The State of Play

So, it's another new year and I guess that's as good a time as any to reflect a bit and think a bit about where I am from a game design point of view. How did the last year go, and how am I planning to move forward?

Well, I'll start with the biggest point from last year: I signed a game with a publisher. I haven't been given the nod to start shouting about this yet, but will give you the lowdown as soon as I can. The publisher has been showing some early copies of the game at trade shows this month, so it should be imminent. This is exciting stuff, and I can't wait to tell everyone, but patience is important as part of building a good working relationship.

The Castle War as it was around August last year.

Other than that, I worked with another designer on a game based on one of their past (unpublished) design that developed into something significantly different, and we have already pitched that to a publisher, who has taken a prototype for evaluation, and we are hoping to hear back in the next month or two.

Ongoing project, The Artifact, about which I have posted here a number of times, is chugging along. I've been working with co-designer Alex Cannon mostly online, though we have met up a couple of times and played the game, plus have both managed some physical tests with other folk. The game is feeling like mechanically it is pretty much sorted, but one aspect, a "project board" that effectively handles the scoring and victory conditions, is proving tricky to get right. I think we are close though, and we are hoping to be able to pitch it for publication some time this year.

My card game, The Castle War, has also made some significant progress, in partnership with a publisher. The game is not officially signed, but I am content with how we are moving along with this one, and the game is finally feeling pretty solid. 

The other game I have done significant work on in 2024 was Sympolis, my card and dice cooperative game. In a similar way to The Artifact, the core mechanisms of the game are working well, but I've been struggling to get the finishing details locked down; in this case it is how to balance the challenge so the game feels like it builds to a tense culmination. Unfortunately, here I don't have the luxury of a co-designer to work with on these issues. I have some ideas that I am experimenting with though, so I'm sure I will get there.

Reflecting on this for a moment, I think that I am learning that I am stronger at working on a core engagement than I am at delivering a punchline. I have had playtests of Sympolis, for example, where the players have really been chewing on the challenge and engaging strongly, only to be disappointed when that tension dissipates into an unsatisfying endgame. I think this is partly because I am inclined to just sketch out a rough endgame and leave it like that while I do everything else. This can work fine when it's a straightforward duelling game, or a classic "play ends, then count up points" Eurogame, but not so much in most of the games I have worked on lately. I should watch out for that.

More generally, how was the year? Well, aside from the obvious high points, I have picked things up a fair bit from the lows I reached a year or two back when the get up and go had thoroughly got up and gone. I'm still not good at organising playtesting sessions, but I have been to some good events (a couple of invite-only playtesting weekends, for instance), and have got back into the swing of regular meetups with a couple of other game designer friends. I still have a long way to go in really getting back in the proverbial saddle, but the direction of travel is correct, I think.

So for this year, I think it should be more of the same, and probably more more of the same. I'll be meeting up with designers, attending a small number of conventions and games days, volunteering at the playtest zone at UK Games Expo, and hopefully actually sorting out more regular playtesting locally. Maybe even pitching a game or two. I've been really feeling good about collaborations with other designers - some have worked well so far, and some not so much, but that's to be expected - so I'll keep looking for opportunities to work with others.

I'm also tinkering around with roleplaying games a bit more again, which is a hobby that used to take up most of my time before I switched priorities into board games. Hopefully I'll get to play and run RPGs a bit more than I have been. The "random table per day" challenge I set myself last year was roleplaying-adjacent, and I'm thinking about working with some of that material to see if I can turn it into something more.

Other than that... I'm not really one for new year resolutions, so I think keep on going, be kind to myself, and try to help others... that'll have to do for now.

Newish Year, 2024 Edition

While I have done a lot better at blogging over the last year than I did in the previous couple, I still get myself caught in a trap of not wanting to write anything up unless I have something significant to say, and then worrying that the posts I do write and publish aren't "worthy" in some way. 

But that was never meant to be the purpose of this blog - it was meant to be a place for me to write things down in public, whether they increase the sum of human knowledge or not. The act of writing and publishing helps me solidify thoughts and somehow builds a little accountability into the way I do things. 

And actually, I do get comments and feedback from a few people, occasionally on the blog itself, but more often on one of the other social media platforms I share it on. If you are one of the people who has responded in some way, thank you, it's really appreciated.

Anyway, we are now a few weeks into a new year and, while I'm a bit late, I guess it's time for a little reflection and looking forward.

I do feel I turned a corner in 2023 and started getting back into the swing of game design work. I'm still moving very slowly, and being very bad at organising playtests, but it's better than nothing. So this makes for an obvious action for this year: to do more playtesting, especially face-to-face. I have a couple of people in the area who have expressed an interest in helping out with this sort of thing, and I need to get back in touch with a few old contacts, and maybe something can start happening.

I've also done some more proofreading, mostly for game rule books, but not a huge amount. This is something I enjoy doing, which improves my own rule writing (I think), and seems to be appreciated by the people I do the jobs for. I feel that this is a handy side-hustle too. I'll plan to keep doing this as and when the opportunity comes up, maybe pushing myself to do a few more jobs through the year.

Over the last year or two I've also got back into reading roleplaying game material. I've been playing a bit, but mostly reading. This is something that has always been the case for me: acquire what I can, read lots, play some. The thinking is that reading rules, game philosophy, world building, adventure or encounter design, etc. all feeds into the melting pot of ideas. The same goes for board games to an extent, but the playing aspect feels a far more efficient way to absorb the ideas in that case. 

