Tradition

I'm optimistic.

As a result, pretty much every Gamefound of mine gets pushed back before launch.

It's that time again.

I was targeting two weeks from the 20th October.

But that's just after the convention I'm helping to organise.

And my sister and her family are now visiting during half-term.

And Paul's mini-convention in Yorkshire is during that time too.

Plus, I'm nowhere near ready.

Time to admit that, and push it back by a couple of weeks.

Now targetting the 3rd to the 17th of November.

Photo by Christopher Luther on Unsplash

Hopefully, that date will stick!

MIT

I have a job (thankfully only 4 days a week now!).

And a family.

And now two side hustles.

I'm a busy man.

I've a todo list longer than most best selling novels.

It makes it difficult to see the wood from the trees sometimes.

So I've added another step to my daily habits.

What's my Most Important Thing to do tomorrow.

One thing.

That I need to complete or make progress on.

A priority.

Some much needed focus.

As a result, I've made loads of progress on our next Gamefound campaign this week.

It's not visible yet, but it's taking shape behind the scenes.

Biggest concern at the moment is the new EU law.

Which is going to make things harder (impossible?) to handle EU orders.

I'm still investigating that...

Improvement

Last financial year was awful.

We ran a Gamefound campaign during the year but didn't fulfil it until this year.

So all the costs.

And none of the sales.

We kept our cashflow up by running Meta ads.

Lots of Meta ads.

They worked.

Sorta.

We ended the year with some cash.

But made a massive loss.

The ads were barely paying for themselves.

This year is better.

We fulfilled a Gamefound campaign, but didn't run one.

All of the sales and few of the costs!

We've also massively reduced the ads.

They are still trickling along.

But ad spent is way down.

We're on course to have our third best year of sales.

And our second best year for profit.

Next year we're looking to do more events.

FlickFleet does well at shows

Run a Gamefound campaign and fulfil it.

Plus another new game I hope.

Time

Back in November I went down to four days a week in the day job.

It was amazing.

I got so much done on Mondays.

While awake.

Rather than trying to cram it in at the end of a long work day after family commitments.

We've just had six weeks of summer holidays.

So the kids have been off school and I've been hanging out with them on Mondays.

Plus a Bank Holiday last week.

Today is my first Monday by myself in a couple of months.

I've loads to do.

Some exciting stuff.

Plus Tabletop Scotland admin.

FlickFleet drawing a crowd as usual

Games design.

Work on the next FlickFleet campaign.

Best crack on!

Scotland

Mum and dad have left.

The kids go back to school this week.

Things are starting to return to normal.

But this coming weekend we’re away at Tabletop Scotland.

Our penultimate convention of the year.

It’s a fun one.

We stay with friends.

There’s a great vibe.

We have historically done pretty well for sales.

Looking forward to it.

But also catching up on things.

I’ll have more time to catch up on things afterwards.

Mondays are my own again once the kids go back to school.

And I can get stuff done in the evenings and on the weekends.

There’s loads to do!

Visitors

My parents are here this week.

It's lovely to see them.

We Facetime almost every week.

But I only get to see them in the flesh three times a year.

Needless to say progress will be slower this week.

Last week my father-in-law and his partner were here.

Also nice to see them.

Also slower progress.

I've got a few projects on the go though.

And they are ticking along.

Slow progress is better than no progress.

It all adds up.

New prototype incoming...

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!