both singular and plural forms as both return a decent number of impressions.

Unfortunately the bottom line is that the adverts, despite leading eighty people to my site over a month or so, didn't lead to any sales at all, and hence weren't worth the tenner I spent on them. Maybe the advert was badly worded, or the keywords badly chosen. Maybe directing random punters to a website about 'home-made' games was never going to work.

Jenga - Surprisingly Fun

Friday night at the pub we played Jenga. Our local is great - not only does it have a good range of constantly changing guest ales, it also has a few bar games including Jenga. I've also played Border Reivers in there before - a games-friendly pub.

Admittedly we didn't play vanilla Jenga, and a few drinks had been consumed, so my judgement may have been impaired, but it was good fun all the same. We played a variant where initially there are no rules, each time someone knocked over the tower they had to drink, but also invent a new rule to use in subsequent games.

The first rule we added was 'no testing' i.e. you have to take the first piece you touch, then after someone blew over the tower on someone else's turn, 'no blowing' was added - no surprise there! Then the rules started to get more interesting:

• On your turn you must be touching your nose (which forced one-handed play)
• You must take from the lowest full row
• You're only allowed to use you thumb and little finger
• You can only take one of the outermost blocks from the row

Of course any rules violations required drinking :-) Jenga was much more fun played that way - I can recommend it.

In other news, I got very little time for games last week. I had a couple of trips to London for work, both of which overran so I got home quite late a couple of times. Couple that with the washing machine failure (fixed!) I didn't manage to get to Paul's for games, and Dave was away for the week on a course. Although Beyond Monopoly! was on on Saturday, The Wife and I spent almost all weekend shopping for a new car (ours is finally on it's way out, and I'd like not to be responsible for its next service and MOT), so I didn't get along this week.

I also failed in my quest to do some more work on Codename: Network. I printed out some new cards, but I've not had time to fill them in or even cut them out. Hopefully I can do that this week.

This week will hopefully be better, I'm hoping to make it to Paul's tonight, and Dave's last games night before he moves to the South is tomorrow. I may even get some time to work on things on Friday - it's a Bank Holiday in the UK, but The Wife is on a course, so I'll be at home alone. I might see if Dave is suitably recovered from his work-leaving do the night before to play games/playtest in the afternoon.

Things Are Moving Forward

Wednesday I was working from home, so in my lunchtime I did the groundwork for the meetings with the manufacturer and my bank manager. My bank manager is being transferred to a different branch next week, so instead of dealing with the guy who I've built up a relationship over the last eighteen months I've got to start from scratch with someone else, typical.

Yesterday was like a picture postcard of everything I'm trying to avoid by moving full-time. I was hoping to go to Paul's for games in the evening, but I had to go to London for work, and the trains were running slowly because of damage caused by Wednesday's storms. After spending six and a half hours on trains and waiting in stations I finally managed to get home at 7:30pm, to find the washing machine was broken. By the time I had (maybe) fixed it, it was 10pm. No games. Still, I did manage to speak to Paul about daytime playtesting once I finish my job, and he's definitely interested :-)

I'm closer to having a confirmed leaving date at work, but there's a bit of a flap on about my leaving, especially as it comes during the absence of my boss who got promoted at the beginning of the year and is still to be replaced. I've probably got three or four weeks left - not sure which yet.

In game related news, I've had a better week of It's Alive! sales this week, with the interview I did for a German games site generating some interest. The editor of another German games site bought a copy as a result, and hopes to interview me in a few weeks once he's had a chance to play it. One of my German friends has also finished translating the rules into German, so I should be able to post them in the next few days and the publicise the fact - which hopefully will lead to more interest from the German-speaking parts of Europe.

I'm very excited about this change in direction, the difficult thing will be turning this energy into momentum for the company. I need to concentrate on getting rid of the last of It's Alive! and preparing Codename: Network for release, but I also need to build some excitement around Network, so there are customers waiting to buy it, and shops wanting to stock it. Of course I can't do that until I've chosen a name. How bad does 'Seize the Stellar Throne' sound? It's the best I've come up with so far.

First Steps On My Own

So, I've handed in my notice, I've four weeks (minus a few days holiday) left at work - then what?

First up, I need to get my company off to a good start. To help this I've a few meetings to line up over the next few weeks.

• Bank Manager - I need to keep my manager on side. My eighteen months free banking has just ended, but they apparently have a 'electronic' tariff which could save me some money. I also need to tell him my plans and see what advice he has.
• Small Business Advisor - I need to talk to someone about VAT-registering (which I know other publishers have done), and advice about how best to market my games.
• Manufacturer - I want to move into professionally manufactured games, but I know almost nothing about it. How do I reduce the cost? What little things make a big difference to the cost? What software should I use to prepare the artwork? Hopefully a meeting with a manufacturer will answer some of these qustions.

I'm now fairly convinced my next game will be Codename: Network, but it's still changing fairly rapidly as the designer and I try out new ideas. I need to spend a decent amount of time improving it, stabilise the rules, get a signed contract with the designer and then start on the artwork and publicity. I'm thinking of a pre-order drive, offering fans a chance to get the game early (and cheap) and by cutting out the middle-man making more money myself than I would if I sold to a shop. I also need to get shops interested in ordering the game in bulk. How to do that? I'm not really sure yet. One way is to contact the shops directly, another is to get gamers who want the game to contact their local shop (this already happened for It's Alive!), a third method is to get a distributor to stock the game and then run a solicitation advert in their trade magazine. I've no idea yet which one will work best.