The whole RPG reading stuff has actually got me started on a new "do something every day" project like I did in 2019 with drawings. This time I am creating an RPG-style random table every day, the sort of thing where you roll a die and it tells you something random in a given category. I'll probably write a post about this later, but I feel it is actually giving me some exercise in one of my current weaknesses: creating thematic content. At the time of writing I'm 21 days in and doing OK.

Other than that, events I am planning on going to this year so far amount to the Bastion convention next weekend (for chilling out, kicking back, and actually playing stuff), a private game designers event in February, and UK Games Expo at the end of May and beginning of June (where I'll be mostly crewing the Playtest Zone). I'm sure other stuff will come up, but that's a good start.

So, in the spirit of getting this done and posted, I'll finish off here, before I end up... <fzkt!>

Twenty-one Today (and Beyond)

Frankly, I have no idea what 2021 has in store for us. The Covid-19 situation has an end in sight now that vaccination programmes are in progress, but it's going to be months -- maybe the rest of the year -- before life can begin to return to normal and even then, it's going to take a long time for a lot of people's lives to recover. Add to that the fact that Brexit is beginning to affect us and who know how that will pan out in the longer term; already it is difficult to send post in and out of the UK and some peoples' livelihoods are coming under threat from international trade and travel problems. Basically, it feels like we are in a holding pattern, waiting until we find out what is going to happen.

On the positive side, so far our little family has stayed healthy and our main incomes have not been threatened, so we are in a very privileged position on the balance of it.

Early work on a game with squirrels, co-designed with Dave Mortimer.

In a discussion on plans for this year a week or two back, I said that for my part I wasn't intending to make any specific plans or objectives, but will be thinking more in terms of a direction of travel. One friend suggested that I should probably nevertheless come up with some SMART* objectives. He was probably right, but right now I'm sticking with my looser thinking.

So what is this direction of travel then?

Well, I have been talking about getting involved in collaborations for years, and 2020 was the year that this actually started to happen, with Grab Bag Zoo and Snails and Grails getting going early in the year, and Squirreled Away and The Village on the River at the end. I'm now in the early, brainstorming stages of another collaboration too, which looks promising. So, one of the major strands is to lean into that, work with those co-designers to make the best games we can, but also learn more about the process and figure out what I contribute to a collaboration. I know I can and do add to these endeavours, but I've not got to the point where I can really describe my strengths and weaknesses.

Other than that, I have signed up as a mentor for the Tabletop Mentorship Program (at the time of writing, applications for both mentor and mentee positions are open -- check it out), having talked to a few people about their experience in it. I'm not sure if I will even be allocated a mentee, or how things will go, but I will give it my best shot and hopefully be of some help. If all goes well, it seems like something that would be good for me to keep doing after the initial 3-month run.

Pitching games... I'm not worrying about it too much at the moment. I have a feeling that a game or two should get to a solid, pitchable state over the coming months, and if so, we'll give it a go. As a result of the lack of conventions last year, it seems that a lot of publishers are receiving pitches via some sort of online meetup, with game demonstrations via the likes of Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia, which means there are potentially more opportunities which may in some ways actually be better than a physical pitch (for a start, nobody is trying to keep awake and hydrated in a noisy and crowded hall), so maybe we can roll with that if am appropriate game gets to the right point.

And while I am thinking of conventions, I'm not at all confidant that there will be any this year, and if there are any, they are likely to be shades of their normal selves. I have a room booked for UK Games Expo, which would normally be the highlight of my year from a gaming point of view, and where I would catch up with a lot of friends who I don't often see elsewhere. I have, however, made sure I have a room booking that can be cancelled, so while part of me really hopes to go, the greater part of me recognises that, even if the event takes place, it may not be appropriate or possible to go. The same goes for other events I might otherwise be going to. I really miss catching up with friends, doing face-to-face playtesting, chatting with publishers, designers, and gamers, and all of that. All of this stuff will just have to be a "wait and see".

In other, adjacent areas... I have been enjoying reading history books over the last couple of years (mostly early medieval Britain/Europe) and these books have been generating occasional game ideas, which is cool, and I'll continue this reading. I'm currently reading about Eleanor of Aquitaine (wife first of Louis VII of France, then Henry II of England), who was clearly a formidable character in her own right, and have a book lined up about Isabella of France, wife of Edward II of England, and who also had a rather colourful life. 

Also, maybe I'll do a bit more proofreading training. We'll see... I've continued to do the occasional proofread or rule review, and will keep doing this as and when.

So, that's as much of a plan as I have for 2021 other than I'll try to blog a little more often. Let's say I'll aim to do at least two per month. See, that's pretty SMART!

* SMART is a way that management consultants and trainers tell you to organise your objectives and has been expanded in a load of different ways, usually something along the lines of Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

That Was The Year That Was

I toyed with doing a "2020 hindsight" joke, but this way I can maintain the moral high-ground by telling you how restrained I have been, right?

So, 2020, yeah, that was an interesting experience. I started off the year by kicking off with one collaboration on Grab Bag Zoo, a game that absolutely needed face-to-face, physical prototyping, but which we managed to make a little progress on at various times during the year, including getting some really helpful feedback from a publisher. 

