Jorvik - Getting There...

I played Jorvik and couple of times on the weekend with Dunk, and a couple more times last night with Dave. Dunk described it as 'A working game now' and Dave as 'Nearly ready'. Not the most exciting of endorsements, but they show that progress is being made in the minds of my play-testers.

By exploring last night's scores you get some more interesting information. It's a card game, so luck of the draw is a factor, but to what degree? Here are those scores (individual round scores in brackets):

Dunk	Dave	Jack
(10,18) 28		(12,23) 35
(15, 29) 44		(16,28) 44
	(9,18) 27	(15,24) 39
	(15,19) 34	(13,26) 39

What can I possibly get from that? Well, here's a few things:

• There's not a huge amount of luck - my scores don't vary by much and I know what I'm doing
• It's a game you get better at with practice (the most experienced player usually wins, the least experienced shows improvement)
• It's possible to turn things around in the second half of the game (the loser of the first half doesn't necessarily lose the whole game)

The first point has been influenced by a couple of things, a decent hand-size means a player has more choice, coupled with the addition of a new rule which boosts the weaker cards - your draw is less important if all the cards are roughly equal in 'value'.

This probably comes down to working out how to use the priests to greatest effect, and learning the deck composition which helps guide how to position your cards to benefit from likely future draws.

I struggled for a long time with the last point, but in the end it turned out to be as simple as make the first round lower scoring than the second.

I need to do some more testing, and will probably tweak the deck slightly as I work out how the addition of the priests has changed the relative value of each card, but it's getting there. I now need to speak to my Dad some more about the artwork.

It's Alive! - 100 Ratings

It's Alive! now has 100 ratings on BoardGameGeek. The average is 7.08, which is enough to push it well inside the top 1,000.

Interestingly, only 87 people list it as owned, despite 217 sales. I guess either a lot of my customers aren't active on BGG, or they don't track their games collection on it.

In other news, my Google AdWords ad campaign is not working at the moment - I have a support call in. Once it's fixed and I have some statistics, I'll get back to you with how effective it's been.

Hello, My Name Is Jack...

... remember me? It's been a hectic week at work, and as a result my blogging has suffered, but I've still managed to get some work done on the games.

It's Alive!

Lots to report on the IA front. I've managed to build up some stock again after my bulk sale to an Italian shop, eight copies again, not as many as I'd like, but the post-Chrimbo lull means that it's enough at the moment.

On Wednesday I was stuck in London for the night with work, so I popped along to Swiggers board games club to pimp/demo/sell It's Alive! I'd set myself the target of two sales, and was slightly disappointed with only one, but I got to meet Nigel Buckle, designer of Celtic Quest who'd bought a copy of Border Reivers from me last year. He was along demoing his next game Ascendancy which is being published by JKLM Games in time for the UK Games Expo in Birmingham in June. Ascendancy is like a quicker version of Twilight Imperium apparently. People seemed to enjoy It's Alive!, but no-one was feeling the love. The last game was the most fun, despite someone wandering over and slagging it off to the players just as I was trying to explain how to play. I tried out the variants I'd posted on BoardGameGeek in a couple of the games - good fun, perhaps a little less harsh.

I also received a £30 voucher for Google advertising, so I'm trying that out too. It's early days yet, when I've an idea about how effective it is, I'll let you know.

Codename: Jorvik

I've made a couple of tweaks to Jovik. I had the ideas several days ago, but I'd not got around to trying them out. I saw Dunk on the weekend, and while The Wife and Lucy were out dress-shopping for their (Lucy & Dunk's, not Lucy & The Wife's) wedding, Dunk and I played a load of games including Jorvik. I've started making a prototype on the computer, but this was still using my lurid felt-tipped version, with some hastily scribbled additions in pen. They're a definite improvement, and once I've finished making a (slightly) prettier computer version I'm going to lend that to Paul and Lisa for blind playtesting. It's getting there. Doing the computer version really feels like it too, it's settling down now.

