Stay On Target!

If you've been following this blog for a couple of years you'll know that Codename: Vacuum was the first game I started designing when I got back into Games Design, a couple of years after I wound up Reiver Games, having lost a ton of money in the process. Reiver Games had been a great experience and a lot of fun and I'd met some fantastic people through it that I still consider good friends, but watching your company slowly wither and die kinda sucks the fun out of things and I'd gone off games design for a bit. As the highs and lows of Reiver Games faded from my legendarily poor memory, I started thinking about games design again, and Vacuum was the first of those ideas to be realised in actual cardboard.

I started working on it back in November 2011, and after a couple of years of frequent changes and regular playtests it took a back seat as I focused on Zombology in 2014. I've not really touched it since February last year and despite a couple of ideas during the year, I've done nothing. So much so that this year it didn't make an appearance in my goals at all. Had I not even thought about it once all year, that wouldn't get in the way of my goals at all.

With the NaGa DeMon winners' copies all posted I'm finally in a position to crack on with achieving this year's goals, the largest of which is to become a hobby publisher again.

But instead, I've spent the week working on Vacuum again. I had another four hours of train journeys on Wednesday, this time down to Sheffield and back for my quarterly hospital check-up. I spent that time designing in my head and then starting the graphic design for a new version of Vacuum. The last version was alright, but a couple of the strategies were quite dull and the game took up too much space for what it was.

I've started on a new version which I hope to finish in a week or two so that I can make a copy to take with me to Germany at the end of March. I'm off to Berlin for a conference with work, and I hope to meet up with Konrad, my NaGa DeMon winner two years on the trot and a keen supporter of Reiver Games from back in the day. Konrad has expressed an interest in Vacuum and his feedback on Zombology and Dragon Dance has been really helpful, so it'll be great for both of us If I can get it done in time!

But, I also need to stay focused on my goals, with two months down already, I'm going to have to crack on. In the words of Gold Five: Stay on target!

In other news, Robin David is interviewing me via email for his blog. I'm famous again! ;-p

New Games Company Checklist

So, as I'm sure you're aware by now, I'm aiming to get back into games publishing this year. It'll be small scale, just a small number (50 or 100) of hand-made, signed copies of a simple card game (Zombology or Dragon Dance). There's a bot-load of things I need to do before the game is ready to sell, so I need to spell those out and then start working through them. This list is not necessarily in order, but some of the later things depend on earlier ones. I'm not going to do a Gantt chart though, that would be too much like work.

1. Choose a company name. Reiver Games is gone, I need something different. I'd quite like something that alludes to a cautionary tale as Reiver Games went too far too fast and crashed and burned as a result. I was thinking Daedalus Games, but there's something very similar already. Jack in the Box Games was another idea, for obvious reasons.
2. Register the company with HMRC. Fun.
3. Set up a company bank account with some cash in it. I'll need this before registering a website or buying any materials.
4. Choose which game. Almost certainly Zombology, but I'm not quite ready to commit just yet.
5. Website and PayPal account. Need to do 1 and 3 before this.
6. Price up the components. I'm aiming to sell the game for £10, which means I want to spend about £5 per copy on components and printing, so I've got money left over for marketing, website costs, etc. I'll need to get quotes for the raw materials and printing, and then work out how many copies I need to make to make it affordable. More copies make each individual one cheaper, but require more of my time to make, market and sell, plus more cash outlay at the beginning.
7. Finish designing the game. Relies on 4, naturally.
8. Do the art and graphic design. I can't finish this until I've finished 7, but I can definitely make a start as the games aren't going to change dramatically between now and release. Doing the art and graphic design is both a challenge to get myself to learn new skills and also a way to save money. The art on Sumeria cost a few thousand Euros, I can't afford that if I'm making 50 copies that I want to sell at £10 each.
9. Buy the raw materials. For Zombology this is just the box card (I'm making the boxes myself, these are going to be lovingly hand-crafted games!). For Dragon Dance there's the box card, dice and wooden counters, plus some plastic baggies.
10. Get the printing done. Obviously this relies on 8. I'll try StressFreePrint first as they were who I used for Border Reivers and the first hand-made edition of It's Alive!
11. Start assembling the boxes, which relies on 9. Boxes are pretty easy to make and I can make these up ahead of time to save time once the artwork arrives.
12. Start cutting out and assembling the games.
13. Start taking cash, relies on 5. Unlike KickStarter, I don't want to start taking cash until I've got the games pretty much ready to ship.
14. Start shipping finished games.
15. Marketing. It sounds a bit late in the day to start marketing a product, but unlike KickStarter where the aim is to get people all hyped up before you've got anything concrete to give them, I will be aiming to stay ahead of my orders once i've cleared the initial pre-order backlog. With each game taking an hour to make and free time at a premium I'll want to drum up some trade after I've sent all the pre-orders and built up a small stock. I'll still be blogging throughout (which also counts as marketing!) and I might get lucky and get another blog post picked up by BoardGameGeek News or reddit which would be a bonus in terms of exposure.
16. Fame and fortune! (As if!)

My goal is to get a decent chunk of the way through this list before all the copies are pre-ordered! I've now got seven pre-orders and I still haven't confirmed which game it will be! Bizarre.

In other news, I made it along to Newcastle Gamers again this week which was great and had a second Games Night in a row! Things are picking up.

A Glorious Week of Gaming

After the long drought and then last weekend's gaming trip down to Bedford to see Terry and Andrew, who I used to game with weekly when I lived in the south, I've had another week of decent gaming.

The gaming didn't start until Thursday - the beginning of the week was games-free since I missed Tuesday's Newcastle Playtest session. But Wednesday night I finally made the January 2015 edition of Zombology and Thursday lunchtime we got to play it. Three times!

There were loads of changes from the December version (which I sent to Spain and Germany last week to my NaGa DeMon winners - Derek, your copy is ready to go, but I need to get to a Post Office for a customs label). The Boffins have become Gurus and are now treatment specific, the Fatal Mistake cards have gone along with some of the more complex rules. The new rulebook is actually significantly shorter (a good thing to my mind). I've also taken out the play a card, keep a card rule that knackered the drafting aspect.

With only three plays it's hard to tell if it's better or worse, but I tweaked a copy of things during the games and I've another idea I'd like to try out this week (that doesn't require any new components or printing - yay!). It's easier than I was expecting, I don't know it that's just luck of the draw from a small number of samples or a genuine effect, it should become clearer after more plays...

Then Thursday evening it was back to my weekly Games Night for the first time in a month, which was a great evening despite finishing unusually early. We played six games (mostly fillers) and somehow I managed to win four and tie another one. An unusually high win ratio!

Finally, we rounded the week out in style when Paul (who I used to game weekly with when I lived in York) and his family came up to stay for the weekend. Paul and I played games late into the night on Saturday (or what counts for late in my house: nearly 1am!) and then snuck another game in on Sunday afternoon during The Daughter's nap.

It was a great week of gaming, I've played two more games on my need to play this year list (Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia and Homesteaders), plus a couple of new to me ones: Bang: The Dice Game (much better than the card original) and Coal Barons. Plus it was great to catch up with old friends, guys who I used to game with every week and now see far too infrequently.

After The Drought, The Deluge

Believe it or not it had been several weeks since I last played a board game against a human opponent. I've had to cancel the last three of my regular Thursday Games Nights for various reasons and I've been putting off playtesting at lunchtime as I've had a bunch of ideas in my head for Zombology that I've not gotten around to doing the graphic design on, let alone printing out.

The gaming drought ended on Tuesday with a trip to Manchester for work with my boss Ian, a regular Games Night attendee. I always take my iPad which is stacked with board game conversions so we played a bunch of those - I think ten all told!

That evening I was babysitting for some friends and I put the hours to good use, doing the graphic design for the box labels and the rule books for the NaGa DeMon winners' copies of Dragon Dance and their bonus copies of Zombology. With that finally done I could print them out on Wednesday and finish the copies off ready for posting:

There was no Games Night again on Thursday, but only because I was off to Bedford on Friday night for a Games Day with Terry and Andrew, two of my gaming buddies from my time in the south.

I spent Friday and Saturday nights' train journeys doing the graphic design for the next version of Zombology which has some sweeping changes from the December version. As yet I don't know if it will make things better or worse, but it will be interesting to see how it pans out, once I've printed it out and got it to the table. I'm trying to address a few things: one is some issues with the graphic design, another is a few things to add theme. I've also got some concerns about how easy it is for one of the players to win (as opposed to everyone lose).

In addition, a recent change allowing players to keep a card between rounds, which has been almost universally popular, is disappearing. The change was introduced to give the players more control and to make the game more strategic but, to be honest, a ten minute drafting game needs to be fun more than strategic. Allowing players to keep a card meant that the good cards were retained so the drafting aspect was knackered - it was only the dross going round.