A Grab Bag Zoo player board in March

Another project started earlier in the year was Snails and Grails, with Dave Mortimer and Alan Paull, which started up at the last convention I went to, HandyCon. We managed to get a bit of face-to-face work done on this before the lockdown, and then shifted development online, mostly using Tabletopia. This actually allowed us to do maybe a bit more testing together than we might have managed otherwise, but we found some weirdness in the system, largely due to the fact that the game uses slightly weird shaped tiles, which never quite worked right in Tabletopia. I've been meaning to try setting it up in Tabletop Simulator to see if we get similar problems or different ones, but never quite got around to it.

The start of the Covid-19 lockdown in March put an end to playtesting as we knew it, as I rely heavily on people outside of my family for even initial tests. I leaned into this a little by taking part in the BGG 24 Hour Design Contest  for the first time in ages, and making a game designed to be a roll-and-write game with a 2-player, head-to-head aspect to it, which could be played over a voice or video call, and while this had many flaws it worked OK and gave me some practice at a style of game I hadn't worked on before. 

I also had an experiment with a "multiplayer solitaire" game that was literally that: a patience/solitaire card game that folk could play simultaneously, but which allowed cooperation between players to clear their tableaux by matching cards by other players. I didn't get far with this one, but initial tests suggested it was plausible. I might go back and have another look at that some time, as it could be interesting.

Early on there was a UK-centred group who had an online playtesting session on Fridays, which I attended a couple of times, but this ended up stopping after a while, and I never got around to joining with any of the other online playtest groups, and over the summer months my motivation and drive steadily declined, particularly when it came to getting people to playtest my games -- or even in playing other people's games. 

That said, I did build up a decent amount of experience in Tabletopia, and with the help of nanDECK, I can now implement a playable prototype on that platform pretty quickly. In fact, I have also done some work with Tabletop Simulator, and am building some more confidence on that as well, and have the necessary incantations coded into nanDECK so that I can output card images suitable for importing to either system now.

"Role World" in June. Using Tabletopia (or similar)
is a boon for getting nice pictures of prototypes.

Through all this time, I did continue to work with Braincrack Games on Scurvy Crew (which is now almost certainly getting a new name). There is still a lot in flux on this at the moment, but Lewis at Braincrack is now leading the development on this and the game is undergoing some pretty major changes, though most of them are actually not cutting as deep as they look at first. One of the most exciting parts of this is now pretty much set: crew cards have personal objectives, and during play you may exchange them for more experienced versions of the character, so you will see the available crew in the game growing and developing over the course of a number of plays.

On the subject of continuing projects, I also made some progress on The Castle War with some guidance from Alan Paull, making the game somewhat more complex and, we think, deeper, but leaving a few rough edges that now need further attention.

Continuing the random wander through the year, obviously physical conventions were off the menu after March, but most organisers came up with some form of online alternative, and I went to a few of them for at least part of the time. UK Games Expo, moved to August and then virtualised, was the one I spent most of my time with. Most of what I did was just watching streams of talks and panel discussions, something that I rarely get to see at real conventions, and this was fun, even though I didn't get much out of the event. It did introduce me to Twitch streams though, and since then I have watched a few streams by various people and have enjoyed the way some of them are a sort of interactive, punk rock TV show, with communities emerging in the chat channels. When it came to Essen Spiel time in October, I even made my Twitch debut as a guest on a stream with Alan Paull of Surprised Stare Games, discussing the Snails and Grails game we are working on.

There were other games, too, including two that involve squirrels: one a new collaboration with Dave Mortimer on a game aimed at families with kids, and another being a reworking of my long-standing white whale game, Invaded. Also a couple of attempts at a game with puffins in, a weird, world building game, a take-that game about a medieval throne war and the roll-and-write game that appeared from nowhere last week at IDLEcon.

Another thing that happened is that my game, Giftmas with the Grimms, which had a very limited (30 copy) print run back in autumn 2017 under the name Giftmas at Dungeon Abbey, has returned to my hands after the publisher decided to not move on with it. I could have reclaimed the rights rather sooner (there was a time-out clause in the contract, as is always a good idea), but decided not to worry about it and see how things went. We decided to call it a day though and the rights are back with me. I've been tinkering with a few revisions (and playing with fresh art, just for fun), and we'll see if anything happens with it.

Updated Giftmas character cards.

I'll also just add a note that in the last couple of months or so of the year I made a bunch of new friends and contacts largely through the streams hosted by Bez Shahriari, Michael Fox, and Matthew Dunstan, all of whom are lovely people who are really supportive and encouraging, and I very much recommend you check out their Twitch streams if that sort of thing appeals to you.

So how did I do against what I was planning back in January?

Well, I did say that I wasn't expecting to do much pitching, if any, and that turned out to be the case. In the absence of physical conventions, a lot of publishers did become more amenable to online pitching (particularly using Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia to demonstrate the games) but I wasn't in a position where I felt comfortable doing this. I wouldn't be surprised if this became more normal for pitch meetings going forward though.

The collaboration side of things definitely moved forward pretty well, with a few more on the go now, and I'm really enjoying this and am totally open to discuss more team-ups for the future.

Playtesting was pretty terrible for the year: a few online sessions here and there, but only a few face-to-face over the first couple of months (and one in the late summer). That's the way of things though.