It's an exciting time, but even with eighteen months experience in the industry, the change of situation, and hence business model will incur a steep learning curve.

Gulp! This is Scary!

The last few days I've been off work sick, and as a result I've had plenty of time at home alone to think. As a result I handed in my notice today to start up Reiver Games as a full-time outfit. Man, that's scary.

My reasoning was thus:

• Firstly, I can afford not to earn for a while to try it out, if it doesn't work, I'll just have to find another job.
• I think it might work!
• I'd love to do it - it's been a pipe-dream for ages now.
• The Wife is 100% behind it.
• I'm way too busy with a full-time job that involves a lot of travel to devote the time I need to Reiver Games.
• I've been in IT now professionally for eight years, and did six years in IT at University, time for a change.

So what does this mean for Reiver Games? I'm going to move into making professional runs, predominantly sold through shops & distributors, so my time will be spent doing the graphic design and trying to flog copies to shops and I'll obviously have much more time for playtesting, designing and developing games. I'm aiming for three professional runs by next April (not this April!), with maybe a hand-made run thrown in as a bonus.

I'll also have more time for blogging, so hopefully you'll be hearing more from me too.

What are the downsides? I've given up a well-paid job for no financial security whatsoever. I've enough money squirrelled away to last me a year, but there's every chance I could end up having pissed it all up the wall in a year's time, with nothing to show for it but a flat full of unwanted games. Professional runs means cheaper production, so I can afford to sell to shops and distributors, but it also means much more risk, and if I choose badly I could end up throwing lots of money after a game which no-one wants. I've got to be damn sure a game is excellent before I publish it, and I've got to make sure the production is right, as fixing problems could drive me under. So anally-retentive checking of everything before it goes to the printer is required.

Good decision? I'll not know for a while yet, but feel free to call me an idiot, commend my bravery or offer me spare change when I'm destitute in the comments below...

Meepile on BGG

A while back I was watching my daughters stack their meeples in a little pile and got the idea to make a game out of it. I started sketching some meeple like characters with on hand in the air, both hands in the air and in other strange positions. I decided the one hand in the air would look and work the best. I proceeded to cut out and paint the first "Meepile Megameeple". Then we set to work developing some super simple rules. MEEPILE has since been added to the BGG database and there has been an amazing amount of interest. One of the images is currently on the front page of BGG and has received just under 70 thumbs. The game itself has received so many hits that it's worked it's way up into the "Hot Games" list on BGG's front page. When I started getting emails asking for the game I made a couple dozen and created some packaging. Now just over night I have received over 30 requests for the game. I'll have to start on the next 2 or 3 dozen tomorrow. You can see the game at: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/35054 Just goes to show that you never really know!

Gaming Weekend

Last weekend I was in Newcastle visiting a bunch of friends I see far too infrequently. Mal had raised some concerns about Jorvik, which he'd played a version of at New Year. So I said I'd go up an play Jorvik & Network with the boys up there, to see if Mal preferred the latest version.

Friday night was spent at the pub with a surprisingly high turn out. As well as the usual suspects a few more of my old colleagues turned up. I finished working in Newcastle nearly two and a half years ago, so it was really good to see people again.

Saturday morning Mal fancied some Border Reivers. I'd not really played since I finished selling it last spring, as I don't suggest it any more (I don't want people to end up playing because they don't want to hurt my feelings by saying no), but I'm very happy to play it when someone else suggests it. Except for me, Mal is the person who has played it the most, we have a long running series, we must have played about thirty games together. In the beginning Mal couldn't win a game if his life depended on it, I must have won the first sixteen or seventeen games we played. But more recently, Mal had started to win as many as he lost.

This time he wiped the floor with me. We played five games on Saturday morning, and Mal won four of them! Properly owned. Still, it was fun to play, nonetheless. I couldn't help thinking of ways the game could be improved while we played, I had a few ideas that were interesting, but I don't know when I'll have the chance to try them out.

In the afternoon Chief & Linz came round and we tried out Network and Jorvik. We played a few three player games of Network (Chief and Linz weren't around at the same time), plus Chief & I had a couple of games of Jorvik. Network was the best received of the two games, I'll post the feedback questionnaire results in a couple of days.

That evening Mal and I headed into Newcastle to play some pool. I used to be quite good at pool, but I've not really played in years. I was expecting to be hopeless, but was pleasantly surprised when I wasn't too bad. Mal creamed me again though (13-4!). Need more practice.

Sunday morning, before I went home, Mal and I played a couple of games of Jorvik. He agreed that it had improved since he played it at New Year, but still wasn't a fan. The card placement options were just too confusing.

To round off a great weekend, The Wife and I played a few games of Race for the Galaxy on my return, then we went for a curry with Dave and Pip. Great stuff. I need more weekends like that!

February Report

I didn't get to play many games in February, but I did loads of creation, so all in all it was a pretty good month.

