Production

It’s going to be a very busy month. 

I’ve got to do the graphic design for the Xeno Flicks rules and dashboards. 

I've made a start!

Work out all the quantities of things we need. 

Then get the manufacturing orders started. 

Boxes are being made as we speak.

Xeno Wars reprint has gone to the printer. 

Ideally, we’d like to have some Xeno Wars stock at the Expo. 

Need to place several orders for that though. 

Also need to finish Expo preparations. 

Progress is being made at least.

Opportunities

I've spent this week working on two things.

Some 'proper' ads.

Which aren't working well yet, but might in the future.

And a business opportunity.

Which could be transformative.

It is, yet again, a busy time.

Meanwhile, Paul has got the laser-cutter repaired.

No longer out of action

And is boxing up the US/Canadian orders from the Gamefound campaign.

Now the laser-cutter is repaired we can make up the last few things required and ship them all to GamesQuest to begin their journey to the US.

After that it will be the EU ones and the last few standard rewards.

Fulfilment is well on-track.

Origin: Paul

I’ve always loved playing games.  I have many happy memories of playing Risk (and other games, even Monopoly) with my parents and of playing D&D (a lot of D&D) with friends after school.

Work and life got in the way of gaming for a few years, until I read about Carcassonne.  My wife encouraged me to ‘try it out’ by going to Beyond Monopoly! a gaming club where I live in York.  It rekindled my love of playing games.

I started a weekly games night with friends (and friends of friends)… and through Beyond Monopoly!, I came across this nice chap, Jack, who was looking for someone to help playtest his game.

I’d won the lottery, of sorts.  Suddenly, my life was busy with a lot of gaming and I found that I genuinely enjoyed playtesting and developing games.

But even more suddenly, I became ill with Limbic Encephalitis.  I had to give up work, and my memories of the previous day would vanish overnight.  But I had amazing gaming friends, who would still come round for games night, and patiently reteach me the rules of a game I’d learnt the week before.  And in time I recovered, retrained for a new career, and got a job as a teacher.

Then I changed jobs from teaching to working on a project to help teachers teach computing. And of course, those weekly games nights continued.

Throughout it all, I remained friends with Jack... even after he moved away from York.   In fact, we’d spend perhaps even more time together, staying for the weekend with our families at each other’s houses.  We would stay up late… long, long after the children had gone to bed, playing games and playtesting.

It was one such weekend visiting Jack, that I had an idea for a game.  Inspired by a game the night before, which had promised so much but never quite made it for me. Jack and I talked it through, designed it together, and FlickFleet was born.

I won the lottery, of sorts, again when Jack asked me to join Eurydice Games. No longer on the sidelines, playtesting for him, but instead a partner with him in our games company. 

We endured a nail-biting 4 weeks for our first Kickstarter and just managed to fund.  And suddenly there I was, with a laser cutter in my garage which I needed to learn to use.

We had more successful Kickstarters.  I was balancing the laser cutting, and bagging of components, around my day job.  But it was getting harder to fit it all in.

And then I won the lottery, of sorts, yet again.  The contract for the project I was working on ended.  But Jack and I calculated that Eurydice Games could pay me just enough that I could focus on manufacturing games… and my wife was OK with the drop in our household income.

And I love it…  the manufacturing, the playtesting, the demoing at events, even the packaging and posting. I get to do my dream job.

I’m so lucky to be here, doing this.

Pallet

I’ve just ordered a pallet of acrylic.

Last year’s pallet

1,100 sheets that fit on our laser-cutter.

Cut down from 20 sheets that fit on industrial one.

We order big volumes from a place that only deals in full sheets.

So multiples of 55 for us. Just red, grey, blue, and last time green and purple.

Next up are the smaller orders. Some of which are still pretty large.

I also need to sort 4 print runs of rules and dashboards with our local printer.

The first has been ordered.

Going to make a few changes to some of the other rulebooks first.

To reflect changes over the last few years.

Obstacle rules.

A streamlined end game.

Ship classes.