And finally, I said I would make a puffin game. Well, I did build something over a couple of iterations, and got some playtesting done with others, but didn't get anywhere I was even slightly happy with.

So, that was most of 2020 from my game design point of view: very much a curate's egg of a year. It sucked in a whole bunch of ways, but there were some definite positives, and I'm trying to focus on them for the year to come.

What's my 20?

Having looked backwards a few days ago, I guess it is time to look forwards to my game design plans for this year.

A significant part of the early part of the year is likely to continue to be development of Scurvy Crew, which may end up with a different name, and which I am still actively working on in conjunction with Lewis of Braincrack Games.

I forgot to mention in my roundup that, while I did pretty well for organising playtesting sessions for the first part of last year, I pretty much sucked for the second half. Every year I say I will try to get better at managing playtest groups, and this year will be no exception.

Collaborations... Now this is something that is big for me. I have been saying for some time that I have wanted to collaborate with other designers. This is partly in order to learn from others, but also because I seem to be more productive in many ways when I am bouncing ideas back and forth with other people. I have had a few collaborative projects over the last couple of years that have nearly, but not quite, got going, but it is looking like 2020 is going to the year of collaboration for me.

Over the last few weeks I have been discussing ideas for a light "tactility" game with another designers and this week this finally turned into a playable prototype that I tested with a couple of other folk, and the other designer, Mike, is really enthusiastic at his end, so I have a good feeling about this.

The first play of the "pulling animals out of a bag" game -- and it wasn't terrible.

I also have a get-together with a couple of other designers in a few days' time to work on a potential joint project that we are all keen on, so that's another thing.

Another thing I forgot to add to my retrospective post the other day (which is increasingly looking like I did a really poor job of!) was my collaboration with Tom Coldron, with him doing some development and testing of my old game Boogie Knights and me looking at his game Elvic.  I still need to have some further discussions with him but it was an enjoyable process for me and I'd be well up for doing similar things in future.

How about pitching games? I'm not sure this year, as it may turn out to be more of a "load up the queue" year, so I might not end up with pitchable product by UK Games Expo. I'm just going to wait and see on this front.  The "tactility" game I mentioned above could easily get to a pitchable state by the summer -- or totally crash and burn, only time will tell. Other than that, I would love to get one of my older projects (maybe Corlea, which has been rattling around for long enough) up to scratch in the next few months, but with the planned/possible collaborations, it may be that I have enough on my plate as it is.

Finally, something really specific. This year I'm going to create and illustrate a small card game involving puffins. After all the drawing of puffins last year, and a few general comments along these lines, I figure this should be a fun way to carry forward some of that art practice. I only expect this to end up as a print and play game, but we'll see how things develop.

N...n...n...n...Nineteen

Happy new year!

So, looking back on my plans and intentions from last year, how did I do?

I said I would share more games as print and play prototypes, and utterly failed at that. 

I also said that I would continue to read up on historical events (I have mostly been reading about the middle ages, focussed on the C9th to C12th), and have a number of ideas jotted down in a notebook, so that's something. I did say that I would make some of these ideas into prototypes, and I failed to do this (mostly), but am sure I will develop some of these concepts.

Sometimes research for a game involves playing with a pile of toy animals.

The reason I said "mostly" there is that I have talked with a couple of game designer friends about the bizarre "medieval battle snails" that appear in various medieval manuscripts, and did make a light card game prototype inspired by this as well as a very rough version of a more serious boardgame on the same theme.  Neither went beyond that, but more recently I have been discussing with these same friends something more solid, and we are planning to get together very soon to see if we can rough out the basis of a collaboration.

I also didn't do another proofreading course last year, but I have the intention of signing up for one in the next few weeks.  I have worked on a few rulebook proofreading jobs over the last year; they have all been pro bono, done for people I really wanted to help out, but I feel I should probably start charging soon.

So what did go according to plan?

Well, I successfully ploughed through the year drawing a picture on paper every day and sharing a scan of that picture on Twitter.  This did contribute to wiping me out a little some evenings, meaning that I was short of energy for other things, like game design. Overall, though, I feel really good about this whole project -- I think the average quality of my pictures improved a bit during the year, the speed of my work certainly increased, and I got to experiment with some different media along the way. Plus I am very proud of a few of the pictures.

Other than that, a year ago I was talking about wanting to work on a couple of my game projects, and that was a definite success, with Scurvy Crew now signed (and in development), and The Castle War still with a publisher who has not given a final decision but has said some positive things, and I will be seeing them next week so will be able to discuss it at that point.

I mentioned collaboration earlier, and something else came up towards the end of the year. I was chatting with another designer at Dragonmeet, and ideas started bouncing around. We've been exchanging emails on this since and are working on an initial version of the game (I'm just waiting for the arrival of some components), and hope to meet up soon to see where we can take the idea. This is something exciting for me, partly because the collaborator is such a nice guy, but also because it is a style of game I probably wouldn't have approached on my own. 

In summary, then, 2019 didn't really take the shape I had originally intended, and for various reasons I had spells of being unproductive, but overall things went really well for me. 

Re-Invaded

I've done very little work over the last year on Invaded, my game about being on the receiving end of a colonial invasion, but that doesn't mean that I have stopped thinking about it.  By May/June last year I think I was hitting a bit of a wall with it  -- for the previous year or so it had been a major focus of effort for me, and maybe I was burning out with it a bit.  Having a project staying on the shelf for a while is not a bad thing, though, as sometimes it means I can detach myself from the details and come back with a fresh perspective.  That worked with Scurvy Crew, and I feel it is about time to take another look at Invaded.