As with any large changes to a game, I'm expecting that some bits of it will be an improvement and some bits a step backwards. I'll have to play it a few times to work out which are which and then start honing the game again.

Or the new version might just be dreadful and I'll have to roll back to the previous version!

Saturday's games day was a great day. It was great to catch up with Terry and Andrew and we played seven games, of which I'd only played Fresco, Firefly and Las Vegas before. The games I was introduced to: Machi Koro, Orleans, Red7 and Roll for the Galaxy were all entertaining, with Roll for the Galaxy being my favourite of the day. Roll is similar to Race and clearly of the same theme and feel, but it's different enough to have made it high up on my wish list. Race is a favourite with my Games Night crowd and I think Roll will be too.

Plus a game of Firefly is a step towards having played every game I own at least ten times :-)

This week Games Night is back and then my friend Paul is up from York on Saturday. The deluge continues!

A Digital Digression

As I've discussed over the last couple of weeks, one of my goals for this year is to get back into hobby publishing, like I did in the early years of Reiver Games. I've got all year to do that though and there are more pressing things on my plate - like the NaGa DeMon Winners' copies of Dragon Dance (and bonus Zombology) to finish and get in the post.

I've made no progress on either of those things this week though. Not even taken any more pre-orders for the as yet unannounced game (still at 4/50!).

Instead I've been focusing on a couple of my Windows Phone apps. I'm technically a programmer by profession, but over the last few years I've been moving into more of a project management/team leadership role, so I don't get to do much actual coding anymore. I still enjoy it, but with little practice in the office my skills are atrophying, so I've been making a few apps for my Windows Phone (bought because I could make apps for it in the languages and tools I 'use' in my day job). Several of these apps have an audience of one (Codename: Vacuum randomiser and recorder anyone?), but a couple of them, while written for my use and as a coding exercise, potentially had a bigger audience, so I've uploaded them to the store.

The first of those, BGG Last Plays was an app version of the excellent Last Plays by BGG User Heroku App. I wanted this as I'd set myself a goal of playing every game I owned at least once last year, and I was using that webpage to keep track (but I wanted a few extras that were easier to implement in app format). One of my goals for this year is to make another version of this which makes it easier to keep track of this year's gaming goal: To have played every game in my collection at least ten times.

The most recent app I've added to the store (which is starting to get some downloads finally) was a pass-and-play version of the Martian Dice game by Scott Almes.

I had a trip away for work this week, so I had an evening to kill, plus five hours on trains, so I took my laptop and decided to work on my apps. The first priority was fixing a crash in Martian Dice that had been reported three times in a week (despite only 16 people owning it!). I had a stack trace showing me where it happened, but couldn't reproduce it myself. Still the stack trace was enough information to fix the problem. No soon had I done that, then my mate Mal pointed out a rather glaring bug in the undo functionality: if you rolled any tanks in a turn you could forget them by clicking undo! That totally broke the game :-( So I fixed these two problems (and made a couple of usability tweaks recommended by a user on BGG).

With the urgent things fixed, and still some time to spare, I moved onto making the Last Plays app support my new goal. I've added the ability to sort by the number of games played, and to select a number of plays below which a game is highlighted. 26 days into the year and I've already completed one of my goals for the year! I've also added a link to the game's BGG page if you press and hold its listing in the app.

On Saturday night I published both of these updates to the Windows Store - they should both be available now.

With these out of the way, I can now focus on the NaGa DeMon winners' copies of Dragon Dance and Zombology. I've printed and made the games, it's just the rulebooks and box labels outstanding. I've got a few hours on Tuesday night while babysitting for some friends that I can apply to this task, plus if necessary a bunch of hours on trains on the weekend, while I go down to Bedford to see my mates down there for a games day.

Self-Published Run: Specification

It's been a great week on the blog here, thanks largely to W. Eric Martin of BoardGameGeek covering last week's blog post - thanks Eric!

I've not yet decided whether it'll be Zombology or Dragon Dance that I try to self publish this year (currently leaning towards Zombology) but either way there a bunch of things that are the same for both.

Printing

I'll get all the artwork printed professionally (but digitally, not litho - for a small print run the litho set up costs are prohibitive). The box and cards will also be laminated, which makes them more durable and the print more hard-wearing. Professional laminating is nothing like the lamination pouches that you can get done in most offices, it's almost unnoticeable. The cards and box for Border Reivers were both laminated in this way and I was very happy with the results. For Border Reivers and the first edition of It's Alive!, I used a digital print company who have since changed their name to StressFreePrint. They'll be my first port of call as I was very happy with their service and products in the past.

Box

I'm going to hand-make tray and lid boxes and then wrap them in printed labels. The boxes will be 123 x 95 x 20mm, the same as most two deck card games (think 6 Nimmt! or No Thanks!). This means they will be small and pretty cheap to post.

Cards

The cards will be laminated as described above and have their corners rounded, very similarly to Border Reivers.

Other Bits

Zombology is 108 cards and a rule book. Dragon Dance has some other components: eight dice and a number of wooden bits. The wooden bits would be published game quality (I'd get them from SpielMaterial.de again) but generic, I'm thinking yellow wooden discs for the dragon's life tokens and red wooden hearts for the knight's. I've got my eye on some nice Chessex dice, but I'm not sure my budget would stretch to it.

Price Point

I'm aiming for £10 per copy as the retail price for both games which is about what you'd pay in a store (not online) for that sort of game in the UK. That's $15 or 13€, both of which are a bit expensive for what it is, but I'm expected most of my orders to come from the UK (friends and family will probably feature heavily!). Seeing as it's a very short run I'm not looking to get it into shops or distributors, so all of that (minus PayPal fees for online sales) will be going to me. I want to charge twice what it costs for the components so I've some money left over for website, playtest materials and potentially I'll can make a profit toward making a bigger game next year if it goes well. So my budget is £5 per copy for the materials and the printing. I've no idea yet whether this is feasible, but that's my goal at this point. So that's £250 for 50 copies or £500 for 100 copies.

In other news, I've not much to report this week. The Daughter's been sleeping badly again, so early nights all round and The Father-in-Law made an impromptu visit on his way back from Scotland for the last half of the week. Next week I'm away for a couple of nights for work, so I'm hoping to start making some progress on finishing of the NaGa DeMon winners' copies of Dragon Dance. And, despite the fact that I've not settled on a choice of game, I've already got 4 pre-orders!

Why Aren't I KickStarting?

Since announcing my intention to get back into board publishing as part of my 2015 goals post last week, the question I've been asked the most is:

So, why aren't you KickStarting the (yet to be decided!) game?

It was the first question the guys at Newcastle Playtest asked and the first question that came up on twitter too. I've spoken at length before about my concerns with KickStarter for board game publishing, but to be honest that wasn't really the deciding factor.

When I started Reiver Games back in 2006 my family consisted of myself and The Wife. The Wife was in the middle of a PhD and fairly busy so I had some time to kill in the evenings. I was quite happy to commit to 300 hours of Border Reivers assembly plus the numerous hours I spent posting copies and on promotion and half-arsed marketing.

These days things have changed. I'm now a dad and I want to spend my free time with The Wife and The Daughter doing family things and enjoying these fleeting moments of The Daughter's childhood. When The Daughter goes to bed, I want to spend time with The Wife. My priorities are totally different. So I can't commit to a massive expenditure of time. Which makes making the games by hand sound even more ridiculous, but it's not. There's method to my madness (I hope).

With a small run there's less monetary investment and much less worrying about stock clearance. I don't need to market to shops and distributors (which took a lot of effort) to get widespread availability and I don't have to worry about ongoing warehousing costs. Plus, I've done this all before, so I've got experience and knowledge, plus (I hope) some potential customers from my Reiver Games days.

But probably the biggest benefit is a known budget in terms of both time and cost. With KickStarter, people expect you to offer stretch goals and different pledge levels. Until the KickStarter is complete and you know exactly how much money you've raised and how many people you've got at each level you've no idea what you're letting yourself in for. I've got a full time job and a family, the last thing I need on top of that is an unspecified amount of work I have to do in my spare time that I'm contractually (and morally) obliged to.

With a run of 50 or a hundred copies, where each copy takes about an hour to construct, I know exactly what I'm letting myself in for. Plus, I don't expect to have sold out of the print run before I start it, so initially there will be less that than amount of work and then just a trickling amount from then on as the last of the stock slowly sells through.

This is something I can prepare for and plan for, and something I can do in my evenings after The Daughter goes to sleep. It's achievable around my job and my family, both of which I consider higher priorities.

This time round I'm not in it to make a fortune, or to try and go full time, I'm just in it to make games and hopefully bring some gaming joy to some of my customers.

Oh, and I've already got two pre-orders, despite the fact that they don't know which game it is yet!

In other news, this week I managed to make it to Newcastle Gamers for the first time since October! It was a great evening and I managed to get in three games, two of which contribute towards my goal of having played every game I own at least ten times. Both the games I played on Games Night helped as well! Off to a good start...