Play

Yeay! I finally broke out Twiglet during February which was great fun, it's a real shame that comes out so infrequently, but when you give up a whole day to play it that's a real limiting factor. Race for the Galaxy was a new purchase, and it lived up to the hype - The Wife and I love it. I also got to Beyond Monopoly! during February, and learnt a few new games. So despite only playing nineteen games in total it was good stuff. The multiples:

• Race for the Galaxy - 6 plays
• Gipsy King - 2 plays
• Cartagena - 2 plays

And the shrapnel: Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition, Carcassonne, Citadels, The Thief of Baghdad, Salamanca, Age of Steam, TransAmerica and Diamant.

Of those, Gipsy King, Cartagena, The Thief of Baghdad and Salamanca were new to me, all at Beyond Monopoly! I was underwhelmed by Salamanca, and Cartagena we tried once with the cards open and once hidden - it didn't really grab me either way. I enjoyed both Gipsy King and The Thief of Baghdad though, couldn't really pick a favourite though.

Creation

It's been a mixed month for game creation. I've received a couple more submissions, Network has come on nicely, and I've had few ideas about Jorvik, but I've had to realise that I can't get a game ready in time for the Expo, so I'm not going there in an official capacity, I'm in discussions with the organisers about appearing in a different capacity - keep an eye peeled here for more info soon.

It's Alive!

It's been a fairly quiet month again on It's Alive! sales have been picking up since the Christmas lull, but last week was my first ever week of no sales for It's Alive! since it was released. I've run a competition on BoardGameGeek to try and raise its profile, and given a copy to a video blogger. There's a few things in the pipeline that will hopefully raise its profile over the next few weeks.

Jorvik

I got to play-test Jorvik with several friends, it's coming on, and has improved over the last few months, but it' not going to be ready for the Expo unfortunately. I need to work on the spatial complexity of the card placement.

Network

It's been a really exciting time on Network. I've really enjoyed backing and forthing with the designer, and I feel that the game is pretty nearly ready now. We've made a bunch of changes between us (with a little help from my playtesters) and it's all coming together. Watch this space!

All in all, a good month for creation.

Playtesting Night

Last night I had Paul W and Paul G round to playtest Codename: Jorvik and Codename: Network. Neither of them had played either game before so I was keen to get some fresh feedback. One of the problems with designing games (or any creative effort for that matter) is you end up too close to the subject matter. I've been working on Jorvik for about eighteen months now, and while Network is a bit newer the development has been pretty intense over the last few months. While I'm fairly sure the games have improved, I don't know how good they are. Getting a fresh perspective on them was really good.

I'd made a new prototype for Network on the weekend, it featured improved quality components which are easier to play with, better artwork, and hexagonal instead of square tiles. The tiles sounds like a big change, but it wasn't really, the square tiles were intended to be placed offset (like brickwork) rather than a regular grid, so they were adjacent to six other tiles (remind you of anything?). After a game I'd decided I really liked the hexagonal tiles, they allowed you more freedom in the tile placement, simplified the rules, and I find them more aesthetically pleasing too.

We started with a game of Network. I'd only played this two-player with the recent changes, so it was good to get a three-player game in. After the first game we discussed what they liked and disliked about the game. Paul W didn't like some spcial tiles which allowed you to connect your network of support, and yet visually appear at first glance to be disconnected, Paul G felt that some of the actions felt like they should have a monetary component but the game didn't feature any money at all.

So we decided to play another game with a different set of rules. To counteract a bad starting hand I borrowed the draw six cards, discard two mechanic from Race For The Galaxy, we re-labelled the bonus points as money and gave everyone a few to start off with. We made several of the actions require 'purchasing', and we took out the special tiles that Paul W didn't like. These sound like fairly drastic changes, and they changed things quite a lot, but at it's heart it's still the same game.

The new game was quite different to play, much tighter. Generally I think I preferred it, but the starting layout meant that I, as the 'player in the middle' got trapped, and had to spend quite heavily to counteract that. This time I lost (16, 21, 22) which may be due in part to this.

Next up was Jorvik. As this is a two-player game I let the two Pauls battle it out while I sat back and watched. It was interesting to see how the card placement options available slowed things down for first-timers. Having played this verion quite a few times I can usually see a good (if not optimal) play pretty quickly, and I can set things up to work well with lots of the cards (as I know the card distribution very well). The game ended in a fairly low scoring draw. In some senses this is good (I normally score much higher so there's definitely some skill involved), but the draw is worrying. Most people prefer a winner.

At the end of the evening I got them both to fill in a brief questionnaire, we discussed what they liked and disliked about both games and some possible changes that might improve them. Generally feedback was positive and the experience was worth its weight in gold. Having playtesters fill in a questionnaire is really useful, it can be hard to tell from someone's description just how much they like a game, whereas a questionnaire is more objective.

I'm in Newcastle this weekend, where I'll playtest both games with a different bunch of people. It's beginning to feel like both games are getting there - which will be ready first? Hard to tell.

In a follow up, Paul W sent me some more considered feedback via email today too. Says he really enjoyed both games :-)

Busy Few Days

Four days of game-related busy :-)

On Saturday, Dave & Pip came round for a game of Twiglet with The Wife and I. It's the first time we'd played for ages, at least a year at a guess. We'd warned Pip it would probably last ten hours, but in the end came in at (only!) six and a half. The Wife made pizza and trifles, and we all got to drink beer and eat too much too. The Wife won, a good couple of turns before I could, but then I was the traders, and had a really military secret objective - no chance! It was great fun, nonetheless. I'd like to play it more often, but it's hard to find the time. I asked The Wife for the expansion for Christmas, but the shop she ordered it from cancelled it at the last minute, and we've not been able to find it since. Paul at Games Lore thinks a re-print is due so I guess I'll have to wait.

