Wannabe

In 2006 I started self-publishing board games with Border Reivers.

In 2008 I became a hobby publisher, hand-crafting a 300 copy run of It's Alive! by Yehuda Berlinger.

In 2009 I became a proper publisher, getting a professional second run of It's Alive! done, followed by Carpe Astra (with Ted Cheatham) and Sumeria (by Dirk Liekens).

It went badly.

I lost a ton of money and wound up Reiver Games in 2011.

Eurydice Games was always intended to be different.

The name (suggested by Derek Hohls) was a clue - don't look back, do things differently.

We've spent the last 8 (or nine if you include Zombology!) years self-publishing small runs of FlickFleet and the roll and writes.

It's been different.

No professional runs.

Lots of Gamefound/Kickstarter campaigns.

All games we've designed ourselves.

There's been a few games I've wanted to publish on others' behalf though.

Sadly, none of them have got anywhere.

So we're still a SELF-publisher. 

Or a wannabe publisher.

That might be about to change.

Fingers crossed!

Back

I’m back.

The holiday comes to a close.

And, as is often the case after a good holiday, knackered.

It was amazing.

Four countries.

Six cities.

Sixteen trains (should have been 11, there were some issues!).

And four days canoeing and wild camping.

Now I’m back.

There’s loads to catch up on.

I’m ploughing through it.

Plus trying to incorporate the ideas I had for Planet 9 and Jotunsaga while I was away into new versions of those prototypes.

Plus, I need to crack on with the next FlickFleet campaign and the games convention.

Busy, busy!

Calm

We’re halfway through our holiday.

We did a few days of trains and cities, and missed connections and delays. 

Then four days canoeing the wilds of central Sweden.

Just the wind and the waves for company.

Glorious weather, camping on sandbanks.

My view for the last four days

It was super relaxing.

An amazing adventure.

Now we’re back in civilisation.

Hopefully with less travel disruption!

Die Speicherstadt

Die Speicherstadt is a board game I’ve owned for probably 15 years.

By Stefan Feld.

The art is by Harald Lieske, who I got to do the amazing art for Sumeria.

And today I’m in it.

It’s the old warehouse quarter of Hamburg in Germany.

We’re spending the day here on our train holiday around Europe.

It’s pretty!

Mondays

In November I went down to four days a week in my day job.

I’m incredibly lucky that we can afford it.

It’s allowed me one day a week to focus on Eurydice and Tyneside Games Expo.

Previously they were consuming all my spare time around a full time job and a family.

Now I have some free time.

And I can work on the companies when I’m awake, not after a full day’s work and family responsibilities are done.

They’ve been amazing.

I start with an hour’s walk in a local park.

Then crack on until it’s time to collect my youngest from school.

We’re now into the holidays.

So Mondays are family time now.

Today I’ll do my walk with the girls.

And play games with the youngest while the eldest goes shopping with friends.

Progress will be slower for the next six weeks!

But it's time well spent.

Fans

I've spent the last week or so working on our next quarterly newsletter.

This one is focused around all the cool stuff fans of FlickFleet have done.

From scenarios to ships.

Guides to ...

...websites.

Translations to holistic rulebooks.

So much cool stuff.

Done by fans of the game.

We're so grateful for all their contributions.

As usual there's a recommendation for something cool I've come across in their too.

If you're interested, scroll to the bottom of this page and subscribe here in the next few hours to get it!

Awareness

One of my daily habits is now business development.

Every day I try to do something to drive Eurydice Games forward.

Some days it's tiny.

Some days it's big.

But progress. Every. Single. Day.

I group it into three categories:

• Awareness - introducing new people to FlickFleet and our roll and writes.
• Sales - driving sales among those who know.
• Strategy - longer term work on new products, new ideas, new markets.

We're still not at the point where we're sustainable outside of crowdfunding or conventions.

An ordinary month's web sales don't cover our overheads.

Last year I tried to fix that with ads.

It fixed the cashflow, but broke the profitability.

We spent way too much on ads.

This year I'm trying something different.

I've scaled the ads right back.

I'm trying to do more social media.

More reaching out to press.

Longer campaign previews.

I've even started a Tiktok.

It's pushing me out of my comfort zone.

This is excruciating!

I have a face for radio and a voice for silent movies.

But I'm giving it a try.

It's a low effort thing that might pay off given time.