Codename: Network

Dunk and I also got a couple of games of Network in too. The first one showed off most of my changes to good effect, but it was too easy to play and didn't feature enough interaction. We made some fairly major changes, and then tried those out. It was a definite improvement. I sent them off to the designer, and less than 48 hours later he'd tried them out and come back with some more changes. They sound really interesting, maybe I'll get a chance to modify my prototype accordingly and try it out with Dave on Wednesday. I'm getting a real buzz out of collaberating with the designer on Network. When he sent it in, it was in a much earlier state than I wanted really, and I nearly discounted it on that basis. But because he knew it needed a lot of work he's very keen to try out improvements and I can be more involved with the design.

Anyway, that's enough for now, I've almost used up my lunch-break!

Almost!

I've got a few copies in stock so I've been pressing on with my accounts. I've done up to last July now, and seeing as this financial year has been much busier things are going much slower. Still, I now know that I had almost as much turnover in the first five months of this financial year as I got in the whole (nine months) of last year. Yeay!

I've been trying to be a bit more active on BoardGameGeek in an effort to bring It's Alive! to the attention of more people. It's working, I got two orders on Wednesday after posting it on a Geeklist, one from the US and one from Sweden. Went I went to the Post Office at lunchtime to post those copies I got talking to the Postmaster. It turns out he has a passing interest in party games, and was interested in seeing my catalogue. Ain't got no catalogue, but I promised to take a copy in next time I'm in there. After selling a couple of copies of Border Reivers to my bank last year, selling a copy to the Post Office would be the next logical step. I'm incorrigible.

I've also been thinking more about Codename: Jorvik and Codename: Network. I've had another idea for Jorvik which improves upon a previous idea. It's no longer a pure card game, but the addition of two wooden pieces won't push up the weight or price by much, and I think they add quite a lot to the game. Network I've still got issues with my scoring ideas, and I think I might boost the number of categories from six to seven, to improve player interaction.

Busy Sunday

We spent Saturday helping a friend decorate - which left me with only Sunday to work on my games. I wanted to get my books done for last financial year (6th April 2006 - 5th April 2007), and I also needed to make a few games as I was out of stock again.

I'd previously got my Mum (who used to do this professionally) to show me the ropes, and over the last few days I'd got the other stuff I needed ready in preparation. I was missing an invoice from a supplier, so I got them to send me a duplicate, and I had to print out a few invoices I only had on the computer. I also had to get my PayPal transactions printed out. Foolishly I'd not requested a monthly report from PayPal initially, and since I can only get those for the last three months (needless to say I've now turned them on), I had to download a spreadsheet of all the transactions for that year, and then format them myself into a reasonable layout for printing. With all that done, all I had to do today was fill in the books for the nine months from July '06 to April 5th '07 (I didn't start trading until July). I still needed to phone Mum several times during the day to answer various special cases I wasn't sure about. In the end it took the better part of the day, but it's done now, so I've got two weeks in which to fill out the tax return form online. The Wife made me promise to catch up and then do them every month, which makes a lot of sense, as I've been much busier this financial year, so there's a lot to do, and leaving it all to the last minute would be a bad idea.

This evening I made four copies of It's Alive! so I can fulfil any orders I get. Tired now.

No Stock -> Stock -> No Stock

After weeks of no stock over Christmas due to the TNT fiasco, I finally got the boxes. Sigh of relief.

I've spent this week making some games, getting some stock back in. I've made twelve copies over the course of the week, which has been great. I figure that twelve copies is a nice minimum stock level to have, more copies than I've sold in any preceding week except when I've sold in bulk to a shop. I've also slightly tweaked my cutting out method which makes things quicker I think. Initially I made a few mistakes, but I've tweaked it still further, and I think it should be less error-prone now. So I'm feeling quite good about things, decent stock levels, slightly quicker method for making It's Alive! Good week.

Then I run out of stock again! I got an enquiry from a shop owner in Italy who had played a friend's copy. They wanted to stock it in their shop. I offered them the same deal as the UK shops I'd dealt with (12 copies at 70% MSRP + shipping & handling), and they ordered. I've found a new courier who'll deliver to Europe for £24 GBP too, which is good to know. Now it's an excellent week :-)

In other news, I got to try out that new version of Networking with Dave on Tuesday, he enjoyed it though the scoring was obviously broken. I suggested my changes to the designer (who's already published!) and he loved them. Superb week! Now all I need to do is fix the problems with the new idea, and see if I can get it working.

At Last!