This is another "not actually done anything" post, like my recent one about puffins wearing hats.  I feel I need to make sure I don't fall into the trap of constantly writing about things I am planning to do rather than actually doing anything but, conversely, writing things down and sharing them can sometimes help keep me moving forward. I hope you will bear with me.

In case you aren't familiar with Invaded, the outline is that you are a tribe in a relatively peaceful land that has just been invaded by a powerful (non-player) colonial force that wants your land and your resources. It's a competitive game where you win by surviving the invasion the "best", though there are opportunities to change the way you score along the way, and as a result, strategies could involve trying to run and hide, collaborating, or fighting back. The actions of the colonial power are decided by the players by playing colonial activity cards: when it is your turn you take one action for your tribe, and one on behalf of the colonial power, and those actions generally tend to make the invaders expand their base, build forts, and attack the native tribes.

This is how Invaded looked in its very first playable version.
It has come a long way since then.

Anyhoo...  With some distance from my last substantive change, it is clear that there are several structural issues with the game that I had been trying to avoid thinking about too hard, including...

• The game has a lengthy player reference sheet that is largely reminding players of the actions available to them, and players usually initially spend a lot of time referring to this. Actually there are two sheets: the second is an icon reference.  Complex (or, at least, lengthy) reference materials may be an indicator of problems in the understandability of a game that is, or should be, relatively straightforward to play.
• The central "aggression" tracking board is a bit of a kludge, and several aspects of the game require cross-referencing with this board to see how those other elements behave. For instance, the colonial activity cards have different options based on the aggression level of the invaders, and it is easy to make mistakes with this.
• The fact that players make a move using a card and a move from a menu of options using pieces on the board feels like there are different mechanisms for different parts of what they do on their turn. Which there are. The different mechanisms, while arguably justified, do add a cognitive load on the players and leads to questions.

I have been pondering this all and am now starting to think that I may be ready to make some serious changes. I have a few notes, but basically I need to find some time to knuckle down and retool the entire game with the biggest change in components for a very long time.  It's worth a try and if it doesn't work out, I will be able to roll back, so it's just time (and a load of toner and some cardstock) at risk here.  A quick outline of what I am planning to do:

• Instead of the colonial activity deck I will try having a deck of cards with combined tribal and colonial actions. As with the recent iterations, you will have a hand of cards and choose what order to play them in, and will be able to decide whether to play the tribal or colonial action first, but you must do both if you are able. Playing tribal actions from cards will remove the need for the "menu" player aid.
• You will start with an initial hand of "low intensity" activity cards, which you keep from round to round, but as the game progresses you will gain additional cards which allow more powerful actions, but which also make the colonial power more aggressive, and you will be able to get rid of your starter cards over time.
• This may not be needed, but I will probably replace the aggression board with a small event deck, which gradually ramps up the game's intensity.  The developing hands of action cards will be another way to build intensity without needing the tracker board.
• The strategy/upgrade cards may no longer be needed, but I'll probably leave them for now, though making adjustments for the other changes taking places.
• Not really necessary, but I feel an urge to retool the location cards, partly to rejig the resource distribution, though I may turn them into actual hexagonal tiles to make everything look a little nicer as we move forward.

As a bonus little aside, there's also the theme to consider. This is an odd one actually: the game is very much linked to its theme (that of being at the receiving end of a colonial invasion, which is a push back against a common trope in board games), but I have shied away from actually linking the game to a specific location or period of history.  I was talking about Invaded with a publisher recently (one who I wouldn't expect to publish it, but who expressed general interest) and they said that I should stop being so squeamish and give the game a defined setting, which should give it some more character and make it more initially appealing, even if that setting gets changed for publication.

I'm thinking about this and am considering setting up an alternate world of some sort, so as not to commit to something historical, but at least to tie everything to something a little more coherent and less vague.  We'll see.

Mid-Year Musings

We're now just past half way through 2019, which seems a good time to do a little reflection to see how things are going this year.

Well, the big, rainbow-striped elephant on a bouncy castle in the middle of the room is, of course, the fact that I have a game newly signed for publication and another being evaluated by a different publisher, so by rookie game designer standards, that makes this year a rollocking success right away.  I'm happy to take that all as a win regardless of anything else.

Other than that, though, how are things going?

My basic plans were to "enter contests, pitch more games, work with other people more, playtest more", and I have had mixed success with that. I've only entered one contest (a 24 hour contest), and have talked about collaboration with a couple of other designers but we've not really got anything off the ground yet. I have done pretty well with playtesting with other designers (trips to London as well as more local sessions), but been less successful at organising playtesting sessions with "normal" gamers.  The pitching has gone well though: I have only done limited pitching so far, but I have had the good fortune to be aiming the right games at the right publishers so far, with one game signed and one still being evaluated.  On that last point, if you are interested, I haven't chased it up as it has only been a little over a month and, from talking to other designers, it seems that two to three months seems a sensible timescale for follow-ups.

A recent playtest of Scurvy Crew, coming along nicely.

