Isolation

With COVID sweeping through our house we’ve been housebound again.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Feels a lot like the first lockdown of 2020. 

Though thankfully much shorter.

I’ve not left the house since last Saturday. 

Nine days. Tomorrow I might finally be allowed out.

I had last week off work too, a combination of sick leave at the beginning and then having to homeschool the girls while they isolated and The Wife was sick.

The girls are back at school now.

The Wife is feeling better.

At least we all had mild cases.

And it didn’t get in the way of our family holiday in a couple of weeks.

My parents have it too this week. They seem to be weathering it well too.

I’m thankful.

COVID

Two whole years of a pandemic badly mismanaged by our government.

We’ve been careful, but not extremely so.

Especially at the beginning when there was little information, lots of fear, and I was classified as highly vulnerable because of my MS.

And we’ve dodged it, again and again. Despite two young kids in two different schools.

Until now.

On Thursday, Daughter the Second was sent home from school early with a fever.

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

A PCR test confirmed COVID the next morning.

I think it’s inevitable that we all get it, even triply vaccinated as The Wife and I are.

I felt pretty rubbish over the weekend. And got a positive result this morning.

Still managed to make some progress on the Gamefound page on the weekend though.

It’s getting there.

Spending most of today in bed again though.

Hey! Over Here!

This week I’ve been fighting with adverts.

Advertising makes me really uncomfortable.

Weaponising attention.

Photo by Ｋｕｃｈｉｈｉｇｅ Ｓａｂｏｔｅｎ on Unsplash

Then I read “advertising is the act of introducing your product to the people who would want to buy it if they knew about it”.

Advertising now makes me slightly less uncomfortable.

But needs must. We’re now paying Paul’s salary.

Every month when we’re not fulfilling a Kickstarter we’re losing money. That’s not sustainable.

We have a great product in FlickFleet.

And it’s very popular with the few people who know about it.

So how do we get it in front of more people who would love it if they knew about it?

I’ve been fighting with Facebook and briefly Twitter ads this week.

Trying to tweak things to boost their success.

All my changes make things worse.

The ads are barely covering their cost.

I need to up my game.

A lot.

Threshold

It's a momentous occasion when you first post a game.

Whether for playtesting, review or a sale.

You are putting yourself out there. 

What has been under wraps is now public.

It might be well received and you'll bask in the glow of positive feedback.

Or it might not. And you have to weather the storm.

Exciting times...

About to cross the threshold

This weekend we've sent four out of five playtest copies of FlickFleet: Xeno Wars.

I hope the feedback is positive, but if not, it's not too late to make changes.