Rear View

Happy new year! As is traditional, it's time to take stock of where I am, what I am doing, and where I am going.  So let's kick that off with a look at how last year was for me from a game design point of view.

In my forward-looking post last year I set myself six objectives.  These were all pretty woolly (not bothering with SMART stuff in this part of my life), but were at least something that would help me in a direction of travel, at least in principle.

Here are my hands, trimming rules sheets (or, at least, pretending to do so for the camera).

My first two objectives were about pitching my games and putting myself out there.  The first of which I definitely achieved by dint of presenting my game, Invaded, via the speed-dating event at UK Games Expo, which was a great, if extremely tiring experience. Objective two was to arrange a few pitch meetings (primarily at UKGE), and in the event I only had one of these pre-arranged, plus another that was a follow-up from the speed-dating.  I'll count this one as a partial, but need to try harder.

Next up I was hoping to take part in the 24 hour game design contest on Board Game Geek at least three times, but only actually managed two, so that's another "try harder" grade.  I also intended to try for a bigger contest; I fell short of getting into the Hippodice contest or any other higher profile event, but I did submit to the BGG wargame contest, so I think that gives me a pass mark, though not a distinction.

I also wanted to do some more collaboration with other designers.  I didn't manage to progress the projects that I had started off with others the previous year, but I did get something new started, and we got around a couple of early iterations.  I'm not sure if this game will actually get anywhere, but I have an idea of what to try with it next, so hopefully in the next few weeks I'll give that a go.

Finally, playtesting, that perennial challenge.  I got to the monthly Sunday meetup in London most months of the year, plus managed to have playtesting sessions at UK Games Expo and Dragonmeet, had a few other playtesting opportunities here and there, and hosted "official" playtest sessions at my house 11 times.  This isn't bad really, but it's nowhere near enough to make real progress with my projects, so I need to work on this.  One of my problems here is my lack of confidence and willingness to lean on people for playtesting.  I don't think there is really any way around this other than learning to ask for help more and cultivating the right sort of relationships.

I say finally, but there was more to my life over the last year, even some bits that weren't related to gaming, but I'll try to keep more or less on topic.

An interesting thing for me was turning Egge on Thine Face from a 24 hour design project to a print and play game with commissioned artwork, and then getting some nice copies made to give away to friends as gifts.  This extended my experience a little with creating an art direction document, preparing files for print, and so on, all of which is somewhat outside my comfort zone, but I now have a slightly better understanding of now.

I continued my occasional proofreading exploits through the year, and ended up signing up for an introductory course in the art.  I still have the last module of the course to complete (I plan to do that in the next few days) but have enjoyed it and learnt a load -- particularly learning a load about how much I don't know.  I'm planning to take a follow-up course, but already I feel that my approach to proofreading has moved forward a fair bit.

These last couple of points have reinforced my personal conviction that I do not want to be a publisher, but learning a bit more about some skills that are useful to publishers may be good for me in general, particularly if I ever try to make a living in this business.

I have had a few spells of just struggling to get motivated to do anything, but I'm finding that talking to people is often a help, but otherwise just trying to be kind to myself and not worry about it seems the way forward.  I have started getting back to reading books about history (lately it has been mostly early medieval Britain), which is proving to be an interesting diversion and also a source of inspiration -- one of my new games last year was inspired by one of these books.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has playtested any of my games over the last year, and everyone who has given other help, advice and support, including you for reading this blog!  You are all amazing and part of what makes game design such a great hobby to be part of. It's hard going at times, but it's the people who make it all worthwhile.