Yay! Boo! Yay! Boo!

It’s been a mixed week.

Yay: Paul has sent all but 12 of the rewards due in April now, four of those are to friends that we will deliver by hand, one is still waiting on a shipping address and the other seven will go early next week.

He’s got everything he needs to start sending the first twenty-odd October rewards too.

Boo: Paul’s garage door is broken. He needs to open the door to run the extraction hose from the laser cutter outside while cutting, so until it’s fixed we can’t make any more games. It shouldn’t get in the way of the October deadline, but will delay the last few rewards at least a few weeks.

Yay: I went to my third consecutive Newcastle Playtest last week with Coalescence again. It’s getting better again - making solid progress. We also had some good ideas to improve it further. I’m really glad the Newcastle Playtest is running again. I didn’t make it along at all last year (work travel or hand-crafting FlickFleet always got in the way) and it eventually petered out. I restarted it in January and we’ve now had three good back-to-back sessions :-)

Coalescence taking shape (pun intended!)

Boo: I also took along the other game I’m working on which had had its first test with Paul a couple of weeks ago. I’ve totally broken it! Time to roll back a load of changes and try to approach it in a different direction.

Designing Again

Last year I spent making FlickFleet copies. It was all-encompassing. We needed to make about 300 for the first Kickstarter’s rewards and each one was entirely hand-made. At the beginning of the year my half of the construction (making the boxes, cutting the dashboards and packing the contents in the box) took me about 25 minutes per game. 

I work full time and have two young kids so my chance to do this is in the evenings after the kids are asleep and we’ve tidied up for the day, so I started somewhere between 8:30 and 9pm. My youngest sleeps terribly so to survive I need to get to bed pretty early - ideally 10pm. As a result I ended up spending three nights a week making games for most of the year.

As a result of that and wanting to spend some time with The Wife after the kids were asleep, I did pretty much nothing last year except making games. In 2012 I set up a playtesting group with another designer. Last year I didn’t make it once (and he’s moved on too, so it petered out). We have a local games club that meets twice a month. I didn’t make it to that either. Nor did I do any real games design either. Even after Paul (who works 3 days a week and has an older kid) took a load of the manufacturing off my plate.

This time we’ve managed to reach the scale where we can get the dashboards cut for us and the boxes manufactured too (they’re finally turning up at Paul’s today!), so Paul is going to do all the construction (which is laser cutting the bits, bagging everything and then putting stuff in the boxes).

I’ll finish off the remaining stock from the first Kickstarter, do the books, website, marketing and admin stuff.

This frees up a lot of my time (especially good as I started a new job last week!) and as a result I’ve been in the mood for designing again. I’ve restarted the playtest group, started work on two designs and almost made it to Newcastle Gamers (the bi-monthly games club) this week, but was foiled by a truly terrible night’s sleep the preceding night.

I’ve got two ideas on the go at the moment: Coalescence: a dexterity game of solar system engineering and a multi-session game set in the FlickFleet universe that Paul and I came up with over breakfast on our recent trip to York.

I’ll be sharing more about these two games over the next few weeks.

A Meeting of Minds

Paul and I live about 100 miles apart, he lives in York (where we used to live) and me in Newcastle.

We meet up every couple of months or so for a nice family weekend together and some gaming and Eurydice scheming.

This weekend was one of those. We had a lovely time all hanging out together and Paul taught me three new games (Montana, Fabled Fruit and Century Golem Edition) all of which I really enjoyed. We also spent a decent chunk of time thinking about FlickFleet scenarios, the next FlickFleet release and we had an idea over Sunday breakfast for a new (very different!) game set in the FlickFleet universe that we spent all day Sunday fleshing out in between eating, reading stories to the kids and soft play.

Paul and I being apart is not usually a big problem for Eurydice (most of the stuff can be done via WhatsApp and meeting every couple of months), but we’re in one of the times when it does. The deluxe copies of FlickFleet and the expansion from our second Kickstarter need to be signed by both of us. Those boxes arrive at Paul’s this week (hopefully Thursday), so I can’t do my signatures before then. Paul has everything ready to put in the first 130 or so boxes but can’t post them until I’ve signed them.