Ordering

I’m now at the ordering everything stage.

The wooden bits and baggies have the longest lead time (and we’ve run out of baggies so can’t make a few things we’ve got acrylic for).

The next longest lead time is the boxes (and we’ve almost run out of FlickFleet ones!).

Both of those have been ordered.

The dice have arrived.

Ever wondered what 4,000 dice look like?

Next up is acrylic (from three different suppliers!).

And five separate print runs of rules and dashboards.

The acrylic and printing has a pretty quick turnaround time :)

It’s all coming together.

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!

Deliveries

This week we're expecting stuff.

A lot of stuff.

We've already got 3/5 print runs (Xeno Wars, the freebies, and FlickFleet).

And the main acrylic order.

And the first wooden bits order.

We assemble the games at home - proper indie!

This week we're expecting the playmats.

And the rest of the acrylic.

And the fourth print run - both Boxes of Flicks.

And the all the cardboard boxes.

Which leaves just the packaging, Scenario booklets, the Big Boxes and the FlickFleet wooden bits.

Almost done.

We'll be able to ship a bunch of simpler orders once this week's orders arrive.

Plates

Lots of spinning plates at the moment.

Paul's trying to make room for all the deliveries. And cutting FlickFleets and Expansion 1s.

I'm trying to finish last year's books.

And work out the new costs for all the things we've ordered.

And get the fulfilment spreadsheet ready for Paul.

And place the last few orders.

We're meeting on Tuesday so Paul can take the Xeno Wars printing and wooden bits down to York.

These shouldn't be in Newcastle!

It's all coming together.

It's a very busy time!

Spend

Our bank account lives a boom and bust lifestyle.

After a crowdfunding campaign it's stratospheric.

For us.

Then we spend on materials and components.

Photo by Igal Ness on Unsplash

Then again on shipping.

Then Paul's salary, conventions and advertising chip away at it.

Till it's paltry.

Then we crowdfund again to stay afloat.

We're in the spending phase now.

The last of the wooden bits arrive this week.

I've just spent £8,000 on the acrylic. Most of it.

And £2,500 on playmats.

Next up are the big boxes and the printing.

Then it'll be shipping again.

The balance is heading south...

Arrivals

I’ve picked a box manufacturer.

Almost 5,000 dice have arrived at Paul’s house:

Lots of dice!

Three enormous boxes of wooden bits have arrived at mine (should have been Paul’s!) with two more on the way:

Did someone order some discs and cubes?

The next print run is taking shape.

Our FlickFleet print runs are usually 400 copies.

We’ve done three 400 copy FlickFleet runs and two 400 copy Expansion 1 runs.

The Boxes of Flicks were an aberration, smaller, more expensive runs.

Xeno Wars will be an 800 copy run. We’ve already sold over 400!

Paul’s house is going to be very full for a couple of months.

Relationship

In March I got new quotes for everything we'd need for the Xeno Wars print run. Including boxes.

Once the Gamefound campaign was complete I started getting those quotes refreshed to reflect price increases due to war in Ukraine and other global factors.

The box manufacturer had gone bust.

They'd made 2,150 boxes for us over three years. We had a relationship.

Not any more.

I frantically started hunting for a new manufacturer.

Several companies I contacted couldn't do it.

Some of those put us in contact with others.

Others just refused to answer emails and phone calls. 

I get that they might not want (or be able to) do what we need, but that's not a good way to do business.

It's been slow going.

Last week I reached out to a few more companies.

Much better this time. They all got back to me, all quoted for the work.

One stood out though.

He wanted to speak on the phone.

Discuss the project. He'd looked at our website.

Had some ideas to do things differently. Better. Maybe even cheaper than what I'd asked for. With further savings in future.

We spoke several times. Clearing things up. Asking and answering questions.

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

His quote came in cheapest of the five I'd got.

The company is 170 years old.

And, it turns out, I've used them before.

Guess which one I'm going with.

Clock

I’m back now.

Cracking on.

I want to shut the Pledge Manager but we still have 74 outstanding pledges.

