Belated June Report

I've been so busy over the last week or so that I've not had time to report on my progress in June. There was lots, plus a lot of game playing too. As usual I'll start with my game playing first.

Play

June was a busy month for playing games. The Expo finished on the 1st of June, I managed to get to both Beyond Monopoly! and Hugo's GarforTTGamers, and I had Mal and Linz down one weekend, saw Mal, Linz & Robin another and finally Mal again for a Monday afternoon on his way home from Manchester. It saw Race for the Galaxy return to the top of my most played list, and a whole bunch of first plays:

• Race for the Galaxy - 13 plays
• Mix-Match - 6 plays
• Carcassonne - 4 plays
• Carpe Astra - 3 plays
• Carcassonne: The City - 2 plays
• Hive - 2 plays
• Lord of the Rings - 2 plays

It was good to get out Lord of the Rings again, though we were crushed both times. Carcassonne: The City was a present from Dunk for being Best Man at his wedding, as well as coming in a neat wooden box, it is also a pretty good game.

I also had a lot of single plays: Ave Caesar, Canal Mania, Cartagena, Confucius, Diamant, Dominion, Galaxy Trucker, Guillotine, It's Alive!, Mr. Jack, Pandemic, PitchCar, Puerto Rico, Star Wars PocketModel and TransEuropa. Of those Ave Caesar, Carcassonne: The City, Confucius, Dominion, Galaxy Trucker, Mr. Jack, Pandemic and Star Wars PocketModel were new to me. Best new game of the month is probably a toss up between Dominion and Pandemic. Dominion was just a prototype but it was a nice original game (very hyped at the moment). Pandemic is a co-op game (like Lord of the Rings) which is also very popular at the moment. I think Pandemic for the win, but more plays of a published Dominion might well up it's rating. It was great to get so much gaming in, especially with people I rarely see.

Creation

It was a good month for game design/publishing too. I got to play Carpe Astra with Eric Martin of Boardgame News, almost got It's Alive! to the printers and finally got around to playtesting a lot of my submissions.

It's Alive!

I got the last of the It's Alive! artwork back from the designer, and after some negative feedback here, got him to make a few changes to the box design. It's still less popular among Geeks than the old one, but I prefer it and I think it'll stand out on the shelf better. I got a quote I was happy with for manufacturing It's Alive! and almost sent it off to the printers (that slipped to early July). I also had a decent amount of interest from shops and distributors, still only a small fraction of the print run are spoken for, but I'm hoping that once a few shops start stocking it, word of mouth will do the rest.

Carpe Astra

I continued the never ending tale of tinkering with the Carpe Astra scoring, and at the end of the month came up with something that I think I'm happy with. I'm now making some more representative prototypes to send to a couple of playtest groups in the US. The new prototypes have been done of the computer so they look more professional than the hand-drawn effort I've been using, and they also have the flavour text on, which should help improve the immersion.

Codename: Ancient

I've finally dusted off this prototype (which didn't look like anything special) and fallen in love with it. It's been getting really good reviews wherever I play it too. The only slight problem is the designer is not replying to my emails - I don't know whether he's on holiday, ignoring me or the emails are being eaten by a spam filter somewhere.

Submissions

I'm still going through the rest of my submissions, there's still some I haven't played yet, and some that some pretty good, but I'm not sure they're good enough. I'm looking for something fairly cheap to manufacture next (maybe a card game?) since with It's Alive! and Carpe Astra so close together I'm running up a lot of costs. Something cheaper next is definitely the order of the day, especially seeing as it will take a few months before I start recouping the costs for It's Alive! and Carpe Astra.

May Report

It's been a great month for me in some ways, not so good in others. As usual, I'll cover play first.

Play

I played a lot of games during May, and a lot of new ones too. Not bothering to demo It's Alive! at Beer and Pretzels (I still sold out!) meant I had a lot of time for games there, and being a judge at the UK Games Expo meant I ended up playing a lot of games there too. Plus I managed to make it along to Beyond Monopoly once, which is a fairly rare occurrence for me :-( Here's the breakdown:

• Carpe Astra - 14 plays
• It's Alive! - 7 plays
• Race for the Galaxy - 2 plays
• Ice Flow - 2 plays
• Tinners' Trail - 2 plays
• Check - 2 plays

It's the first month since I bought it that Race hasn't been my most played game, but in fairness, Carpe Astra has been undergoing rigorous playtesting, and I was demoing It's Alive! at a convention. In addition, to the games above the following were all played once: Agricola, Bohnanza, Fruit Fair, Guillotine, Gipsy King, Hansa, Masons, Metropolys, Monastery, Niagara, Null und Nichtig, Pickomino, Ra, Santiago, Scripts and Scribes and Stone Age. The following were new to me: Agricola, Bohnanza, Fruit Fair, Hansa, Ice Flow, Metropolys, Monastery, Null und Nichtig, Ra, Santiago, Scripts and Scribes, Stone Age and Tinners' Trail! Quite a haul. I also got two games this month, Dunk gave me Carcassonne: The City for being his best man, and I got a copy of Monastery as the second half of my swap with the Ragnar Brothers (Border Reivers and It's Alive! for Canal Mania and Monastery). My favourite new game is a tough call this month, maybe Ra, but with Ice Flow, Tinners' Trail, Agricola and Stone Age all in the running. Agricola was a bit disappointing, with all the hype surrounding it I was hoping for more, it's a very good game, but best thing ever? I'm not convinced.

