Families

This weekend we spent in York with Paul and his family.

Now we’ve shipped all of the rewards for our last Gamefoumd campaign, there was room in his house for guests!

We spent the weekend chatting, catching up, scheming about Eurydice Games’ future.

And, of course, playing games.

It was lovely.

Now we’re back, I’m cracking on with Away Team Bingo.

Taking shape!

And sorting out the GamesQuest onward shipping.

Meanwhile Paul is building up stock so we can meet up again in ten or so days’ time.

And he can give me some stock to cover his forthcoming holidays.

They are well earned!

Progress

It's been a week of great progress.

Paul has parcelled up and shipped three pallets of games to GamesQuest.

On their way!

Two will cross the Atlantic by boat and then go via road to their US hub.

Then be broken down and shipped across the US and Canada.

The third will be broken down and shipped to the EU from their UK hub.

That's over 85% of the rewards of the last campaign shipped.

The last few will probably go in the next week or so.

Meanwhile I've been doing the proper rulebook for Away Team Bingo.

My next print at home roll and write game.

The low ink rules are finished!

Now I can send it out for review.

Last time I tried this I got no reviews back.

Hoping for better luck this time...

Rules

I’ve almost finished the graphic design for the Away Team Bingo player sheets.

The four low ink ones are done. 

Two out of four high ink ones are done too.

Next up is the rules.

Rules are hard

I’ve a pretty spartan rulebook that went to the playtesters.

But I need a new one.

With diagrams.

And examples.

It takes time.

It’s my current focus.

Next up is review copies and the Gamefound page.

It’s going to be a busy couple of months.

Let The Good Times Roll!

I'm done.

Away Team Bingo is finished.

My third roll and write game.

You are sending teams of crew to explore a planet three times.

To find the most impressive discoveries.

But lots of locations aren't safe.

Will you pick the right mix of crew for the mission?

It's a press your luck game.

You want to stay as long as possible to maximise your rewards.

But staying too long can be costly.

Or catastrophic.

Now the game is finished, it's just graphic design, finishing the rulebook and doing the crowdfunding page.

The top of a low ink page - getting prettier!

There's a start of a Gamefound page taking shape.

The graphic design is coming together.

Then it'll be the rulebook.

It's going to be a busy couple of months!

Learning

Our ads are stuck in the learning phase.

At least partially because I’m still in my learning phase.

Our ads should be showing FlickFleet to those people who might like it.

At the moment it’s either not showing them to the right people.

Or not interesting to the right people.

Not working yet…

I need to spend some time working out how to improve the targeting.

Or improve the ads.

Meanwhile Paul is boxing and parcelling the rewards aiming to ship them in the next month.

Early.

And I’ve started the Gamefound page for my next Roll & Write.

Lots to do.

Lots to learn…

Advertising

We have a great product in FlickFleet.

It has loads of fans.

People love it when they are introduced to it at conventions.

But our ads perform pretty poorly.

I've tried something new this week.

15 second videos of the game.

Taken at the UK Games Expo.

It's way more successful at driving traffic to our website.

But not helping with sales at all.

I really wish I had the time to work out how to do advertising right - I'm sure we could do much better!

Opportunities

I've spent this week working on two things.

Some 'proper' ads.

Which aren't working well yet, but might in the future.

And a business opportunity.

Which could be transformative.

It is, yet again, a busy time.

Meanwhile, Paul has got the laser-cutter repaired.

No longer out of action

And is boxing up the US/Canadian orders from the Gamefound campaign.

Now the laser-cutter is repaired we can make up the last few things required and ship them all to GamesQuest to begin their journey to the US.

After that it will be the EU ones and the last few standard rewards.

Fulfilment is well on-track.

Catch-up

Things are flat out at the moment.

Paul is speedily shipping Gamefound rewards.

So I've got to do the bookkeeping for those shipped pledges.

We've had a run of website orders.

So I've got to do the bookkeeping for those too.

It’s not over yet!

And there's a whole heap of post-Expo tasks to do too.

Plus there's a possible game changer that's looming with a deadline of the 19th.

There's loads to do!

Awesome

We've just got back from the UK Games Expo.