2015 Goals

The last couple of years I've set myself some goals for blogging and playing and designing games (see: 2013, 2014). I want the goals to be achievable, but also a stretch, so they encourage me to push myself and learn new things. This year, in addition to the usual three categories, I'm adding a fourth: app development :-)

Blogging

Last year I wanted a 10% growth in page views, to blog every week, to take part in NaGa DeMon and to gain ten new followers. I hit most of those, except the followers one which, to be honest, I don't really care about, so this year's goals are:

• 45,500 page views (taking me to 183K in total), another 10% growth
• Blog every Monday
• Do something for NaGa DeMon (I've enough games on the go, so it might not be starting a new one...)

Playing games

Last year I wanted to play every game in my collection at least once and play at least 365 games in total. I'm going to mix it up a bit this year:

• Play at least 365 games during 2015
• Have played every game in my collection (with the usual exceptions) at least ten times.

I'll use this second goal to hone my collection a bit again, and give me a chance to gain a better understanding of some of the longer games in my collection. Games bought during 2015 are excluded.

Designing Games

I'll keep it simple here, yet excitingly different. This year I want to release a self-published, self-illustrated board game in a limited edition, like the good old days of Reiver Games.

Only one goal? Yes, but it's a biggy. The Wife bought me a graphics tablet for Christmas, so I'm going to use that to hone my illustration skills and along with Adobe Creative Cloud (which is damned expensive, but I get a discount as a CS3 owner and I'm putting Christmas present money towards it). I'm already tinkering with some Bayeux Tapestry inspired art for Dragon Dance!

This is a real challenge. It'll probably be either Zombology or Dragon Dance, whichever is the better game (and most sensibly priced) in a run of maybe 50 copies, or one hundred if there's a surprisingly high demand. I'll be blogging artwork and sketches for feedback throughout the year. Why a limited, handmade run you ask? Despite the lure of KickStarter, I'm still uncomfortable with it and it was the large print runs that I couldn't get working with Reiver Games. The two handmade limited editions I did: Border Reivers and the first edition of It's Alive! both sold out quickly and made me money (excluding time spent!). A short print run is a known quantity that I can manage around my family and work commitments and I know exactly what I'm getting into, having done it successfully before.

The exciting and challenging bit will be doing the art myself - this will require learning lots of new skills.

App Development

I'm learning German again, using the excellent Duolingo. In many ways it's superb, but I'm the sort of person who likes to learn from structure, so being able to visualise tables of pronouns and verb declensions really helps me. In the vein of my current selfish app development, I want to make an app to help with that. I also want to release a new version of BGG Last Plays that helps me track this year's different plays goal.

There, that's enough to be getting on with! Wish me luck...

2014: The Year in Review

2014 has been a pretty good, if slightly strange, year. It started on New Year's Eve in the house on my own. Thanks to radiotherapy for my overactive thyroid I had to keep my distance from The Daughter for three weeks. With her only 16 months old it was going to be very unfair for me to always be around but never come near her or give her a cuddle, so The Wife and The Daughter stayed in Bristol after Christmas and I came home on my own and got nuked. I got the dose on New Year's Eve in the afternoon, that evening I was at my most radioactive - so I didn't even go out and see friends. Definitely the second crappiest New Year's Eve of my life.

The next three weeks I was home alone, so I got to live the bachelor life style: eating like a student and playing games all the time - I even got a game of Twilight Imperium III in! On the way to rescue The Wife and The Daughter I stopped in at Terry's and had a day's gaming with my old Bedford group. I used to see them for games every week, but since moving to Newcastle (about 250 miles away) I don't get to see much of them at all. The rest of the year was busy but good fun, with a trip to Baltimore for work (but no impromptu gaming this time!), a convention (Beer and Pretzels in Burton again with Terry). But in November we had some bad news which derailed my NaGa DeMon efforts a bit.

Games Design

I'd set myself a few goals in 2014 for games design:

• Make four more versions of Vacuum
• Get Zombology ready to submit to a publisher
• Do NaGa DeMon again

I had mixed success. I made new versions of Vacuum in January (during the exile period) and February, but then didn't really touch it for the rest of the year. Goal 1: Failed. My main focus was Zombology instead. I was making a new version almost every month and playing it a lot. Towards the end of the year I was getting pretty happy with it, so much so that when Dan from Newcastle Playtest saw a publisher asking on BGG for that sort of game, I sent it off. It wasn't really ready, but I sent it off anyway. The result? It's not really ready - could have seen that coming! I've now got another version together that I'm hoping to find playtesters for shortly. The publisher is still interested, once it's ready, so I need to crack on really. Goal 2: I submitted it, so I'm going to call that a pass! I did NaGa DeMon again, designing Dragon Dance: Fire v Lance. It's very early days, but I think it's got some legs, so I'll continue working on it next year. NaGa DeMon on the blog was less successful than last year, but it's still my second best month on the blog ever. Goal 3: Passed. In other news, I dusted off Border Reivers and started trying out some ideas for a second edition, taking everything I've learnt in the ten years since I initially designed it and trying to fix some of the flaws.

General Gaming

My goals for gaming in 2014 were:

• Play at least as many games as there are days in 2014
• Play every game I own at least once*

Now that I count playtest games and iPad games against humans towards my totals, goal 1 was pretty easy. The Daughter is older and sleeping better than last year and I've been doing a reasonable amount of travel for work with my iPad and some colleagues/victims, so I've aced it. When I wrote this last week I'd played 514 games. Goal 1: Passed. Like a Boss. You'll note the asterisk next to goal two. That's important. According to BoardGameGeek I currently own 71 games (excluding expansions) but six of those are games I own for sentimental reasons, and those I excluded. So I own 65 games. At this point I've played 64 of them, and I'm pretty sure the last one will get played in the next week or so, so that's a provisional: Goal 2: Passed. I've also used this goal to hone my collection, those games that I've been struggling to drum up the enthusiasm to play left the house this year as gifts to friends or Newcastle Gamers. Those that left: Qwirkle, Meuterer, Snow Tails, Pirates of the Spanish Main, Citadels, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, Tigris and Euphrates and Clans.

My five and dimes for this year were:

• 63: Zombology - the joy of designing a short game is that you can test it quickly, over and over again
• 28: Ra - mostly on the iPad on the train
• 27: Martian Dice - including testing my Windows Phone app with friends
• 26: Coup - a Games Night staple
• 25: Hey! That's My Fish! - on the train
• 23: Dragon Dance - all since the beginning of November!
• 23: Carcassonne - on the train again
• 18: Love Letter - at Games Night
• 16: Rumis - great fun
• 16: Race for the Galaxy - mostly with the Alien Artifacts expansion (sans orb bit)
• 13: 6 Nimmt! - at Games Night
• 12: Stone Age - on the iPad
• 11: X-Wing Minis - with Dave mostly
• 10: Lords of Waterdeep - on the iPad and in the flesh
• 10: Pandemic - on the iPad mostly
• 10: Stormy Seas - all on Christmas Day! This is straight onto my wishlist
• 9: 7 Wonders - still popular at Games Night
• 7: Hive - no idea when I played this!
• 6: Codename: Vacuum - early on, before I focussed on Zombology
• 6: Coloretto - Games Night filler
• 6: No Thanks! - Games Night filler
• 6: Hol's der Geier - Games Night filler
• 6: Die Speicherstadt - Games Night
• 5: Firefly - Love this, just wish it was shorter, so it fit comfortably in a Games Night
• 5: Puerto Rico - on the iPad
• 5: Forbidden Island - iPad, I don't own the cardboard version

Blogging

My goals for blogging this year were:

• Write a blog post every Monday
• Get 40,000 page views
• Gain 10 new followers

Again, mixed success! I blogged every Monday in 2014 except one, when an automatic scheduling error during my holiday in the wilds meant it didn't go live until Tuesday when I wandered into some mobile signal and checked. I'm gonna call that Goal 1: Passed. During 2014 I got 41,500 page views. Goal 2: Passed. But only three new followers, Goal 3: Failed.

My most popular posts of the year were:

• A discussion of timing in games
• What are your favourite playtestion questions
• Picking up Border Reivers again and launching my Firefly: The Board Game app 
• (Some of) the Zombology NaGa DeMon winners' copies arrived
• My iPad gaming 

Windows Phone Apps

In addition to playing, designing and writing about board games, this year I started developing board game-related apps for my Windows Phone, a few of them are personal apps for helping me design or test my games, but three of them seemed of interest to others, so I made them freely available this year. Between them they've only had 60 downloads, so they're not wildly successful, but I did them for my own interest and as programming exercises, so if they are useful to anyone else at all that's an added bonus. I'd like to keep up the app designing next year too.

That's enough wittering for now, so until next week's Goals for 2015 blog post; I hope you all had good years too, and here's hoping next year will be even better!

Progress, At Last!

