Essen & Prototyping

I spent the weekend looking into Essen stand details. I've a massive book of things I can order for my stand, from carpeting and furniture to microwaves and plumbing. All of it very expensive though. I might be better off taking stuff with me.

In other Essen news, my friend Paul has order a copy of Krakow 1325AD from another small publisher: Geode Games. He asked me if they could deliver it to my stand (4-415 - come and say hi!), as Geode don't have their own stand at Essen. Sure. Which led to Peter from Geode asking if I'd sell copies of Krakow from my stand. It sounds like a win-win situation, he gets a presence at Essen, I get a cut of his sales, and more traffic to my stand. I'm seriously considering it.

Despite today being a public holiday in the UK, I've spent most of the day working. I'm knocking up another prototype for Codename: Backyard. It's a fun little game, but as it stood the scoring was too vicious and it was a little too simple. I suggested some changes to the designer who then sent back some changes to my changes. I've spent the day getting the layout done for that. Hopefully I'll get it finished and printed out before I go to Paul's tonight for games night.

Chase Me!

A couple of distributors who've signed up to take some It's Alive! chased me yesterday to see when It's Alive! is due to arrive. I'd originally told them mid-August, but the manufacturers are now saying first week of September. Apparently several shops are champing at the bit to get their stock - my emailing everyone seems to be paying off :-)

I've also received a final quote for Carpe Astra from the German manufacturer. It's very reasonable, so I can get on and get that together.

In hindsight I made a mistake with the pricing of It's Alive! I tried to make it for £15 again, the same as the Limited Edition. I then spent several weeks desperately trying to the manufacturer's quote down to an acceptable level. The final result was margins that are way too tight - I can't carry on making so little profit. A better way to have gone about it was to realise that I couldn't get it done for £15 with a sensible margin, and to have gone for £20 then upped the quality of several components (cards -> tiles, thin card -> thick card for the guides and slabs). Assuming I could make a decent margin on that version I might have been better off. As it is, I'm going to hope that I do well at Essen where I'll get a better margin - selling directly to customers.

Carpe Astra will be more expensive, it's got over 100 cards, lots of thick card components (tiles, scoring markers, coins) and a few wooden pieces. The German manufacturers are cheaper too, so my margin will be a bit more sustainable.

Breaking Into My FLGS*

*Friendly Local Gaming Store

Again, no crowbar involved. My FLGS is Travelling Man a small chain of four shops run from Leeds. To me it seems like a much bigger chain as there's one in York where I live now, one in Newcastle where I used to live, and there was even one in Bristol where my parents live. I'd met the Managing Director a few years ago and got talking to him about making my games. He gave me loads of really useful advice, and I've met him a few times since. The last time I met him, he seemed interested in stocking the professional print of It's Alive! He warned me though that he was bad at responding to emails due to the volume he received - keep hassling him was the preferred solution!

I'd sent him a email several months ago letting him know It's Alive! was on the horizon. No answer. I chased him yesterday, and he came back saying he'd like some. It's a small order compared to some I've received, but it means I can wander into my local store and see It's Alive! on the shelves. It's surprising what a boost this gives me :-)

In other news, the production sample has just just arrived from the printers. Everything is finished except the cardboard coins are only scored not die-cut - I can see where the cut line will be though. It looks really cool. The coins are much thicker than I expected - it drives up the weight, but they feel really good quality as a result. The professional run is surprisingly heavy compared to the Limited Edition. The guides, slabs and shields are a bit thicker, and hence a little heavier, but the coins are now on sheets so there's a lot of excess weight there. Plus the box is a little bigger. All in all, I'm really happy with the result - It's looking great.

Breaking Into America

Which sounds like I'm stood on the Canadian border with a crowbar and some wire-cutters. But I'm not. Honest.

Yesterday was devoted to making a couple of prototype copies to send to my potential US distributors. This took a surprisingly long time. First I had to layout all the components onto sheets of paper that would fit through my printer. My printer (an HP Deskjet 9800) will print up to A3, and I've got a pack of A3 card so that was the way to go for most of it. The shields however are too long, being 420mm in length - the length of a sheet of A3 paper. By the time I'd discounted the printer margins (where the printer won't print near the edge of the page), I've a printable area of maybe 400 x 287mm. So instead I popped to my local art shop and bought some A1 card, which is massive. I cut that down to 280 x 596mm (into thirds length-ways) and printed the shields on those. I'd bought a spare sheet of A1, and I only needed two of the thirds per sheet, so I had five spare thirds. Needless to say my printer promptly used them up, a combination of running out of ink, printing a test page when I least expected it and some feed errors. Even the ones that worked had quite bad front/back registration - the front and back didn't line up well at all. After hours of fighting with the printer I'd finally finished the printing by 8pm. To think I'd hoped to get it in the post yesterday - that was wishful thinking! Needless to say I was a bit stressed by the time I finished.

This morning I cut out the bits, boxed them and I'll post them this afternoon, once I've got the address for one of the two distributors.

On a related note, ThoughtHammer, a big US online shop, contacted me to ask about stocking my games. I told them they could either buy from me directly or from a US distributor, and pointed them to the two distributors who are considering stocking my games. They came back saying they don't deal with one of them and haven't heard anything about it from the other (unsurprising considering they've not yet decided whether or not to stock it). They told me of a few distributors they use, and said they'd tell them about me.

Brown Box, Inc. in Texas promptly emailed me to ask about stocking my games, and it now looks like they're going to place a fairly large order. Sweet!

In other news, I heard from the Production Manager of the company who are making It's Alive! for me. Tomorrow I should receive a game that is finished except for the die-cutting of the coins. This will be my first chance to see a finished box and the glued-up coins - very exciting. All being well I'll also be able to weigh the box and settle on a final shipping cost for the It's Alive! pre-order.

Talking of It's Alive! pre-orders, Michael, who's done the German translation of the rules contacted me to see if I'd mind him pimping It's Alive! on the SpielBox forums. Mind? Hell, no! Michael's post has led to several pre-orders from Germany which is great - thanks Michael!

Best Laid Plans

Today I was going to solo a bunch of ideas I've had for Carpe Astra with 2, 3 and 4 (imaginary) players ahead of tomorrow night's playtesting.

Last night though, I had an idea though about trying to get the US distributors to bite for It's Alive! Both are sitting on the fence for now, waiting to see a finished copy before they decide whether or not to place an order. Because of the manufacturing delays I was worried that by the time they've received a finished copy, played it and made a decision it will be too late to get the games into shops for Halloween. This is obviously a big marketing opportunity for a game with such a gruesome theme :-)

So last night I contacted both of them offering to send them a hand-made prototype and some of the production samples I've received so they can play the game and at the same time get an idea of the production quality.

They both took me up on the offer. So today I will be mostly making It's Alive! prototypes instead.

The It's Alive! pre-orders are continuing to trickle in, only two weeks to go...

It's Alive! Pimping

I'm now trying to crank up the interest in It's Alive! The adverts are doing well, driving a lot of people to my site. I'm getting a lot more click-throughs from BoardGameGeek than from Boardgame News which is to be expected as BoardGameGeek is the more popular site. On BGG, my advert is getting three times the average click-through rate which is pretty cool - thanks for all your help designing it. Strangely though, all but one of the pre-orders I've received have been through the Boardgame News advert. Odd.

I've also been contacting UK shops telling them about the game, offering the chance to buy from me or either of my UK distributors. I've been working my way through the UK FAQ on BGG, contacting the shops listed on there. Several have got back to me saying they are going to buy from a distributor which is great as it might increase the order size before I receive the games. I asked them to let me know if they intended to order from a distributor so that I could add them to a stockists page I'm going to add to my website.

I hope to have a more productive week this week. Last week I did a couple of days consulting at my old job and had a physio appointment on Monday. Coupled with a slump in my mood mid-week, caused in no small part by the continuing delays in manufacture and the realisation I'm going to have to boost my income with some more work on the side, I didn't get much done. I'm feeling much more positive again today though - It's Alive! is now only two weeks away and Carpe Astra is coming together.

More...

... Production samples and more playtesting.

Today I received more samples for It's Alive! These are finished components, as will appear in the games bought in the shops. This time I got the slabs, player guides, shields and proof sheets (i.e. not glued or die-cut) for the boxes and the coins. The proofs were nothing new, I've received proofs before. Admittedly they're on the label paper that will be glued to the card, but that doesn't make them that interesting. The slabs, shields and guides were interesting though. They were on the final material, and in the case of the shields exhibited the die-cutting and folding. They're all fine, it's pretty cool to see the final components. The only ones I've yet to see now are the die-cut coin sheets and the assembled boxes. I doubt I'll see either of these until the final games turn up in three weeks time. The boxes in particular are made by a different company, and the packing is done there too.

I also held another playtest session last night with Carpe Astra (4-player) and Codename: Native hitting the table. Lots more good ideas for Carpe Astra, but I really need to stop fiddling with it and settle on some final rules. It's still improving though, which is a good sign.