This morning the boxes finally arrived from the boxmaker via TNT. I waited in all morning (as I had done on two previous days) but this time they turned up. Ninety-two boxes in pristine condition despite all the backing-and-forthing. Some of these were already spoken for, I'd received three orders from the States over the Christmas break, and just after the boxes arrived I received another from the UK - great timing! First thing I did was count them, I thought I'd only sent eighty-three copies of the artwork to the boxmakers, so getting ninety-two back was an unexpected bonus. Next thing I did was write a cheque - I was invoiced for the boxes before Christmas when they were first due to arrive, and the terms were that I had to pay within thirty days. I figure I've waited long enough, any longer and I might forget. After that I popped to the Post Office and posted the four copies off, just in time to catch today's post.

Although I've got no stock at the moment, the arrival of the boxes mean that I can make more tomorrow, so hopefully by the end of tomorrow I should have a good few copies.

In other news, the exciting news I alluded to in my last post is not that The Wife is pregnant (nice guess though, Dunk!). It's something else...

Looking Forward to 2008

This is Reiver Games' third calendar year (I formed the company in July 2006), and I've been lucky enough that things have gone from strength to strength. In 2006 I decided to go for it, and released my first game design. Border Reivers did well, getting positive reviews and selling well. In 2007 I released the first Reiver game by another designer, Yehuda's It's Alive! It was launched at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham in June, where I also sold out of Border Reivers. The Expo was my first 'trade show'-style convention and it was a huge success, with my entire stock disappearing in 3.5 hours and I took a further thirty orders. By the end of the year I'd sold two hundred out of the three hundred run of It's Alive! So how do I hope to improve things in 2008?

Games

So far I've concentrated on one game at a time, with the exception of those first 3.5 hours at the Expo. This year I don't want to spend any time without a game to sell, hopefully overlapping the runs a bit better so I have periods when I have two games available. I also hope to release two games this year, as opposed to one each of the two previous years. To achieve this I'm hoping to release a submission (as yet to be decided) and one of my own games (probably Jorvik). Releasing a submission will reduce the burden of development on me, and Jorvik is fairly easy to manufacture, being a simple card game. There is also the possibility of a professional run of It's Alive! assuming it sells out in a reasonable amount of time, and continues to be well-received. I'm thinking I'm going to stick to getting the boxes professionally manufactured even on the hand-made runs, as this provides a notable step-up in quality, and saves me about an hour per game construction time. These are goals that are a stretch, but you've got to set goals that are achievable, while being challenging or you'll never get anywhere.

Conventions

In 2006 I went to two conventions: The Cast Are Dice and Psychocon. In 2007 I managed four: Beer & Pretzels, the Expo, The Cast Are Dice and MidCon. While this definitely introduced me to a larger audience I also started being more honest with myself about the cost of attending conventions. In 2006 I paid for all the food, hotels and travel myself, only charging the business for convention fees and commissions. Last year I started charging everything to the company, and keeping track of how much the trip cost me / made me as a whole. The Expo was a clear winner, with a huge take, and a healthy profit after paying for fuel, hotel for The Wife, Dave and I and the convention fees (a whopping £75). The others all made me money, but not a huge amount. As a result I'm considering attending fewer conventions this year not more. But the most exciting one is obviously Essen in Germany, which I would really like to attend this year. There's not much point unless I've got a lot of stock though. The Expo is a cert, Essen and TCAD are likely. Others are possible, but unlikely.

Surprise!

I'm also hoping to be able to make a pretty big announcement in a few months time - keep your eyes peeled!

It's Alive! in Top 1,000!

Everyday I check the BoardGameGeek page for It's Alive!. I want to see what Geeklists it has been added to, who's rating it what, who's saying what about it and to track its overall position in the BoardGameGeek chart. For the last month or so it has been hovering just outside the top 1,000 (out of nearly 30,000 games in the database). Today it cracked it! 995 :-) This is especially impressive since the charts are weighted towards games that have been rated by lots of people, so small run games like It's Alive! will find it harder to break in.

This comes two days after I sold the 200th copy (though of course I can't ship it yet because TNT are still pissing around with the rest of the boxes. Two hundred copies out of the three hundred run in seven months. I'm pretty pleased with that. Once I get the boxes I'll make a song and dance out of that, the publicity will hopefully lead to more sales.