Before it all began...

Four full-on days of travel, demoing & selling FlickFleet, and hanging out with my best mate.

It was awesome.

We were both a bit worried about how it would go.

Last year we had a run of great reviews in the lead up to the show.

And it was our best year ever.

No reviews this year.

It could have been disappointing.

We had no idea what to expect really.

We needn't have worried.

It ran from Friday to Sunday, and by Friday lunchtime Paul had decided to go back to York to get more stock. We ran out of some things, and were very low on others.

By the end of the first day.

Paul's return to York was well worth it!

We had our best show ever again.

Sales were amazing.

But more than that, it was awesome to spend the time chatting to people who love FlickFleet or introducing people to FlickFleet for the first time and seeing them love it.

See FlickFleet spark joy.

Playing a game and having passing members of the public stop to tell others that the game is amazing and they need to buy it. Several times.

Getting our best ever score (12!) in the solo competition, not once but twice!

And many hours with Paul, catching up, making plans and working out our next steps.

I feel energized. And enthused. And utterly knackered.

Wrinkles

Paul has started fulfilment.

But the laser cutter is on the blink again.

A bit of a pain

This one is much less reliable than the previous one was.

Until it caught fire :(

We’re getting an engineer out again to investigate.

Laser-cutting is paused.

Thankfully Paul has already cut everything we need for the UK Games Expo next weekend.

And most of the deluxe rewards.

So he can take a break from cutting.

And focus on boxing and shipping for a while.

My parents left this morning.

So I’m back at it too.

Looking forward to the Expo.

Say hi if you’re there! We’re at 2-564 again - same place as last year.

Ready

I’ve finally finished the fulfilment spreadsheet.

And Paul has finished most of the deluxe rewards.

Another very full box!

We’re almost ready to begin shipping!

And then it’s the UK Games Expo at the end of next week.

Lots to do.

But mum and dad are visiting this week, so I’ll not get much done this week.

Thankfully I did a lot of it last week.

Happy

We’ve spent the weekend in the Lake District.

I love being surrounded by hills

The Wife was volunteering there on Sunday.
So we made a weekend of it.

Friday night we went north to see the aurora for only the second time in my life.

It was better in Northumberland than when I saw it in Finland!

Then over to the Lakes on Saturday.

The weather was amazing and we did a beautiful walk round Elterwater on Saturday.

Then Sunday the girls and I did one in Eskdale.

The Lakes is my Happy Place.

It was wonderful.

Now I need to generate the spreadsheet so Paul can start fulfilment.

And get everything ready for the UK Games Expo at the end of the month.

After a couple of stressful weeks in my day job, I needed that weekend break.

Preparations

The UK Games Expo is only a few weeks away.

It’s probably the only UK show we’re attending this year because of holiday clashes.

We’ll be at 2-564 in Hall 2 again

As usual, we’ll be running our competition to win lots of deluxe FlickFleet boxes.

Worth over £300!

It’s a solo tournament that takes about five minutes to play.

We run it during the first and last hour of each day.

Paul is making up stock for us to sell, alongside the rewards for the last crowdfunding campaign.

I’m sorting out everything on the UKGE portal, ordering walls and sorting out posters.

Hope to see some of you there!

Broken

As I've mentioned before, I have a set of daily tasks.

Things I do every day.

Some are things to benefit my physical health.

Some are things to benefit my mental health.

Plus games design.

Which I think benefits my mental health as well as helping Eurydice Games.

And I'm a data nerd. So I track it.

Last year I managed 176 days in a row of doing all my tasks.

I took a break over Christmas.

We were away with family, I was out of my routine with less time by myself.

I started again on the first of Jan.

I've already broken it twice this year.

Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash

Once on the 17th Jan and then again last Wednesday.

After 96 days in a row :(

I'd done everything but games design.

I sat down at the computer to do it in the evening.

Just a little bit of graphic design on my latest prototype.

But I got distracted.

Did some bookkeeping.

Sorted out a few of the overcharge stragglers.

Went to bed.

Didn't realise until the morning.

Today I hope to get to 5 again... 

Advertising

I’ve started running ads again.

