Essen?

Last year we attended 3 shows.

AireCon, UK Games Expo and Tabletop Scotland.

They were all good in their own ways and we enjoyed them all.

This year we can’t make AireCon or Tabletop Scotland due to family holidays.

This weekend at the National Space Centre was great.

All set up at NSC!

But we might have room in the calendar for one more…

Could this be Eurydice Games’ first Essen?

There’s loads of things to work out. Tax. VAT. Customs. Costs.

But we’re looking into it for the first time…

Space

I have been fascinated by space for as long as I can remember.

I love sci-fi stories and films.

Maybe you can tell? FlickFleet? Rocky ‘Roid? The Planets My Destination? Coalescence?

My favourite game is Race for the Galaxy. (And I bought Ian O’Toole’s amazing BGG Artists Series reimagining of the box art for that).

Every time we drive to Bristol to see our families we pass a sign for the National Space Centre.

It’s been on my todo list for a long time.

This weekend I’m finally visiting it!

We were invited to demo (and sell!) FlickFleet there as part of their To Boldly Game event.

Needs more Star Wars

I’m so excited!

Ending

The pledge manager for the Box of Pirate Flicks closes in about 24 hours.

Last chance to get heavily-subsidised international shipping on all things FlickFleet.

Then I’ll be ordering all the things we need to make 1,200 boxes worth.

Or maybe 1,500.

I need to decide on final numbers.

Hence closing the pledge manager.

I’m also getting a new Coalescence prototype together.

This one was too small!

And finishing off The Planet My Destination.

Then we’re off to the National Space Centre for their To Boldly Game event.

It’s a busy time!

Culmination

I have two games nearing completion.

The Planets My Destination, my second roll and write.

And Coalescence, a dexterity game of solar-system building.

TPMD has frequently got great feedback. 

I’m finalising the graphic design now.

I might just release it on the website.

Rather than crowdfunding.

Rocky ‘Roid made very little money after ad spend and Gamefound fees.

Coalescence has been 4 (5?) years in the making.

It’s worked for most of that time, but was missing the spark that makes it super fun. The highs and lows.

And it was nigh-impossible to manufacture.

I think I might have cracked both.

Needs a new prototype. 

And more testing.

I’m working on both.

Might even enter Coalescence into the Cardboard Edison award…

2024

Another year.

Can it be better again than 2023?

For me?

For my family?

For Eurydice Games?

I’ll do what I can to achieve those.

Not with resolutions.

But with habits.

My daily habits have slipped over the last week.

I did six out of nine.

So I lost my streak.

52 days.

Now 0 again.

I’m going to restart.

Can I beat 172?

Reach 200?

We’ll see…

Happy New Year all! I hope your habits propel you to excellent things.

Photo by Eyestetix Studio via Unsplash

Christmas

I’m taking a break now for Christmas.

Heading to Bristol to see family and in-laws.

Will probably take some prototypes along with some games though.

I’ve levelled up Coalescence a bit.

Hope you all have a great Christmas/Happy Holidays/winter break/summer break as appropriate!

See you in 2024!

Demand

We ran some ads during the Gamefound campaign.

Which is still open to late pledges

The ads led to a bump in website sales as they always do.

The ads finished when the main campaign finished - at the end of October.

But website sales remained high.

Higher in fact.

The average for the last eleven weeks has been double the average of the preceding quarter.

Which itself was crazy high.

Website sales have been amazing.

And I’ve no idea why!

No ads.

The traffic comes from mostly Google.

With Paul having been ill, then hospitalised, then recovering, then at mine last weekend, then recovering again, we have struggled to keep up with demand.

We’re on top of it again.

Thanks to a quieter week this week.

I’m guessing the Christmas present traffic has peaked now.

Still don’t know where they heard of it.

Or what drove the demand.

Very grateful though, whatever it was!

Fauxmas

Paul and his family visited for the weekend.

Celebrating an early Christmas with friends.

Paul’s still a bit under the weather after last weekend’s stay in hospital, but on the mend.

We played loads of games.

And talked Eurydice.

Scheming.

Planning.

A bit of game design.

Might now gave a viable way of making this

And sorted the names for the FlickFleet  pirate ships.

The Box of Pirate Flicks rules are with the proof reader now.

Next up is the dashboards.

That’s this week’s task…

I’m hoping to tease them in the FlickFleet Facebook group as I go…

Rules

I’m now in fulfilment mode. 

First up is the print and play rewards due at the end of this month. 

They require the finished rulebook and dashboards. 

I’ve finished a first cut of the rules this week. 

Taking shape!

Next up are the dashboards and finalising the rules. 

The 3D printing and laser-cutting files are done. 