Creation

It's been a strange month for creation, my first full month of self-employment. I ran out of It's Alive! at Beer and Pretzels, and since then things went a bit weird. Having nothing to sell is nerve-wracking, I'm basically burning money now until I get some more stock of something. I've a little money coming in from my consulting at the Library, but not enough... Carpe Astra is proving troublesome, I'm still not entirely happy with it, and I waited months for a quote from Carta Mundi, only to find it much more expensive than LudoFact. So I'm going to have to go with LudoFact, which means it's going to be September at the earliest before I get any. That's three or four months without any income. Not an option. I'm investigating some other options to make sure I get some income sooner.

It's Alive!

It was great to sell out of It's Alive! within a year of the release at last year's Expo. There's still some interest in it (especially in the States, where the shipping costs and exchange rate put it out of many people's budgets). Re-printing it is a possibility if I think there's enough interest to warrant it. In the meantime, chatting to Paul from Games Lore I found out they still have two copies left in stock, so if you're after one best hurry!

Carpe Astra

I've played Carpe Astra a lot this month, with various people. It's the first time I've playtested a game outside my gaming group before it was ready to go to print. It's lead to some mediocre ratings on the Geek which refer to an old version - hopefully they'll like the newer version more and update their ratings when then get a chance to play it. I'm still not 100% happy with the scoring mechanism - it keeps changing from week to week. Sooner or later I'm going to have to draw a line under it though - so I need to come up with something pretty quick. I had some interesting ideas from the playtesters at the Expo which I need to try out too.

Submissions

I've started to get a steady stream of other prototypes now too. I've not had a chance to play many of them yet, but there's definitely some potential in there. Probably the most promising so far is an abstract. I'm not sure whether that's a good idea though, as it would be something that is very easy to make yourself - is there enough value added in getting a nice edition in a box to warrant paying for it? I'm not sure. At least with a themed game you're paying for the artwork as well as the box and components, which makes it harder to knock-up a decent quality homemade version.

April Report

A very busy week to end a very busy month.

Looking back, April 2008 is the month it all really began. I worked my last official day in the office on the 4th, and stopped getting paid on the 15th. Scary! It's also been a very exciting month, I received a lot more submissions (which I'm still pouring through), sold lots of It's Alive! and announced Carpe Astra.

As usual, I'll start with Play first.

Play

I didn't play a huge number of games, but I play several for the first time, and I got to count playing games as work - so it's not that bad :-) I played at Paul's, Hugo's and had Dave staying the night on a brief trip to York, so it was all nice, social gaming. Here's the multiples:

• Race for the Galaxy - 4 plays
• Guillotine - 3 plays
• It's Alive! - 3 plays
• Gipsy King - 2 plays
• Perudo - 2 plays
• Meepile - 2 plays
• Carpe Astra - 2 plays

Race comes top again - still loving that. The shrapnel: Mississippi Queen, Hey! That's My Fish!, San Juan, Check, Pickomino, Revolution!, Zanzibar, Diamant and Through the Desert. Of those, five were new to me: Mississippi Queen, Check, Pickomino, Zanzibar and Through the Desert. I was underwhelmed by all but Check and Through the Desert, with TtD as my favourite new game of the month. That's three months on the trot that Race has been my most played game, in fact, ever since I bought it, The Wife and I have yet to try the 2-player variant, and there's an expansion coming out soon, so I think it's got plenty of life left in it too.

Creation

Game creation is where all the excitement was in April. Quitting my job was a big step, but I felt like Reiver Games had reached the pinnacle of what I could achieve making the games by hand in my spare time. Moving full-time means that I've far more time available for playtesting and graphic design work and it's much easier to get to the Post Office when I have games to send. I've started a playtesting afternoon with Paul on Wednesday afternoons, and I've had a couple of evening sessions for Carpe Astra during April too.

Carpe Astra

I announced this during April (previously known as 'Codename: Network'), and I've already taken a bunch of pre-orders, which considering the dearth of information available is pretty cool. I'm offering a discount to pre-orders, which has probably helped, but they are almost exclusively from people who have bought one (or both :-) ) of my previous games. Once the rules are finalised, posted online and there's some pictures of R H Aidley's artwork available, I'd hope for more pre-orders to come in. The game has changed a few times this month, first simplifying the scoring a bit by adding a scoreboard, and then stripping out the scoreboard as it was a bit too fiddly with four players. I still need to playtest the latest variant (with scoring tokens) more, but it seems to simplify scoring further still. Always a good thing. It also introduces a few more choices, and hence a little more though during the game. I've met with a manufacturer, and started approaching shops and distributors, more of that to follow next month when I get the rules and some artwork up...

It's Alive!

It's been a good month for It's Alive!, selling more copies than any other month so far this year. I reckon my remaining stock will run out before the UK Games Expo at the end of May, so not paying for a booth was a good idea - It's Alive! will probably have run out, and Carpe Astra won't be ready yet. I've not got that many left to make so it feels like it nearly done.

Submissions

My first two submissions have arrived, although so far I've only had a chance to play one of them. I've still got a load to go through and work out whether I want prototypes - Carpe Astra has taken up all my time recently. The one I have played I enjoyed, so I'll need to get it out a few more times and think about it more.

March Report

Big month for me! As usual, play first.

Play

By the numbers, it was a fairly average month, but in the flesh it was a great one. I spent a weekend in Newcastle with old friends playtesting games, the next weekend we were down South playing games with yet more old friends, plus there was a week when I made it to both of Paul's games nights, my last two gaming sessions with Dave before he moved down South, a night in the pub when we ended playing drinking Jenga, and a visit to Hugo's for a gaming afternoon. Here's the multiples:

• Race for the Galaxy - 8 plays
• Jenga - 6 plays
• Border Reivers - 5 plays
• N-Tropy - 3 plays
• Memoir '44 - 2 plays
• Category 5 - 2 plays

And the singles: Puerto Rico, Revolution!, Carcassonne: The Castle, Bang!, The Pillars of Venice, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. It was my first outing for N-Tropy, Revolution!, Bang!, The Pillars of Venice and Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. I wasn't a big fan of Bang! or The Pillars of Venice, N-Tropy was alright. My favourite new game of the month was Cleopatra etc. Nice theme, beautiful chrome, I like that the box is used as part of the board (like Niagara), and I love the corruption mechanic, where scoring the most points often means getting corruption counters, the player with the most at the end of the game loses, regardless of their score. Nasty :-D. Special mention goes to Revolution! by fellow blogger Philip duBarry. Dave and I played it, and I enjoyed it but felt it would be better with more players. Then I read the box. 3-4 Players. Muppet! I took it along to Hugo's but there were too many of us, so I'll have to try at Paul's instead.