I'm still reading assorted history books, albeit slowly, mostly based on the early middle ages (Saxon to Angevin), and the plan was to take some ideas and turn them into games, and I've not got any of that done yet, but a few stories are making me think and I may find a game in them sometime. For instance, there is Henry the Young King, basically Henry 2.5, who was crowned co-king but pre-deceased his father so was never king in his own right, and spent much of his (brief) adult life touring Europe with a spectacular entourage, competing in tournaments.  Or the fascinating Nicola de la Haye, who held several normally male positions, including Sheriff of Lincolnshire through the reigns of Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III. I'll still intend to make something built on these or similar stories.

Sharing playable games online was another aim, and the only non-contest game I have shared was a couple of iterations of Scurvy Crew, which is one that has been shared in various forms over the years, but as it had been languishing for a long time, I'll count that one.  Still more to do though.

Aside from game-related objectives, I have continued in my exercise to draw (and share online) something every day.  As I write this, it is day 190, and I have a folder on my laptop with 190 scanned drawings in it, which feels like quite an achievement.  Many of the pictures have been of puffins, and I have joked a few times that I will make a game about puffins using some of these pictures; ideas are starting to come, so this may actually end up happening.

Aside from puffins I've been doing assorted exercises like,
for example, these longsword guard positions.

Finally I was planning to keep working on developing my proofreading and editing skills. I have proofread a handful of rulebooks so far this year, so keeping it ticking over, but I have not been pushing it too hard.  I do need to take advantage of my "Society for Editors and Proofreaders" membership and take another training course or two, though.

So overall, while I haven't made too much progress in my original plans, I am progressing overall. Just reviewing here is quite useful to remind myself of how I could keep myself moving forwards.

The Road Ahead

OK, so I have these standing objectives that pretty much roll over from last year: enter contests, pitch more games, work with other people more, playtest more.  This is all good stuff, and I'll keep working on that, but I should probably think of something new to focus on in 2019.

One thing that comes to mind is that Castle War has whetted my appetite for making historically-based games, however loose that basis is, and I have recently been enjoying reading history books, so I will plan to make more games based on historical events that I read about.  I have decided to keep a notebook with me when I am reading in case of sudden inspiration (this really is something I should/could have been doing beforehand) and I am sure that will result in a few notes being made.  Making this into a slightly more measurable objective, I'll plan to make at least three of these ideas into playable prototypes through the year.  The number three always seems a nice one for this sort of thing.

This has nothing to do with game design, but it turns out I enjoy drawing puffins.

Something I've not been so great on over the last year or two is actually making prototypes available in a print and play format -- apart from the ones I make for contests, that is.  There are all sorts of reasons for this, but if I did so, it would mean that I always have games in a state where I can send them to interested parties.  I'll do better at this in 2019.  Shall we say three games that are not contest entries will be shared online (probably via a "work in progress" thread on Board Game Geek) through the year?

In the non-gaming part of my life I have a project on the go that I am refusing to admit is a new year's resolution: I have bought myself a sketch book and have been drawing something in it each day, with the intent to keep going for as long as time, patience, and willpower allows, and just drawing whatever I fancy on each occasion. So far, so good (at the time of writing, I'm on twelve in a row), and if you want to see my very amateurish art exploits, I'm sharing each picture on Twitter, on the principle that telling people you are doing something makes it more likely that you will do that thing.

I am also planning to continue getting training and practice in proofreading and editing skills.  I see this as "game design adjacent", a skillset that is useful to game publishers and may allow me to help people out more.  Plus I enjoy it and developing new skills is always worthwhile in itself.

But first up, Castle War and Scurvy Crew both need a little attention, so I'll be getting on with them, and there's a 2-player game contest on BGG that Castle War might be a decent fit for, if I get my arse in gear...

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.

2018, Here We Go!

Having looked back at how things went for me last year, it's time to look at what I hope to do this year from a game design point of view.  Several of these are pretty much based on things I either didn't do, or only partly achieved last year.

First off, pitching and pushing my games.  A couple of objectives...

1. Having failed to do so last year, I will get more organised and submit one of my games for showing at UK Games Expo via either the Wyvern's Lair or the Speed Dating event (or both).  Even if I don't get picked, the application process would be good.

2. I will try my best to arrange at least a small number of pitch meetings with publishers at UK Games Expo.  It would also be cool if I could sort out something similar for Essen, but I'll count that as bonus points rather than the main objective.

Bonus objective: I will try to make this work!

And relating to contests...

3. This is more or less a "carry on" one, but I'll aim to take part in the 24 Hour Design Contest at least three times during the year.  With other stuff going on it's easy to ignore this, but I really consider it a useful exercise, and a great way to give myself manageable challenges to keep myself from getting stuck in a rut.

4. A little more ambitiously, I'll aim to enter a bigger contest.  The one that comes to mind is the Hippodice contest in the Autumn, so that is the big target.  Again, this isn't really about winning, but about the process, and if I get some useful feedback somewhere along the line that is even better.

General design, development and testing...

5. I will be a bit more proactive with the couple of collaborative projects that I have more-or-less on the go from last year and see if they can go anywhere (it's entirely possible that they are dead ends, which is fine, the same as with my own projects). Furthermore I'll get talking to more people and aim to get at least one more collaboration started by the end of the year.