We’ve not run any since the last Gamefound campaign closed.

Sales were great for a couple of months afterwards anyway, and then we almost completely ran out of FlickFleet stock.

So no ads.

Nothing to sell.

Except that’s not true.

New game!

We have our print at home roll and writes: Rocky ‘Roid and The Planets My Destination.

We can’t run out of stock of those - they’re digital downloads!

So I’ve started advertising them.

I’m hoping to get a few more sales of TPMD.

I think it’s a better game than Rocky ‘Roid and has had great feedback.

But we didn’t crowdfund it, or advertise it at all until now.

So sales have been about 1/100th of Rocky ‘Roid!

Crowdfunding works.

Might crowdfund the next one again :/

Holiday

I’ve spent the last week away with all my family again.

19 of us.

2 years to 78 years in age.

It was great to see them all.

Hang out.

Explore south Wales.

Play some games.

But most of all to see my dad doing better after his recent operation than he has been in years.

Seeing him standing and walking unaided.

With more energy.

Staying up later.

The marvels of modern medicine.

Home now, and need to crack on with fulfilment.

First up, mopping up that last of the errors from the Gamefound campaign.

Error

It's been a mixed week.

The boxes have arrived. 

Paul's house is rammed again.

One of many stashes!

We're just waiting on the delayed baggies before we can start making everything again.

And start fulfilment.

But most of the week has been fixing my error.

Last week I found out that we'd overcharged 150 people on the latest Gamefound campaign.

My mistake.

I reduced our prices, and missed the pledge level itself.

So I took some time to find out exactly who was affected and then emailed them all.

Offering a £5 refund, or a £5 add-on.

It's taken a long time to update the spreadsheets with those answers and issue the refunds requested.

But it's all my own fault.

Our customers are awesome though.

Everyone's been nice about it.

Some offered it as a tip or a charity donation.

We're lucky to have them!

Feaster

Paul and his family are visiting for the Easter weekend.

Feaster.

A weekend of feasting, catching up, and gaming.

It’s great to see them all.

Catch up.

Plus, play some games.

We’re teaching each other new games.

Playing a lot with the kids.

Plus a bit of playtesting.

Roll and Write 4 is only a couple of weeks old. But Paul’s enjoyed it and had very few suggestions for improvements.

I love that I can turn roll and writes around quick enough that we can play it again.

But different.

On the same weekend.

Action

I've been feeling a bit jaded the last few weeks.

It's sapped my enthusiasm.

I've not made much progress.

Things we're piling up in front of me.

I needed a change.

I took Wednesday off work.

Cracked on with those tasks.

New versions of a couple of roll and write prototypes.

Sorting out a couple of FlickFleet fulfilment tasks.

Started writing the 3rd edition rulebook.

Made decent progress.

Carried that into the weekend.

Had two hours to myself during Daughter the Second's dance rehearsal.

Spent it playtesting.

Made changes. Tried them out. More progress.

Got home. Made more changes.

I made a note once. I think I read it from Shane Parrish.

Action leads to Progress. Progress leads to Momentum. Momentum leads Motivation.

I think it might be true. 

It's been a good week. Things are picking up.

Deficit

Historically, our website sales have been very low.

Very low.

We lived from Kickstarter to Kickstarter.

Suddenly, last year we started getting some great FlickFleet reviews. 

And since May last year website sales have been amazing. Like two orders of magnitude better.

At times that made sense: a great review, some TikTok coverage, running ads during a campaign.

But it kept going. Once the ads stopped. 

Still amazing.

That great run finally came to an end in February.

Bit of a blessing really, we’ve run out of most things.

But now we’re running at a deficit.

Overheads outstripping sales.

It weighs on me. Saps my motivation. Eats away at our cash.

Takes me back to the dying days of Reiver Games, watching the money pour out of the account.

While I wallowed in self-pity.

Need to get my mojo back.

We should be getting the boxes and the baggies we need to start making everything again just after Paul gets back from his holiday.

That’ll help.

I’ll have to start running some ads again then.

Take some action.

See if we can get it to pick back up.

We need to be covering our overheads at a minimum.