It's been a funny old week. It was meant to be my last week of work before I had two weeks off for Christmas. But it didn't quite go to plan. In a bad way. And then a good way!

Monday morning I'd booked off to go to a Christmas show with The Daughter and The Wife. So we had a lie in, I came round gradually, slowly achieved consciousness and then sprinted for the toilet. Where I spent the rest of the day. The Wife and The Daughter went to the show without me, only to find out on arrival that it was cancelled, as the cast too were stricken with a stomach bug.

Tuesday I managed to get up and get dressed and didn't have to sprint anywhere thankfully, then Wednesday I was back at work, if still not 100%. I say work, but it was the day of our Christmas party, so after spending the morning trawling through a couple of days worth of emails, we went on a team building trip in the afternoon and then out for the night. Clearly I still wasn't right - I had a couple of small beers and left at 9:15!

I'd kept some holiday back in case of having to take some to look after The Daughter if The Wife got sick, which meant I could finish for the year on Thursday at lunchtime. I promptly spent the afternoon doing all my chores so that on Friday I could finally make some progress on the NaGa DeMon winners' copies of Dragon Dance.

I finished off the boxes and printed and cut out the cards, so all that remains to be done is design, print and attach the box labels and write, print and fold the rules. I've also decided to give the three winners a copy of the latest version of Zombology, so I printed out four copies of that too. The only copy I cut out and boxed of that was mine though, so I've got it in time for the Christmas holidays, in case anyone in my family or The Wife's family fancies playing it.

After a couple of weeks of nothing to report it's nice to be making progress again!

All that remains is for me to wish you a Merry Christmas and thank you all for reading my blog this year. I hope you all have a great break.

Too Busy!

Last week I thought I was going to be busy, but in the end I was too busy and ended up getting very little done indeed. I managed to finish the boxes for the NaGa DeMon winners' copies, but sadly that was it.

This week was supposed to be even busier. I had a work night out lined up for Monday and our Christmas party on Wednesday. We've got lots of corporate visitors at work and lots of meetings and we've got to get ready for our trip to Bristol to visit my in-laws and my family for Christmas.

Sadly, I'm not going to get much done for a different reason, I woke up this morning racked with another stomach bug. I'll be spending most of the next couple of days in 'the littlest room' I fear. Joy.

So, I doubt I'll get much done this week either. I do have a chance on Friday night to make some progress I think, but as feared it's going to be January before the NaGa DeMon winners' copies are winging their way to the winners. Sorry for the delay!

Busy, Busy

With NaGa DeMon done you'd expect things to be calming down, but not so much - this week has been one of lots of little things that needed attending to.

I've promised copies of Dragon Dance to the three most helpful TGWAG competitors, so I've started making those copies. I'd bought or scavenged the wooden pieces and dice before the start of November, but there's plenty still to do: boxes, cards and rules. On Saturday I started getting the boxes made and will finish them off tonight. The cards and rules require getting the printer down from the box room, which is a bit of a faff, so I'm put that off until all my printing is ready. So I've also done the graphic design for another version of Zombology - that's ready for printing.

I've also been working on my Martian Dice Windows Phone app which is nearing completion. I made a candidate for the final build at the beginning of the week and that's now being tested by a bunch of friends. I'm hoping that this will be my most popular app so far (I've got 50 downloads so far across all three apps put together!), so I've been putting some work into a web page for it and getting some mild publicity ready.

Once Martian Dice is out there my next focus will probably be Christmas, but then after that I've another idea for an app to work on next year (in addition to Vacuum, Zombology, Dragon Dance, Border Reivers second edition and maintaining all my existing apps!).

First up though, Dragon Dance NaGa DeMon winners' copies...

NaGa DeMon 13: Finito

Well, it's December, so NaGa DeMon is done. And what a weird one it was. For the first half of the month I was kind of stuck. My first version of Dragon Dance was far better than I was expecting, reasonably well balanced and it played more or less how I was thought it would. That's unheard of for a first prototype of mine. I was playing it loads during lunchtime at work, alternating between it and By Election - my friend Sam's NaGa DeMon game. After about fifteen plays (including some from Konrad) I finally pushed the boat out and made a second version, incorporating some of the detailed feedback from Konrad and some ideas I'd had or that had been suggested by my playtesters.

That version, while a bit more interested, sucked. It was hideously broken, so heavily weighted in favour of the dragon that there was little point in playing it. So I had an idea of how to change things to fix it up, which I wrote up ready to post once I'd tried it.

Then I got sick (after it had swept through the family) then we had some bad news that put everything else on the back burner. My parents came up a week earlier than planned to help babysit The Daughter and my spare time ended up being spent entertaining guests rather than printing, designing or playing Dragon Dance. Also, after making big promises that I would get more involved with other people's NaGa DeMon efforts (including the aforementioned Konrad, who played my NaGa DeMon game one night in preference to his own) I did nothing. About which I feel quite bad - sorry Konrad!

With little time to practice the new fixed up v2, I posted it anyway and then finally another tweak right at the end of the month. The first hardly tested by me, the other completely untested. A very disappointing end to the month.

Page views were way down on last year as a result (though still my second best month in the eight year history of Creation and Play). However, I still managed to make four different versions and played it nearly twenty times. Plus, TGWAG was another huge success with nine participants, at least two people printing it out and Konrad playing it and given some excellent feedback. Thanks everyone, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. The final league table is as follows:

Name	PIPs	PIAL	Free game?
Sir Konrad/@pidaysock	33	Knight Sergeant	Yes
Derek Hohls/@gamesbook	16	Squire	Yes
Eblasco/@7isprime	15	Squire	Yes
Roberto	8	Footman	No
@MTTJ_Patrick	5	Footman	No
@kimacus	4	Serf	No
Mal	3	Serf	No
@toddderscheid	2	Serf	No
@thefrugalgamer	2	Serf	No

So the free copies will be winging their way to Konrad, Enrique and Derek early in the new year. Thanks again!

NaGa DeMon 12: One Final Version

With two days left to go I've got one final version for you. I've now played the new version six times and it is I think too strongly weighted in the dragon's favour. I'd been hoping to try these new ideas before posting them (to check they weren't rubbish like an earlier version of the rules!) but I've been unable to get a game in, so these are untested - play at your own risk! This is your last chance to get some PIPs before NaGa DeMon comes to a close at the end of November.

The good news is that there's no card changes since the last version (so if you've already printed those out you're good to go). The rules are pretty similar, there's only one change (to the Discard card and die section, highlighted in blue below) which now reads:

Discard card and die
At the end of the round both players discard the card they played (face up where they are visible to both players) and any die they used with it. If there were already two cards discarded, you may now return one of these two discarded cards to your hand (not the one you just played). Discarded cards and dice are unavailable to the player and cannot be chosen during the Choose a card or Choose a die sections described above.

The Recuperate card allows you to reclaim all discarded dice and cards, returning all the discarded cards to your hand. Once you have reclaimed the dice all your dice are re-rolled.

Please give it a try and let me know what you think.

NaGa DeMon 11: Back for a Final Push

Things are beginning to settle down and I'm back at work now. We've only got four days left in November and my parents are still here visiting, but I'm hoping to try to get one final version done before the end of the month.

Of course to do that, I need to know what changes I need to make, and for that I need data. I'm hoping to be able to play Dragon Dance at least a couple of times during either Thursday or Friday lunchtimes, and my dad (who's really not a gamer) was so intrigued by my description of the game that he'd like to play it too. My copy has been at work for a week or so (I left it with Sam after he volunteered to take it to the extra Newcastle Playtest session that I had to miss due to illness, despite having organised it!). So I've not had a chance to play it, or even think about it much.

So, what I need is to get it played, get some information about the weaknesses (probably too strong dragon?), get some ideas about how to fix it, fix it and make the fix available all within the next four days, all while my parents are here.

Challenging! Any help much appreciated...

TGWAG: League Table 4

Sorry to be filling my standard Monday blog post with a TGWAG League Table (usually posted on Sunday) but it's been a odd/tough week. It started off with missing a gaming weekend in the south with my old gaming buddies due to The Daughter's sickness, then The Wife got it and then finally, inevitably, so did I. Just in time to miss the special Newcastle Playtest session I'd arranged because I'd missed the previous one cleaning up after the double glazing. I was still contagious on Thursday so I was working from home (and cancelled Games Night), but then we received some bad news and everything went off track. I've only worked two days this week and not done any gaming since my Tuesday lunchtime session of Dragon Dance with Steve. Which gave me a brief chance to have a look at v2.1 and check that it is at least conceivably possible for The Knight to win this version, though how unbalanced it remains is hard to tell as it was me (15 games and the designer) against Steve in his first few games. This week's going to be another weird one as I'm off on Monday; Tuesday I'm probably going to Manchester for work and then Wednesday is my quarterly hospital visit, so I won't reach the office until 2pm. Plus, my parents have come up a week early to help out. I've gone from playing Dragon Dance 2 or 3 times a day at work to not playing for nearly a week. I'm going to have to rely on you guys for a while (though it sounds like Enrique, Derek and/or Konrad might be able to help me out recently/soon - thanks!).