I need to shut it so I know what to order from our suppliers.

Prices are likely to rise because of the energy crisis.

I’d like to get my orders in beforehand if I can.

It’s a race against time…

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Production

I've spent the week working on the Pledge Manager.

It goes live at 2pm UK time today.

Paul is making the rewards that we already have the components for.

We're starting to place the orders for the materials that will take longest to arrive.

It's coming together.

Still lots to do.

But moving in the right direction. 

Relief

And breathe.

It’s been a stressful couple of weeks.

There’s only two outstanding orders for the Kickstarter fulfilment: boxes and wooden bits.

The boxes are pootling on, we’ve received proofs approved them and the full order arrives on Wednesday.

The wooden bits were all that was left.

They were due this week, so a couple of weeks ago I sent them and email checking it was all ok.

“We’re having difficulty getting time on the machines”, I was told - it would be late.

“How late?”, I enquired.

A different question was answered.

We’ve got 200-odd rewards to ship by the end of September. Paul’s planning a two-week holiday. There’s loads to cut, bag and box.

Are we delayed a week (no problem), a month (tight) or a quarter (deadlines missed) I wondered?

It took two weeks to get an answer to the questions.

I worried.

Our unusual business model means we’re insulated from the shipping chaos that’s stressing out every other publisher. It means we’re often able to hit our deadlines.

Nearly 400 people have entrusted us with tens of thousands of pounds of their hard earned cash.

I didn’t want to break that trust.

Fail them.

I found out on Wednesday they are delayed a couple of weeks.

Not a problem.

And relax.

Breathe.

A weight lifted.

The Cusp

The last week has mostly been spent relaxing.

Three days in the woods and then a couple of days at home.

Recharging my batteries.

I needed it.

I’d been burning the candle at both ends for a few weeks.

The Box of Flicks 2 rules are done now and with the editor.

My almost three weeks off work are done now.

New job started today.

I can slow down a bit now - I’ve just got a few last orders to place and then everything is in flight.

Almost Ready!

Things are starting to move now on the second Kickstarter fulfilment. Last week I made a couple of outstanding website orders and all the Alpha Wing pledges that hadn’t upgraded to a different level in the Pledge manager and I’ve been posting those in my lunch breaks.

I’ve also been catching up on the bookkeeping and trying to collate the Gamefound orders with the Kickstarter backers. Due to an error on my part we didn’t load Kickstarter backers chosen rewards into Gamefound so we have the late pledges and ~90% of people with a Gamefound order and then a bunch of people who haven’t completed the pledge manager so I’ve got to track them down in Kickstarter instead (and chase them for their shipping address). I’m trying to build a single spreadsheet that contains all the information to make fulfilment as straightforward as possible.

The manufacturing orders I whinged about last week are sorting themselves out - the missing acrylic (plus a couple more sheets I needed to order due to another mistake of mine :-( ) arrived on Friday and the missing wooden bits were restocked at our supplier last Friday too and are shipping today. The boxes are due to arrive on Monday 27th and then it's just a case of cutting the bits, bagging them and shipping them.

I was hoping to spend the last day of my current job (31st) going down to York to help Paul with the boxing of bits and to sign all the deluxe boxes, but he's travelling to a convention that day, so we'll need to do that another day instead.

Exciting times!

The Course of True Love...

You know where I’m going with this!

The orders for the FlickFleet fulfilment are not running smooth. Half of the wooden bits order have arrived, they are out of stock of the rest and will send it on when it arrives from their supplier. Annoyingly the bits they've run out of are the ones we’ve run out of too, so we can’t make any more full game sets until they get here.

The acrylic arrived last week. Or at least some of it did. Despite asking them to arrange delivery with Paul (he needed to be in at home to receive it), they didn’t - just emailing me an hour(!) before it was due to arrive at Paul’s. I quickly told him and he raced home from work and it arrived a couple of hours later. When it did arrive, three of the colours were missing. We got on the phone and they were very apologetic and said it would be delivered next morning. It was, but it was only then that Paul double checked and the previous day’s delivery was missing 8 grey sheets (of 155) and 88 red sheets out of 185 (nearly half!). Needless to say we’re chasing that at the moment. And the clear sheets are too small. Not a happy customer.