Sunday I spent making a new prototype for Codename: Network. The old one was directly scribbled on thick card, and using torn up bits of paper as cards. The new version has a slightly different theme (same type of theme but a different setting), and features pencil crayon colours and cards made out of actual card with some basic computer generated artwork. The thick card tiles also have paper glued on, but the glue warped them :-(

Tonight I finally made it to Paul's games night after about three weeks of aborted attempts, it was really good fun (playing games beginning 'Car' - guess which!) and we got to listen to Rammstein which was nice too. I got proper lamped in both games though. I seem to be on a losing streak.

In addition, as if three game-heavy days back-to-back wasn't enough, I've arranged for Paul to come round tomorrow to play-test Network and Codename: Jorvik. I'd done a new prototype of Jorvik on the computer but when I came to print it yesterday I'd accidentally deleted the files. D'oh. I need to do them again now. At least I've still got the felt-tip pen version for tomorrow.

Game Trade

I read Philip duBarry's Starting a Revolution blog. He's in a similar position to me, making games by hand trying to make a name for himself. Last week he posted that his new website is available, so I pootled on over to take a look. Very nice. Clean, informative and it has a flash demo of the game, cool!

The game looked interesting, so I contacted Philip, and he suggested a trade, It's Alive! for Revolution. Including shipping and the horrendous exchange rate the games are about equal ($38 for It's Alive! including shipping to the US, $42 for Revolution including shipping to the UK), so I agreed.

I'm paying my company for Philip's copy, since it's not fair to count a personal game as coming out of the company - it would be cheating the taxman and Yehuda out of royalties to do anything else.

I'll hopefully see my copy of Revolution in a couple of weeks, in the meantime, why not check out Philip's website & blog yourselves?

Update

It's been a while since I last posted so here's a brief update of goings on Chez Jack.

The It's Alive! competition got around 40 entrants, I chose the winner, and sent their game off yesterday. It's Alive! has also been feeling the love on BoardGameGeek, with a few of high ratings pushing it up to 924 in the rankings. I sold two copies last week, and three the week before that, so the post-Christmas slump may be coming to an end. I've been making about six a week, so I've a decent stack of finished games now: twenty-two ready to go.

Codename: Jorvik has been hinted at as my next release in time for the UK Games Expo, but I'm now suffering a crisis of confidence after some negative feedback. Can I get it ready in time? Maybe, maybe not.

Codename: Network has been through a couple more iterations, and is beginning to settle down. I have some worries about the theme (it might be too hard to sell in the UK), so I'm trying out ideas for a theme with broader appeal, I've had some ideas, as have The Wife and Dave, though I've not picked one yet.

I received a new prototype on Saturday, Codename: Element. I've not had a chance to try it yet though.

In other news, I bought Race for the Galaxy on Saturday, and I've already played this a whole bunch of times. San Juan, but with a bit more depth and a space theme - what's not to like?

It's Alive! - Free Copy to be Won!

Sumbit your It's Alive! themed joke to this geeklist for a chance to win a free copy of It's Alive! including postage anywhere in the world. Submit your jokes before Saturday lunchtime UK time to enter.

It's Alive! in Top 50!

...eurogames of 2007 according to this geeklist. I'm really pleased with that!

Shopping For Quotes

Now that I'm committed to Jorvik, I need to get a few things sorted out. I'm feeling the pressure, but like Dave suggested, it's a much needed kick up the backside. Yesterday I dropped out of my weekly games night at Paul's to work on the computer art for a new prototype. This evening, I've finished the art, so all I need to do now is print it.

Another thing preying on my mind is: How much is it going to cost? I've got a rough idea of what I think is a reasonable price, but can I get it made cheaply enough? Being only a card game it'll definitely be cheaper than It's Alive! And it'll be lighter too, which means postage will be cheaper (especially for Europe & the World).

This evening I sent a load of quote requests of to my usual suppliers:

• SpielMaterial.de - for the wooden priest pieces
• Stress Free Print - for all the printing
• W. MacCarthy & Sons - for the boxes

Initially, I was thinking I'd make tuck-boxes, but that looks really complicated and I had concerns about the gluing (though Phil did a nice job on Archaeology). The introduction of the priest means the box needs extra room for the wooden pieces, so I was afraid a tuck-box might get damaged in the post. As a result I've gone back to a rigid tray & lid box like Border Reivers and It's Alive!

I've already got the quote back for the boxes, just waiting on a few more...

What's In A Name?

Last night at the pub with Dave, we were chatting about Codename: Jorvik. He reckons it's nearly ready, and I was saying how the UK Games Expo guys offered the chance of a name-drop for my new game in their advertising, as long as I made up my mind soon. Dave reckoned I should bite the bullet, say it's going to be Jorvik, and then I'll pressure myself into doing the last bit of tweaking because I've now got a deadline.

Hmmm...

Why not!

Ok, so you heard it hear first (or second if you've been on BoardGameGeek this morning), Jorvik will be the next title from Reiver Games. Gulp. That was exciting. Panic!