So I’ve taken this Friday (my last day in my current job) off and I’ll be travelling down to his house on Thursday after work to spend Thursday evening and Friday frantically signing boxes! Once that’s done we can start fulfilling the Kickstarter at a decent pace.

I’m also hoping to knock up a first cut of our new idea to try out on Thursday evening once we get bored of box signing!

Paul's garage mid construction!

Scheduling Woes

We are hoping to return to Kickstarter in September for the FlickFleet expansion pack and reprint of the base game.

The Kickstarter page is mostly done (except for the video and the stretch goals) and everything else is in place.

The plan for the video has a brief bit of Paul and I talking at the beginning, like we did on the last one. But that requires me, Paul and my mate Wilka (our videographer) to all be in the same room at the same time and The Wife to be free to look after the kids (or to do it one evening after bedtime). Wilka is a force of nature with an impressive social life. Paul lives 100 miles away and is in France for two of the next four weekends and my parents are visiting at the end of the month for up to two weeks. Finding a single evening were we can all get together in Newcastle was proving tricky to say the least. Especially if we want to do it early enough to get the editing completed before the end of the month.

As a result we’ve changed our plans to replace the talking heads with some scrolling text, which means that Wilka and I can do it one evening after bedtime.

We also needed to meet up and swap stuff - I needed to get more bits from Paul to enable me to make the remaining pre-orders and then put FlickFleet live on the website and I needed to give him some Zombology copies for the two Travelling Man (our only retail stockist) stores nearest to his house - we met on Saturday in a motorway service station for a brief chat and prisoner exchange!

A Bump in the Road

With delivery from Paul of everything I needed to finish the Kickstarter rewards just over a week ago and then another visit from Paul yesterday with enough cut box labels to finish the rewards, the time it takes me to finish a game has dropped from 25 mins to just under 14. 

I had intended to complete another weekly batch of 16 last week, but with three days in Manchester for work and then a very late bedtime for The Toddler on Sunday I only managed to get eight done (though I gave those to Paul and he's posting them today) so there’s now only 72 left to do - four and a half weeks’ work. I'm going to try to make up the eight I missed last week over the next couple of weeks, so hopefully I'll be back on track before my trip to California at the beginning of August (I get a week off crafting that week!).

Either way, the end of August that we're aiming for is a personal target - it's way ahead of the December target we set in the Kickstarter.  One of the benefits of hand-crafting the games is that everything is under our control so we're not at the mercy of a factory's production schedules or international cargo shipping.

Of course the downside is that we're spending a lot of time physically making the games, and hence we have a lot less time for testing other games or working on scenarios.

My hope is the next Kickstarter will be successful enough to support more manufacturing outside my kitchen and Paul's garage!

All Systems Go!

For the last six months Paul and I have been managing FlickFleet construction between two sites that are 100 miles apart.

I’ve got all the printed stuff (box labels, dashboards, Zombology bits) and to begin with had the greyboard for the boxes too. Paul has the laser cutter, acrylic and wooden bits (and for the last couple of months has had the FlickFleet box greyboard as well).

Paul, who works part-time, has been blasting through his half of the construction and we’ve been periodically meeting up so he can supply me with the bits I need to finish copies and ship them - either through family visits on the weekend or a quick pint in York (where Paul lives) station on my way home from frequent work trips to Manchester.

With my house move looming over us for the last several months I’ve been trying to minimise the stuff I’ve got in my house, so I managed to offload the greyboard onto Paul (and he cut all the box blanks from it!) and I've been trying to turn the stock around as quickly as possible to minimise finished stock in the house.

With the move now safely behind us, I need to reverse that trend. I'm aiming to make and ship 16 copies of FlickFleet a week now, and the last couple of times we've met up I've taken 20 or so copies from Paul (which due to the weight of the acrylic and wooden bits is pretty much all I can carry!). I go to Manchester every three to four weeks - that's clearly not a solution we can rely on, so this weekend we invited Paul and his family up to see the new house and bring everything I need to complete the Kickstarter rewards - that's around 100 games' worth of box blanks, acrylic and wooden bits and all the postage boxes he had.

Now I have everything I need to complete the fulfilment - Paul's done (more than!) his fair share. Though he did take eleven finished copies back with him to post while I'm in Manchester next week. He also took a bunch of labels - so he can cut them out - saving me a further three minutes per game (about five hours for the rest of the Kickstarter rewards).