All in all, it was a great month for playing games. Great to see so many old friends, and to be invited to yet more games sessions :-) Still, it was a shame to see Dave leave, I'll miss our Tuesday nights together, and our nights in the pub chatting about game design.

Creation

Ooooh. Exciting month. I finally stopped prevaricating about whether to quit my job and set up Reiver Games full-time, and just did it. I also started making a splash to try to build awareness of my company, and to drum up more submissions. I posted a few things on BoardGameGeek, which attracted attention, and lead to a brief story on Boardgame News. In total I think I've had around thirty or forty submissions. It's a bit overwhelming. For the moment I'm just replying telling the designers I'll look at them next week. At least I'll be busy in my first week at home :-)

It's Alive!

Sales have been slow since Christmas, but they've started picking up this last week as I'm more active, and making a splash about my company. I've sold nine during March, and I'm hoping that having some time to invest in publicity (and the quitting my job story) will raise awareness and lead to some more sales in the coming weeks. I've almost run out of the massive pile of finished stock I built up several weeks ago, time to get constructing again. Looking forward to next month I've a couple of appearances at the local game store (their games night and a Saturday slot) which should also lead to some sales.

Codename: Network

I've been working on this the last few weeks quite hard. I've started putting together some graphic design and been bouncing ideas back and forth with the designer. I started a thread on BGG asking for title suggestions and got hundreds. I need to pick one, and then start publicising it properly.

Codename: Jorvik

Jorvik's gone on the back-burner for now. I had some constructive feedback from Mal & Paul that made me think it wasn't quite ready. So I'll continue working on it, and release it when it is ready, rather than rush it out too soon.

In other news, all the fuss has led to the most hits in a single day here on Creation and Play. I'd like to welcome all my new readers, hopefully you'll stick around and join the discussion every now and again. It's going to be an exciting few months here on CnP I hope you enjoy reading about it.

February Report

I didn't get to play many games in February, but I did loads of creation, so all in all it was a pretty good month.

Play

Yeay! I finally broke out Twiglet during February which was great fun, it's a real shame that comes out so infrequently, but when you give up a whole day to play it that's a real limiting factor. Race for the Galaxy was a new purchase, and it lived up to the hype - The Wife and I love it. I also got to Beyond Monopoly! during February, and learnt a few new games. So despite only playing nineteen games in total it was good stuff. The multiples:

• Race for the Galaxy - 6 plays
• Gipsy King - 2 plays
• Cartagena - 2 plays

And the shrapnel: Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition, Carcassonne, Citadels, The Thief of Baghdad, Salamanca, Age of Steam, TransAmerica and Diamant.

Of those, Gipsy King, Cartagena, The Thief of Baghdad and Salamanca were new to me, all at Beyond Monopoly! I was underwhelmed by Salamanca, and Cartagena we tried once with the cards open and once hidden - it didn't really grab me either way. I enjoyed both Gipsy King and The Thief of Baghdad though, couldn't really pick a favourite though.

Creation

It's been a mixed month for game creation. I've received a couple more submissions, Network has come on nicely, and I've had few ideas about Jorvik, but I've had to realise that I can't get a game ready in time for the Expo, so I'm not going there in an official capacity, I'm in discussions with the organisers about appearing in a different capacity - keep an eye peeled here for more info soon.

It's Alive!

It's been a fairly quiet month again on It's Alive! sales have been picking up since the Christmas lull, but last week was my first ever week of no sales for It's Alive! since it was released. I've run a competition on BoardGameGeek to try and raise its profile, and given a copy to a video blogger. There's a few things in the pipeline that will hopefully raise its profile over the next few weeks.

Jorvik

I got to play-test Jorvik with several friends, it's coming on, and has improved over the last few months, but it' not going to be ready for the Expo unfortunately. I need to work on the spatial complexity of the card placement.

Network

It's been a really exciting time on Network. I've really enjoyed backing and forthing with the designer, and I feel that the game is pretty nearly ready now. We've made a bunch of changes between us (with a little help from my playtesters) and it's all coming together. Watch this space!

All in all, a good month for creation.

January Report

January was quite an exciting month. Lots on new games (though nothing that really grabbed me), but more importantly lots of progress on game designs.

Play

Quite a busy month in terms of games played, I saw Dave & Paul, etc. for games several times, and The Wife and I spent two weekends with Dunk & Lucy which all in all lead to lots of games played. Here's the popular ones:

• Magic: The Gathering: 10 plays
• Carcassonne: 6 plays
• PitchCar: 6 plays
• Carcassonne: The Castle: 4 plays
• Hey! That's My Fish!: 3 plays
• It's Alive!: 3 plays
• Lost Cities: 3 plays
• Incan Gold: 2 plays

I've not played PitchCar in a while, still love it though. Carcassonne is getting a new lease of life through The Tower expansion - adds a new level of conflict which I enjoy :-).