The next thing to do is decide on a name. I started a thread on BGG to ask for ideas/advice. It's been pretty active with lots of feedback. At the moment it looks like sticking with 'Jorvik' is the way people are leaning. Got an opinion? Add it in the comments here, or over on the thread.

Once I've chosen a name I need to add it to the BGG database, update my website, tell the UK GamesExpo guys and start drawing some attention...

January Report

January was quite an exciting month. Lots on new games (though nothing that really grabbed me), but more importantly lots of progress on game designs.

Play

Quite a busy month in terms of games played, I saw Dave & Paul, etc. for games several times, and The Wife and I spent two weekends with Dunk & Lucy which all in all lead to lots of games played. Here's the popular ones:

• Magic: The Gathering: 10 plays
• Carcassonne: 6 plays
• PitchCar: 6 plays
• Carcassonne: The Castle: 4 plays
• Hey! That's My Fish!: 3 plays
• It's Alive!: 3 plays
• Lost Cities: 3 plays
• Incan Gold: 2 plays

I've not played PitchCar in a while, still love it though. Carcassonne is getting a new lease of life through The Tower expansion - adds a new level of conflict which I enjoy :-).

The shrapnel includes a bunch of new games: Age of Steam, Memoir '44, Mystery of the Abbey, Pirate's Cove, Poison, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Relikt, Runebound, Settlers of Catan Card Game, Thurn and Taxis. Age of Steam, Mystery of the Abbey, Poison, Relikt and Settlers of Catan Card Game were all new to me. Age of Steam was my favourite, but it didn't really grab me 2-player - I guess it's more fun with more players. Dave and I got to play the second half of the Pont du Hoc Memoir '44 scenario we'd played on Vassal while he was in Afghanistan. I won! He usually creams me a Memoir '44. Still it was a good month for playing games.

Creation

Things are getting more interesting in the creation arena too. It's Alive! has been fairly slow this month, though that's hopefully a sign of a post-Christmas lack of cash rather than an actual slowdown in interest. But there's been some real progress on Codename: Jorvik and Codename: Network this month.

It's Alive!

It's been a quiet month for It's Alive!, it's received several more ratings on BoardGameGeek, taking it above 100 ratings and well into the top 1,00 games (it peaked briefly at 962). Not many sales though. I've still not had a sales free week since I released it, but I'm just scraping that at the moment. There was the bulk sale to a shop in Italy which was great though. I need to put more effort into publicising it. I've started running a Google ad for it using a voucher I received from them, I'm still not sure whether that's worth it though, it's not lead to any sales yet. I've also contacted a new local train company which has just started operating. The tables on the trains have monopoly boards and chess boards printed on them, and the on-board shop sells those games. I've contacted them to see if they'd like to sell my games too - they've not responded yet. I've also just contacted BBC Radio 4 who in an advert for a Saturday morning show yesterday said "we're always interested in hearing about people's passions". Let's put that to the test!

Codename: Jorvik

Jorvik has been through a few crucial changes recently. The addition of priests seemed to improve the game, and with a little tweaking to make playing them more interesting they've really added to the conflict and choices within the game. I've only played the latest version four times, but it's far and away the best yet. I'm now doing some temporary artwork on the computer, so that I can quickly knock out prototypes for testing. I'm hoping to lend Paul and Lisa a copy next week, and get some more games in with my copy too. I now need to speak to my Dad again, to get some more sketch artwork prepared.

Codename: Network

It's been a fun month for Network too. I had an idea for a re-theme that I shared with the designer, along with the addition of a new narrative mechanic. The theme is pretty topical at the moment (though more interesting to a US market than a UK one), and I liked the concept of having to describe to the other players the story behind your moves. I sent my suggestions off to the designer, and he played them and came back with more. We've backed and forthed like this a few times now, and it feels quite exciting and really collaborative, despite the fact that he lives in America.

I need to release a new game at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham in June, what it's going to be, I've still not completely decided - but at least I've got some options now...

Jorvik - Getting There...

I played Jorvik and couple of times on the weekend with Dunk, and a couple more times last night with Dave. Dunk described it as 'A working game now' and Dave as 'Nearly ready'. Not the most exciting of endorsements, but they show that progress is being made in the minds of my play-testers.

By exploring last night's scores you get some more interesting information. It's a card game, so luck of the draw is a factor, but to what degree? Here are those scores (individual round scores in brackets):

Dunk	Dave	Jack
(10,18) 28		(12,23) 35
(15, 29) 44		(16,28) 44
	(9,18) 27	(15,24) 39
	(15,19) 34	(13,26) 39

What can I possibly get from that? Well, here's a few things:

• There's not a huge amount of luck - my scores don't vary by much and I know what I'm doing
• It's a game you get better at with practice (the most experienced player usually wins, the least experienced shows improvement)
• It's possible to turn things around in the second half of the game (the loser of the first half doesn't necessarily lose the whole game)

The first point has been influenced by a couple of things, a decent hand-size means a player has more choice, coupled with the addition of a new rule which boosts the weaker cards - your draw is less important if all the cards are roughly equal in 'value'.

This probably comes down to working out how to use the priests to greatest effect, and learning the deck composition which helps guide how to position your cards to benefit from likely future draws.

I struggled for a long time with the last point, but in the end it turned out to be as simple as make the first round lower scoring than the second.