All I need to finish Kickstarter fulfilment!

In related news, I'll be at Tabletop Manchester at The Wharf pub tonight for gaming and will have Zombology and FlickFleet with me if you're interested to try them out!

Back in the Saddle

This week I have resumed FlickFleet crafting in the new house!

We’re still in a chaotic state with boxes everywhere, but I’ve found the FlickFleet materials and started making games again. 

With my crafting table in pieces on a pile of boxes in the garage I’ve had to improvise, and I’ve been using the kitchen island instead.

Bon appétit!

The good news is that this is a better height for standing at (I stand up to cut out the labels and dashboards) but worse for sitting at (the bar stools are much less comfortable than my office chair!).

Last week I made 16 copies as planned and this week I have everything I need to make 10 of my 16 target, then I've run out again. So we’ve arranged for Paul and his family to come up and see our new house (and bring everything he’s made that I need to complete the Kickstarter rewards: 87 cut box blanks, 87 bags of sorted bits and all the postage boxes he’s got). 

That will remove one of the obstacles to hitting our deadlines: our need to meet up periodically and exchange things made at one or the other house!

Box Fort!

Last Tuesday we moved into the new house. It all went fairly smoothly on the day and now we are just sorting through all the stuff we still have in boxes trying to work out where it will all live.

My half of the Eurydice Games stuff ready for the move!

Long term the plan is that the smallest bedroom will end up as a crafting studio for me to make Eurydice Games, but in the short term The Toddler is in there while we sort out the other rooms.

On Friday I brought the bits I’d collected from Paul and left at work home with me and I intend to resume crafting this week. Progress will be slow for a few weeks while I sort out the rest of the house, but at this point I’m still right on track for completing the Kickstarter rewards in August.

Hiatus II: Return of the Hiatus

After three months of living in limbo, it appears that we finally have a date for our house move: next Tuesday. So I have just over a week to sort our stuff out and get rid of as much finished stock as possible to avoid it getting damaged in the move. The good news is that I currently only have one finished copy of both FlickFleet and Zombology and three half-finished Zombology copies. I need to finish those by Thursday as I'll be restocking our only retailer, Travelling Man, in Manchester on my way home from a work trip.

I’m also going to meet Paul in York and pick up some more FlickFleet bits on my way through, though I’ll leave those under my desk at work until I get the move over with.

I’ve planned for a few weeks of no crafting as we settle into the new house and start sorting out all our stuff and yet still expect to get all the Kickstarter rewards in the Post by the end of August - several months ahead of schedule.

For now though my focus needs to be on sorting out our belongings for the move!

Hiatus Averted!

Last week was a particularly weird one as we didn't know until Wednesday whether or not we were moving house on the Friday! I was trying to hedge my games production so that I didn't have loads of half-made games kicking around the house that might get damaged during the move - my goal was to try to finish and ship as much as I could without starting more.

As it was, we found out on Wednesday afternoon that the move wasn't possible (it was a very last minute rush that had a fairly low chance of happening) so I was able to return to production over the weekend.

We've now made (and almost shipped!) all of the rewards except the Bombers (a copy of FlickFleet and a copy of Zombology) and the Fighters (a standard copy of FlickFleet). That sounds great, but there's nearly 100 Fighters to do, so there's still a chunk of work ahead of us.

With the Bombers at the top of the pile now I've gone back to making Zombology copies as we need to ship 20 of those over the next few weeks. I had four finished FlickFleet boxes left over from last week's crafting and five Zombology box blanks, so I've labelled them up and cut the cards so I could post those four rewards. On my way back from Manchester on Tuesday I met Paul again and gave him a couple of copies of FlickFleet for a friend of his and accepted from him the rest of the box blanks I needed for finishing the Bombers, plus the bagged bits for all twenty of the Bomber FlickFleets.

My plan was to dump all the stuff I got from Paul under my desk at work if we moved this week so it was safe from damage in transit during the move, but with that avoided, my new goal is to try and get as much of it in the post before the move (which is now up in the air again - hopefully some point in June!).