In terms of TGWAG there's been steady progress across the board, Sir Konrad's continuing to race out in front, and with Roberto in Saudi Arabia for a week's work, Enrique (Eblasco/@7isprime) has been able to consolidate his third place (the last free copy!). Also, it's nice to see Dave (@thefrugalgamer) back, Dave was one of last year's winners :-) That's 3/5 of last year's winners back in the game!

Name	PIPs	PIAL	Free game?
Sir Konrad/@pidaysock	29	Knight	Yes
Derek Hohls/@gamesbook	14	Squire	Yes
Eblasco/@7isprime	14	Squire	Yes
Roberto	8	Footman	No
@MTTJ_Patrick	5	Footman	No
@kimacus	4	Serf	No
Mal	3	Serf	No
@toddderscheid	2	Serf	No
@thefrugalgamer	2	Serf	No

I've four hours on trains on Wednesday morning for my quarterly hospital visit, so I hope to start making some progress again then.

NaGa DeMon 10: Hopefully, Less Rubbish

I wrote this blog post on Monday night, but I've been waiting to post it until I had a chance to test it, to avoid the problems I had with the last version. Then I got sick, missing a couple of days' work and then finally we've had some bad news and I'm off again, so no real chance to test it. Seeing as Derek and Enrique have both requested it in time for the weekend, here it is. Hopefully it's better than the last version, it is at least possible for the knight to win this one!

As I feared the last version was pretty unbalanced. Sam and I played it three times on Monday lunchtime with the dragon winning by 10 points twice and by 15 once! All in under 10 minutes :-(. I'd made the Breathe Fire work at long and short range and added another dragon attack (the Tail Lash) at long range. Despite the better defence cards for the knight he was still hopelessly out-classed. Discussing it afterwards with Sam I was quite happy with his idea that the dragon would win more games than the knight (if only slightly), but as it stood, the knight had no chance.

So, in fairly short order, here's a new version. This version has even more asymmetry added, now the knight has 9 cards and the dragon only 7. The knight's extra card is a short range defence that can be combo-ed with an attack or two, and the dragon has lost the Tail Lash and Breathe Fire is back to long range only.

New rules follow, with new print and play files at the bottom.

Dragon Dance
Fire v. Lance
2 players
10-30 mins
10+?

Contents:

9 Knight action cards
7 Dragon action cards
1 Knight player aid card
1 Dragon player aid card
9 heart tokens representing the knight's life force
20 gold coins representing the dragon's life force
3 large red dice for the dragon
5 small white dice for the knight

Dragon Dance is a game of bluff, cards and dice between a knight and a dragon in a mortal fight over the King's daughter.

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to reduce your opponent to zero life force through cleverly timed attacks without running out of your own life force. Each round you will simultaneously choose a die and then a card to action - either attacking, defending or manoeuvering as you dance around each other looking for an opening to exploit. The dragon is more powerful and has more life force, but it's also less agile and slower, so the knight has to strike fast before his limited life force is extinguished. The game weaves between long and short range as combatants close and retreat to catch each other on the wrong foot.

Setup

Decide between yourselves who will play the dragon and the knight. The dragon player takes the dragon player aid, action cards, three red dice and the twenty gold coins to represent its life force. The knight player takes the knight player aid, action cards, five white dice and nine heart tokens representing his life force.

Both players roll all their dice and place them in front of them and place their player aid cards with the 'Long Range' side face up nearby.

Play

The game takes place over a number of rounds during which the players act simultaneously. Throughout the game the players' life tokens, remaining dice and played cards are kept open so that both players can see them.

Each round consists of four phases:

1. Choose a die (or none)
2. Choose a card
3. Action the card
4. Discard card and die

Choose a die
In the first phase, both players simultaneously choose either one of their remaining dice, or none. High values boost attacks, low values boost defence and medium values boost both attack and defence but to a lesser degree.

During this phase, hide your remaining dice from your opponent and then choose one of them to use this turn (by, for example, placing a finger on it) or choose none (by, for example, placing a finger on the table next to your dice). Then reveal your dice along with your selection. The chosen die will be used to either boost an attack or defence card, or as a bluff to trick your opponent into playing a sub-optimal card.

Choose a card
Once both players have revealed their chosen die (or none), both players simultaneously chose a card to play this turn. The chosen cards are placed face down on the table in front of them and then when both players have chosen the cards are revealed. Chosen cards must be playable at your current range, check your player aid to see which cards you can play at your current range, or check the 'Short range' or 'Long range' icons on the cards in your hand. You begin the game at long range. The only effect of the short and long range icons is to limit the cards available to you during this phase. If one or both players play a card which changes the range, the cards chosen are still valid as long as they were valid choice at the starting range this round.

Action the card
Both cards are actioned simultaneously.

Attacks & Defence
If either player chooses an attack card, calculate the damage they deal as follows:
If they have chosen a die, use the table on the card to determine how much damage they are dealing, if no dice is chosen determine damage using the no dice column in the table.
If their opponent has not played a defence card, they lose life force equal to the damage dealt.
If their opponent has played a defence card, use the table on the defence card (along with any die chosen) to determine the defender's protection as for the attack damage. The attacker's damage minus the defender's protection is the amount of damage dealt to the defender.

Example 1:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '5' and the Hack attack card and Derek chooses a '1' and the Flap defence card. With a 5, the Hack deals 3 damage, but the Flap and a 1 prevent 4 damage, so no damage is dealt.

If both players attack, the damages are calculated and dealt simultaneously, possibly killing each other at the same time.

Example 2:
Roberto (the knight) chooses a '6' and the Charge card and Todd chooses a '3' and the Breathe Fire card. With a 6, the Charge deals 5 damage, which is unblocked, so the dragon loses 5 life force. Breathe Fire with a 3 deals 3 damage, so the knight loses 3 life force.

Charge
The knight has the Charge card, which is a very powerful long range attack, combined with a reduce range movement. After dealing damage, if any, resolve the movement as described under 'Movement' below. For example, in Example 1 above, the combatants would now be at short range.

Dodge
The knight has a Dodge card which if played reduces damage dealt to him this round to zero regardless of what attack the dragon performs.

Example 3:
Jack (the knight) chooses a '4' and the Dodge card. Sam chooses a '5' and the Rake card. Sam's attack would have dealt 3 damage to the knight, but the Dodge reduces that to zero, so no life force is lost.

Knight's Block
The knight also has a block card which reduces damage dealt. If the dragon player has played an attack card and a die, the block will reduce the value on the die before calculating the damage dealt. This could reduce the damage dealt to zero. The amount the dragon's die roll is reduced by depends on the die the knight used in conjunction with it: with a 1,2 or a 3 the dragon's die result is reduced by two, with a 4, 5, or a 6 it is reduced by one. If used without a die it has no effect or against a defence or maneouvre card it has no effect.

Example 4:
Enrique (the knight) chooses a '4' and the Block card. Mal chooses a '5' and the Bite card. With a '4' the Block reduces the dragon's attack die by one, so Sam's '4' is changed to a '3'. Sam's attack now deals 2 damage to the knight, instead of the 4 damage it would have dealt with a '4'.

Combo
Knight has two short range attacks Hack and Slash which have the 'Combo' keyword and one short range defence 'Riposte'.

• If a Hack or Slash is played and deals damage as described in the 'Attack and Defence' section above, the knight may perform a follow up attack using the other short range attack card.
• If Riposte is played and it successfully reduces damage dealt, the knight may perform follow up attack(s) using one or both of the short range attack cards.

You can only use Combo if the combatants remain and short range and the knight has one or two short range attack cards in his hand along with unused dice to assign to the attack(s). These attacks are undefended and deal another (two) rounds of damage this turn.

Example 5:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '4' and Hack, while Roberto chooses a '2' and Advance. The Hack deals 2 damage to the dragon, and seeing as it dealt damage, Konrad can use the Combo effect to immediately play the Slash card from his hand (not the discard pile) along with the remaining '1' die to deal a further 1 damage, the second attack cannot be defended against. Roberto's dragon loses a total of 3 life force.

Movement
If either player has played a movement card (Charge, Advance or Retreat) then the range is adjusted:

• If one or both players reduce range you are now at short range
• If the knight plays Retreat you are now at long range
• If the dragon plays Advance and the knight plays Retreat your range remains the same

Both players must now flip their player aid cards as necessary to show the range they are now at. Both player aids must always show the same range.

Note that the knight's Advance and Retreat cards also prevent one damage if played with a die showing a 1, 2 or a 3.

Discard card and die

At the end of the round both players discard the cards they played (face up where they are visible to both players) and any die they used with it. These discarded cards and dice are unavailable to the player until they play the Recuperate card, which allows them to reclaim all discarded dice and cards, returning the cards to their hand. Once they have reclaimed the dice all their dice are re-rolled.