I need to do some more testing, and will probably tweak the deck slightly as I work out how the addition of the priests has changed the relative value of each card, but it's getting there. I now need to speak to my Dad some more about the artwork.

It's Alive! - 100 Ratings

It's Alive! now has 100 ratings on BoardGameGeek. The average is 7.08, which is enough to push it well inside the top 1,000.

Interestingly, only 87 people list it as owned, despite 217 sales. I guess either a lot of my customers aren't active on BGG, or they don't track their games collection on it.

In other news, my Google AdWords ad campaign is not working at the moment - I have a support call in. Once it's fixed and I have some statistics, I'll get back to you with how effective it's been.

Hello, My Name Is Jack...

... remember me? It's been a hectic week at work, and as a result my blogging has suffered, but I've still managed to get some work done on the games.

It's Alive!

Lots to report on the IA front. I've managed to build up some stock again after my bulk sale to an Italian shop, eight copies again, not as many as I'd like, but the post-Chrimbo lull means that it's enough at the moment.

On Wednesday I was stuck in London for the night with work, so I popped along to Swiggers board games club to pimp/demo/sell It's Alive! I'd set myself the target of two sales, and was slightly disappointed with only one, but I got to meet Nigel Buckle, designer of Celtic Quest who'd bought a copy of Border Reivers from me last year. He was along demoing his next game Ascendancy which is being published by JKLM Games in time for the UK Games Expo in Birmingham in June. Ascendancy is like a quicker version of Twilight Imperium apparently. People seemed to enjoy It's Alive!, but no-one was feeling the love. The last game was the most fun, despite someone wandering over and slagging it off to the players just as I was trying to explain how to play. I tried out the variants I'd posted on BoardGameGeek in a couple of the games - good fun, perhaps a little less harsh.

I also received a £30 voucher for Google advertising, so I'm trying that out too. It's early days yet, when I've an idea about how effective it is, I'll let you know.

Codename: Jorvik

I've made a couple of tweaks to Jovik. I had the ideas several days ago, but I'd not got around to trying them out. I saw Dunk on the weekend, and while The Wife and Lucy were out dress-shopping for their (Lucy & Dunk's, not Lucy & The Wife's) wedding, Dunk and I played a load of games including Jorvik. I've started making a prototype on the computer, but this was still using my lurid felt-tipped version, with some hastily scribbled additions in pen. They're a definite improvement, and once I've finished making a (slightly) prettier computer version I'm going to lend that to Paul and Lisa for blind playtesting. It's getting there. Doing the computer version really feels like it too, it's settling down now.

Codename: Network

Dunk and I also got a couple of games of Network in too. The first one showed off most of my changes to good effect, but it was too easy to play and didn't feature enough interaction. We made some fairly major changes, and then tried those out. It was a definite improvement. I sent them off to the designer, and less than 48 hours later he'd tried them out and come back with some more changes. They sound really interesting, maybe I'll get a chance to modify my prototype accordingly and try it out with Dave on Wednesday. I'm getting a real buzz out of collaberating with the designer on Network. When he sent it in, it was in a much earlier state than I wanted really, and I nearly discounted it on that basis. But because he knew it needed a lot of work he's very keen to try out improvements and I can be more involved with the design.

Anyway, that's enough for now, I've almost used up my lunch-break!

Almost!

I've got a few copies in stock so I've been pressing on with my accounts. I've done up to last July now, and seeing as this financial year has been much busier things are going much slower. Still, I now know that I had almost as much turnover in the first five months of this financial year as I got in the whole (nine months) of last year. Yeay!

I've been trying to be a bit more active on BoardGameGeek in an effort to bring It's Alive! to the attention of more people. It's working, I got two orders on Wednesday after posting it on a Geeklist, one from the US and one from Sweden. Went I went to the Post Office at lunchtime to post those copies I got talking to the Postmaster. It turns out he has a passing interest in party games, and was interested in seeing my catalogue. Ain't got no catalogue, but I promised to take a copy in next time I'm in there. After selling a couple of copies of Border Reivers to my bank last year, selling a copy to the Post Office would be the next logical step. I'm incorrigible.

I've also been thinking more about Codename: Jorvik and Codename: Network. I've had another idea for Jorvik which improves upon a previous idea. It's no longer a pure card game, but the addition of two wooden pieces won't push up the weight or price by much, and I think they add quite a lot to the game. Network I've still got issues with my scoring ideas, and I think I might boost the number of categories from six to seven, to improve player interaction.

Busy Sunday

We spent Saturday helping a friend decorate - which left me with only Sunday to work on my games. I wanted to get my books done for last financial year (6th April 2006 - 5th April 2007), and I also needed to make a few games as I was out of stock again.

I'd previously got my Mum (who used to do this professionally) to show me the ropes, and over the last few days I'd got the other stuff I needed ready in preparation. I was missing an invoice from a supplier, so I got them to send me a duplicate, and I had to print out a few invoices I only had on the computer. I also had to get my PayPal transactions printed out. Foolishly I'd not requested a monthly report from PayPal initially, and since I can only get those for the last three months (needless to say I've now turned them on), I had to download a spreadsheet of all the transactions for that year, and then format them myself into a reasonable layout for printing. With all that done, all I had to do today was fill in the books for the nine months from July '06 to April 5th '07 (I didn't start trading until July). I still needed to phone Mum several times during the day to answer various special cases I wasn't sure about. In the end it took the better part of the day, but it's done now, so I've got two weeks in which to fill out the tax return form online. The Wife made me promise to catch up and then do them every month, which makes a lot of sense, as I've been much busier this financial year, so there's a lot to do, and leaving it all to the last minute would be a bad idea.