6.  Playtesting.  Last year I did a lot better than I have previously, with two groups of fine individuals who I periodically managed to lure into my games room to test prototypes, and I went along to Playtest UK meetups when I could, but this still isn't enough.  I'm not going to put a specific target on this, partly as playtesting is relying largely on the goodwill of others and I don't want to overimpose, but I will try to do more playtesting than last year -- and smarter playtesting to make the most of what testing I do manage to do.

Let's see how we do with this...

What I Did on My 2017

Performance review time! How did I do against those plans and objectives I gave myself last year?

So I said I wanted to have a portfolio of at least a couple of "pitchable" games, and also that I would have at least one pitch meeting at UK Games Expo.  The latter didn't happen at all, and the portfolio isn't really there yet, though I could probably start pitching Invaded if I found the right publisher, and I think Boogie Knights is pretty much locked in, so notwithstanding another edit of the rulebook, I have one in the portfolio!  Grade E: some progress, but missed overall.

I was also planning to submit a game to the Wyvern's Lair at UKGE.  This was looking like it was going to be Invaded, but development of that got thrown way off by a Crazy Project, of which I will write a little later, and as the submission deadline approached, I was so far off a stable game that I just backed out.  This was definitely the right decision, as development of Invaded since then has made it a far better game (in my opinion) than it would have been if I'd rushed in a submission.  Grade F: I'm totally OK with this, but it's still a stone cold fail.

This is how I spent quite a lot of my year.

Next up, collaborative designs, of which I planned to get involved in at least one...  Well, I have started two of these, but neither have progressed very far yet.  One is a cooperative game based on another designer's initial ideas; I got an initial prototype running (though it was very dull) and handed it over, where my partner has brought things along a bit further, but we haven't moved it on since then.  The other collaboration was based on a series of jokey conversations at UK Games Expo, which resulted in a not-entirely-serious but sort of plausible idea for a dexterity-based worker placement game; in this case I have made a very basic prototype, but not enough to hand over yet.  So, steps in the right direction here.  Grade C: OK, but must try harder!

Rulebook assistance...  I didn't do much of this in 2017, but I provided occasional comments on people's work in BGG forums, and did a couple of more thorough (though still informat) reviews of prototype rulebooks in the spring.  I also had a request for assistance from someone (Plan Play Games) who I had helped in the last couple of years, who wanted a proof read of the English translation of their planned Essen Release.  I was happy to help again, and as a result of this and my debut trip to Essen SPIEL (more on which later) I am now the proud possessor of a copy of this game (Photo Finish -- it's a speed puzzle-solving game) as well as their previous year's release (Peter and the Grown Ups -- a memory and bluffing game), both with my name credited in the rulebook. Always nice when that happens!   Grade B: good, but still room for improvement.

That pretty much covers what I had planned, but plenty of other things happened.  I've had a bit of an up and down year from a morale point of view, so I'm going to concentrate on positives here in case I need to remind myself in future that I did achieve quite a bit.

The highlight of the year has to be that I signed not one, but two games for publication, one of which has been available to buy in a very limited (30 copies!) edition at Essen.  As you may recall from earlier posts, the first of these games is Giftmas at Dungeon Abbey, which is based on the print and play game I made as a party favour back in 2016, with totally awesome new art, and the other is Dungeon Abbey: The Shooting Party, which was effectively a commissioned design based on a thematic outline document that the publisher, Cubicle 7, showed me.  I don't know the exact production status of these games, but excitingly, both games are starting to show up in online retailers (I've only seen US sites so far) for pre-order, so clearly information has been released to the distribution channels.  I'll be shouting about this a lot when I have any more information.

I mentioned a Crazy Project earlier, and that was the Shooting Party game, which derailed everything else I was doing during the spring, trying to get it to a state where I could hand it over to Cubicle 7.  In the second half of the year they were doing more development of the game in-house, and I have had the opportunity to give feedback and make suggestions. The last time I saw the game it was looking good and I really enjoyed playing it, so I'm really looking forward to seeing the final version.

Another huge highlight for me was my first trip the the SPIEL games fair in Essen, Germany.  I first heard about this in the early 90's, and have always wanted to go, but time, finances, and insecurities always conspired to stop me. This year, however, I tagged along with Cubicle 7 to help on their stall, which resulted in me spending four days explaining assorted game to anyone who was interested, primary among these was the recently released Cthulhu Tales storytelling card game. This was actually really useful experience in explaining the salient points of a game and its main features rather than precisely how to play -- in other words, effectively making a pitch.

UK Games Expo was also a fantastic experience.  I spent a lot of my time volunteering at the Playtest UK area, which earned me an exhibitor's pass, meaning the ability to enter the hall ahead of the throng each morning, which in turn meant that I could have early morning chats with assorted people before they had to turn to business.  Aside from that it was fascinating to help out at the designer-publisher speed dating event, where I could see just how intense such an event could be -- it's a real trial by fire, running through a 5 minute pitch with a dozen or so different publishers in very quick succession.

Last year I also got back in the saddle regarding the 24 hour game design contest on Board Game Geek, submitting four games, and winning twice!  The contest is far more about taking part than winning (and it has been seen in the past that, should you care, it is not hard to astroturf your way to victory) but getting a win from time to time is really good for morale -- and I have certainly had at least my fair share of wins.  At Easter, I also gave a short talk about my experiences with the contest at the "BG Dev Con" event, and I know it inspired at least one other designer to have a go themselves, which is gratifying.