End of the Game

The game ends at the end of the round in which at least one player has been reduced to zero life force. If the dragon has zero life force, the knight has won regardless of whether or not he has life remaining. Otherwise the dragon wins.

Download the cards

There are two versions of the cards: either front and backs as two separate files or alternatively, all the pages as a single file interleaved for easy double-sided printing.

• Version 2.1 A4 fronts
• Version 2.1 A4 backs

or

• Version 2.1 A4 interleaved

NaGa DeMon 9: An Intermission

Just a brief one today. I've finally been brought low by the sickness bug that's been sweeping my office and house, so there's not going to be any progress on anything for a day or two. I've got a new version that hopefully fixes the problems with the last version that I did on Monday night before I came down with it, but I'd rather not post it until I've had more of a chance to test it. Hopefully it'll be up in a few days...

NaGa DeMon 8: Redux

It's just gone half-time in November, and finally I've got a second version of Dragon Dance for your delectation. Initially I'd intended to make fairly minor changes (decrease dragon hit points and tie = knight win), but feedback from Konrad's three games and a game I played with Dave late on Thursday night inspired some more sweeping changes which kind of crept up on me while I spent 6 hours on trains on Friday.

The changes have led to the dragon becoming stronger (more damage, another attack card and breathe fire now works at both ranges) but also clumsier (0 damage for low dice on most attacks) and bolder (no retreat). Meanwhile the knight now gets some defence while advancing and retreating, and his block reduces the dragon's attack die roll potentially reducing the damage received to zero! In the last version I think the dragon was too strong, and yet these changes have probably made it stronger still, so the knight needed some bulking up too. I've no idea whether these ideas will improve things, or how broken they are, but hopefully they are at least more interesting!

New rules follow, with new print and play files at the bottom.

Dragon Dance
Fire v. Lance
2 players
10-30 mins
10+?

Contents:

8 Knight action cards
8 Dragon action cards
1 Knight player aid card
1 Dragon player aid card
9 heart tokens representing the knight's life force
20 gold coins representing the dragon's life force
3 large red dice for the dragon
5 small white dice for the knight

Dragon Dance is a game of bluff, cards and dice between a knight and a dragon in a mortal fight over the King's daughter.

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to reduce your opponent to zero life force through cleverly timed attacks without running out of your own life force. Each round you will simultaneously choose a die and then a card to action - either attacking, defending or manoeuvering as you dance around each other looking for an opening to exploit. The dragon is more powerful and has more life force, but it's also less agile and slower, so the knight has to strike fast before his limited life force is extinguished. The game weaves between long and short range as combatants close and retreat to catch each other on the wrong foot.

Setup

Decide between yourselves who will play the dragon and the knight. The dragon player takes the dragon player aid, action cards, three red dice and the twenty gold coins to represent its life force. The knight player takes the knight player aid, action cards, five white dice and nine heart tokens representing his life force.

Both players roll all their dice and place them in front of them and place their player aid cards with the 'Long Range' side face up nearby.

Play

The game takes place over a number of rounds during which the players act simultaneously. Throughout the game the players' life tokens, remaining dice and played cards are kept open so that both players can see them.

Each round consists of four phases:

1. Choose a die (or none)
2. Choose a card
3. Action the card
4. Discard card and die

Choose a die
In the first phase, both players simultaneously choose either one of their remaining dice, or none. High values boost attacks, low values boost defence and medium values boost both attack and defence but to a lesser degree.

During this phase, hide your remaining dice from your opponent and then choose one of them to use this turn (by, for example, placing a finger on it) or choose none (by, for example, placing a finger on the table next to your dice). Then reveal your dice along with your selection. The chosen die will be used to either boost an attack or defence card, or as a bluff to trick your opponent into playing a sub-optimal card.

Choose a card
Once both players have revealed their chosen die (or none), both players simultaneously chose a card to play this turn. The chosen cards are placed face down on the table in front of them and then when both players have chosen the cards are revealed. Chosen cards must be playable at your current range, check your player aid to see which cards you can play at your current range, or check the 'Short range' or 'Long range' icons on the cards in your hand. You begin the game at long range. The only effect of the short and long range icons is to limit the cards available to you during this phase. If one or both players play a card which changes the range, the cards chosen are still valid as long as they were valid choice at the starting range this round.

Action the card
Both cards are actioned simultaneously.

Attacks & Defence
If either player chooses an attack card, calculate the damage they deal as follows:
If they have chosen a die, use the table on the card to determine how much damage they are dealing, if no dice is chosen determine damage using the no dice column in the table.
If their opponent has not played a defence card, they lose life force equal to the damage dealt.
If their opponent has played a defence card, use the table on the defence card (along with any die chosen) to determine the defender's protection as for the attack damage. The attacker's damage minus the defender's protection is the amount of damage dealt to the defender.

Example 1:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '5' and the Hack attack card and Derek chooses a '1' and the Flap defence card. With a 5, the Hack deals 3 damage, but the Flap and a 1 prevent 4 damage, so no damage is dealt.

If both players attack, the damages are calculated and dealt simultaneously, possibly killing each other at the same time.

Example 2:
Roberto (the knight) chooses a '6' and the Charge card and Todd chooses a '3' and the Breathe Fire card. With a 6, the Charge deals 5 damage, which is unblocked, so the dragon loses 5 life force. Breathe Fire with a 3 deals 3 damage, so the knight loses 3 life force.

Charge
The knight has the Charge card, which is a very powerful long range attack, combined with a reduce range movement. After dealing damage, if any, resolve the movement as described under 'Movement' below. For example, in Example 1 above, the combatants would now be at short range.

Dodge
The knight has a Dodge card which if played reduces damage dealt to him this round to zero regardless of what attack the dragon performs.

Example 3:
Jack (the knight) chooses a '4' and the Dodge card. Sam chooses a '5' and the Rake card. Sam's attack would have dealt 3 damage to the knight, but the Dodge reduces that to zero, so no life force is lost.

Knight's Block
The knight also has a block card which reduces damage dealt. If the dragon player has played an attack card and a die, the block will reduce the value on the die before calculating the damage dealt. This could reduce the damage dealt to zero. The amount the dragon's die roll is reduced by depends on the die the knight used in conjunction with it: with a 1,2 or a 3 the dragon's die result is reduced by two, with a 4, 5, or a 6 it is reduced by one. If used without a die it has no effect or against a defence or maneouvre card it has no effect.

Example 4:
Enrique (the knight) chooses a '4' and the Block card. Mal chooses a '5' and the Bite card. With a '4' the Block reduces the dragon's attack die by one, so Sam's '4' is changed to a '3'. Sam's attack now deals 2 damage to the knight, instead of the 4 damage it would have dealt with a '4'.

Combo
Knight has two short range attacks Hack and Slash which have the 'Combo' keyword. If a Hack or Slash is played and deals damage as described in the 'Attack and Defence' section above, the knight may perform a follow up attack. Providing the combatants remain and short range and the knight has his other short range attack card in his hand he may immediately play it (assigning a remaining die if any) as an undefended attack which deals a second round of damage this turn.

Example 5:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '4' and Hack, while Roberto chooses a '2' and Advance. The Hack deals 2 damage to the dragon, and seeing as it dealt damage, Konrad can use the Combo effect to immediately play the Slash card from his hand (not the discard pile) along with the remaining '1' die to deal a further 1 damage, the second attack cannot be defended against. Roberto's dragon loses a total of 3 life force.

Movement
If either player has played a movement card (Charge, Advance or Retreat) then the range is adjusted:

• If one or both players 'reduce range' you are now at short range
• If one or both players 'increase range' you are now at long range
• If one player 'reduces range' and the other 'increases range' your range remains the same

Both players must now flip their player aid cards as necessary to show the range they are now at. Both player aids must always show the same range.

Note that the knight's advance and retreat cards also prevent one damage if played with a die showing a 1, 2 or a 3.

Discard card and die

At the end of the round both players discard the cards they played (face up where they are visible to both players) and any die they used with it. These discarded cards and dice are unavailable to the player until they play the Recuperate card, which allows them to reclaim all discarded dice and cards, returning the cards to their hand. Once they have reclaimed the dice all their dice are re-rolled.

End of the Game

The game ends at the end of the round in which at least one player has been reduced to zero life force. If the dragon has zero life force, the knight has won regardless of whether or not he has life remaining. Otherwise the dragon wins.

Download the cards

To keep everyone happy there's now two versions of the cards: either front and backs as two separate files or alternatively, all the pages as a single file interleaved for easy double-sided printing.

• Version 2 A4 fronts
• Version 2 A4 backs

or

• Version 2 A4 interleaved

TGWAG League Table 3

Another great week of Dragon Dance progress. I've played it another five times and I've had a report from Konrad who has played it three times as well. Early indications are now hinting that the dragon is possibly a little overpowered in version one of the rules.