This evening I made four copies of It's Alive! so I can fulfil any orders I get. Tired now.

No Stock -> Stock -> No Stock

After weeks of no stock over Christmas due to the TNT fiasco, I finally got the boxes. Sigh of relief.

I've spent this week making some games, getting some stock back in. I've made twelve copies over the course of the week, which has been great. I figure that twelve copies is a nice minimum stock level to have, more copies than I've sold in any preceding week except when I've sold in bulk to a shop. I've also slightly tweaked my cutting out method which makes things quicker I think. Initially I made a few mistakes, but I've tweaked it still further, and I think it should be less error-prone now. So I'm feeling quite good about things, decent stock levels, slightly quicker method for making It's Alive! Good week.

Then I run out of stock again! I got an enquiry from a shop owner in Italy who had played a friend's copy. They wanted to stock it in their shop. I offered them the same deal as the UK shops I'd dealt with (12 copies at 70% MSRP + shipping & handling), and they ordered. I've found a new courier who'll deliver to Europe for £24 GBP too, which is good to know. Now it's an excellent week :-)

In other news, I got to try out that new version of Networking with Dave on Tuesday, he enjoyed it though the scoring was obviously broken. I suggested my changes to the designer (who's already published!) and he loved them. Superb week! Now all I need to do is fix the problems with the new idea, and see if I can get it working.

At Last!

This morning the boxes finally arrived from the boxmaker via TNT. I waited in all morning (as I had done on two previous days) but this time they turned up. Ninety-two boxes in pristine condition despite all the backing-and-forthing. Some of these were already spoken for, I'd received three orders from the States over the Christmas break, and just after the boxes arrived I received another from the UK - great timing! First thing I did was count them, I thought I'd only sent eighty-three copies of the artwork to the boxmakers, so getting ninety-two back was an unexpected bonus. Next thing I did was write a cheque - I was invoiced for the boxes before Christmas when they were first due to arrive, and the terms were that I had to pay within thirty days. I figure I've waited long enough, any longer and I might forget. After that I popped to the Post Office and posted the four copies off, just in time to catch today's post.

Although I've got no stock at the moment, the arrival of the boxes mean that I can make more tomorrow, so hopefully by the end of tomorrow I should have a good few copies.

In other news, the exciting news I alluded to in my last post is not that The Wife is pregnant (nice guess though, Dunk!). It's something else...

Looking Forward to 2008

This is Reiver Games' third calendar year (I formed the company in July 2006), and I've been lucky enough that things have gone from strength to strength. In 2006 I decided to go for it, and released my first game design. Border Reivers did well, getting positive reviews and selling well. In 2007 I released the first Reiver game by another designer, Yehuda's It's Alive! It was launched at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham in June, where I also sold out of Border Reivers. The Expo was my first 'trade show'-style convention and it was a huge success, with my entire stock disappearing in 3.5 hours and I took a further thirty orders. By the end of the year I'd sold two hundred out of the three hundred run of It's Alive! So how do I hope to improve things in 2008?

Games

So far I've concentrated on one game at a time, with the exception of those first 3.5 hours at the Expo. This year I don't want to spend any time without a game to sell, hopefully overlapping the runs a bit better so I have periods when I have two games available. I also hope to release two games this year, as opposed to one each of the two previous years. To achieve this I'm hoping to release a submission (as yet to be decided) and one of my own games (probably Jorvik). Releasing a submission will reduce the burden of development on me, and Jorvik is fairly easy to manufacture, being a simple card game. There is also the possibility of a professional run of It's Alive! assuming it sells out in a reasonable amount of time, and continues to be well-received. I'm thinking I'm going to stick to getting the boxes professionally manufactured even on the hand-made runs, as this provides a notable step-up in quality, and saves me about an hour per game construction time. These are goals that are a stretch, but you've got to set goals that are achievable, while being challenging or you'll never get anywhere.

Conventions

In 2006 I went to two conventions: The Cast Are Dice and Psychocon. In 2007 I managed four: Beer & Pretzels, the Expo, The Cast Are Dice and MidCon. While this definitely introduced me to a larger audience I also started being more honest with myself about the cost of attending conventions. In 2006 I paid for all the food, hotels and travel myself, only charging the business for convention fees and commissions. Last year I started charging everything to the company, and keeping track of how much the trip cost me / made me as a whole. The Expo was a clear winner, with a huge take, and a healthy profit after paying for fuel, hotel for The Wife, Dave and I and the convention fees (a whopping £75). The others all made me money, but not a huge amount. As a result I'm considering attending fewer conventions this year not more. But the most exciting one is obviously Essen in Germany, which I would really like to attend this year. There's not much point unless I've got a lot of stock though. The Expo is a cert, Essen and TCAD are likely. Others are possible, but unlikely.

Surprise!

I'm also hoping to be able to make a pretty big announcement in a few months time - keep your eyes peeled!

It's Alive! in Top 1,000!