December Report

Another month, another monthly report.

I'm going to resist the urge to do a retrospective on the year, I figure there's enough of those doing the rounds at the moment. Instead, I'll do this monthly report and a look forward to what I hope to achieve with Reiver Games this year.

Play

It's been a very busy month in terms of games played. There were a few games nights at Paul's that I actually managed to get to, Dave returned from Afghanistan, I made it to Beyond Monopoly!, the odd game over Christmas with family and then a New Year's Eve party to round things off. I managed not only a lot of games played, but also learnt a fair few new ones, which is always nice, and helps my game design.

Here's what I got up to this month:

• Incan Gold: 13 plays
• Carcassonne: 10 plays
• It's Alive!: 4 plays
• Loopin' Louie: 4 plays
• Magic: The Gathering: 4 plays
• micropul: 3 plays
• Apples To Apples: 2 plays
• Carcassonne: The Castle: 2 plays
• Guillotine: 2 plays

Plus the shrapnel with one play each: Byzantium, Canal Mania, Capt'n Clever, 6 Nimmt, Citadels, For Sale, Hare and Tortoise, Hey! That's My Fish!, O Zoo Le Mio, Race For The Galaxy, Ticket To Ride, TransEuropa and Wyatt Earp.

Micropul, Byzantium, Capt'n Clever, Hare and Tortoise, O Zoo le Mio, Race for the Galaxy and Wyatt Earp were all new to me. Micropul I played solo online, and it seemed like an interesting game, but the abstract nature puts me off slightly, and the artwork, while pretty could be more informative. Byzantium was a really nice game with an interesting mechanic in that all players play both sides of a conflict. Capt'n Clever was surprisingly deep for a kids game. Hare and Tortoise (which won the Spiel des Jahres the year I was born!) felt a little dated, but had a nice mechanic in the use of triangular numbers to control movement. O Zoo le Mio was another nice game, fun and attractive but nothing outstanding. Race for the Galaxy was my favourite new game of the month, like San Juan, but more involved and space-themed. Finally Wyatt Earp just didn't do it for me, something about it just seemed clunky. Special mention to Carcassonne: The Tower, which was my favourite new game (including expansions). The last of the main four Carcassonne expansions, the in-laws gave it to me for Christmas (though The Wife chose it - she rocks!). It adds a new dimension (literally - vertical!) to Carcassonne, and a lot more conflict to the basic game. It was this that boosted Carcassonne so high up my list of plays this month - great fun :-).

Creation

Despite the huge number of games played I still got a decent amount done from a creation point of view. The problems with TNT and the It's Alive! boxes meant I had some time on my hands. I've used this to do a lot of work on Codename: Jorvik, try out a few ideas for Codename: Artist and got a few plays of Codename: Harvest and Codename: Harry in.

Jorvik

Jorvik has come on leaps and bounds this month, I've tried out loads of new ideas, some worked, others didn't but overall progress has been made. I'm hoping to finish it this year, so I need to keep trying things out.

Harvest

I've played a few games of this, my latest submission. The game seems quite neat, and has some nice ideas, but I've some concerns about the learning curve. It's quite easy to make a mistake the first couple of times you play and that can really hurt you. Seeing as a lot of my potential customers will only play it once at a convention, I can't afford to have them put off by a bad play. I've made some suggestions and the designer is trying them out.

Escape

I've not done much on Escape this month, I turned it down last month, but the designer has come back to me, and is going to try out some changes to address the reasons why I turned it down.

Artist

Only one play of this, but it showed quite clearly how knackered the latest attempt at scoring was. The final score: me: 134, brother-in-law: 10. That needs a lot of work! I've added a couple more things which make it slightly more 'Euro', but I'm not sure whether this is a good idea. It's an abstract, so making it a Euro-abstract hybrid might mean it ends up appealing to fans of neither.

In other news, I need to do my tax self-assessment by the end of the month, so I started it in anger last night, and then got stuck. Fortunately my Mum used to do books as a living so I asked her what to do. It's not that much fun.

Happy New Year!

Just a quick Happy New Year! from Creation and Play.

