Rules

For the last couple of weeks my focus has been the Rocky ‘Roid rules.

Oh, and AireCon.

Oh, and shipping Gamefound rewards.

But mostly rules.

The rules have crystallised now.

But the old ones were very basic - few examples and no diagrams.

They were easy to edit while the rules were changing, but they weren’t good enough for release.

So I’ve been splitting them up. Adding more examples.

Adding diagrams.

The low ink rules are done now.

Got high ink maps done too!

I can share them with reviewers.

High ink rules should be quite quick.

Meanwhile, I’ve been shipping the stuff I brought back from Paul’s.

Ordering packaging for the big box orders.

I’m going to sort out some more to ship once Paul’s back from his holiday.

Let him focus on cutting the last of the deluxe and EU rewards.

AireCon

Last week was all about about AireCon.

And shipping.

I spent almost all week in York, staying with Paul and Mrs. Paul.

I came down early so I could spent two days helping out with Gamefound fulfilment.

I finished off 105 FlickFleets and Paul cut and finished 15 Box of Flicks 2.

Then we picked, packed and posted 33 complex orders.

Then off to AireCon to set-up. 

Ready to go!

The weather said heavy snow so we packed overnight bags just in case, but there was just a little sleet.

Friday there was a lot of snow on the ground and the trip over was a bit hairy.

The show was pretty quiet as a result.

Saturday was much busier.

It was great fun, but hard work.

Great meeting existing fans though. And creating new ones.

I’m back at work this week.

Need to catch up on some sleep!

Preparation

Last week was preparation.

We’ve made the decision to publish Rocky ‘Roid.

My asteroid-mining roll and write.

I created a BGG page for it.

And a Gamefound campaign page.

And cracked on with the graphic design.

Lots of changes done for the low ink versions.

High ink sneak peak!

Then did the high ink versions.

And now working on proper rules. With diagrams.

This week I’m away almost all week.

It’s AireCon on the weekend, in Harrogate.

Our second convention.

And I’m going down a couple of days early to do a shift on the Gamefound fulfilment.

So that Paul can concentrate on laser-cutting.

Looking forward to spending the week with him.

Pretty

When you’re designing a game you want it to be functional.

And quick to iterate as you make changes.

And pretty to engage the testers.

But the first two are most important.

The game settles down and your changes become less frequent and smaller.

Then you can invest more time in pretty.

As you’re less likely to have to redo it.

Rocky ‘Roid is reaching that point.

This week has mostly been graphic design.

Getting prettier (low ink)

Paul has been shipping.

So I loaded all the invoices in to our accounts package using the app I wrote.

Found some bugs.

Only one lead to a shipping error and we fixed that before it arrived with the customer.

But I spent a lot of time checking for more.

And it cost us some money and Paul some time :(

Filling

I’ve spent the week sorting out the website shop.

I’d offered to do it, rather than the web developers.

It’s taken a decent chunk of time.

But we’re getting there.

I need better images for the bundles.

Then I can add the boxes of flicks.

Then the extras, starting with asteroids.

Meanwhile Paul has been filling his house.

With finished extras.

A lot of Option 13s

He’s going to be shipping a bunch of stuff soon.

Then there’s base games and the expansion boxes to do.

Progress!

Confluence

It’s all coming together.

The new website is finally live.

I’ve spent the week populating the shop part - the basics are in there now, but there’s loads more to come.

The big boxes arrived and Paul has done a test assemble.

Both big and boxy!

They are the last delivery we were waiting for the Gamefound campaign.

Paul’s working flat out, pulling long days laser-cutting.

He’s now made 320 deluxe Xeno Wars and is moving on to the extras.

Feels like we’re starting to get there!

Solo

I’ve been playing a lot of Rocky ‘Roid solo.

Mostly on my phone.

I made a webpage for it.

It’s not complete yet, but it’s mostly playable.

And it already lets me gather data.

I’m trying to work out a good way of grading the solo game.

Adding difficulty - so you can choose how much of a fight you want to automaton to provide.

I’m testing fuel load and automaton hold size to see which works best.

And learning JavaScript at the same time :)

For the first time in three years I’m hosting Newcastle Playtest this week too. I’ll be bringing three prototypes - including Rocky ‘Roid.