It's Alive! Manufacturing Progress

There's been some progress on It's Alive! manufacturing. I was told by my contact that I'd get some production samples last Friday. They didn't turn up, but he told me they'd been sent by ordinary post so they'd probably turn up on Saturday. Saturday we waited in for them (no biggie it was pissing with rain most of the day) mainly playing Paul's copy of Agricola that I'd borrowed for the weekend. I thought The Wife might like it and I was right :-) They samples didn't turn up though. Monday morning's post arrived and still no samples. I rang the Production Manager at the manufacturer (my contact is off on holiday now) to see if he knew when they'd arrive. I also asked if he knew when the games would be delivered. The delivery (initially due for Wednesday) has now slipped to the week of the 1st September. D'oh! At this rate I'm going to run out of money before I've actually received any stock. So much for the 'four to five weeks' estimate I first received.

When I got back from my physio session the samples had arrived via courier. It was a deck of shrink-wrapped cards and the rules in English and German. Just the coins, shields, slabs, guides and boxes and it's all done.

In other news, the It's Alive! advert is now up on BoardGameNews and has already lead to one (or two) pre-orders. Sweet. Of course the 15th August date could now change to 31st August. I might run that on BoardGameGeek.

Playtest Central

The adverts have been tweaked slightly following the numerous excellent suggestions I received (thanks!) and sent off. I'm going to run the 'Pre-order before 15th August' It's Alive! one for a week, I'm not sure what to do about the Carpe Astra one yet, it might be a bit too early as there's not much info available yet.

In addition to the adverts I've also been playtesting a lot. Tuesday I played four 2-player games of Carpe Astra solo, trying out Michael's idea. I'm liking it more and more. Then yesterday evening I held the inaugural Reiver Games playtest night. I'm going to try to do them every Wednesday night to try to get through the massive stack of games I've received. Last night only Lisa and Chris could make it, but we played Sumeria and tried out a new one: Codename: Pharaoh (guess what that's about). Pharaoh took a while to get going as I think I misunderstood the rules a few times - they could do with being clearer. Writing a good set of rules is one of the hardest things to do, so I don't knock the designer for the problems I had. I had several questions, the answers for which may well be in the rulebook, but I couldn't find them.

Today my mate Dunk came round, and we played: Carpe Astra, Sumeria Codename: Match (x3) and Codename: Backyard. I really like Backyard, but I think the scoring needs work and the card balance could do with some tweaking too. I'll knock something together.

Dunk also asked me how Jorvik & Artist were going. Despite having given up my job I still struggle to find the time to work on my own designs! Jorvik & Artist are on the back-burner for now while I concentrate on getting It's Alive! and Carpe Astra out.

In other news, I got an email from the manufacturer to let me know that I'll receive some finished bits for It's Alive! tomorrow. These are printed and constructed for me to proof - not finished games. The finished games are due to arrive next week (according to the schedule of a few weeks ago), don't know whether that's still on course - I'll ask the manufacturer tomorrow.

Adverts Version 3

Here's a third version based on second version feedback, do you think these are better?

Adverts Version 2

Based on some feedback I received here I've made a few changes, do you think these are better? I've tried contacting some marketers, so assuming their prices are reasonable I might get them professionally improved.

Adverts

As recommended by Scott, here are the adverts I've knocked up for It's Alive! and Carpe Astra. I'm not sure what I'm doing, so all feedback grateful appreciated. Do they pique your interest? Would you click on them? What could I do better?

Advertising

I've spent the last few days focussing on raising awareness of It's Alive! and Carpe Astra. Thursday & Friday last week were spent preparing images and text for an advert in the Greater Games Industry Catalog a US trade publication. Not sure how much good it will do but it's pretty cheap.

The next couple of days will be spent working up some web adverts for BoardGameGeek and Boardgame News. I've decided to go with the 160 x 600 add as both will support this. BoardGameGeek will allow Flash and (presumably animated) GIFs, while BoardGameNews will allow you to submit multiple ads that will appear on different pages. Both these venues are highly targeted (anyone visited either is definitely interested in games), though BGG allows regular users to pay to turn off ads, so ads there might be mainly targeted towards the more casual gamer.

Spielbox have also contacted me about advertising in their Essen preview. It's fairly cheap, but the combination of their web and print magazine will hopefully attract the Germans who will make up at least 90% of the attendance at Essen.

Designing an advert is surprisingly tricky. I need to come up with something that will attract enough interest for users to click on the ad for more information. I've no background in marketing so judging this right is pretty haphazard. Will I come up with something that piques people's interest, or just puts them off? Only one way to find out...

In other news, I think I'm going to have to get some part-time work once Carpe Astra has gone to the printers. It's Alive! has taken much longer to print than I was hoping and Carpe Astra is still a way off. Until now we've been surviving on The Wife's earnings from her job, but that's finished and she's not going to get another one until she submits her PhD in January. I fear with neither of us earning for longer than planned the savings won't last long. Working a couple of days a week shouldn't get in the way too much once Carpe Astra has gone to the printers (it'll be several months before I've enough cash on hand to do another game anyway). The extra money will hopefully eke our savings out a bit longer, until Reiver Games is up and running and The Wife is employed again.

In other depressing news, it looks like Carpe Astra is going to slip until after Essen. I should hopefully have sent it to the printers before Essen, so I'll have a few demo copies with me that feature the final rules and artwork, but I just can't get the game ready in time for the fair. Bummer.

Great Week So Far

Sorry I've not blogged for a few days, I've been pretty busy.

It's been a really good week so far. Board and Bits an online shop in the US have picked up It's Alive! and are now offering it for pre-order. The two US distributors I'm in contact with both want to see a finished copy before they'll place an order so it'll be probably a couple of months after I get the boxes that it reaches widespread distribution in the US: a week for them to receive the sample, a week or two for them to make up their minds, two weeks to ship their order, two weeks in customs then another week for them to ship to shops. Getting one of the big US online shops to pick it up now is great, it means that US customers can get it without paying international shipping pretty much as soon as it's available.

This was followed by the German distributors (who operate throughout Europe) expressing an interest in thirty cases. They've not placed an order yet, but hopefully that's pretty close. They at least have seen (and played) a Limited Edition copy, so they know what they're getting into.

On the Carpe Astra front there's good news too. The third playtest copy has finally arrived in the US (over a week after the other one I sent to the US). I've also started getting some feedback from the copy I sent to Germany. Michael took it on holiday with him and has just returned. He played it once according the rules and thought he'd got something wrong (that's what comes of first draft rules - clear as mud!) so he played it again differently. He preferred the second (wrong) version. So I played a couple of solo games of his version and it's very different but I quite liked it. I played it twice (official version and Michael's version) on Tuesday night at a playtesting session I was holding and both versions worked. One of my playtesters preferred the new version, one preferred the old. I've asked my playtesters in the US to try out both versions and let me know which version they prefer.

Playtest and Publicise

I spent this morning playtesting with Paul and this afternoon publicising It's Alive! I'm still putting off doing my books, which The Wife is keen for me to put away, so that's a task for tomorrow (hot procrasination action!).

The Wife and I went for an early swim, and less than two hours later I was back at the gym to meet Paul for some playtesting. We were taking advantage of him having to spend a couple of hours there while his daughter attended an event. First up was Codename: Pilgrim, another new game. I read the rules in the break at home and then taught it to Paul when I got there. Considering it was a first play it was very quick - we got it done (including explaining the game and learning what to do) in about an hour - good sign. I'd imagine it would take longer with more players though. It's promising - needs more plays to make a real decision - plus I've a couple of rules queries to ask the designer. Next up was a quick game of Sumeria, using the new board and tiles I made just over a week ago. Functionally they are much the same, with a bit of extra information for clarity, but they feel much nicer to the touch, making the game more enjoyable to play. This came in at about 30 mins, and I creamed Paul, sweet revenge for beating me at Pilgrim. Finally, there was a quick Carpe Astra too, again around 30 minutes, so we managed to get all three games done in the two hour window. Carpe Astra was good, I tried a different strategy (stockpiling cash for the endgame) and although it looked like Paul would cream me it was pretty close in the end. Two hours well spent!

This afternoon I've been writing a preview of the second edition of It's Alive! for BoardGameGeek. I'm trying to bring it to more people's attention while the pre-order is still open, as that's a winner for everyone - the customer gets 30% off, and I get a larger margin than I would selling through a shop or distributor. It's Alive! is proving surprisingly expensive to manufacture, so to keep the price down to £15 I've got very slim margins. Including airmail shipping to the US though, it's no cheaper to get the pre-order and so most of the Americans who have enquired about it are waiting for it to be available in shops over there. With the American distributors wanting to see a finished copy it's likely to be two or three months until it reaches widespread US distribution.

Another option I'm considering is BGG or BoardGameNews advertising. It's guaranteed to reach the target audience (you've got to be quite keen on games to go to either URL) but I'm not sure if it's worth the cost, and money is tight at the moment. I'll have to think on it.

I'm Back!

Both at home and at work :-)

While I was away I received the signed contract from Dirk Liekens so I can now confirm that Sumeria (formerly known as Codename: Ancient) will be released in time for Essen next year under the Reiver Games banner. I've a brief comment on my website, but with no artwork yet it will be a while before the game is properly listed. I now need something to slot in early next year (potentially a UK Games Expo release), something cheap to make (like a card game) is the order of the day.