I've a couple of longer posts coming up, but for the moment I'm pretty busy. I had an excellent New Year, playing a lot of Carcassonne with The Tower expansion (a gift from the in-laws). It's excellent, adding a lot of conflict to the game - there was an awful lot of swearing punctuating our games :-) I also found out that TNT, who were supposed to deliver the It's Alive! boxes again (third time!) on New Year's Eve, that they've gone missing again!. Needless to say I was not best pleased, but a few games with friends finally managed to improve my mood.

I'm off now to send Yehuda his royalties for It's Alive!

Deep Space DrillerAce

Hello - Just wanted to let you all know that the first run of my abstract strategy game Deep Space DrillerAce has been produced and it's in the database at BGG. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/33657 This is the "Friends and Family Edition" and it's limited to 50 signed and numbered copies. Based on the interest so far I will probably do another run. Happy New Year everyone.

Reprints

I'm considering re-printing games that are now out of print as a different avenue for Reiver Games.

I've started a Geeklist on BoardGameGeek for people to suggest games that need re-printing, and it's generating some interesting ideas.

In other news, I woke up at 6:20am this morning, and couldn't get back to sleep. Mal is visiting, so I couldn't go in the living room, and I didn't want to disturb The Wife seeing as we've a late night planned tonight, so I just lay there in the dark. My head was buzzing with ideas about Codename: Network, one of the submissions I've received, which could hopefully improve it...

They've Found It!

That's right, according to TNT, they've found my box of boxes. It's due to be delivered on Monday 31st, so all being well I can send off my sales then. Of course, they've still got to deliver it to me, and let's be honest, they've not got a great track record when it comes to delivering stuff to me.

In other news, it's been a fairly quiet Christmas for games, with a few games of Magic with The Wife, and a couple of games of Incan Gold with my family. I've had a few games design ideas though, an all new game inspired by my 4 month old niece, and some ideas to improve (I hope!) Codename: Jorvik. Must get scribbling. In other news, I'm still putting off doing my accounts for last year despite bringing everything down here. Time is running out though.

Good News & Bad News

There's still no news about the missing boxes, lost by TNT en route from the London boxmakers. I rang them again today, now their inventory system is experiencing some problems, so they are not sure where they are. I'll try again after Christmas. I figured it wouldn't be too much of a problem, I wasn't expecting many sales over Christmas, but I sold two yesterday (saving me from the ignominy of my first week without a sales since It's Alive! was released). I had to send the poor customers apologetic emails, warning them I was out of stock for at least a week, possibly longer, and offering them a refund. Fortunately, both were very understanding, and didn't mind waiting. Still I feel like bad for providing poor customer service, and slow turn-arounds on their orders.

We're now down in Bristol for Christmas, staying with The Wife's family. I've had a chance to get four games of Codename: Jorvik in (using the new scoring suggested by Dave and a couple of other scoring simplifications), and one of Codename: Artist. Artist's scoring is way out, I managed to win a game 134:10 - needs a lot of work, it should never be possible to crush someone like that - I aim for much closer scores.

In other news, Merry Christmas everyone!

Gah! Stupid TNT!

Today I was working from home, and the rest of the It's Alive! boxes were due to arrive. Needless to say they haven't. I phoned TNT and they couldn't find them, so I'm not going to get them now until New Year's Eve at the earliest. So if I get any orders over Christmas they'll have to wait.

They don't even know if they've lost them, so I may never get them, which will be a huge faff as I'll need to claim the money, get the artwork printed again and then get the boxes made again, which will take several weeks.

Last time TNT managed to deliver my boxes plus a job-lot of Cisco Routers, so their ineptitude is pretty staggering.

Russin' frussin' couriers.

Reiver Games: Trustworthy

When I arrived home this evening in the post there was an invoice from my boxmaker. So what? I can hear your thinking (good ears, huh?). This invoice was different, in a quite exciting way. I've received my fair share of invoices up until now, but they've all been along the 'You gave us X pounds, so we're grudging giving you something in return' variety. This one was of the 'Here's some stuff, you've got thirty days to pay us, or we're sending Big Joe round with his 2x4 and his Rottweilers' variety. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's right. I'm now a respectable businessman, so respectable, people will give me things before I pay for them. Sweet!