Talking about the rules, I've been very surprised at how stable this first version has been. Usually my first version of any game is dreadful, but this one not so much. So I've been struggling to think of how to improve it. Initially the only change I was thinking of making was to make a tie count as a knight win (the dragon's dead after all) and maybe reducing the dragon's hit points a bit. But Konrad's very detailed feedback gave me a couple of ideas and then I had a couple more from Dave's feedback after our end of Games Night game on Thursday. On the train on Friday I ended up making fairly large changes, so when that version becomes available it'll be interesting to see whether it's more interesting/fun and how badly I've broken the balance!

In terms of TGWAG there's been steady progress across the board, but Konrad's printing out, pimping, playing three times at the expense of his own NaGa DeMon game and then very detailed feedback with some cracking ideas has enabled him to race away at the front. Enrique (Eblasco/@7isprime) has also managed to nudge Roberto (during his trip to Saudi) into fourth place, currently out of the running for a free copy of the game.

Name	PIPs	PIAL	Free game?
Sir Konrad/@pidaysock	23	Knight	Yes
Derek Hohls/@gamesbook	11	Squire	Yes
Eblasco/@7isprime	9	Footman	Yes
Roberto	8	Footman	No
@kimacus	3	Serf	No
Mal	3	Serf	No
@MTTJ_Patrick	3	Serf	No
@toddderscheid	2	Serf	No

Congratulations to Sir Konrad of Deutschland on his well deserved knighthood!

NaGa DeMon 7: Less Selfish

Last year, despite the point of NaGa DeMon being to share and discuss your experiences I was very much focussed on my own efforts: Zombology. I played it lots, I blogged about it lots and that was it. The Daughter was still sleeping dreadfully and to survive at work I needed very early nights, so I had little time available for my NaGa DeMon and none for anyone else's.



This year, a couple of things are different. Firstly, The daughter, bless her heart, is finally sleeping like a boss - so I can go to bed at a sensible time fairly safe in the knowledge of an uninterrupted night and a morning that won't start at some ungodly hour in the middle of the night. Which means more free time. But also, more opportunity.



Sam, a friend at work is also taking part in NaGa DeMon, designing his first game themed around electioneering. So we've been splitting lunchtime playtesting sessions between Codename: Dragon and his game. In addition, a couple of the Newcastle Playtest crew were talking about taking part this year, I missed the last session due to cleaning up after the day's double-glazing, but we've arranged an impromptu meet up next week, so hopefully I'll be able to get involved and help them out with their playtesting.



Konrad, last year's TGWAG winner (and looking increasingly like this year's too!) is also taking part, so I'd like to try out his Cyberspace game too.



With the NaGa DeMon website fairly stagnant, I've been cross posting my NaGa DeMon blogs to the Google+ group for Board Games Design, so I'm watching that space too, I've not had much to say there yet, but as more information comes up about other people's games I hope to get involved.



In other news, I'll be spending 15 hours on trains over the next three days, so I hope to do more artwork for Dragon Dance, along with a new version of the rules and some more blog posts.

Mobile Development: Beta Testers Wanted

A brief interlude from my NaGa DeMon efforts.

I've been working on a Windows Phone version of the Martian Dice game designed by Scott Almes and published by Tasty Minstrel Games. Initially it was purely a personal project, so I could play it on the train when I go to Manchester for work (it's not available on the iPad) and as a programming exercise for myself. As it took shape I was fairly happy with it, so I approached Michael Mindes of TMG, and he very kindly said I could make it available as long as it was free of charge and I made clear it wasn't made or maintained by TMG.

It's now 'finished' and going through beta testing, and I'm looking for beta testers for it. If you would like early access (in return for some feedback!) please post a comment including your email address.

It only works on WP8 and WP8.1, and it's pass and play with no AI.

NaGa DeMon 6: Something To Aim For

I've now played seven games of Codename: Dragon, four against Sam, two against Mal and one against Ian. I've drawn twice, once as the dragon and once as the knight both against Sam, and won every other game. Which is good, it makes me thing there's an element of skill in the game as the most experienced player wins more games.

Recently, Mal was wondering whether the dragon had too few hit points. I replied that I didn't have enough data, and here's the proof:

The blue bars represent the games I've played and the amount of life the winner had left at the end. The knight is on the left of zero, the dragon on the right. The orange line represents a target for the win distribution I'd like the final game to have. So very few ties, and a roughly Gaussian distribution on either side, but with the dragon as likely to win as the knight (assuming equally matched players).

It's going to be really difficult to achieve this considering the asymmetry in the game:

• the knight has fewer hit points
• the dragon has fewer dice, so needs to recuperate more often
• the dragon's attacks and defence are stronger
• the knight has the ability to attack and change range
• the knight has the ability to prevent all damage once
• the knight has the ability to combo attacks

But it gives me a target to aim for. Clearly what I need to begin with is a shed-load more data. That's where you come in - there's PIPs galore available for helping me to fill in those blanks!

NaGa DeMon 5: Since Records Began

A vital part of designing any game is recording ideas, what works and what doesn't and outcomes.

In recent months I've been using Evernote on my phone, iPad and Laptop to record ideas about games along with feedback and information about game outcomes. This year I've also been using it to keep track of everyone's PIP scores (it's much better at that than the way I was using Excel last year).

I generally expect a new game to go through its first few versions very quickly, since the first time you try it there's usually something dreadfully broken that you'd not even contemplated that needs immediate attention - without fixing it the game is so broken that it's not even playable.

With that in mind my first prototype was a mixture of pen and pencil scribbles on plain white card, I only used pen for the things I was convinced wouldn't change (the names of the characters: St. George and Dragon), with everything else drawn lightly in pencil ready for frequent erasing and amending.

As it turns out after a week of playing I've not changed anything (except the name of one of the characters: now the more generic Knight). So it's time for a component upgrade: I've printed my own P&P files ready for testing this week:

A disadvantage of my assumption of horrible brokenness is that I've not been recording the outcomes of the games properly. When the components are changing on a daily basis, recording the results of the games in minute detail is a waste of time. You know there's something obviously broken, so knowing that the knight wins 53.3% of games with on average 3.45 life left isn't going to help. Expecting the worse I've made a mental note of who won (me!) and who they were playing (a fairly even mix of knight and dragon) but I've not been recording the final scores needed for tweaking to try to make the game as balanced as possible between the asymmetric knight and dragon. Seeing as I've now played five games and I've just made a new version with no substantive changes I can now start tracking the scores to the point where I accumulate enough data to be meaningful. I've also tried to work backwards and remember the scores from the five games I've already got under my belt.

Hopefully I'll soon have some more data from TGWAG competitors to add to that which I've collected and mis-remembered myself...

TGWAG: League Table 2

It's been a good week, not only have I played Codename: Dragon five times already (without a loss!), but I've also managed to get a first stab at the rules and an initial print and play version up for playtesting. And all this despite having the house turned upside this week due to the double-glazing being done. The double-glazing will be finished by the middle of next week, so things should settle down a bit then I hope.

It's also been a good week for TGWAG. In addition to last week's four competitors (all of whom have gained points this week) we have four new competitors too.

Name	PIPs	PIAL	Free game?
Konrad/@pidaysock	12	Squire	Yes
Derek Hohls/@gamesbook	8	Footman	Yes
Roberto	6	Footman	Yes
Eblasco/@7isprime	4	Serf	No
@kimacus	3	Serf	No
@toddderscheid	1	Serf	No
Mal	2	Serf	No
@MTTJ_Patrick	2	Serf	No

So we have a few people raised from serfdom, and Konrad has even been made a squire! Heady heights. The big question is: will anyone get knighted next week?

NaGa DeMon 4: Print and Play

Just under a week in and already I'm posting Print and Play files!

Codename: Dragon has really surprised me. It's the first time I've designed a game and the first prototype hasn't been so hideously broken that I've had to make sweeping changes - either during the first game or immediately afterwards. I've now played this version five times, three times as the knight and twice as the dragon. The first game resulted in a tie, but since then I've won every game I've played, which implies that it's not so totally random that there's no learning curve that rewards repeated plays.

That's the good news. The bad news is that despite it kind of working how I had hoped and not being too unbalanced or broken, there's been no love for it yet. My testers have been happy to play again and I think are largely still trying to get their heads round how the game works. But no one is clamouring for another game or offering to sell me their firstborn or a kidney for a copy of their own that they can carry with them at all times and foist upon unsuspecting spouses, relatives, friends and strangers.

So it clearly needs some work.

But I'm not sure what. That's where you come in. There's a couple of links at the bottom of this post to the front and back files, both two sheets of A4. If you fancy it please print them out and give the game a go (you'll also need the rules, 29 counters and 8 six-sided dice). There's PIPs by the bucket-load for feedback (especially critical) and ideas.

Please get stuck in!