I've spent most of today overhauling the Carpe Astra rules based on feedback from Ted's blind playtesting held in the States last week. It seems to have been well received and the rules feedback is invaluable - writing rules has got to be one of the hardest parts of games design.

In other news, I sent the last of the proofs back to Cartamundi yesterday, they should have it finished in three weeks time. I'm going to close the pre-order list when I receive the sample back from them, from then on I'll only be shipping to shops and distributors. It looks like the US distributors want to see a finished copy before they order any, so it's going to be a couple of months at least before it reaches widespread US distribution. Boards and Bits seem interested though, so if they order directly from me, it might be available over there sooner. Yesterday I also uploaded the artwork to another publisher who is interested in making It's Alive! available in another language, hopefully I'll hear back from them fairly soon.

I've got to decide on a pricing structure for Essen too. I'm getting a couple of press enquiries, which include a request for my prices at the fair. It's a difficult line to walk, I want to offer a discount, to draw people in, but at the same time I need to be careful not to step on the toes of my other stockists. It's Alive! will retail at 19.95 EUR and be available in shops before the show, so I think I'd better be especially careful with this one. Carpe Astra is likely to be £20 / 25 EUR and won't be available before the show. I'm thinking full price for It's Alive! and 5 EUR discount for Carpe Astra (down to 20 EUR), with maybe a further 5 EUR discount if you buy both. If you've been to Essen, how does this sound? Too tight? Too generous? Likely to get me in trouble?

Time Off (Bye!)

Half the proofs arrived today (the corrected box, German rules and cards) with the rest not due to arrive until Monday morning.

This gives me a few days, and seeing as we're technically on holiday down here I'm going to take the next couple of days off. Tomorrow The Wife and I are going on a day-trip to an unspecified location (if I told you I'd have to kill you) and then on Saturday The Wife, my parents and I are going to Bath for the day. I've not been to Bath in about ten years (my last time there was a drunken weekend with a flatmate from University) but as kids my parents used to take us there fairly often. It'll be great to see it again.

In other news, the proofs were fine, I'm going to send them back on Monday all together. Ted's had a chance to play the Carpe Astra prototype and seems pretty happy with it so far. He's suggested an improvement which sounds good. He's going to get guys at his game group to blind-playtest it this evening.

I've received a line-drawn (but not yet coloured) draft of the Carpe Astra box art - I think it's awesome. I'll post it here on my return assuming I get the artist's permission.

Finally, the other publisher sounds quite keen on the other language version of It's Alive! I'm going to send them the artwork so they can make a prototype and try it out.

Time Off (Almost)

It's been a frustrating couple of days again. I'm still waiting for the proofs for It's Alive!, some of which I've now been promised this morning. When I receive them I've got to check the colour balance and send them back to the printers if I'm happy with them. I should get the rules, corrected box and the cards this morning with the player shields, guides and slabs turning up tomorrow.

After posting about the difficulties of contacting companies via a generic email address posted on their website, I've received lots of advice about contacting them by phone. Skype looks pretty cheap, plus a friend has offered my the use of their free international calls package :-) One of the distributors I contacted yesterday has responded, they seem interested in doing a version in another language, which is great if I can land that deal. The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned.

Carpe Astra is moving on. Ted (the main designer) has received the prototype I sent him last week and has started coming up with some comments/ideas. He's going to get his game group to blind playtest it tonight, where one of them teaches the others from a reading of the rules. I'm not sure the version of the rules I sent to them is up to the job, but it should lead to some good feedback about where the rules aren't very clear.

Until the proofs turn up, there's not a huge amount I can do. When they do I either have to sign them and send them back or I might have to re-do the artwork to correct colour-balance problems. The Wife is on holiday down here and frustratingly I can't spend any time doing nice things out of the house with her as I've had to wait in for deliveries (which have yet to turn up).

In other news, the Codename: Ancient contract has been sent to it's designer. Once I get a signed copy back I'll make an announcement here about the game.

Working Away From Home

I'm now down in Bristol for a few days, staying initially with my in-laws then heading over to my parents' house for the weekend.

It's a bit strange working at my in-laws house. I'm used to coming down here for a short break - usually just a weekend, which for an Englishman is a long way to travel (250 miles!) for a couple of days. But this is different because I'm working while I'm down here.

Yesterday I spent the morning working through the last of my submissions that I hadn't made a decision on. I had received the rules, but not yet decided whether I wanted a prototype. I went through the rules for these and made a decision one way or the other. I've now got ten prototypes I've played, four I've received but not played, another seven where I'm awaiting a prototype and four where I'm awaiting the rules.

In the afternoon I got some box art sketches from the artist for Carpe Astra and I chased a bunch of distributors I've not heard back from yet. I think my method of contacting them via the generic email address on their website isn't working. I guess they get a lot of spam through this route and the real email tends to fall into their spam trap or get ignored. I might be better off ringing them up and asking for the email address of a specific member of staff.

I'm still waiting for the remaining proofs for It's Alive! and the corrected versions of the ones that I've already received. My manufacturer has promised me them yesterday or today, so all being well they'll turn up in the next couple of hours.

Getting Somewhere

You know you're pestering your manufacturer when you phone up and ask to speak to your contact and the receptionist, says: 'Sure, I'll just put you through. Is that Jackson?'. Still, I'm speaking to them less now that the process has begun in earnest.

On Saturday the first couple of proof sheets arrived. I got the box artwork and the rules. I had no way of knowing what the art would look like colour-wise until the proofs arrived, as I don't have a calibrated screen or printer. As such I was awaiting the first proofs with some trepidation. What would it look like? Would everything be tinged with a colour? Too dark? Too light? Bland and grey?

Fortunately, things weren't too bad. The rules were fine, but the Repo guys had erroneously sent two copies of the English rules, rather than English and German. The box needed some love however. The background was too light and the photo looked washed out - it blended into the background.

As a result I resigned myself to footing the bill for another proof, with colour-corrected art. As luck would have it though they've offered to send a corrected proof of the rules (with both sets) for free, as it was their mistake, and to cover the cost of a new box proof too. Sweet!

In other news, I've managed to get in touch with the Codename: Ancient designer (have I mentioned that before?) and I hope to send him a contract in a few days time.

In still further news, I'm off to Bristol in a few hours time to spend a week visiting my family and my in-laws. I'll still be working and I'm getting the rest of the proofs delivered to me down there. It'll be good to see everyone.

Carpe Astra Prototyping

The last couple of days have felt a bit like returning to my roots. I finished by last copy of Border Reivers well over a year ago, that was the last time I had to glue artwork onto thick board and then cut it out with craft knife and steel ruler. Until today.

I spent Monday and Tuesday getting some artwork together for new Carpe Astra prototypes and a new version of the board for Codename: Ancient. Wednesday I went round to Paul's for playtesting in the afternoon as usual but I availed myself of his garage first to do the gluing (it needs to be done in a dry, well ventilated space). Today I've spent most of the day cutting out the bits for three prototypes, one for me, one for Ted and one for another playtesting group in the States.

I though I'd show you what I've got so far. Bear in mind that as yet I have no artwork from the artist, so this is all placeholder stuff I've done myself. Still, both Paul and The Wife like it!

First up a network card. These are used to form positive connections between your character and some of the guilds in the game. As usual, click on the image for a bigger version. I've used a thumbs up icon in the top corners so you can quickly look at your hand and work out whether the cards are positive or negative.

Next up is a slander card, used to form a negative connection between another character and the groups. Note the red thumbs down icon in the top corners.

The final type of card is an event card, used to describe events happening in the Empire during the game that boost the power of one of more guilds temporarily. This is one of three types of event, and displays the 'Immediate Event' warning sign symbol to show that something unexpected has happened:

The final image shows a few of the thick card components: the character and Imperial Senate single hexes, a few double hexes showing the symbols for The Military, Priests, Settlers (which don't look so hideously cyan in real life), Traders, Engineers and Politicians (placeholder art!). At the top there is also example 1 credit and 5 credit coins and in the both right are some scoring tokens.

I'd appreciate some comments on the card layouts, bearing in mind all the art will change.

Belated June Report

I've been so busy over the last week or so that I've not had time to report on my progress in June. There was lots, plus a lot of game playing too. As usual I'll start with my game playing first.

Play

June was a busy month for playing games. The Expo finished on the 1st of June, I managed to get to both Beyond Monopoly! and Hugo's GarforTTGamers, and I had Mal and Linz down one weekend, saw Mal, Linz & Robin another and finally Mal again for a Monday afternoon on his way home from Manchester. It saw Race for the Galaxy return to the top of my most played list, and a whole bunch of first plays:

• Race for the Galaxy - 13 plays
• Mix-Match - 6 plays
• Carcassonne - 4 plays
• Carpe Astra - 3 plays
• Carcassonne: The City - 2 plays
• Hive - 2 plays
• Lord of the Rings - 2 plays

It was good to get out Lord of the Rings again, though we were crushed both times. Carcassonne: The City was a present from Dunk for being Best Man at his wedding, as well as coming in a neat wooden box, it is also a pretty good game.