I'm really appreciating Paul taking on the box blank cutting, as that's saving me about five minutes per game, which doesn't sound like much but it's almost 25% of my construction time, so it makes a big difference! The other benefit is that all the box card is now at Paul's not stacked up under my spare bed, so that's one other thing I don't have to worry about the movers damaging!

Deluxe Pledges Complete!

Yesterday I finished off the last of the Rise Up deluxe pledges, which were due in September. I’ll be shipping them over the next couple of weeks. 

Last week was a good one with a chance to make it along to Tabletop Manchester where we played Zombology four times and a visit from Paul and his family on Sunday afternoon.

Seeing as Paul has more free time than me, he’s taken the greyboard for the box blanks and will be cutting those for me. He’s way ahead of schedule on the laser cutting, so I’m the weakest link at the moment - this will help out quite a lot (making a box blank takes me seven minutes and 39 seconds, so when Paul gives me the cut and scored blanks back all I’ll have to do is fold them and tape them - maybe two minutes' work. A five or six minute saving doesn’t sound like much until you realise we still have 270 boxes to make!

I’ve kept enough greyboard to make the boxes for the Commodore pledges which are up next. After those (two weeks’ work) it’s the Bomber pledges which also require me to make 20 copies of Zombology, so I’ll crack on with those afterwards.

Tonight I’m off to Bedford on the train for my friend Andrew’s funeral. I’ll be spending eight hours on the train over the next two days getting there and back again, so rather than spending that time dwelling on our fleeting time on this planet, I’ve taken my laptop so I can distract myself with some Eurydice Games work.

On Holiday!

A brief blog post this week as I’m away on holiday with my family at the moment.

Last week I finished the 100th FlickFleet box (that’s 1/4 of the print run and over 40% of the Kickstarter rewards completed). I also tested and posted the first FlickFleet scenario on the web. We’re hoping to build up a large collection of additional scenarios, so if you’ve designed one, please send it to us and we’ll get it up too.

The first additional FlickFleet scenario

I’ll be taking this week off, with the possible exception of some more scenario design as I play it with my family.

When I get back I'll be making more Zombology copies as we have another stocking order from our single retail supplier.

Change of Gear

For the last several weeks our focus has been on making games - Paul has been flat out laser-cutting ships and bagging bits and I’ve been spending several evenings a week making games and then most of my lunch breaks taking the week’s batch of completed games to the Post Office.

Paul is now way ahead of (even our accelerated) schedule and I’ve used up and posted the last of the bits I got from Paul at the end of February, so I can’t post any more games until we meet up and exchange bits again. I’m still making boxes and cutting dashboards, but those are now stockpiling ready for our next exchange of bits.

This frees up my lunch breaks this week, so I’m planning to try out some new scenario ideas so I can get them up on the website - now that 75 people have the game I want to ensure there’s plenty of scenarios available to keep them entertained.

Next week I’ll be on holiday with my family (16 of us!), so I’ll not be making any games, but I’m betting we’ll play some FlickFleet as I’ll be hand delivering my brother’s and sister’s copies and I think my nephew and nieces in particular are very keen to play.

Until then, I'll be crafting another batch of boxes, etc. that will take us to over 100 completed games - that's a quarter of the run! I've also done a little Zombology this week too - I've still got 49 of those to make (20 of which are for Kickstarter backers).

Back to Zombology crafting as well this week

Now With Added Colour!

I had a really busy week at work last week and The Toddler had a cold and hence slept even worse than usual, but I still managed to get 13 copies in the post (the last of the Uprising Heroes and a prize for the design a scenario competition I held last year). On the weekend I made another 12 copies (the first of the Reinforcements tier - due in June). That leaves me with another 12 games’ worth of bits that I got from Paul on our weekend away recently. Once I’ve finished those (hopefully this week) I’ll be building up boxes again for our next exchange of pieces.

I’ve got three more weeks of crafting and then I’m away for a week’s holiday with the whole of my family (16 of us) during which I imagine we’ll play some games of FlickFleet.

At the moment I’m focusing on trying to get as many made and shipped as possible before we move house in the next 2-3 months. 

Meanwhile over on the Kickstarter page a couple of people have asked if it's possible to colour the etching on the Deluxe ships so the names are more legible from a distance. Paul's been experimenting and come up with these results:

Colourful Dreadnought!