The shrapnel includes a bunch of new games: Age of Steam, Memoir '44, Mystery of the Abbey, Pirate's Cove, Poison, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Relikt, Runebound, Settlers of Catan Card Game, Thurn and Taxis. Age of Steam, Mystery of the Abbey, Poison, Relikt and Settlers of Catan Card Game were all new to me. Age of Steam was my favourite, but it didn't really grab me 2-player - I guess it's more fun with more players. Dave and I got to play the second half of the Pont du Hoc Memoir '44 scenario we'd played on Vassal while he was in Afghanistan. I won! He usually creams me a Memoir '44. Still it was a good month for playing games.

Creation

Things are getting more interesting in the creation arena too. It's Alive! has been fairly slow this month, though that's hopefully a sign of a post-Christmas lack of cash rather than an actual slowdown in interest. But there's been some real progress on Codename: Jorvik and Codename: Network this month.

It's Alive!

It's been a quiet month for It's Alive!, it's received several more ratings on BoardGameGeek, taking it above 100 ratings and well into the top 1,00 games (it peaked briefly at 962). Not many sales though. I've still not had a sales free week since I released it, but I'm just scraping that at the moment. There was the bulk sale to a shop in Italy which was great though. I need to put more effort into publicising it. I've started running a Google ad for it using a voucher I received from them, I'm still not sure whether that's worth it though, it's not lead to any sales yet. I've also contacted a new local train company which has just started operating. The tables on the trains have monopoly boards and chess boards printed on them, and the on-board shop sells those games. I've contacted them to see if they'd like to sell my games too - they've not responded yet. I've also just contacted BBC Radio 4 who in an advert for a Saturday morning show yesterday said "we're always interested in hearing about people's passions". Let's put that to the test!

Codename: Jorvik

Jorvik has been through a few crucial changes recently. The addition of priests seemed to improve the game, and with a little tweaking to make playing them more interesting they've really added to the conflict and choices within the game. I've only played the latest version four times, but it's far and away the best yet. I'm now doing some temporary artwork on the computer, so that I can quickly knock out prototypes for testing. I'm hoping to lend Paul and Lisa a copy next week, and get some more games in with my copy too. I now need to speak to my Dad again, to get some more sketch artwork prepared.

Codename: Network

It's been a fun month for Network too. I had an idea for a re-theme that I shared with the designer, along with the addition of a new narrative mechanic. The theme is pretty topical at the moment (though more interesting to a US market than a UK one), and I liked the concept of having to describe to the other players the story behind your moves. I sent my suggestions off to the designer, and he played them and came back with more. We've backed and forthed like this a few times now, and it feels quite exciting and really collaborative, despite the fact that he lives in America.

I need to release a new game at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham in June, what it's going to be, I've still not completely decided - but at least I've got some options now...

December Report

Another month, another monthly report.

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

Play

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

Here's what I got up to this month:

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

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

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

Creation

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

Jorvik

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

Harvest

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

Escape

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

Artist

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

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

November Report

Another month has passed in a blur. I've been pretty busy once again for work, and a busy month for games too. Since I've been out of the country so much, I've not ended up playing many games, but I've still been busy.

Play

Not a huge amount of games played this month, but I attended MidCon so It's Alive! has a good showing. Also several games played for the first time, thanks to Paul's games nights.

• It's Alive! - 13 plays
• Magic: The Gathering - 6 plays
• San Juan - 2 plays

Plus three games playing once, and all for the first time: Fearsome Floors, League of Six and San Marco. Of the three, Friedemann Friese's F-alliterating Fearsome Floors was the one I like least - a bit too chaotic for my tastes. There wasn't much between League of Six and San Marco, both solid Euros, but I guess I have a slight preference for League of Six - plus it's Czech! I live there for a couple of months, so I have a soft spot for it.

Looking forward to December, I hope to make it to Beyond Monopoly! my local games club once, plus with less travel for work, holidays with our families and the return of my gaming buddy Dave from Afghanistan, I'm hoping for a decent month of gaming.

Creation

Turning to creation it's been a pretty good month. Sales of It's Alive! have been almost twice last month's poor showing. I've received a whole bunch of prototypes too.

It's Alive!

It's been a good month for It's Alive! Twenty sales, plus a few orders by friends, and my first sales to Japan and Sweden. It had a disappointing outing at MidCon, but a good month over all. I also decided to get the last lot of boxes professionally made. The professional boxes are slightly higher quality, and getting the last few made will save me about eighty hours of construction.

Codename: Escape

Unfortunately I've had to drop this one. I enjoyed the game, but the theme (which is some ways is superb), is a little too controversial. I wanted to tweak it a little, make it more fantastic and less controversial, while still in the same vein. The designer wanted to keep the original theme, which of course he's entitled to do, so I've passed it over. Hopefully it'll see the light of day elsewhere.

Codename: Harvest

Another new submission, which after reading the rules, I've requested in prototype form. Hopefully it will have arrived by the time I get home.

October Report

It's been a long time since I did my last monthly report, I've been too busy with It's Alive! and travel for work. Now that things have calmed down a bit I'm going to start up again.

Play

I had the joint highest number of monthly plays since records began (admittedly only last August). Last time round it was because we'd been on holiday with a group of friends, this time because The Wife and I had a hankering for Magic: The Gathering again. I also got to Beyond Monopoly! once which led to the following playlist:

• Magic: The Gathering: 40 plays!
• Carcassonne: 5 plays on holiday
• Pirates of the Spanish Main: 2 plays on holiday
• It's Alive!: 2 plays

Plus the shrapnel: San Juan, No Thanks! and the Sherlock Holmes Card Game.

Sherlock Holmes and No Thanks! were new to me (I thought I'd played No Thanks! before, but I was thinking of 6 Nimmt). Of the two I prefered No Thanks!, but neither of them bowled me over.

It was really nice to play more games with The Wife, I love it when she's in the mood for games - she even bought San Juan :-).

