Habits

I have a list of daily tasks I do.

To protect my health.

My mind.

My body.

But also to hone my craft.

Games design is one of them.

I do a bit every day.

Building my skills.

Making my games better.

I have a broad definition of games design.

Title ideas. Theme ideas. Mechanism ideas. Writing rules. Creating prototypes. Playtesting. Graphic design on a prototype or final version.

But a bit every day.

Sometimes a tiny bit.

Sometimes several big bits.

But each day I am practising.

Getting better.

And my games are moving forward.

Yesterday it was helping Daughter the Second with a game idea she had.

The first page of the Gal4Xeon rules taking shape in InDesign

Then a bit more work on the Gal4Xeon rules.

Today is my day off.

I'll make more progress.

Onwards! 

Gal4Xeon

I've been working on a fifth roll and write game for a few months now.

It's been coming together nicely.

It got great feedback at my last playtest.

And now it's got a name.

You have ten eons to expand across the galaxy. Explore new sectors. Develop new technologies. Exploit resources. Conquer or trade with the aliens you encounter. Will you make it to the precursor ruins at the edge of the galaxy, or focus on claiming the galactic core?

Still putting the finishing touches on it, but it feels like it's getting there.

The Wife is away this week, so I have the evenings to myself.

I hope to make some decent progress.

Wings

Two months ago, when I went down to York to help Paul with Gamefound fulfilment, I told him I had no more roll and writes under development.

Then I had an idea on the way home.

I was able to cannibalise bits from The Planets My Destination and Exodus from Reynoldsworld to knock up a quick prototype.

Since then I've played it and tweaked it 16 times.

It had its first public outing at Newcastle Playtest in early October.

That highlighted some overly complex bits.

I made changes.

Tweaked it some more.

At Yorcon just over a week ago it had its second outing.

And it was very well received.

They wanted to play it some more.

I've now got a rough and ready playtest kit together.

So I've prepared it for sharing.

No diagrams in the rules yet, but it's got rules and a player sheet as PDFs ready to download.

Anyone fancy giving it a try and providing feedback?

Either on the game or the clarity of the rules.

I would love to hear what you think...

YorCon

Last weekend I spent 46 hours in a building in the middle of nowhere:

For the last four years Paul has organised a small gaming convention there.

For him, his family and about 25 of his friends.

Including me :)

It was a fantastic weekend of gaming, lovely food, and great company.

I played 17 games.

Went for a couple of walks in the countryside.

Played some pool.

And even playtested a couple of my games and a couple of others.

The new roll and write was very well received :)

Had a great post-game discussion about the Troll prototype.

It was brilliant.

I'm tired now though.

Really appreciating the (official) first of my non-working Mondays.

I've some work to do on setting up our new convention.

And loads of playtesting feedback to process and work out how to incorporate.

Burnout

Eight years ago I was doing graphic design for the second run of Zombology with my sleeping daughter in my arms.

Since then I've raised two kids to the ages of 13 and 8.

Worked full time as a Software Engineer, manager of Software Engineers, or Product Owner.

And run Eurydice Games.

Which takes about 2 days a week.

Every week.

I've worked 7 days a week for 8 years.

Matthew Dunstan's recent video about burnout touched a nerve.

The last few weeks we've had advert issues.

Poor website sales.

Stress.

Last year we lost a load of money due to crowdfunding timing and advertising the website being unprofitable.

More stress.

Photo by nikko macaspac on Unsplash

The last couple of weeks I've lacked the mojo to sort out a few boring jobs about running a company.

They are starting to pile up.

Fortunately, I have an amazing wife of 22 years.

Even more fortunately, she has a new job. More hours. And a better salary.

So I've dropped Mondays at work.

I'm going part time.

I'm hoping that will free up some time to relax. 

Recuperate. 

Re-energise.

I'll be able to do some Eurydice work during daylight hours.

Not at the end of a long work day.

After family time and chores.

Hopefully, that'll help with both creativity, productivity and progress.

It starts today! 

Recovery

It's possible the website is fixed.

I think I've found the issue with the false orders.

And fixed it.

Meta is no longer reporting false sales.

And after a week and a half of no orders, we've had 5 in the last 5 days.

A return to normality.

And breathe.

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

With that load off my mind, I've been able to spend some time on the new roll and write.

The last few changes have been minimal.

It's stabilising.

Which means it's time to do a first cut of the written rules.

Which is required before I can start sending out playtest copies.

And getting some real feedback.

And hopefully some ideas for improvement.

Weirdness

It's been a bad week for the website and ads combo.

We normally get 7-10 orders a week.

Pretty reliably.

We spend a chunk of money on Facebook ads to get that.

Last week we had none.

Not one.

That hasn't happened for years.

We've been spending the same amount on ads though.

And here's where it gets really weird.

Facebook reckon their ads have brought in 21 sales this week.

21!

But we've had none.

What!?

I even placed an order myself to check the website was still working.

It is.

But the ads are screwed.

Need to fix that somehow...