I also had a lot of single plays: Ave Caesar, Canal Mania, Cartagena, Confucius, Diamant, Dominion, Galaxy Trucker, Guillotine, It's Alive!, Mr. Jack, Pandemic, PitchCar, Puerto Rico, Star Wars PocketModel and TransEuropa. Of those Ave Caesar, Carcassonne: The City, Confucius, Dominion, Galaxy Trucker, Mr. Jack, Pandemic and Star Wars PocketModel were new to me. Best new game of the month is probably a toss up between Dominion and Pandemic. Dominion was just a prototype but it was a nice original game (very hyped at the moment). Pandemic is a co-op game (like Lord of the Rings) which is also very popular at the moment. I think Pandemic for the win, but more plays of a published Dominion might well up it's rating. It was great to get so much gaming in, especially with people I rarely see.

Creation

It was a good month for game design/publishing too. I got to play Carpe Astra with Eric Martin of Boardgame News, almost got It's Alive! to the printers and finally got around to playtesting a lot of my submissions.

It's Alive!

I got the last of the It's Alive! artwork back from the designer, and after some negative feedback here, got him to make a few changes to the box design. It's still less popular among Geeks than the old one, but I prefer it and I think it'll stand out on the shelf better. I got a quote I was happy with for manufacturing It's Alive! and almost sent it off to the printers (that slipped to early July). I also had a decent amount of interest from shops and distributors, still only a small fraction of the print run are spoken for, but I'm hoping that once a few shops start stocking it, word of mouth will do the rest.

Carpe Astra

I continued the never ending tale of tinkering with the Carpe Astra scoring, and at the end of the month came up with something that I think I'm happy with. I'm now making some more representative prototypes to send to a couple of playtest groups in the US. The new prototypes have been done of the computer so they look more professional than the hand-drawn effort I've been using, and they also have the flavour text on, which should help improve the immersion.

Codename: Ancient

I've finally dusted off this prototype (which didn't look like anything special) and fallen in love with it. It's been getting really good reviews wherever I play it too. The only slight problem is the designer is not replying to my emails - I don't know whether he's on holiday, ignoring me or the emails are being eaten by a spam filter somewhere.

Submissions

I'm still going through the rest of my submissions, there's still some I haven't played yet, and some that some pretty good, but I'm not sure they're good enough. I'm looking for something fairly cheap to manufacture next (maybe a card game?) since with It's Alive! and Carpe Astra so close together I'm running up a lot of costs. Something cheaper next is definitely the order of the day, especially seeing as it will take a few months before I start recouping the costs for It's Alive! and Carpe Astra.

StabCon and Carpe Astra Prototypes

After a good weekend at StabCon, I've spent the day working on Carpe Astra again. StabCon was good fun, I got to play a lot of games, mostly new to me, but not many prototypes. I ended up spending pretty much the whole weekend gaming with Steve, Paul, Andy and Richard (to various degrees - it was a fluid group with people dropping in and out), so we mostly played games that people had brought and wanted to play. I think in hindsight, I'd have been better off setting up on my own table and trying to collar a load of passers by instead if I wanted to get more playtesting done.

I did manage to get Codename: Ancient and Carpe Astra to the table and got some good feedback about both. Codename: Ancient went down well, so well in fact that Steve placed an order (I've not even picked it up yet) and said he'd even buy it without new artwork, which is pretty cool. Carpe Astra was played by Steve (who'd played it before at Beer and Pretzels) and Andy & Toby who hadn't played it before. The feedback was good and Steve thought it had improved in the last couple of months. I'm fairly happy with the scoring now (finally) and I was going back to some old rules regarding the number of pieces allowed on a hex. I think it's better the old way - it's certainly easier to keep track of your network if there's only one agent on each hex.

I've spent today in Adobe InDesign mocking up a new prototype for Carpe Astra. It's high time my version got updated (my one is done mostly with biro and colouring pencils), and this means I can print out a bunch more, for Ted and another playtest group in the US. It's still placeholder art, but it'll give an idea about the layout I'm considering. I've done what I need to on the computer today, tomorrow I'll print it out and then assemble it. I think it's going to be Wednesday or Thursday before I can post the US-bound copies, as I need to do some more spray gluing, for which I'll co-opt my friend's garage again.

In other news, the much delayed June Report will get done tomorrow, honest!

Short Day

I'm having the afternoon off today to spend some time with The Wife. I figure I'll be playtesting on the weekend at Summer StabCon, which counts as work so, I'm due some time off.

Yesterday, Paul and I got some playtesting in, as he was busy on Wednesday afternoon. We managed a 3-player game of Codename: Native, the first time I'd played it with more than two. It's growing on me - the first time I played it I thought it was good, but more plays seems to make it more interesting. We also got to try a new prototype which had arrived the week before, Codename: Farm. First impressions were that it had some interesting ideas, but needed a bit of streamlining.

In the evening there was a limited turnout for Paul's games night (everyone's on holiday) so instead we introduced Spencer to Codename: Ancient. The scores were much tighter this time, as Paul, Lisa and I had all played it before. Spence came last, which implies a learning curve. Afterwards we thought of ways to improve the layout of the prototype to make things simpler to play and get your head around.

This morning I'm going to chase a few stockists and my potential US Distributors to try and drum up more orders for It's Alive! I'm also going to make a start on some new Carpe Astra prototypes. I'm going to send a couple to the US for playtesting - a first for me.

Tomorrow I'm off early to StabCon. I think I'll take the following prototypes with me: Ancient, Native, Rising, Match, Colony, Backyard and Carpe Astra. Should be a good weekend.

Woot!

Today has been a very busy day.

This morning I got the revised quote from the manufacturer. Unlike the last one (2p cheaper), this one was 28p cheaper, it may not sound like much, but that's nearly £850 less when you multiply it by 3,000.

Now I'd got the quote I could press on, so I finished the artwork, checked it, made a couple of corrections and then burned it to a couple of CDs. I'd had a problem with the last lot of writeable CDs, which I put down to being stored near a radiator (duh!), so I'd bought some more. Three didn't work so it took me 5 discs to burn 2 discs worth of data. Maybe my CD drive is on the way out :-(. Once I'd finally finished that (around 4pm), I went to the post office to send It's Alive! to the printers. Yes. It's finally gone. That means I should be about four weeks away from closing the pre-order list, receiving some stock and seeing my first game on the shelves of my local FLGS. That will be a fantastic day.

While I was in town, I thought I ought to eat something (I'd worked through lunch trying to get It's Alive! burned onto CD). It's been a long time coming, but it's great to finally see it off. Now I can concentrate on getting Carpe Astra ready.

Good Days

The last few days have been great. On Saturday I headed over to Garforth near Leeds to Hugo's GarforTTGamers session which was great fun. I got to play a couple more prototypes (one for the first time) and was introduced to Mr. Jack (Meh!) and Pandemic (Sweet!).

Monday Mal was down again, on the way back from a gig in Manchester. We played a whole bunch of prototypes, and a couple of proper games which I hadn't played in ages. It's been great to see so much of Mal recently and it's great that I can spend all afternoon and evening playing games and it counts as work :-).

Today has also been good. I've been promised the final It's Alive! quote from Cartamundi, I've a tweaked It's Alive! box illustration from the artist incorporating a lot of the feedback I garnered here in my last post, and great news from Germany.

The guy who's doing the It's Alive! translation into German (who's already done a sterling job, above and beyond the call of duty), took his copy to a Heidelberger convention on the weekend. He also does translations for them, translating the English versions of Fantasy Flight games into German. Anyway, it was very well received (also the guys from cliquenabend.de made a video promo of it :-) ), and now Heidelberger are interested in distributing it in Europe :-). Still no hard order from the Americans, but I've now got UK, European and New Zealand distributors interested. Yay!

It's Alive! Box Preview

Here's a quick look at the likely artwork for the It's Alive! box. It's not final, and might change over the weekend, but it's nearly there. As usual click on the picture to see a larger version. The first picture is the front of the box, the second shows the short side.

What do you think? Better than the limited edition? Worse?

StabCon?

I'm thinking of popping along to Summer StabCon in Stockport in just over a week's time with a few prototypes. Any one else going? Anyone been before? How many people go, is it worth me attending ?

In other news it looks like It's Alive! will go to the printer early next week. I've been delayed because I need to put my address on the box apparently, and I wanted a PO Box instead of my home address.

Playtest-O-Rama

I've been playtesting like a man possessed over the last few days. Of the 58 submissions I've received, 12 prototypes are in process. Some of the rest I've turned down at one stage or another, others I'm waiting on the rules or a prototype from a designer.

Of those twelve prototypes I've got, I've now played ten of them, with two still to hit the table.

While Mal was here on the weekend, we played seven games of four different prototypes, Codenames: Backyard, Native, Rising (x4) and Carpe Astra. Monday night I went round to Paul's as usual, and as he was expecting a quiet night he asked me to bring some prototypes. We usually play 'real games' at Paul's games nights, so that was quite unusual. We played a couple, one that I'd played a few times solo and then with Mal, one for the first time. First we had a 3-player game of Backyard, followed by a 4-player game of Special, after Vin arrived. Both went down well.