Creation

This was a month of frantic travel for work, so I didn't have much time for making games, but I've made a few It's Alive!, talked Jorvik artwork with my dad and received yet another prototype (Codename: Escape).

It's Alive!

It's been a slow month for It's Alive! both in terms of production and sales. Now I've got a few weeks at home I'm going to step up production and build up a decent stock again, and I've a few ideas to boost sales over the next few weeks. There's a couple of conventions on the horizon that I'm considering...

Codename: Jorvik

Codename: Jorvik has been ticking along. I tried another idea (taking Dave's excellent idea to the next level), mainly for production/packaging purposes, but it seems to be working, and I need to finish the prototype so I can test it properly. Paul has offered to test it for me, he and his wife are big 2-player gamers, so they're the perfect target market.

Codename: Escape

Yet another prototype turned up during October. In fact, rather conveniently, it arrived at the Post Office (I wasn't in when they tried to deliver it) the day before my local games club met. I collected it from the Post Office and took it with me, and we got a game in at the club. I love the theme (and it certainly attracted plenty of attention), but I'll need to play it a few more times before I really get a feel for it.

In other news, I'm toying with the idea of going to a convention in Birmingham this month. Why only toying? It'll be fairly expensive, and I launched It's Alive! at a convention in Birmingham in July. I'm worried that everyone there who might be interested will have already seen/played/bought it.

March Report

Well, March is over and I did some stuff. Time to admit what exactly. I'll start with play, as is my want.

Play

A decidedly mediocre month in terms of number of games played. I didn't get to Beyond Monopoly, and due to various trips abroad I missed a load of my stalwart games nights with Paul and chums and Dave. Still I managed to get a few good nights of gaming in and this is what I played:

• Lost Cities: 8 plays
• Border Reivers: 3 plays
• Fluxx: 3 plays
• Carcassonne: 2 plays
• Caylus: 2 plays
• Space Hulk: 2 plays
• Memoir '44: 2 plays

Plus the shrapnel: Carcassonne: The Castle, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Spanish Main, Power Grid and Puerto Rico.

The only new game I played this month was Fluxx, which, to be honest, I really didn't enjoy that much - just a bit too random for my tastes. It was good to play more Space Hulk after a short break, and Lord of the Rings which I hadn't played in ages. Dave and I have agreed to play Lord of the Rings (and the Friends and Foes expansion) next time we get together - we've both not played it enough recently.

With 27 games in total it was a fairly average month, and that only because Paul G and I played nine games on the last night of the month. I really wish I was at home more to enable me to get more games in.

Creation

I had a week off work this month to allow me to make the most of The Wife's visit to Denmark. I wanted to get as much construction done as possible so that I can spend more time with her when she returns. This was counteracted by ten days when I was away from home for work (and visiting The Wife in Denmark :-) ).

Border Reivers

I only got six copies finished during my week off, but I did manage to get twelve copies almost finished in addition. This is pretty good progress, as that's nearly forty hours work right there. Sales wise it was an average month, which is ok, as I don't want to sell too many before the end of the tax year, to minimise my tax liability. After the end of the tax year (in just over a week), I'm going to step up efforts to sell out of Border Reivers, as I need the money from Border Reivers sales to pay for It's Alive! production.

It's Alive!

It's been an exciting month for It's Alive! I announced it to the world on March 4th, and since then it's been all go. I've had a boatload of pre-orders, it's been mentioned in a bunch of places including Board Game News, and I've received a few thumbnails of artwork from the artist, chose the ones I like and opened some of them up to my readers here for input. Once the financial year ends I'm going to step up Border Reivers promotion, in order to get enough cash to make It's Alive!

Codename: Jorvik

I finally got around to making the prototype of Dave's suggested rules change. Yesterday afternoon, Dave and I spent a few hours in a local pub testing it out. It's definitely much better than the last version, and fixes the problem I was worried about - lack of player interaction. The card balance is all wrong at the moment - but I can fix that by tweaking and playing repeatedly.

In other news, I wanted to go to the UK Games Expo and hopefully launch It's Alive! there. I ummed and ahhed, hoping to delay the decision until I knew I'd be able to get it ready in time. I checked that they still had space - and they didn't. D'oh. Fortunately I put myself on the waiting list, and a space came up, so I am going now. I'll just have to bust a gut to get it ready in time.

Monthly Report: February

February's monthly report is significantly late I'm afraid - mostly due to the excitement around the It's Alive! announcement. It was a pretty good month in terms of games played and an exciting month in terms of creation.

Play

As usual I'll deal with play first. I went to a couple of games nights at Paul's, I saw Dave for games once, we had a dinner party with the obligatory party game after dinner and I hosted a games night too - so plenty of gaming opportunities. As I was playing with my own games or those of friends I see regularly I didn't play any games that were new to me, but I did play several old favourites. To experience some new games I need to get down to Beyond Monopoly really, but I'm having difficulty finding a weekend free. We've had guests and taken on a time-heavy commitment that can only really be done on the weekends. I'm sure I'll get there in the next month or two though. Guillotine was popular again, it's our standard filler at Paul's and Dave has just managed to get his hands on a copy via a BoardGameGeek trade. Carcassonne remains popular, and I still consider it my favourite game. Despite owning several of the expansions the vanilla game hits the table with fair regularity too.

First up the popular games:

• Guillotine: 7 plays
• Carcassonne: 4 plays
• Border Reivers: 2 plays
• Carcassonne: The Castle: 2 plays
• Diamant: 2 plays
• Memoir '44: 2 plays
• PitchCar: 2 plays

In addition, there were a bunch of less popular games too: Alhambra, Cranium, Die Mauer, Pirates of the Spanish Main, Power Grid and Ticket To Ride.