He drew in the line with a Sharpie pen and then quickly wiped off the excess with a WD-40 soaked paper towel!

Uprising Heroes Complete!

The first deluxe tier in our FlickFleet Kickstarter was set for delivery in March 2019. The Kickstarter completed on the 8th Dec and we didn’t get the funds until the 21st (by which time I was already on Christmas holiday!). We didn’t start ordering things until early January and the laser cutter wasn’t fully operational until early February, so it was always going to be tight, but I’m delighted to say that I finished the last of the 52 copies we needed to make last night (Paul is way ahead of me!) and I’ll be posting them all this week - with two weeks to spare before the end of the month I’m very hopeful that they’ll all arrive on time.

The last few copies of the first tier of rewards

We also been getting people sharing pictures of their received copies on twitter and Facebook and even some pictures of it in play at Airecon this weekend :-)

It feels great to be making and shipping copies on time and also to see it out the wild with people enjoying it.

I’ll be sending out the next Kickstarter survey this week and hope to start shipping the next tier of rewards (due in June) next week. I should be able to do about thirty of those before running out of laser cut bits at which point I’ll have to meet up with Paul again to get some more.

I’ve also been thinking about what's next after FlickFleet fulfilment completes. I’ve a couple of game ideas that meet the Eurydice criteria (fast, fun and unique) but they all require a decent chunk of work before they are ready (if ever).

Plenty to keep me busy!

FlickFleet in Flight!

As I mentioned last week, we’re now shipping FlickFleet. On Saturday Paul posted 28 of the 30 copies he’s done (he’s hand-delivering the last two to friends) and over the weekend I made another 11 copies of my bits and added the bits Paul gave me last weekend to them and I’ll be posting those during my lunch breaks this week.

Paul’s postage piles!

The first and last groups of games were always going to be the tightest - the first because we had to order everything and get the laser cutter set up and running properly; the last because there’s well over 100 of them. I’m delighted that we’re on track still - so many Kickstarters deliver late, to be making all the games by hand and still hitting our deadlines is a real achievement, and it’ll set us up nicely for future Kickstarters - we’ll have a reputation for trustworthiness in terms of delivery that can only be earned by coming through on your promises.

The next challenge will be that we’re moving house in the next few months which will obviously be disruptive - I want to get as many copies shipped before the move as possible to minimise the disruption. Back to the crafting board!

Shipping This Week!

This weekend Paul and I and our families met up for a joint long weekend. We ate and drank well, hung out and chatted, played with the kids and got some gaming in, but most relevant to this blog is the FlickFleet progress. Paul had spent last week frantically laser cutting deluxe sets and I was measuring and cutting box tops. Each FlickFleet deluxe edition is signed, numbered, enscribed with a message and optionally personalised.

I brought 30 finished boxes with the rules and dashboards in on holiday and Paul brought 45 deluxe games’ worth of ships, wooden bits and dice, plus two standard copies for the two backers at the Uprising Hero (first to ship) level who got a standard copy as well as a deluxe one.

During the weekend Paul and I numbered, enscribed and both signed those 30 finished boxes, plus we numbered and signed the 48 box tops I’d brought with me that were cut but not assembled yet.

That will allow me to ship the 45 games’ worth of bits as I make the boxes for them, and Paul to ship the 30 boxes as he cuts and bags more bits, we expect to ship all the Uprising Hero pledges before mid-March, so they should arrive by the end of March as promised on the Kickstarter.

I also made a jig for the box top blanks last week too, which I think will significantly speed up making them as I put the measurements on it once, rather than measuring every sheet. I’m going to make one for the box bottoms this week and time it to see how much time it saves - it felt like quite a lot, but I don’t have the data yet! I still have 345 games worth of box blanks to make, so a saving of a minute or two per game will save many hours of work in total.

It’s really exciting to be shipping the games this week - our baby will be in peoples’ hands shortly - I hope they enjoy it as much as we and the reviewers do!

Off to Snowy Boston!

Last week was spent delivering Zombology copies to Travelling Man for another stocking order (they are our only retail stockist: a chain of four games stores in the north of England - but they have single-handedly sold a quarter of the print run!), starting to make a few more to replenish our stock pile which has just been cleaned out, and trying to get ahead of the game on FlickFleet stock.