Last night I held another Tuesday night playtesting session at mine. Lisa and Paul G. made it, so we had another opportunity to play a game for at least 3-players. We played four different prototypes, one of which was the first play. Before Paul arrived, Lisa and I played a couple of games of Codename:Rising, she was keen to play it again after the first game (and so was Mal on Sunday) so that's got promise. We were just setting up Codename: Ancient when Paul arrived so we had a 3-player game of that. I really enjoyed this one - expect to hear more on that front! Next up was a 3-player game of Codename: Backyard. We finished off with a quick game of Codename: Match.

Today I'm going round to Paul's again for my weekly Wednesday afternoon playtest. That'll be four playtesting sessions in four days - fantastic! I'm going to take:

• Ancient - I really enjoyed this 3-player last night, it'll be good to see how it plays with 2;
• Backyard - I'm enjoying this one too;
• Rising - A 2-player abstract that Paul's not played yet;
• Madness - I've only played this solo so far.

and probably Carpe Astra too.

Now that It's Alive! is nearly ready to go to the printers, I can split my time between trying to get distributors and shops to pick up It's Alive!, finishing off the rules for Carpe Astra and getting my submissions tested and evaluated.

Great Weekend

My mates Linz & Mal were down from Newcastle for the weekend for a belated birthday celebration. I don't often get to see the boys from Newcastle (who I used to work with when I lived there), although recently I've seen them quite a bit. It was a really good weekend, they arrived Friday night, and after a long catch up, and a great meal we played a game of Race for the Galaxy, before having to call it a night as we were all knackered.

Saturday morning began after one of my legendary breakfast fry-ups, with a couple of games of the co-operative game Lord of the Rings. My copy doesn't see much action but I hang on to it, despite the lack of space, because I enjoy it and I don't have anything else like it. We played one game vanilla, and then one game with the Friends & Foes expansion. We were sorely crushed in both. Mal needed a break then, so Linz and I carried on. Linz was a Race convert, as we played it another three times 2-player, while The Wife and Mal went shopping. That evening we played some Carcassonne after Linz had left - still my favourite game.

On Sunday, Mal and I mostly played prototypes. We managed to play four different games, one of which three times (there's a good sign - your playtesters wanting to play the game again).

Today I'm back to work, and I've been working on the It's Alive! artwork again. The tiles idea looks like it's not going to fly, so we're back to similar components to the limited edition. Today I've sent most of the artwork to the printer, so they can check the formatting and print specifications, I'm due a further quote tonight and I hope to place the order officially tomorrow. I've still got the box to do, which is waiting on a photograph of a mock-up and a PO Box, apparently it's a requirement that I have my address printed on the box. I'm getting a PO Box rather than have my home address on the box. I should have the mock-up & photo done tomorrow or Wednesday, the PO Box registration should come through hopefully on Friday or Monday.

Once, It's Alive! is in process I can go back to Carpe Astra and continue playtesting my submissions.

I Might Have Got Your Hopes Up

I spoke to the Sales Manager at Carta Mundi this morning about a few things, including the tiles. He wasn't around yesterday, so with no input from him I started doing a different version of the artwork suitable for the tiles version, in case that ended up being cheaper.

His first impressions about the tiles idea is that it wouldn't be cheaper. While all the components might fit on a print sheet (B1), apparently the press that does the die-cutting has a maximum die length, beyond which it cannot provide enough pressure to perform the cut. He thinks that all the components out of thick card might be too much in terms of die length for a single sheet (even if it will fit, which he doesn't know yet), so it might be that idea is dead in the water before it really got off the ground.

He's spent today and is going to spend tomorrow investigating this and a few other ideas to see what turns out to be the most efficient method. I should hear back from him tomorrow afternoon with the results of his investigation, which will mean I can send the artwork to him on Monday. Hopefully it's only four weeks from then that'll I'll get something back in stock.

I've spent today continuing with the tiles version artwork, just in case. Tomorrow I hope to finish the box and the tiles version. I've also got to clean the flat as I've friends coming down from Newcastle for a belated birthday celebration. I'd imagine I'll get some games in on the weekend, maybe even some prototypes.

Two Pence!

Last week I received a quote for It's Alive! It was a little high, but manageable. I asked my contact at the manufacturer what we could change to make it cheaper and he suggested a few things. We could move some things onto a sheet with others, make several components from the same material. It would reduce the amount of wastage and the number of printing plates required.

Three days later I got the modified quote - 2 pence per game cheaper! If it's that little difference then I'll go with the original idea. I have had another idea though, it might save manufacturing costs, might not though, we'll have to see. I guess it'll be Monday before I see this third quote, and I should have everything finished by then so I can just make a decision and go for it.

The new idea is to make all the components except the shields out of thick board: the slabs, players guides, coins and also the cards which will become tiles - like in Carcassonne. Apparently making the cards is very expensive because they are a non-standard size which requires re-calibrating all the machinery. Making them as tiles might be cheaper, or not significantly more expensive. What do you think? Would thicker components be better, or thin card ones like in the Limited Edition?

Busy Again

At last! The end of this week has been extremely busy. I've had two main things to do: starting to drum up some interest/sales of It's Alive! in preparation for receiving the game from the manufacturers, and finishing the layout of the artwork in the correct program for the manufacturers.

When I was getting the artwork digitally printed, the printer was happy to receive the artwork as uncompressed JPEG files. I used PaintShopPro to do these, painstakingly laying out all the components to pixel-perfect accuracy. Needless to say, it was a horrible and slow job. In particular, trying to justify the text for the rules was particularly bad as I had to move each word individually! Still, I had a copy of PaintShopPro and it almost did what I wanted.

This time round the manufacturer wants PDF files, laid out in Adobe InDesign or Quark Express. I bit the bullet and bought a copy of InDesign for a staggering fee, but it has been well worth it. Unlike PaintShopPro it is specifically designed for print layout, and does a great job of it too. Clicking the 'Justify Text' button was a particularly great moment :-) I've laid each component out in it's own file, the cards one to a page, the rules, slabs, guides and coins with two pages - front and back. I've also started (but not yet finished) the new box design too.

Perhaps the slowest job (and one I couldn't start until I received the last of the artwork yesterday) was doing the illustrations for the rules. These had to be done again, since there were some changes to the artwork, and so I had to reconstruct them from scratch in Photoshop (InDesign works best with artwork embedded as Photoshop .PSD files). That was finally done mid-afternoon today. So now I only have the box to finish off and it's ready to go to the printers.

The other thing I've been doing is contacting shops in the UK, trying to convince them they need to stock It's Alive! I'm offering them the game in case quantities only (lots of six), if they want to get less I'm directing them to Esdevium, the UK distributors who have agreed to pick it up. I've already got far more orders than I've ever had for a game before it's ready, and I've not got any deals in place with US distributors yet. Nor any distributors in other territories.

Next up is get the box artwork finished, and then trying to get other distributors and shops interested.

Business Tasks To Do

I got to play one of yesterday's submissions solo yesterday a couple of times. I've been struggling to get some of the prototypes to the table recently, so I think soloing might be the way forward to get an initial feeling of the games. I need to spend more of my time testing my list of submissions. I've several which I've not yet played, and several I've not even scanned the rules for yet.

In addition, I need to start thinking more seriously about the It's Alive! re-print. I've been contacted by several Americans who are really interested in It's Alive! but couldn't afford the combination of full-price game and airmail shipping from the UK. Getting the game made professionally means I can sell to US shops (and hopefully others too!), meaning these customers will be able to get the game at a reasonable price. Either from a FLGS with no shipping, or from an online store which often offer discounted prices and free shipping for large orders.

I've contacted a few US shops that contacted me last year, hoping to stock It's Alive! when I couldn't really afford to sell it to them, and a German distributor. The German market may be a possibility because the game components only feature numbers no language-dependent text, and I've decided to include German rules in the box this time.

I've also had to do a few administrative tasks in the last couple of days. I've registered a bunch of barcodes, allowing me to place a unique barcode on the boxes of each of my games. It's an ongoing cost, but it allows me 1,000 barcodes, which I can use as I see fit. I've also VAT-registered which allows me to reclaim the VAT I pay on my purchases, and to sell to shops with VAT which is in their interest as they get to reclaim the VAT they pay on purchases from me.

Finally! Things Are Moving Again

It's been another frustrating week so far, but hopefully things are looking up. Last Monday I was promised a quote for a re-print for It's Alive! in two days. I've been considering this as a quick way to get some money coming in, as the artwork is already mostly done, and it should be quicker both to manufacture (simpler components) and sell (known quantity).

By the end of Monday, I still didn't have anything. So I emailed a few friends in the business to see if they knew of anyone else I could use in the UK. Dean Conrad of Ludorum Games offered to give our mutual contact at Cartamundi a swift kick up the rear, as he'd had good responses from him in the past. He texted me later to say I'd get a quote on Tuesday. By Wednesday lunchtime, there was still no word from Cartamundi, so I sent the guy an email, explaining how I was in a rush, it's no good promising quick manufacture if the quotes take ages to arrive, I had been hoping to work with them in the future, but I've lost all confidence in them now.