In terms of games played it was a fairly average month, but still enjoyable, and I'm glad Dave liked Border Reivers. When I'm designing a game I'll often suggest it to friends to get a chance to do some more playtesting. Once a game is finished I stop suggesting it - I pimp it at conventions and online, but friends only get to play it if they ask - I don't like to ram it down their throats. However, despite having played it well over a hundred times I still enjoy it, and playing against an experienced opponent is a lot more fun.

Creation

Which brings me on nicely to games design and publishing. It felt like a very busy month for games design, although on the face of it I didn't get an awful lot done. I guess the excitement makes it feel busier.

Border Reivers

It was a fairly steady month for Border Reivers sales, which is nice after the post-Christmas lull. I need to keep up Border Reivers sales to afford the It's Alive! production so a solid month is encouraging. I investigated a few advertising options, but most of them are out of my range - BGG advertising runs to the tune of a few hundred dollars, not much for an established publisher, but way out of my meagre budget. I also constructed another batch and started yet another. After this one there are only a few more batchs yet to make - it definitely feels like I'm on the home straight now - mustn't slack off! I have managed to get some stock back in, making games faster than I've been selling them which is both good and bad!

It's Alive! / Codename: Monster

Obviously a very busy month for It's Alive! I had to make the final go/no go decision, choose an artist (with my friend R H Aidley winning), get a contract together, sign it, post it to Israel and wait for the reply. Plus I worked on a new version of the website, polished the rules a bit, and created my first press release.

Codename: Jorvik

Dave's brilliant idea re-invigorated me on Jorvik, I was feeling a bit despondent about it - it just wasn't quite right, not enough interaction. I didn't managed to get enough time to create a new prototype though - that's a job for this month.

Codenames: Artist & Dollyo

No progress this month - too busy on other things.

Codename: Sennon

I'd made a first prototype of this over Christmas, but when I came to play it solo to see how my ideas worked in the flesh, the components proved to be way too fiddly. Back to the drawing board on this one - it'll probably stay on the back burner for a while I think.

Codename: Surprise

This was a new idea I've had, loosely based on a series of books I've been reading. I love the theme and spent the seven hour train journey to Paris working through some ideas in my notebook. Hopefully I'll get something together fairly soon and start playtesting it. Dave's keen on the idea too (he's reading the same books) so I'll probably have a willing playtester in the early stages when the game is rubbish.

What do I want to achieve this month? Quite a lot! The Wife goes to Denmark for a month on Sunday for her work so I'm going to be home alone, with game design, prototyping and construction the only things to keep me from chronic boredom and loneliness. I hope to finish (or nearly finish) all the Border Reivers construction, getting the last copies made ready for sale. I also hope to do some of the graphic design for It's Alive! (the schematic information that will sit on top of the artwork. I really need to get the new Jorvik prototype made and it would be nice to come up with a first prototype of Surprise. It seems like a huge amount, but I'll have a lot of evenings at home alone, and I've got a week off work to concentrate on construction too.

January Report

Another mixed month. It got off to a great start, playing games with the in-laws over my extended Christmas holiday, and building up quite a stock of Border Reivers (I took a bunch of copies with me to do the tile-cutting down in Bristol). From a playing point of view it continued well, I got a trip to Beyond Monopoly in, went round to Paul's and Dave's for games, had Mal down for a weekend and hosted a games night at mine. From a creation point of view it was mixed, I've not touched Jorvik, Sennon or Artist really since the holidays, I've made some decent progress on Monster, and had an excellent week of Border Reivers sales after a slow start to the month.

Play

I had a good month of playing games, I played loads including quite a few new ones. At Paul's games night I was introduced to Falling an utterly chaotic game in which you have to play certain cards quickly on yourself and the other players, in a bid to be the last to hit the ground. Despite the madness of it all we played six games that night, so it was a bit of a hit. I went round to Dave's for games as well, and Dave introduced me to Memoir '44 (which I'd seen played loads of times before, but I'd never played myself. This one was good fun - nice and strategic, but with a healthy dose of luck and a quick play time. I definitely enjoyed it. That night we also played Railway Rivals a game where you draw your railway routes on a wipe-off board with a felt-tip pen. It was an interesting change from the handfull of other railway games I've played, and I like the two stages - build and then race. Also new to me in January was Villa Paletti, a very colourful dexterity game with some similarities to Jenga. My favourite new game was Memoir '44 I think, I really liked the speed and balance of strategy and luck. I can see why the Battlelore spin-off is generating so much interest.

The games I played the most this month are Pitch Car again, my new game which is getting a lot of table time, and Carcassonne (an old favourite).

The final breakdown is:

• Pitch Car: 13 plays
• Falling: 6 plays
• Carcassonne: 4 plays
• Border Reivers: 3 plays
• Villa Paletti: 2 plays
• Memoir '44: 2 plays
• Power Grid: 2 plays
• Lost Cities: 2 plays

And one each of: Railway Rivals and Diamant.

I still haven't managed to play Canal Mania, Space Dealer or Die Saulen Der Erde, maybe this month...

Creation

It's been a mixed month on the game creation front, some ups and downs, and some games I didn't do anything at all on. My new job at work involves a fair bit of travel, so I've had less time available.

Border Reivers

After a good start getting a load of tiles cut out in Bristol, I had a few quiet weeks of no sales and very little construction. That all changed when I offered free shipping to America for a limited number of people, racking up five sales in twelve hours - equalling my best ever week of sales at a convention! I went on to sell a few more copies that week setting a new record of eight. It's generating a bit more content on The Geek now, which is nice.