• Card fronts (2 sides of A4)
• Card backs (2 sides of A4)

NaGa DeMon 3: First Rules!

We're still right at the beginning of November, but things are off to a great start. I've managed to play Codename: Dragon a few times at work this week already and considering how fresh the idea is, the game works remarkably well. Don't get me wrong, it's a long way from finished. But even now it's playable and interesting. I was delaying putting the rules up here until I'd had a chance to play them and check them for glaring problems, but here are the first version rules for critique:

Dragon Dance
Fire v. Lance
2 players
10-30 mins
10+?

Contents:

8 The knight action cards
8 The dragon action cards
1 The knight player aid card
1 The dragon player aid card
9 heart tokens representing the knight's life force
20 gold coins representing the dragon's life force
3 large red dice for the dragon
5 small white dice for the knight

Dragon Dance is a game of bluff, cards and dice between a knight and a dragon in a mortal fight over the King's daughter.

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to reduce your opponent to zero life force through cleverly timed attacks without running out of your own life force. Each round you will simultaneously choose a card and a die to action - either attacking, defending or manoeuvering as you dance around each other looking for an opening to exploit. The dragon is more powerful and has more life force, but he's also less agile and slower, so the knight has to strike fast before his limited life force is extinguished.

Setup

Decide amongst yourselves who will play the dragon and the knight. The dragon player takes the dragon player aid, action cards, three red dice and the twenty gold coins to represent his life force. The knight player takes the knight player aid, action cards, five white dice and nine heart tokens representing his life force.

Both players roll all their dice and place them in front of them and place their player aids with the 'Long Range' side face up nearby.

Play

The game takes place over a number of rounds during which the players act simultaneously. Throughout the game the players' life tokens, remaining dice and played cards are kept open so that both players can see them.

Each round consists of four phases:

1. Choose a die (or none)
2. Choose a card
3. Action the card
4. Discard card and die

Choose a die
In the first phase, both players simultaneously choose either one of their remaining dice, or none. High values boost attacks, low values boost defence and medium values boost both attack and defence to a lesser degree.

During this phase, hide your remaining dice from your opponent and then choose one of them to use this turn (by, for example, placing a finger on it) or choose none (by, for example, placing a finger on the table next to your dice). Then reveal your dice along with your selection. The chosen die will be used to either boost an attack or defence card, or as a bluff to trick your opponent into playing a sub-optimal card.

Choose a card
Once both players have revealed their chosen die (or none), both players simultaneously chose a card to play this turn. The chosen card is placed face down on the table in front of them and then when both players have chosen the cards are revealed. Chosen cards must be playable at your current range, check your player aid to see which cards your can play at your current range, or check the 'Short range' or 'Long range' icons on the cards in your hand. You begin the game at long range.

Action the card
Both cards are actioned simultaneously.

Attacks & Defence
If either player chooses an attack card, calculate the damage they deal as follows:
If they have chosen a die, use the table on the card to determine how much damage they are dealing, if no dice is chosen determine damage using the no dice column in the table.
If their opponent has not played a defence card, they lose life force equal to the damage dealt.
If their opponent has played a defence card, use the table on the defence card (along with any die chosen) to determine the defender's protection as for the attack damage. The attacker's damage minus the defender's protection is the amount of damage dealt to the defender.

Example 1:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '5' and the Hack attack card and Derek chooses a '1' and the Flap defence card. With a 5, the Hack deals 3 damage, but the Flap and a 1 prevent 4 damage, so no damage is dealt.

If both players attack, the damages are calculated and dealt simultaneously, possibly killing each other at the same time.

Example 2:
Roberto (the knight) chooses a '6' and the Charge card and Todd chooses a '3' and the Breathe Fire card. With a 6, the Charge deals 5 damage, which is unblocked, so the dragon loses 5 life force. Breathe Fire with a 3 deals 3 damage, so the knight loses 3 life force.

Charge
The knight has the Charge card, which is a very powerful long range attack, combined with a reduce range movement. After dealing damage, if any, resolve the movement as described under 'Movement' below. For example, in Example 1 above, the combatants would now be at short range.

Dodge
The knight has a Dodge card which if played reduces damage dealt to him this round to zero regardless of what attack the dragon performs.

Example 3:
Jack (the knight) chooses no die, and the Dodge card. Sam chooses a '6' and the Rake card. Sam's attack would have dealt 3 damage to the knight, but the Dodge reduces that to zero, so no life force is lost.

Combo
Knight has two short range attacks Hack and Slash which have the 'Combo' keyword. If a Hack or Slash is played and deals damage as described in the 'Attack and Defence' section above, the knight may perform a follow up attack. Providing the combatants remain and short range and the knight has his other short range attack card in his hand he may immediately play it (assigning a remaining die if any) as an undefended attack which deals a second round of damage this turn.

Example 4:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '4' and Hack, while Roberto chooses a '2' and Advance. The Hack deals 2 damage to the dragon, and seeing as it dealt damage, Konrad can use the Combo effect to immediately play the Slash card from his hand (not the discard pile) along with the remaining '1' die to deal a further 1 damage. Roberto's dragon loses a total of 3 life force.

Movement
If either player has played a movement card (Charge, Advance or Retreat) then the range is adjusted:

• If one or both players 'reduce range' you are now at short range
• If one or both players 'increase range' you are now at long range
• If one player 'reduces range' and the other 'increases range' your range remains the same

Flip your player aid cards as necessary to show the range you are now at.

Discard card and die

At the end of the round both players discard the cards they played (face up where they are visible to both players) and any die they used with it. These discarded cards and dice are unavailable to the player until they play the Recuperate card, which allows them to reclaim all discarded dice and cards, returning the cards to their hand. Once they have reclaimed the dice all their dice are re-rolled.

End of the Game

The game ends at the end of the round in which at least one player has been reduced to zero life force. If the other player has at least one life force remaining they are the winner, otherwise the game is a draw and the Princess wanders off.

NaGa DeMon 2: Codename: Dragon - Components

I've said before that you shouldn't invest too heavily in the components of your early prototypes since the game is likely to change beyond recognition and those components that you splashed out on or invested hundreds of hours of artwork in are liable to be replaced by something else in very short order.

NaGa DeMon is a slight exception to that rule for me, since at the end of the month, I've committed to sending prototypes to the three most helpful competitors in TGWAG. So I need to make my copy plus three more. Since those three competitors will (hopefully!) invested their valuable time and effort in helping me, the least I can do to show my appreciation is to give them a signed, limited edition prototype that doesn't totally suck. So I want to splash out a little and make the prize a neat little package. So I need some components. Times four.

As I mentioned on Friday, I'm expecting the game to feature cards (which I'm a dab hand at, if I do say so myself), dice and counters. Some dice for St. George and some for the dragon, plus some counters for St. George and some for the dragon.

When I think dragons I think big scaly red beasts guarding a vast hoard of gold (thanks J.R.R. Tolkien!) and when I think St. George I think white and red - the colours of the flag of St. George, the national flag of England which is incorporated into the Union Jack of Great Britain.

So, to separate the dice between players, I've gone for white dice for St. George and red ones for the dragon (the dragon is a bit wordy, he needs a name. Bonus PIPs for the best suggested name in the comments). I went to Travelling Man after work on Friday to get the dice and they had some nice Chessex ones in two different sizes. Since I need more white than red (I think!), I've gone for smaller white ones (bonus: St. George is smaller than the dragon) and nice marbled red and gold ones for the dragon.

For life counters, I recently bought some red wooden hearts from BoardGameExtras.co.uk for pimping my copy of Love Letter. Thinking ahead I bought a load more for Codename: Dragon purposes. That's St. George sorted, and it fits well since lots of computer games use hearts as the iconography for lives. Which just leaves the dragon. Dragon = hoard of gold. As it happens I've a load of yellow wooden disks left over from the limited edition of It's Alive I published back in 2008. I've hung onto them knowing they'd come in handy sooner or later. Their time has come!

Which give me this:

TGWAG League Table 1

We're only two days into NaGa DeMon and already The Game Within A Game is off to a good start. We've got four competitors so far competing for three signed and numbered limited edition copies of the NaGa DeMon version of Codename: Dragon.

Konrad and Derek both took part (and won a copy) last year, with Roberto and Todd new participants for 2014.

Name	PIPs	PIAL	Free game?
Konrad/@pidaysock	4	Serf	Yes
Derek Hohls	3	Serf	Yes
Roberto	2	Serf	Yes
@toddderscheid	1	Serf	No

My father-in-law is visiting at the moment, but I've managed to bag up the components I think I need for my first copy, and last night I made some basic cards for it too. The cards are hand-scribbled with pencil to enable easy editing when the first version inevitably turns out to be horribly unplayable. I'm going to try to get some games in at lunchtime this week, since I'm pretty sure I can't make Newcastle Playtest on Tuesday after all - it'll be cleaning up after the first day of double-glazing instead.