A couple of hours later, the quote arrives :-) It's a bit high, but with a little wiggling I should be able to get it down to a manageable amount. The modified artwork is starting to trickle in, and I'm getting a German guy to translate the rules into Deutsch (thanks Michael). The rules guy is doing a great job, not only is he extremely quick, he's providing some really good feedback on the English rules.

In other news, I've finally heard back from the English distributor, Esdevium Games, I'm hoping to speak to the Head Buyer tomorrow - he's seen my website, and he's interested. I also received a couple more prototypes today, a couple of quick card games, they look interesting, though I haven't had a chance to play them yet.

I'm looking for a quick turn around on It's Alive!, I need some money coming in quick, once that's underway I can concentrate on finishing off Carpe Astra, and lining up the next game from the Reiver Games stable.

Filling a Hole

It's going to be several months before Carpe Astra is ready as I've chosen a slower German company to do the manufacturing (they are a lot cheaper, which means I can sell it for less). The downside is that with It's Alive! sold out I have nothing left to sell. If I don't get something else out in the meantime, then I'm going to be without games income for several months. I've still got some money coming in from the Library (where I'm doing some consultancy), but it's not a huge amount (though it's for very few days). Also, my replacement started this week. I'll be required to do some induction training for him, but he'll be able to take over fairly shortly, at which point that source of income will dry up too.

So, I've been thinking about ways to bridge the gap until the Carpe Astra is ready. One thing I considered was another hand-made run of something. I had a promising little abstract, but I don't think I'd be adding enough value to that by doing a hand-made edition, and of course, the unit price will be high doing a short run.

The other thing I've been considering is a professional re-print of It's Alive! I think there's still a market for it (a couple of other publishers have registered an interested in it), especially in the US, where the combination of airmail shipping and the appalling exchange rate made the hand-made edition very expensive.

Thinking about this a bit more, it has a number of advantages:

• The artwork is nearly ready. I'd change a couple of things for the second edition: I'm not entirely happy with the box illustration and the leg card is frequently mistaken for an arm, but other than that it's pretty much ready to go.
• I'd replace the wooden coins with card tokens, so Carta Mundi would be able to turn it around really quickly (three/four weeks).
• It's a known quantity. There's reviews, ratings and information about it. Customers want it. As a result it'll be easier to sell to shops/distributors than a brand-new unknown game. Once I've got my foot in the door it should be easier to sell Carpe Astra to them later.

I'm just waiting on a quote (again!) to find out if it's viable.

May Report

It's been a great month for me in some ways, not so good in others. As usual, I'll cover play first.

Play

I played a lot of games during May, and a lot of new ones too. Not bothering to demo It's Alive! at Beer and Pretzels (I still sold out!) meant I had a lot of time for games there, and being a judge at the UK Games Expo meant I ended up playing a lot of games there too. Plus I managed to make it along to Beyond Monopoly once, which is a fairly rare occurrence for me :-( Here's the breakdown:

• Carpe Astra - 14 plays
• It's Alive! - 7 plays
• Race for the Galaxy - 2 plays
• Ice Flow - 2 plays
• Tinners' Trail - 2 plays
• Check - 2 plays

It's the first month since I bought it that Race hasn't been my most played game, but in fairness, Carpe Astra has been undergoing rigorous playtesting, and I was demoing It's Alive! at a convention. In addition, to the games above the following were all played once: Agricola, Bohnanza, Fruit Fair, Guillotine, Gipsy King, Hansa, Masons, Metropolys, Monastery, Niagara, Null und Nichtig, Pickomino, Ra, Santiago, Scripts and Scribes and Stone Age. The following were new to me: Agricola, Bohnanza, Fruit Fair, Hansa, Ice Flow, Metropolys, Monastery, Null und Nichtig, Ra, Santiago, Scripts and Scribes, Stone Age and Tinners' Trail! Quite a haul. I also got two games this month, Dunk gave me Carcassonne: The City for being his best man, and I got a copy of Monastery as the second half of my swap with the Ragnar Brothers (Border Reivers and It's Alive! for Canal Mania and Monastery). My favourite new game is a tough call this month, maybe Ra, but with Ice Flow, Tinners' Trail, Agricola and Stone Age all in the running. Agricola was a bit disappointing, with all the hype surrounding it I was hoping for more, it's a very good game, but best thing ever? I'm not convinced.

Creation

It's been a strange month for creation, my first full month of self-employment. I ran out of It's Alive! at Beer and Pretzels, and since then things went a bit weird. Having nothing to sell is nerve-wracking, I'm basically burning money now until I get some more stock of something. I've a little money coming in from my consulting at the Library, but not enough... Carpe Astra is proving troublesome, I'm still not entirely happy with it, and I waited months for a quote from Carta Mundi, only to find it much more expensive than LudoFact. So I'm going to have to go with LudoFact, which means it's going to be September at the earliest before I get any. That's three or four months without any income. Not an option. I'm investigating some other options to make sure I get some income sooner.

It's Alive!

It was great to sell out of It's Alive! within a year of the release at last year's Expo. There's still some interest in it (especially in the States, where the shipping costs and exchange rate put it out of many people's budgets). Re-printing it is a possibility if I think there's enough interest to warrant it. In the meantime, chatting to Paul from Games Lore I found out they still have two copies left in stock, so if you're after one best hurry!

Carpe Astra

I've played Carpe Astra a lot this month, with various people. It's the first time I've playtested a game outside my gaming group before it was ready to go to print. It's lead to some mediocre ratings on the Geek which refer to an old version - hopefully they'll like the newer version more and update their ratings when then get a chance to play it. I'm still not 100% happy with the scoring mechanism - it keeps changing from week to week. Sooner or later I'm going to have to draw a line under it though - so I need to come up with something pretty quick. I had some interesting ideas from the playtesters at the Expo which I need to try out too.

Submissions

I've started to get a steady stream of other prototypes now too. I've not had a chance to play many of them yet, but there's definitely some potential in there. Probably the most promising so far is an abstract. I'm not sure whether that's a good idea though, as it would be something that is very easy to make yourself - is there enough value added in getting a nice edition in a box to warrant paying for it? I'm not sure. At least with a themed game you're paying for the artwork as well as the box and components, which makes it harder to knock-up a decent quality homemade version.

UK Games Expo

I was at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham all weekend. I had a great time last year, releasing It's Alive! and selling out of Border Reivers. This year I had nothing to sell, so I didn't have a stand. Instead I was judging the UK Game of the Year award, networking with shops and distributors, playtesting and playing games.

I'd played two of the eight games before the convention, and another three were ruled out on the day since they weren't available, which meant I had three to try out at the convention. I managed to play two of them on Saturday (twice each) and then the third Sunday morning. They were all good games, but Dean at Ludorum deserved his win for Ice Flow. It's a great game, simple enough that kids can play it, with enough strategy that adults get a kick out of it too. Plus, the artwork is by R H Aidley who did It's Alive! and will be doing Carpe Astra - so it looks great too. Tinners' Trail, the new Martin Wallace game was also very good.

I met W. Eric Martin (Hi, Eric!), the editor of Boardgame News, and played several games with him and his brother, including a couple of games of Carpe Astra and a prototype of Dominion which was really original. I'm sure with more plays, once I've got a strategy, I'll really enjoy it. It's a bit like Magic: The Gathering, but not collectible, and you build your deck as part of the game. Eric's agreed to playtest Carpe Astra some more, with some new features dreamed up during the games we played at the Expo.

After playing until 1:30am on Saturday, I was wrecked when I got home last night, but I'm a bit more with it today. I'll be making some new bits for Carpe Astra today, to try out some of those new ideas mentioned above.

In other news, I was interviewed by Jason Kong on Gamesizing.com recently, I keep forgetting to mention it. The interview was done via email over several weeks, hence referring to Carpe Astra by its working title of Codename: Network.

Update: The Gamesizing interview has moved to: gamedesigners.wordpress.com.

National Prototype Day

From now on, 28th May will be known as 'National Prototype Day' a public holiday, when people will send each other game prototypes. Why? I received three yesterday. It was a busy day for my postie, as well as the three prototypes, I received some business cards and another entrant for 'UK Game of the Year' which I'll be judging as part of the judging panel at the UK Games Expo. I'm going to try to play it tonight. I took it to Paul's yesterday afternoon, but after playtesting the latest incarnation of Carpe Astra, one of the new prototypes and another prototype we didn't have enough time left to get a game in. Hopefully, we'll get a chance tonight.

Due to the high cost of Carta Mundi's quote, I'm going to go with the Germans, but this comes with its own problems. Their turnaround is ten weeks, and they need the artwork right at the beginning, so I guess it's going to be at least twelve weeks before it's ready. Seeing as I've sold out of It's Alive!, that's three months of self-employment when I have nothing to sell! Hmmm. Far from ideal. I'm considering a couple of options for bridging the gap.