Monster

It's been a good month for Monster, I've been trying to price up components to see how much it would cost to make, and I'm strongly considering making a run of 300 copies. I've spoken to an artist about getting the artwork done, and started drafting a contract to offer the designer. I've played it now with up to five players and it still seems to work, but the designer played it with six and didn't like it, so I'm going to reduce the components and limit it to five players. Hopefully I'll have some news in a month or two...

Artist

I played Artist with Mal when he came down and I've got some ideas to improve it - I just need to find some time to make a new prototype.

Sennon & Jorvik

No progress on either of these this month.

This month I'd like to nail stuff down on Monster, and make a decision on whether or not to publish it, and I hope for another good month of sales on Border Reivers, building on January's strong sales.

December Report

Happy New Year!

It's been another good month for games, mainly due to having a long break for Christmas, and trying to get a lot of Border Reivers construction done in preparation for the BBC MindGames review. I also managed to make it to Paul's for Monday games night at least once, Dave came round for prototyping and Space Hulk and I made it to Beyond Monopoly once as well.

Play

I played a bunch of new games this month, yet more progress on my quest to experience as many games as possible to improve my games designing skills. This month I played Shogun Dirk Henn's reworking of Wallenstein to a feudal Japanese theme, Modern Art Reiner Knizia's classic 'every type of auction going' game, and Carcassonne - The Castle Reiner Knizia's 2-player take on Klaus-Jurgen Wrede's Carcassonne series. I'm not sure what to make of Shogun, I only played it once, and we got some of the rules wrong, it's beautifully produced and illustrated though. Modern Art was good fun, sadly the 'art' was pretty shocking in the version I played. Carcassonne - The Castle is great, it's a bit more invovled than vanilla Carcassonne, and the inability to score incomplete features catches you out the first couple of times you play. Favourite new game for December? Carcassonne The Castle, I think.

With Christmas in the month I got a new game too: The Wife got me PitchCar, which is excellent. It plays well with any number of players from two up to eight, it's lighthearted good fun, and suitable for pretty much anyone from fairly young kids and those who don't like hard (read: strategy) games. I love this one.

Excluding prototypes I played forty games in December, including a few old 'favourites', which I really didn't enjoy, but if you're the 'games man', sometimes you have to play the game the others want to play, even if it physically hurts.

• PitchCar: 13 plays
• Carcassonne - The Castle: 5 plays
• Carcassonne: 5 plays
• Hive: 2 plays
• Diamant: 2 plays
• Trivial Pursuit: 2 plays

Plus one play each of: Saboteur, Modern Art, Shogun, Ticket To Ride, Settlers of Catan, Guillotine, Puerto Rico, The Menorah Game, Space Hulk, Mission: Red Planet and Risk.

I still didn't get a chance to play Canal Mania, it turns out that neither Beyond Monopoly or Jon (who runs BM and owns at least a billion games) have it - I guess I'll have to wait until a convention to play that one. What would I really like to play this month? Hmm. Nothing really stands out. I've still not played Thurn and Taxis which won last year's Spiel des Jahres, and a couple of the big games from Essen: Space Dealer played in real-time and Die Saulen der Erde a cathedral construction game. Maybe I'll get a chance to play those at BM.

Creation

From a design point of view December was a cracking month, lots of prototyping and playtesting since I had loads of time off for Christmas. I also made good progress on Border Reivers construction.

Monster

A new one this month, a slightly modified version of a game submitted to me by another designer. I've changed the theme, and I'm trying to expand the game to support a few more players. I've played this a few times now and I'm starting to form an opinion about it. I think it's a really good game, but I need to play it with more players to determine whether my modifications break things or not.

Jorvik

Only played this once with Dave, I don't think he was enamoured of it (it plays like a game of two halves with little interaction between players), so this one still needs some work.

Artist

Only played this once with Dave too, his comments were that it's difficult to keep track of which areas you control, which needs some thought.

Sennon

I finally finished the prototype that I started ages ago, but I've not got to play it yet.

Border Reivers

It was a crap month for sales of Border Reivers, really dire. Still, I managed to get a load of copies made in preparation for the BBC MindGames review, and I did a bunch of work on the website adding the rules and PayPal integration. Hopefully January will be a better month for sales...

Plans for January? I want to play the Sennon prototype a few times, start working out the kinks, I also want to play Monster with more players (maybe Paul's games night is the venue for that?), to see if my modified version supports five and six players while still being fun. If it does then I need to begin approaching artists and contract negiotation, which will be a whole new dimension for Reiver Games...

November Report

Here's my second monthly report - letting you know how my gaming and games designing has gone during the last month. I'm hoping that it will provide me with an opportunity to keep track of whether or not I'm getting what I want done.

First up, games played. I played far fewer games in November than October, I missed both Beyond Monopoly days, and only made it to two out of four of Paul's games nights. Dave came round for Space Hulk again though and I played some games down in Bristol with my family and my in-laws. Total games played in November: 19 (excluding prototypes).

• Hey! That's My Fish!: 3 plays.
• Mission: Red Planet: 2 plays.
• Guillotine: 2 plays.
• Carcasonne: 2 plays.
• Space Hulk: 3 plays.
• Border Reivers: 2 plays.
• Ticket To Ride: 1 play.
• Flanderen 1302: 2 plays.
• Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition: 1 play.
• Puerto Rico: 1 play.
• Niagara: 1 play.
• Masons: 1 play.

Only two new games this month: Flanderen 1302 and Mission: Red Planet. Of the two I prefered Mission: Red Planet - I loved the steam punk theme and the game was good fun too.

I bought one new game this month again (Carcassonne: Inns & Cathedrals), which I've not yet had a chance to play. I've played it before though, and it's a good one I'm sure it will get plenty of play in the future.