Another bonus for the year was that I found another game designer working for my employer, and we ended up regularly having lunch together and playing a game, testing one of our prototypes if it was available and suitable for a quick play, or doing a "show and tell", playing a short game that had some interesting feature that we could discuss afterwards.  Unfortunately he has now moved on to a new job, but the experience was both fun and very useful. (Check out Woodstock Games if you want to see what Phil is working on.)

Finally the games themselves.  I've worked on quite a few games over the last year, some of them quite intensely, and some hardly at all.  As it stands though, I have Invaded, Boogie Knights, and My Name Is... all into a pretty stable condition, a bunch of older designs (like An Angel on Top, Treasures of Atlantis, and now Scurvy Crew) dusted off and developed a little more, and a heap of new designs that have some potential (Roll Move Race, Shenanigans Express, and Dirigible, to name but three).  It's also pleasing to get two more games added to the Board Game Geek database: March Hares, and Giftmas at Dungeon Abbey.

There's all sorts of other stuff that I could talk about, and while I haven't achieved everything I wanted to do, and I did have dead time where I got nowhere, I think I can be happy with how things went last year.  It's a good foundation which should set me up to really push forward in 2018.  And that will be the subject of another post in the next few days or so...

2018-01-04 Edit to add...
I forgot to mention that I have been a bit better at arranging playtesting sessions at my house, and I owe a huge thank you to those fine people who turn up for the occasional-Monday and occasional-Tuesday sessions.  You have all been awesome and helped so very much.

Into '17...

So what am I planning to do in 2017?  From a game design perspective, anyway.

Well, obviously I will continue to work on some of my existing projects and, inevitably, I will start a load of other games along the line.  I think that this year, however, the main objective is to get at least a couple of games to a state where I can start seriously pitching them.  I will make that a slightly more SMART objective and state that I will aim to have some sort of a pitch meeting with at least one publisher at UK Games Expo.  That's not hugely adventurous, but I want to just learn what I am doing.  And by the end of the year I want to have a portfolio of at least a couple of games that I feel happy presenting to publishers.

This year will, of course, involve a lot of cutting out prototype cards.

Thinking of UKGE, a call has just come out for submissions to the Wyvern's Lair, the boardgame version of Dragon's Den.  I submitted to that last year but was not accepted for the final event, and I'm determined to have another go this time around.  The deadline is in April, so I will have to decide what to submit by then.

As an aside, I'm being a little disingenuous in talking about building up to pitching a game as in truth I am currently in negotiations with a publisher about one of my games, but this came about through a series of fortuitous events.  Nothing is settled yet, but hopefully I will soon be able to announce some news one way or the other.

Other plans include getting involved in at least one collaborative design.  I have been chatting with one of the other Playtest UK attendees about possible projects, so that might result in something.  Basically, everyone I have talked to who collaborates with other designers seems to find the experience really helpful for developing games more quickly and enabling more interesting ideas than is likely with solo design.  Trying to work with someone else should also help me learn a load more about my own strengths and weaknesses, which has to be helpful for the future.

I will also continue to offer assistance with people's rulebooks as and when I can, and really must make a little more effort to do this, so I guess the objective is to get involved with reviewing more rulebooks than I did last year.

Right, let's see how I do this year...

Looking Forward

Last time I talked about last year, so this time I'll have a think about what I'm planning to do this year from a game design perspective.

Cheesy stock art time.  Yoinked from Pixabay where they say this is public domain.

I think that probably my biggest hope is to do more playtesting.  A lot more playtesting.  And developing some of the games I already have in the pipeline some more.  This means that I might have to back off on rattling out new games for the 24 hour contests and the like, though I'd still like to take part in some of them, but I think the focus for 2016 should be getting at least a couple of games into a much more developed condition.

I am starting off the year as I hope to continue, as this weekend I will be heading into London for a Playtest UK meet; I can't make these very often as most are on weekday evenings nowhere near me, but I can occasionally get into The Smoke for a Sunday afternoon, so here goes.  I'll also try to convene a local playtesting group a little more often and be a little more forward in asking people to play prototypes.

In particular, as I have made a fair bit of progress (albeit slowly) with Boogie Knights, I would really like to get the rest of the rough edges knocked off.  Then I can decide if I will try pitching it to a publisher or just leave it as a print and play game.  I'm not sure which other game or games will benefit from the extra attention, but I'm sure I will be posting here about how things go.

Which brings us to the big one, getting published, which friends do ask me about from time to time...

I would be lying if I said that I do not hope to get a game published one day, but I think that realistically I am some way away from that.  I don't want to get a game published at all costs and I sure as hell don't want to publish myself, so I will continue to plug along and get some of my designs to a level where I can be really proud of them.  Yes, I know this is me putting off taking the risk of pitching to a publisher, but I'm happy with that for now.  And you never know what will happen along the way.

Apart from the actual testing and developing, I need to get more practice with rulebooks.  I am definitely coming to the conclusion that I would like to be known for being able to produce a really good set of rules.  I am also acutely aware that I am still a long way from that goal.  So the aim is to get practice.  I will volunteer to proofread, edit, rewrite and otherwise help with as many other people's rulebooks as I am able, and I will work hard to improve my own work too.  (So if you have a rulebook you would like an extra pair of eyes on, please let me know!)

So that's the plan.  More playtesting and development, and more work on writing rules.  We'll see how I get on over the next 12 months...