Tomorrow, without any artwork likely to arrive, I'm likely to take most of the day off. The Wife gets back from a conference in Poland late tonight, so it'll be nice to spend some time with her.

Finally Getting Somewhere

I got the quote from Carta Mundi yesterday, as promised. Unfortunately it's significantly more expensive than the German offer, so I guess I'll be going with them and waiting for the games until the end of August at the earliest. I've asked Carta Mundi for another quote though, so I may still get something from them.

Still nothing back from the artist, but I know he's got an exhibition on Friday, so I imagine he's exceptionally busy at the moment.

I'm considering another hand-made run to keep my hand in until the professional run of Carpe Astra arrives. I think I can do it fairly cheaply and with little effort on my part (the game I'm considering is fairly simple), so this morning I requested a bunch of quotes from the suppliers I used for It's Alive! to see whether it's worth doing.

This morning I popped over to a local warehousing company to see what they offer. They are prepared to deal with me (despite the small number of pallets I'll be receiving), and they're with my storage budget so that's a good thing.

I'm going to request a final quote from the Germans today, and then once the artwork is finished I can start the ordering process. It'll take them eight weeks from when they receive the artwork for the cards and boards. I've then got two weeks to get the rules and box artwork to them. Six weeks after that they'll ship to me, and then a week or two after than I'll receive them.

I had Lisa round for playtesting last night, and I'm going round to Paul's again this afternoon to try out the latest tweak to Carpe Astra. I think it improves the player interaction and gives you more routes to winning the game, making it feel a bit more Euro (though there are definitely things about it which aren't).

All Weddinged Out

We went away Friday night for my mate Dunk's wedding, at which I was Best Man and The Wife was a bridesmaid. I got home this afternoon after dropping The Wife at the station en route to Poland for a four day conference.

The B & B / hotel in which we were staying was very noisy (we were woken at 3:30 and 6 the first night, and 4ish on the second) so I'm pretty sleep-deprived at the moment. I've spent most of the afternoon dozing in front of the telly.

Still, we had a great time, and I managed to get a few things done before I left on Friday and during the wedding!

Friday, I finally got in touch with the UK Manufacturer, who has been exceptionally busy in the run up to the Expo next weekend. He's promised to get a quote to me first thing Tuesday (Monday is a public holiday in the UK). At Beer and Pretzels I was warned the German manufacturer's have a habit of dropping smaller orders when a larger rush job comes in from a German publisher. Their quote is going to take longer than I'd like under ideal circumstances, so I've decided to give the English guys another chance. We'll have to see how competitive their quote is when it gets here.

I also managed to complete another lesson from my German course in on Friday, hopefully I'll be competent in time for Essen, though obviously not competent enough to sell/demo in German. I'll do another lesson this evening.

I got to see the artist at the wedding (he's a friend of Dunk's too). He's also been exceptionally busy with a couple of projects and an exhibition that starts on Friday, so hopefully he'll be back on the case too.

Tomorrow is a Bank Holiday in the UK, which I wasn't really aware of (no longer getting the day off automatically). But since the quote won't arrive until Tuesday and I'm unlikely to receive much in the way of artwork tomorrow, I'm going to take the day mostly off, and hang out with a couple of friends from Newcastle, who are visiting York for the day.

Version Control and Other Stories

In a comment on my last post, Mal wondered how I perform version control of my ever-changing prototypes.

The earliest versions of a prototype don't have properly written rules, they're just a series of scribbles in my notebook. I'll make an early prototype out of scraps of paper and pencil scribbles. It's not until I have something that's basically working that I make a more solid prototype using card, thick cardboard for tiles/boards and slightly more impressive artwork involving pen and pencil crayons. It's at this point where I start writing out the rules.

From there on, every time I make a change to the rules, I do a new version of the rulebook - with a new version number. I just save them as <game name>.<version number>.txt. I have lots of ideas, only those that I'm fairly convinced are worth trying or I've tested a few time make the rules, other than that they float around in my head until I've tested them.

That's the rules covered, what about the components? Honestly, I don't bother with them. If the components change between one version and the next (they might not) I store the old components and make new ones. There's no infomation about which version those components were used for. I can either work it out from the rules, or I can just recreate them. The earlier components tend to be fairly generic with just enough information on them to differentiate between the different types. As the rules change these can be re-purposed a lot of the time, only occasionally do they need to be re-created.

In other news, I received another prototype from an established designer yesterday, and having received an overview and a copy of the rules, I've now asked for a prototype.

Still nothing from the British manufacturer or from the artist yet. I've been concentrating on my prototypes and using my German course, in preparation for Essen.

Back In The Saddle

I took most of yesterday off, after working the weekend and to celebrate selling my last copies of It's Alive! Still did a few things, I had to update my website so that people could no longer order It's Alive!, and fix all the references to it being available. I also emailed Ted the latest set of rules I'm trying out for Carpe Astra. I'm still tweaking it, it's very hard to let go when there's several thousand pounds riding on it. It's still getting better (in my opinion) but sooner rather than later I'm going to have to stop and leave it alone.

I got my first bit of colour artwork from the artist yesterday too. It's the new banner for the website. It wasn't a final one, but it gave me something to comment on. There's things about it I love and things I'm not so keen on, so hopefully there'll be a new version winging its way to me soon.

Today I'm going to concentrate on the layout for Carpe Astra again, getting the frames in place so that I can paste the artwork in when it arrives.

It's Alive! Sold Out

I had a great weekend at the Beer and Pretzels games convention this weekend. I was selling It's Alive! during the day Saturday, but after a decent day of sales I decided to call it a day and start playing. I hooked up with Steve K (hiya!) and Neil and we played a bunch of games, mostly new to me as well as a couple of my prototypes. Despite not having a stand on Sunday, I was still able to sell the last few copies of the It's Alive! Limited Edition. I've only got six copies left at home now, mine and five I'm holding for other people.

I'll be going to the UK Games Expo in a couple of weeks too, but seeing as I thought I'd sell out of It's Alive! before then, and I didn't think Carpe Astra would be ready in time (right on both counts!) I've not got a stall there. Instead I'll be wandering around hawking my wares to the various shops and I'm a judge for the Game of the Year award. Bribes in excess of £5K gratefully accepted ;-)

Seeing as I've been 'working' all weekend, I'm going to have a fairly easy day today. I've got to nip into town to pay in my take from the weekend, and get a haircut in preparation for Dunk's wedding this weekend (I'm the best man - ought to look presentable!).

Ich Gehe Nach Deutschland!

I've just received confirmation that I've got a booth at the International Spieltage, at the Messe Essen in Essen, Germany in October. Or just plain Essen for those in the know.

In preparation I've ordered a German language kit as an early birthday present to myself. I did German at school, and was fairly good at it, but that was sixteen years ago, so I'm a little rusty :-(. Even with the course I'll not be competent enough to explain my games in German, so I could do with a German speaker on the stand, seeing as most of the 150,000 people attending the show will be German. Who to ask? I'll need to think on that.

In other news, I'm pressing on with getting a final quote from Ludo Fact for Carpe Astra and I spend a decent chunk of today going through the submissions I received ages ago working out which ones I want prototypes of sent to me.

I'm off to Beer and Preztels for the second year running tomorrow morning. It's a 8:20am train, so that'll mean an early start for me, but it should be good fun, and I've only got nine copies of It's Alive! left, so I might even sell out while I'm there.

Frustrating Week

This week has been frustrating. I'd like to use Carta Mundi to manufacture Carpe Astra, they are both fairly local (so there's less shipping involved) and fairly quick (six weeks if it includes wooden pieces). However, trying to get a quote from them is like drawing blood from a stone. I'm trying to spend money with them, but you'd never guess so, judging by the speed at which the Sales Manager replies to my queries. I guess I'm one of the smaller customers they have, but still the lack of response is really frustrating, and I'm tempted to use someone else just to spite him.

I'm also in contact with Ludo Fact, who were recommended to me by Dean of Ludorum Games. In the time I've been waiting for a quote from Carta Mundi, I've had a quote from them (reasonably priced including shipping from Germany to the UK), and an amended quote after I requested a couple of changes. The only thing that's stopping me choosing them right away is it would take eight to ten weeks.

I've only got ten copies of It's Alive! left and I'm off to the Beer and Pretzels games convention in Burton-on-Trent this weekend. If I don't sell out there, I can't imagine they'll last beyond next week. If I have to wait ten weeks for Carpe Astra then that's ten weeks with no money coming in.

I've started doing the layout for Carpe Astra, doing the text for all the cards, but without the artwork from the artist I can't get much further. I've not had anything else from him since those sketches I've been posting.

To top all of that, I'm still not quite happy with the scoring mechanism for Carpe Astra, I've tried a few things recently, none of them quite work. I was hoping to take a finished game with me to Beer and Pretzels to play with a few regular customers, but I guess I'm going to have to take a prototype, and warn them things might change.

Still, in other news, I played a couple of my submissions with Paul on Wednesday afternoon, and they've got potential...

Submissions - Update

I had a terrible night's sleep last night, so I had just struggled into conciousness when the doorbell rang, it was Parcel Force delivering another prototype. That's the fifth one to arrive. Its arrival reminded me that I still haven't got back to most of the people who submitted games to me just before I went pro.