Looking forward to December I'm still really hoping to get a game of Canal Mania in. I had it down as one of the two games I wanted to play in November, but seeing as I didn't get to BM there was no opportunity. With any luck I'll get a chance to play it at BM this afternoon. I'm also looking forward to hanging out with my family and my in-laws at Christmas - we'll probably play some games, possibly including Shogun.

So that's October from a player's perspective, how about a designer's perspective?

Border Reivers

Border Reivers had a mixed month. I sold another nine copies, mainly towards the end of the month after a slow start. I've gained a few more ratings, but the average has dipped below seven again. In terms of publicity I've had confirmation that the interview for Flagship magazine is going to be printed, and they're going to review it too. Also the BBC MindGames magazine have a review coming out just after Christmas.

Codename: Jorvik (11 plays this month)

Codename: Jorvik has seen a fair amount of play (not included above). I made a new prototype of Jorvik which simplifies a bunch of things and make some things slightly more involved. I'm pretty happy with this new version, but I've several more ideas to try out, I'll have to give those a whirl over December.

Codename: Sennon

One of my goals for November was to make a Sennon prototype, but sadly I only got it half made - I've some of the cards made, but no tiles or counters - I want to get a prototype done to take down to Bristol at Christmas so I can play it with friends and family and start the design process in earnest.

Codename: Artist (2 plays this month)

This one came out of the blue while visiting my family mid-month. Dad suggested a single word, and within twenty-four hours I had some rules scribbled down in my notebook. I made a prototype and then got to play it a couple of times the following weekend. I think it's got potential, the original scoring idea was completely broken, but that's been swapped out and hopefully I can make some progress on this one soon too.

What does December have in store? I need to finish the Sennon prototype, and playtest my prototypes a lot more. I'm expecting a prototype from another designer through the post in a couple of days, and that will need testing too. I hope to build up a decent stock in preparation for the BBC review, and the Flagship interview might come out this month too. I'm thinking of having a prototype games night, but that might have to wait until after Christmas...

In other news I did another set of tiles last night - finishing another copy. I've now got three finished copies at home - yeay! But I've seven outstanding orders! I also started making boxes for the next batch, a batch of six. I cut them all out and assembled three box lids. I'm off to Beyond Monopoly now - session report up tomorrow.

October Report

Inspired by a habit of Brian's over at Tao Of Gaming, I'm going to start doing a round-up of the month's gaming activity every month.

First up, games played. I played a lot of games this month, mainly due to several events: Beyond Monopoly, Dave coming round for Space Hulk, a games night, Psychocon in Leeds and a week-long games-fest of a holiday. Total games played in October: 52.

• Carcassonne: 12 plays (including the River, Traders and Builders and/or King and Scout expansions).
• Border Reivers: 8 plays - seven of those at the convention.
• Ticket To Ride: 6 plays.
• Lost Cities: 5 plays.
• Puerto Rico: 4 plays.
• Space Hulk: 3 plays.
• Formula Dé: 2 plays.
• Perudo: 2 plays.
• Apples To Apples: 2 plays.
• The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game: 1 play.
• Street Soccer: 1 play.
• TransAmerica: 1 play.
• Hey! That's My Fish!: 1 play.
• Saboteur: 1 play.
• Niagara: 1 play.
• Leonardo da Vinci: 1 play.
• Football Tactics 2006: 1 play.

I had not played eight of those before (Formula Dé, Perudo, Street Soccer, TransAmerica, Saboteur, Niagara, Leonardo da Vinci and Football Tactics 2006). So it was yet another good month for experiencing new games. As part of my quest to become a better games designer, I want to play lots of new games - improving my breadth of experience. Good progress made towards that goal this month. Which was my favourite new game? It's a toss-up between Niagara and Football Tactics 2006. Niagara probably just wins it by a nose. It's fast, fun, simple and features several innovative ideas (the clear discs representing the river, using the box as part of the board).

I bought one new game this month (Lost Cities), which has already got a good amount of play - a good choice, methinks. I like that it's fast and has a reasonable amount of strategy - the randomness doesn't put me off at all.

Looking forward November, I won't play anywhere near as many games, as I'm not attending any cons and I'm going to miss one of the Beyond Monopoly sessions due to visitors. Hopefully I'll get along to Paul's games night a few times, and see more of Dave though. Games I'm most looking forward to playing: Mission: Red Planet and Canal Mania, especially after Chris Farell's positive write-up. Hopefully I'll get a chance to play these this month.

So that's October from a player's perspective, how about a designer's perspective?

Border Reivers

Border Reivers had a good month. I sold nine copies, including four in one week - the second highest ever weekly sales. It was well received at Psychocon, and has gained four more ratings on BBG, boosting its average above seven. I've finally got some sales to North America too, two to the US and one to Canada. I got in contact with the BBC MindGames magazine, and arranged some free publicity, and I was interviewed for a piece in Flagship magazine, though neither of those publicity effort have bourne any fruit yet as the articles have yet to be published.

Codename: Jorvik

Codename: Jorvik has seen a fair amount of play (not included above). It was starting to settle down before the holiday, but now I'm thinking I'll introduce some major changes and see if they improve things. If not, I can always backtrack to the last prototype and try something else. I also got my first order for Jorvik :-)

Codename: Sennon

Codename: Sennon has seen a fair amount of new ideas, and a first attempt at a rules set and component list. I had hoped to take a prototype with me on holiday, but I ran out of time to make it. I'll need to get the prototype made this month in time for playing at Christmas with family and friends.

What does November have in store? I'm hoping to get a couple of new prototypes done for Jorvik and Sennon, and the BBC review comes out this week. I hope that I'll get a bump in sales from the review, but I've no idea if I will or not. The magazine is aimed at puzzlers (sudoku and crosswords, etc.) so they might not be interested, or I might get swamped with orders. Something between those two would be best - a modest bump in orders, but not so many that I really struggle to fulfill them.