Looks on track at the moment. 

Hopefully early. 

Website sales are continuing very strongly. 

Still no idea why. 

But Paul has spent all weekend in hospital with a serious infection. 

He’s coming home this afternoon though.

Dichotomy

Website sales are up.

A lot.

Like, a lot a lot.

Average weekly sales since the beginning of October are double May-September and almost 30 times January-April.

Thirty!

It's been amazing.

The new website has helped a lot.

As have a lot of really good reviews.

We are featured in the latest Senet magazine too.

We're getting lots of new FlickFleet fans!

Yet the Gamefound campaign didn't do as well as the last two.

And the pledge manager is way lower than Xeno Wars.

I though the new fans might join in for Expansion 1 which is cheap and out of stock.

Or the great new reviews and cheaper shipping would convince more people to give it a try.

I want to understand why before the next campaign.

Phases

Crowdfunding is lots of different phases. 

There’s the page graphic design.

Then the constant checking of a live campaign. 

Then a brief respite. 

Then the pledge manager preparation. 

Then the P&P file preparation. 

Then the ordering of all the different components. 

Then it’s over to Paul for the manufacturing. 

Then shipping. 

Which is mostly Paul, but involves a decent chunk of bookkeeping for me. 

The pledge manager is in review. 

So I’ve started working on the P&P files.

The rulebook is taking shape...

Pledge Manager

My focus is now setting up the pledge manager.

It’s a bit of a faff.

Gamefound is getting better though.

We’re still a bit unusual though.

Lots of stuff that we re-enter every time.

Because it’s essentially the same game.

We can’t turn it on before the 15th.

I’m hoping to hit that date.

Or thereabouts.

Plus Paul and I have a date to finalise all the ships.

A day of playtesting on the horizon

So I can do the dashboards and rules.

Once the pledge manager is up.

Making solid progress.

Yorkshire

I’ve spent the weekend in Yorkshire.

In the middle of nowhere.

In a former hunting lodge.

With 25 other gamers.

Playing games.

Oh so many games.

It was awesome.

Did some playtesting.

Played Battlestar Galactica for the first time in years.

And even got a couple of short walks in :)

We were near this 150 year old viaduct

Surprised

With much cheaper shipping, 

And double the ad budget, 

And better graphic design, 

And great new reviews, 

And Stretch Pay, 

I thought we’d get more backers who were new to FlickFleet. 

Not big pledges. Just the base game. 

Or maybe with Xeno Wars. 

At this point we have about 240 backers. Which is a lot less than last time. 

And 150 of those are existing fans getting the new stuff to add to their collections. 

Every time I run a campaign I’m surprised by something.

I wonder what put the new people off?

Fast. Slow. Fast?

We’re in the middle of the campaign.

After a great start, it’s slowed to a crawl.

I knew it was coming.

Happens every time.

Still hard though.

Watching the total tick ever so slowly up.

And occasionally down due to a cancellation.

We’re still tracking ahead of every campaign we’ve previously run.

Just.

No idea where we’ll end up.

Probably similar to Xeno Wars.

A bit up on it.

Or a bit down.

All depends on the last couple of days now. 

Until then we wait.

Watching it tick up slowly.

And occasionally down.

Launch

Our fifth FlickFleet campaign launches tomorrow lunchtime. 

I’m a bit worried about it. 

It’s a weird one. 

A new expansion for true fans of the game. 

But there’s not a huge number of them. 

And the new expansion doesn’t really make sense for new backers unless they go all in. 

Which is expensive now. 

And not possible until we unlock a lofty reprints stretch goal. 

We’ve only sold about 1,500 copies of FlickFleet in total over the last 5 years. 

I’m utterly convinced there are thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who would love FlickFleet if they played it. 

The challenge is finding them. 

And getting them to take a punt on a game made in a garage. 

I’m nervous. 

I hope tomorrow goes well.

Reset

I've a chain of daily tasks.

Including game design, exercise and a walk outside.

I keep track of how many days I've kept it up.

At the beginning of the year I set myself a goal of a 100 day chain.

I'd done that by March.

I broke the chain on a family holiday by accident after 123 days.

I thought I'd done my stretches but, in hindsight, I think I forgot.

I started again.

I got to 176, before last week's COVID did for it again.

Several days where I wasn't fit enough to exercise.

And shouldn't leave the house.

Now I'm feeling better I've started again.

It's day 5.

I want to get to 200 this time.

It's really good for me.

Bed

I’m writing this on Sunday.

Which is not unusual.

I’m also writing it from bed.

Which is.

We’ve got just over two weeks until the planned launch of our next Gamefound campaign.

Lots to do.

I could do without being ill.

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

But here we are.