However, the boxes order is going ok. The proofs are arriving today and assuming they are fine they will be printed next week. Once we’ve got those we can start shipping the sets we’ve got made up.

Paul and I met up yesterday to swap bits. Last year he was cutting the 1st edition box labels and greyboard so I’ve taken all of that plus a decent number of bagged up games so that I can keep fulfilling website/retail orders using the 1st edition leftovers. I've collected the 2nd edition and expansion rules and dashboards from the printers in Newcastle, so I handed all of that over along with some shipping boxes.

This year Paul is taking on all of the construction and shipping in addition to the laser-cutting (thankfully it's a lot easier this year as the dashboards are pre-cut and the boxes made for us). I will continue to do the website, accounts, social media/marketing and graphic design.

Just to prove it's not all going badly, here's a look at some bits coming off the laser-cutter:

The fluorescent objective tokens

Merry Christmas!

Today’s blog post will be brief as I’m now on holiday for the Christmas break.

I’ve spent last week on the last few orders of FlickFleet materials and starting to catch up on the bookkeeping from the pledge manager. We’ve now placed all the orders except the Expansion rules and dashboards printing (2nd January) and are just waiting on the boxes, wooden bits and main acrylic order before we can start making and shipping rewards. It’s all coming together for a big push early in the New Year.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and Happy Holidays to the rest!

Orders, Please!

Last week the focus of my lunch breaks and evenings was mostly around getting quotes and placing orders for the FlickFleet reprint materials.

These are all done except the wooden bits now, and we’ve already received the dice and asteroid acrylic and the printing proofs. This week we hope to get the rest of the acrylic and the printing so then it’s just the boxes and the wooden bits outstanding. That and the printing for the expansion (rules and dashboards) which will follow in the New Year. Next up for me is making the first set of rewards (7 deluxe games with no extras). Paul meanwhile is flat out laser-cutting bits for the second set of rewards: deluxe games and expansions, which aren’t due until April, but there’s a lot of them.

Test cuts of the deluxe asteroids, ramming ship and round counter marker

Then we’ll have a break for Christmas before I start on the other tasks: website work and designing the next expansion for FlickFleet.

With the boxes (approx. 15 mins / game) and the dashboards (~4 mins / game) now being done on our behalf, a decent chunk of my time is freed up. Last year I really struggled to work on anything other than making and posting games, which is clearly not sustainable!

I’m looking forward to being able to spend time in 2020 on tasks that got neglected this year. Hopefully that will lead to noticeable improvements in our preparedness for the next project.

We're also getting some of the first Kickstarter left-over stock into Travelling Man, a small chain of game stores in the North of England. I'm delivering some stock to the Newcastle store at lunchtime!

Spend! Spend! Spend!

With the pledge manager now closed we know what we’re on the hook for so I’ve been able to start placing the orders for materials. First up was the boxes - these have the longest lead time. Once they were ordered next up was the dice (a simple order) and the asteroid acrylic. We’ve also asked for fresh quotes on the printing (which came in yesterday) and the wooden pieces.

The last part of the puzzle is the main acrylic order which is dependent on me laying out all the components on cutting sheets (until now all I’ve just laid them out on small Print and Play sheets). Over the weekend I did the Imperium (grey), Uprising (red) and the Civilian ships (blue). Monday lunchtime I did the mines and the clear acrylic (mine blast template and cloaked ship). That just leaves the objective tokens and I can get a quote and place the order.

Once the orders are all placed things are ready to go. The dice have arrived and asteroid acrylic will arrive this week, the box proofs before Christmas. The printing and wooden bits I’m still waiting for a date on.

Our next deadline is shipping the deluxe only copies (down to 7 as several of those pledges got extra expansions in the pledge manager) by the middle of January. We’ve got almost everything we need to do those already as we can use the leftover stock from the first edition.