As a result I've taken some time out of the card layout for Carpe Astra to continue processing my submissions. I've been through the rules for another five this morning (two rejected, three prototypes requested). I need to improve my time management so that I've time to go through them, I've another nine sets of rules to review, plus another five sets of rules I'm still waiting to receive.

Getting a whole heap of submissions like this has been really good, it allows me to be more selective about what types of prototypes I receive. This means I can focus more on what I see the core product lines being for Reiver Games. I'm not beyond branching out a little though, so the occasional abstract or family game might appear under the RG logo too.

Carpe Astra - Character Preview 3/4

I've had the weekend mostly off again (stag do this time). I've spent most of today transferring the card text from the spreadsheet I was using to the layout application. It turns out that even using 12pt text I've got room for more flavour text, so I've been bulking out the explanations as I go. This is good, I was having difficulty coming up with a story that fit the limited space of my first guess at how much text I could fit on the cards.

Here's the third character preview from Carpe Astra:

Representing the colour blue is High Priest Ichthon, from the priests. He's an ancient old man, dressed in the ceremonial robes of the priesthood.

Flavour text: Ichthon has been a priest since adolescence, and over the last five hundred years has risen to the higher echelons of the Priesthood. He is a traditionalist, voting in the council for tighter restrictions on permissible behaviour and is always trying to boost the power of the Priesthood.

Finally the sketch the artist has done for him, which is my favourite of the bunch so far:

It's Alive! Construction Finished!

All day yesterday and this morning I've been making copies of It's Alive! I figured I was best off finishing them all in advance of the Beer and Pretzels convention next weekend, and if I got them finished that would free me up to concentrate on Carpe Astra.

Turns out to be good timing. I contacted those people on the Geek who listed themselves as wanting a copy to warn them that I was running out. Several bought a copy as a result of this (several more emailed me to let me know they wanted one, but couldn't afford it with the current US/UK exchange rate :-( ).

One of the customers who bought it received it yesterday and promptly played it with his partner several times. He loves it, and was quite happy to tell readers of SpielBox that he loves it. The very complementary review has led to several more sales to Germany today - will I have any copies left to take next weekend? In some ways I hope so, in others I don't :-)

In other news, I've just bought Adobe InDesign CS3, it's staggeringly expensive, but the right tool for the job of laying out the artwork for Carpe Astra. I downloaded a free trial several weeks ago, but that's now run out so it's time to put my money where my mouth is.

Carpe Astra: Sketches

I've got the first artwork back from the artist. It's obviously just a rough sketch, but it'll give you some idea of where we're going :-)

I've asked the artist to make a couple of changes to make the characters look a bit more ruthless among other things, but I'd appreciate your feedback too. What do you think? These two are the Admiral and the Trader, as discussed in the last two character previews.

As usual, you can click on the image to see a larger version.

The other two character previews with feature the artwork for those characters, the High Priest sketch in particular is awesome!

Carpe Astra - Character Preview 2/4

I've had the weekend mostly off (I went to Beyond Monopoly! on Saturday for a bit) and I've been at my old job for the day today - paying the bills :-)

Until I have something to report on the work front, here's another character preview from Carpe Astra:

Second up, in the yellow corner (the colour I normally play) is Trader Tyn-dar, representing the traders. He's a fairly young, successful businessman who ruthlessly exploits any avenue to increase his fortune (sounds like me!). As with the Admiral, he's not a nice person :-) (maybe not!)

Flavour text: Despite his youth, Tyn-dar has risen to the top of the Iartron Corporation with amazing speed. His judgement regarding emerging markets borders on prescience, and he's willing to exploit any weakness to turn a quick profit.

April Report

A very busy week to end a very busy month.

Looking back, April 2008 is the month it all really began. I worked my last official day in the office on the 4th, and stopped getting paid on the 15th. Scary! It's also been a very exciting month, I received a lot more submissions (which I'm still pouring through), sold lots of It's Alive! and announced Carpe Astra.

As usual, I'll start with Play first.

Play

I didn't play a huge number of games, but I play several for the first time, and I got to count playing games as work - so it's not that bad :-) I played at Paul's, Hugo's and had Dave staying the night on a brief trip to York, so it was all nice, social gaming. Here's the multiples:

• Race for the Galaxy - 4 plays
• Guillotine - 3 plays
• It's Alive! - 3 plays
• Gipsy King - 2 plays
• Perudo - 2 plays
• Meepile - 2 plays
• Carpe Astra - 2 plays

Race comes top again - still loving that. The shrapnel: Mississippi Queen, Hey! That's My Fish!, San Juan, Check, Pickomino, Revolution!, Zanzibar, Diamant and Through the Desert. Of those, five were new to me: Mississippi Queen, Check, Pickomino, Zanzibar and Through the Desert. I was underwhelmed by all but Check and Through the Desert, with TtD as my favourite new game of the month. That's three months on the trot that Race has been my most played game, in fact, ever since I bought it, The Wife and I have yet to try the 2-player variant, and there's an expansion coming out soon, so I think it's got plenty of life left in it too.

Creation

Game creation is where all the excitement was in April. Quitting my job was a big step, but I felt like Reiver Games had reached the pinnacle of what I could achieve making the games by hand in my spare time. Moving full-time means that I've far more time available for playtesting and graphic design work and it's much easier to get to the Post Office when I have games to send. I've started a playtesting afternoon with Paul on Wednesday afternoons, and I've had a couple of evening sessions for Carpe Astra during April too.

Carpe Astra

I announced this during April (previously known as 'Codename: Network'), and I've already taken a bunch of pre-orders, which considering the dearth of information available is pretty cool. I'm offering a discount to pre-orders, which has probably helped, but they are almost exclusively from people who have bought one (or both :-) ) of my previous games. Once the rules are finalised, posted online and there's some pictures of R H Aidley's artwork available, I'd hope for more pre-orders to come in. The game has changed a few times this month, first simplifying the scoring a bit by adding a scoreboard, and then stripping out the scoreboard as it was a bit too fiddly with four players. I still need to playtest the latest variant (with scoring tokens) more, but it seems to simplify scoring further still. Always a good thing. It also introduces a few more choices, and hence a little more though during the game. I've met with a manufacturer, and started approaching shops and distributors, more of that to follow next month when I get the rules and some artwork up...

It's Alive!

It's been a good month for It's Alive!, selling more copies than any other month so far this year. I reckon my remaining stock will run out before the UK Games Expo at the end of May, so not paying for a booth was a good idea - It's Alive! will probably have run out, and Carpe Astra won't be ready yet. I've not got that many left to make so it feels like it nearly done.

Submissions

My first two submissions have arrived, although so far I've only had a chance to play one of them. I've still got a load to go through and work out whether I want prototypes - Carpe Astra has taken up all my time recently. The one I have played I enjoyed, so I'll need to get it out a few more times and think about it more.

Carpe Astra - Character Preview 1/4

The flavour text is done now, but an unexpected visit from the International Trade advisor meant I didn't get as much other stuff done as I meant to.

Over the next week or two, I'm going to give previews of the four characters in Carpe Astra, as well as some of my thinking behind why they are as they are. The four characters are played by the players and represent the power-hungry elite of the galaxy. I've got the flavour text (character and card) and some brief blurb which will appear in the rules, on my website and on the box to set the scene for the game. While most gamers are au fait with sci-fi in general, I'm trying to bring my vision of a dystopian future to life, to help the players get in the spirit of the game.

The galactic empire of the game is definitely a human one, but there are passing mentions of other aliens species, so we're not alone. The characters are all ruthless, driven and successful, not very nice people - that should make the slandering aspect of the game more fun - with plenty of latitude for some terrible slanders to besmirch their reputations.

I've made them equally split along gender lines, and want them all to appear of non-specific race, as if the races of planet Earth today have melded over the intervening time, without the continents of our history to constrain peoples movement. Each character represents one of the six powerful guilds of the game: The Military, Traders, Priests, Engineers, Expansionists and Politicians. They also have a colour which will be the colour of the pieces that player gets to use.

First up, in the red corner, we have Admiral Ch'un, representing the military. She's a career officer, appearing to our eyes to be in her late sixties (though actually over 300!), she looks scarred and stern.

Flavour text: During a military career spanning over 300 years Admiral Ch'un has built a reputation for bravery, ruthlessness and winning at all costs. Thinking nothing of wasting the lives of her underlings, she often does the unexpected and has an unequalled record of military victories.

The character flavour text will appear on the player guides (one for each character) with a picture of the character and an overview of play.

In other news, I spent an hour and a half with a Trader Advisor this afternoon during an impromptu visit. I had some questions about Passport to Export a UK government programme to support new exporters. I found out that I am eligible for grants up to £1,500, which is great. I also found out there's a £250 joining fee :-( and they'll only match your spending. But both trips to US/German distributors and trips to overseas conventions (e.g. Essen) count, so I could get half my expenses paid for the Essen trip, which I was planning to make anyway. I'm now considering visiting US distributors, and maybe a US convention such as GenCon or Origins too.