Everyday I check the BoardGameGeek page for It's Alive!. I want to see what Geeklists it has been added to, who's rating it what, who's saying what about it and to track its overall position in the BoardGameGeek chart. For the last month or so it has been hovering just outside the top 1,000 (out of nearly 30,000 games in the database). Today it cracked it! 995 :-) This is especially impressive since the charts are weighted towards games that have been rated by lots of people, so small run games like It's Alive! will find it harder to break in.

This comes two days after I sold the 200th copy (though of course I can't ship it yet because TNT are still pissing around with the rest of the boxes. Two hundred copies out of the three hundred run in seven months. I'm pretty pleased with that. Once I get the boxes I'll make a song and dance out of that, the publicity will hopefully lead to more sales.

December Report

Another month, another monthly report.

I'm going to resist the urge to do a retrospective on the year, I figure there's enough of those doing the rounds at the moment. Instead, I'll do this monthly report and a look forward to what I hope to achieve with Reiver Games this year.

Play

It's been a very busy month in terms of games played. There were a few games nights at Paul's that I actually managed to get to, Dave returned from Afghanistan, I made it to Beyond Monopoly!, the odd game over Christmas with family and then a New Year's Eve party to round things off. I managed not only a lot of games played, but also learnt a fair few new ones, which is always nice, and helps my game design.

Here's what I got up to this month:

• Incan Gold: 13 plays
• Carcassonne: 10 plays
• It's Alive!: 4 plays
• Loopin' Louie: 4 plays
• Magic: The Gathering: 4 plays
• micropul: 3 plays
• Apples To Apples: 2 plays
• Carcassonne: The Castle: 2 plays
• Guillotine: 2 plays

Plus the shrapnel with one play each: Byzantium, Canal Mania, Capt'n Clever, 6 Nimmt, Citadels, For Sale, Hare and Tortoise, Hey! That's My Fish!, O Zoo Le Mio, Race For The Galaxy, Ticket To Ride, TransEuropa and Wyatt Earp.

Micropul, Byzantium, Capt'n Clever, Hare and Tortoise, O Zoo le Mio, Race for the Galaxy and Wyatt Earp were all new to me. Micropul I played solo online, and it seemed like an interesting game, but the abstract nature puts me off slightly, and the artwork, while pretty could be more informative. Byzantium was a really nice game with an interesting mechanic in that all players play both sides of a conflict. Capt'n Clever was surprisingly deep for a kids game. Hare and Tortoise (which won the Spiel des Jahres the year I was born!) felt a little dated, but had a nice mechanic in the use of triangular numbers to control movement. O Zoo le Mio was another nice game, fun and attractive but nothing outstanding. Race for the Galaxy was my favourite new game of the month, like San Juan, but more involved and space-themed. Finally Wyatt Earp just didn't do it for me, something about it just seemed clunky. Special mention to Carcassonne: The Tower, which was my favourite new game (including expansions). The last of the main four Carcassonne expansions, the in-laws gave it to me for Christmas (though The Wife chose it - she rocks!). It adds a new dimension (literally - vertical!) to Carcassonne, and a lot more conflict to the basic game. It was this that boosted Carcassonne so high up my list of plays this month - great fun :-).

Creation

Despite the huge number of games played I still got a decent amount done from a creation point of view. The problems with TNT and the It's Alive! boxes meant I had some time on my hands. I've used this to do a lot of work on Codename: Jorvik, try out a few ideas for Codename: Artist and got a few plays of Codename: Harvest and Codename: Harry in.

Jorvik

Jorvik has come on leaps and bounds this month, I've tried out loads of new ideas, some worked, others didn't but overall progress has been made. I'm hoping to finish it this year, so I need to keep trying things out.

Harvest

I've played a few games of this, my latest submission. The game seems quite neat, and has some nice ideas, but I've some concerns about the learning curve. It's quite easy to make a mistake the first couple of times you play and that can really hurt you. Seeing as a lot of my potential customers will only play it once at a convention, I can't afford to have them put off by a bad play. I've made some suggestions and the designer is trying them out.

Escape

I've not done much on Escape this month, I turned it down last month, but the designer has come back to me, and is going to try out some changes to address the reasons why I turned it down.

Artist

Only one play of this, but it showed quite clearly how knackered the latest attempt at scoring was. The final score: me: 134, brother-in-law: 10. That needs a lot of work! I've added a couple more things which make it slightly more 'Euro', but I'm not sure whether this is a good idea. It's an abstract, so making it a Euro-abstract hybrid might mean it ends up appealing to fans of neither.

In other news, I need to do my tax self-assessment by the end of the month, so I started it in anger last night, and then got stuck. Fortunately my Mum used to do books as a living so I asked her what to do. It's not that much fun.

Happy New Year!

Just a quick Happy New Year! from Creation and Play.

I've a couple of longer posts coming up, but for the moment I'm pretty busy. I had an excellent New Year, playing a lot of Carcassonne with The Tower expansion (a gift from the in-laws). It's excellent, adding a lot of conflict to the game - there was an awful lot of swearing punctuating our games :-) I also found out that TNT, who were supposed to deliver the It's Alive! boxes again (third time!) on New Year's Eve, that they've gone missing again!. Needless to say I was not best pleased, but a few games with friends finally managed to improve my mood.

I'm off now to send Yehuda his royalties for It's Alive!