In a bizarre addendum to this, the invoice is for 92 boxes, I could have sworn I only gave them 83 copies of the artwork! Either my basic ability to count has left me (damn you, maths degree!) or they're giving me boxes for some other game too! Anyway, I'm feeling a little light-headed (hence the whimsical nature of this post), I must be coming down with something. In a vain effort to ward off whatever lurgy is headed my way, I'm going to go round to Paul's and drink mulled wine (medicinally, honest) and play games.

Now all I have to do is remember to pay the damn invoice.

Go National Express!

I had to go down to London on fairly short notice today. I get the train, which takes just under two hours. GNER used to have the franchise that allowed them to operate the London-Scotland (via York) trains, but lost it recently to National Express. I write this to you from the train, as National Express have decided to allow all customers free use of the WiFi on the trains - yeay!

As I'm still without boxes for It's Alive! I've had yet more time to think: What's Next? On BoardGameGeek last night I asked what games people thought were best for small publishers like myself to publish. It led to an interesting discussion, with the general feeling being things like It's Alive! quick and simple games that are easy to explain, fairly cheap and have fun themes. The next two games of my own that I've got in the pipeline are a historical 2-player game and an abstract game, so perhaps they are not the best games to be going with. This information will guide my choice for RG0003, the next game I publish.

What are your thoughts? Themed or abstract? Light or heavy? Short or long? Number of players? Cheap or expensive? Bear in mind som of the choices are mutually exclusive!

Naked Games!

Don't get excited, it's the games that are naked - not the players!

Monday I had to take the day off work as the one and only bus to work was cancelled (I found out later the bus company had received a batch of dubious fuel, and all the buses were stalling - they had to empty and refuel them, which took several hours). So, I've a day to myself, with no plans - what to do? Let this post be a warning to you, as I list just how much games design/hobby publishing takes over your life.

Well, I was in town already, and I had a game to post to The Netherlands and some sales cash to pay in to the bank. Neither the Post Office or the bank opens until 9am though, so I spent twenty minutes wandering round town aimlessly in the cold, until they opened. Then in went the money and off went the game. The Wife in her infinite wisdom recommended that I make some games seeing as I had the day off and I had no stock. Usually the first thing I need when making a game is the box in which to place the pieces, but the box delivery wasn't due until Tuesday (I'm finally getting them Friday - I have to wait in for a plumber to fix our leaking washing machine). In an unusual step I made the game components without boxes to put them in, just building a pile of game components. During the course of the morning I managed four games worth. Hence the 'naked games' of the title (You can see their bits!).

In the afternoon, my mate Dave (who's already on holiday for Christmas - jammy sod!) came round and we playtested a bunch of games. Codename: Jorvik of mine (which has changed a lot since he last saw it), and two submissions he'd not played yet: Codenames: Harvest and Harry. I'd only played Harvest once myself (it's the most recent addition to my prototype collection), and although Dave was screwed by a slight error in play compounded by an unlucky card draw, he still enjoyed this most of the games we played. We gave Harry a go too, but we played slightly modified rules, and there was one rule we weren't sure about. It's good but I'm not sure it's good enough :-(

Out Of Stock!

After a run on It's Alive! orders, I'm now out of stock temporarily. I sold ten this week, which cleaned me out, and I can't even make any more until the boxes arrive on Tuesday. I can't take Tuesday off work though, as I've my departmental Christmas meal at work, so I might not get them until Wednesday.

As a result I've decided not to go on the radio, since telling everyone what a great Christmas present It's Alive! would make will backfire if I can't get any ready in time to deliver before Christmas.

Instead of making games, I've managed to get a few games of Jorvik (soloing still) in today around my weekend chores, plus a first play of Codename: Harvest - my latest submission. Jorvik went well (including taking down the extra information I mentioned a couple of days ago). I tried one strategy that I thought might be unbalanced, and although it got a much large score than before, the other player won! Choosing that strategy boosts your points, but it also helps your opponent.

Playing Harvest brought home to me the importance of blind-playtesting - where you give the game and the written rules to someone who has not played it before and get them to play the game from the rules. Although the rules seemed very well written when I first received them, it's not until you try playing the game that you realise where all the small cracks are - what do you do in this situation? Does this card work like that or slightly differently? I've now got a bunch of questions to email off to the designer. First impressions were promising though.