Meanwhile Paul has been completely redoing the laser-cutting files I sent him to support the etching mode on our laser cutter  and then doing the test cut so we could go ahead and order the bulk acrylic.

A deluxe fleet

I’m in America all week this week for work (I’m posting this from an airport coffee shop on the way to Boston), so I wanted to get some stock stacked up to stay on track of fulfillment despite taking this week off crafting. Our accelerated plan had 26 finished last week and 35 this week, but I only managed to get 30 boxes and 12 games' worth of dashboards done before I left - I’ll be catching up slowly over forthcoming weeks. 

This week I was planning to go to The Castle Board Game cafe in Beverly, MA on Tuesday night to demo FlickFleet and Zombology, but the weather tomorrow is now looking like we’d be better heading to our next stop as early as possible as they are expecting heavy snow on Tuesday - we don’t want to get snowed in to the wrong city!

When I get back I’ll have just under a week to get some more FlickFleets made up before we go away for a long weekend with Paul and his family. The plan is to swap the boxes, dashboards and rulebooks that I’ve made with laser-cut ships and wooden pieces that he has bagged so we can both start shipping copies on our return!

After a few weeks of frantic crafting, my hands could do with a break this week!

Stocking Up

FlickFleet construction is continuing with boxes getting labelled and filled with ship dashboards and rules in Newcastle and the wooden pieces arriving and laser cutter experimentation happening in York. 

 

The first batch of finished boxes

I’m off to Massachusetts for work in a couple of weeks so I’m trying to get ahead of the game as that week I’ll not be able to do any construction (side note: if you’re near Beverly, MA on the evening of Tuesday 12th February, why not pop along to The Castle Board Game Cafe - I’ll be there with my FlickFleet prototype and Zombology).

My focus before that trip will be stacking up FlickFleets that are as finished as I can get them, but also some more Zombology stock. I’ve currently got 15 finished Zombology games at home. Five of those are for the first few batches of Kickstarter backers, so stock is 10. One of my goals for this year was to keep five Zombology in stock - I've had a couple of times recently when I’ve not had enough finished stock to fulfill orders.

I’m in that boat again :-( This week I got another stocking order from my local FLGS chain for ten more copies - I’m all out! I’ll have to fit some Zombology crafting in around the FlickFleet work. The chain have now taken over one quarter of the whole print run and account for over a third of all sales!

On the upside, Paul has now sorted the deluxe laser etching - we’re all systems go!

Testing the etching

Spend! Spend! Spend!

A week ago we had the Kickstarter funds in our account and we were ready to start paying for things.

 7 kgs of dice!

Half of it is now gone! We’ve ordered the dice and they’ve arrived; a proof of the artwork and that’s arrived, been assembled and proof-read - the rest of the printing will be ordered today. We’ve ordered the wooden pieces and baggies (delivery in a couple of weeks) and the laser cutter (about a week away). Things are fast underway! 

First assembled box with final art

To meet our Kickstarter commitments we need to craft 270 FlickFleets and 27 Zombologies by the end of December. I have a crazy plan in my head where we try to get them all shipped by the end of August instead - which simplifies the bookkeeping somewhat as that’s the end of our financial year. 

However that plan involves making 10 copies every week between now and the end of August. We can have 5 weeks off for work travel and holidays, but that's still quite a stretch!

I was hoping that it would take me about 20 minutes to do my part (making boxes and cutting out ship dashboards), but the first attempt took 32! That’s nearly six hours of crafting a week. That doesn’t sound like a lot until you realise the time I have available for crafting is usually 9-10pm - so that’s 6 out of 7 nights every week!

I’m hoping I can speed that up a bit - the boxes were made out of too thick board (the printers had run out of the right thickness) which took longer to cut and I’d run out of tape so for the proof (my copy!) so I just did the corners without tape - using the box labels to hold them together - which was a bit of a faff and definitely took longer. I’m also hoping there will be time benefits from doing a few copies at a time - less task switching should be more efficient.

At the moment things are all still up in the air though - it’ll be good once construction has begun in earnest and these things are all a bit better understood!