I Need Your Help, Please!

If you read this blog regularly you are among my biggest fans - thank you very much for your support over the last 11 years of my game design career. As a regular reader (you're not? Ok, start here and then continue until you're up to date!), you'll know I'm about to get into self-publishing hand-made games again. I've got previous for this - the first two very successful years of Reiver Games from July 2006 until July 2008 when I made 400 games by hand (Border Reivers and It's Alive!). But things have changed. There was no kickstarter back then, and certainly in year two I had built up a bit of a fanbase and had a mailing list of interested gamers.

This time round there's a lot more competition through kickstarter and as the father of two young (one's only five weeks old!) girls I'll be busier than I was first time around. So I need your help to be successful. If you're interested, here's a few ways you can help my second board games publishing effort be a success:

Do you own Zombology, and have played it?

Please provide an honest rating and comments on BoardGameGeek, please also download the second edition rules and introduce it to new people and let them know I'll be making another hand-made run of it shortly if they'd like a copy of their own.

Do you own Zombology but you haven't played it?

Please also download the second edition rules and introduce it to new people and let them know I'll be making another hand-made run of it shortly if they'd like a copy of their own. Then please provide an honest rating and comments on BoardGameGeek.

Do you own one of my hand-made games?

If you have a copy of Border Reivers, It's Alive! first edition (grey box) or Zombology, please could you provide a quote I can put on my website about the build quality of my hand-made games?

You don't own Zombology?

You can still provide feedback on the new rules, if you know anyone who likes zombies, mad scientists, fillers, semi- co-operative games, card-drafting, and/or hand-made and rare games to the Zombology BGG page or this blog. Tell them there's a new version coming shortly and they can pre-order a copy of the world's only game about curing the zombie plague using healing crystals and magnets from me for only £10 + P&P.
Thanks in advance for spreading the word!

About #?@!ing Time

Many years ago, while humanity was busy learning how to craft flint axes and wondering which pelts made the best loincloths, I took part in NaGa DeMon 2013, coming up with a game I called Zomobology, a quick, vicious card game about fighting the zombie apocalypse with science not shotguns. With only a month to come up with a working game, I enlisted the help of the internets, promising free stuff in return for feedback, proof-reading and ideas.

NaGa DeMon went very well, I got loads of feedback, made 6 versions of Zomobology within the month and made them available print and play for feedback purposes. I had nearly four times a normal month's pageviews on the blog and everything was rosy. Huzzah!

Did I mention the free stuff? Yes. Right. Um. So I'd offered the five most helpful feedback providers a signed, numbered limited edition copy of the final version as created at the end of the month. That version was freely available here for download, so to spice it up a bit, I said I'd get some exclusive artwork done for the winners' copies. The only slight problem with this plan was I'd spent all my hard-earned cash on nappies, so budget was limited, and I can't draw for toffee. Another call for help on the internet and I thought I'd found an artist who was prepared to do the artwork for beer money. Millennia passed, man learned to forge metal tools, wear togas and build sewers. Then the artist deal fell through.

Man harnessed the atom and discovered quantum mechanics and the whole thing was getting farcical. Instead I offer the winners (who by this point have largely forgotten who I am) a signed, numbered limited edition copy of the current version, with crappy artwork by yours truly (plus a selection of Creative Commons licensed art from the internet). This version is actually slightly more exclusive since it's changed quite a lot since the final NaGa DeMon version at the end of November and the art, such as it is, is all new. In an effort to draw a line under the whole sordid affair, the winners accept my paltry offer and everything is back on.

Did I mention it had changed quite a lot? So that version has several new mechanisms and is completely untested. So I start testing it and make a few iterations testing it until it gets to the point where it essentially works. It's not perfect (I think it's now too easy to cure zombitis), but it's playable. Let's do this!

Except I've run out of ink for my printer and I've not written the rules for the new version - they're all in my head. So I crack on with this while the winners take advantage of the singularity and download their consciousnesses to a silicate substrate, desperate to not let their failing corporeal forms deny them access to free stuff.

Saturday night the stars were finally in alignment. The Daughter was sleeping well, The Wife was out for dinner and drinks with friends and I was vaguely awake. I'd written the rules up on Wednesday and the printer ink had arrived on Thursday. Time to finally get my house in order. The copies are now seeing the light of day and will be shipping soon. Thank you all for your patience!

Artists! How does this sound?

If you've been reading my blog over the last few months you'll be keenly aware that the one thing Codename: Vacuum is missing is art. The cards have some rudimentary graphic design done, but no illustrations whatsoever.

Needs some artistic love, methinks.

The main reason behind this is that while I have limited graphic design skills, I have no art skills and at the moment my money is going on tiny clothes and nappies rather than hiring artists. Having said that, it would be great to have some art on the game before I send it out for playtesting. How do I reconcile these two positions?

I've been considering that question for a while now. I mentioned it to my Dad when he was up a few weeks ago (he's a retired art teacher and artist, though in a completely different style) and he started sketching out a few things. In addition, an old friend from junior school offered to help, but he's a professional animator and has a young family and needs to focus on earning a living not helping out a mate he's not seen in 25 years for free. So what to do?

I've had a slightly bizarre idea over the last couple of days, and I've no idea how it sounds so I'm going to run it past you guys to get some feedback before I actually try to implement it. So what's the idea I hear you ask?

I get aspiring board game artists to do it for me for free!

And there's my problem. How much of an exploitative arse do I sound about now? I'm thinking an unacceptable amount. But maybe not. I'll flesh out my idea, and then you can let me know in the comments whether I sound like an arse or not.

The problem of no art is compounded by the fact that I need a lot of it. I need:

• A card back design
• 50 location designs
• 7 location back designs
• 65 card front designs

That's an enormous job for one person, especially when I can't afford to pay them, so finding people to share out the work between would be a more realistic way to go. But I don't know many arty types, and certainly not enough to get that amount of art done for free out of personal goodwill.

Clearly, I would need to offer these generous hypothetical artists something in return for their hard work, even if it can't be real folding money. Otherwise I'd appear like an arse and I'd end up with an unenviable reputation and still no art.

So the idea I've been tossing around in my head is this:

I post on BGG a list of all the art I'm looking for and ask for aspiring board game artists to knock something up for some of those briefs for free. In return, they would get: an artist credit on the card(s) they've illustrated and a link to their portfolio in the rulebook. I'd also do artist profiles here on Creation and Play of the artists whose submitted work I most admire.

I'm hoping at some point to get Codename: Vacuum into print. If that never happens (a reasonable risk), then that would be the end of it. But if I decided to hawk it to other publishers then the artist's work and their portfolio link would go to those publishers in the setting of a real game. Alternatively, I might decide to try to KickStart it myself, in which case the artists whose work I like the best would stand a reasonable chance of getting their art into the finished game, and more importantly, I'd be paying them for it at that point (the KickStarter budget would include paying for art). If I end up publishing the game myself, I would only use art submitted for the prototype with the artist's permission if we could agree a price that I would pay them for it.

What do you think? Does that sound like a promising idea? An exploitative idea? An idea which is extremely unlikely to work?

Crowdsourcing Support

Since I announced the sad news that I'm going to have to go back into IT to pay the bills (Reiver Games hasn't reached that point yet, and doesn't look like it will any time soon), I've had lots of contact from gamers, friends and customers wishing me well and even offering support/help.

This got me thinking. If there's people out there who are interested in helping what could they do that would actually help Reiver Games get off the ground? The obvious answer is to buy one of my games, either from a local or web retailer (which will probably be cheaper for you and encourage them to buy more stock from their distributor) or take advantage of free shipping and a bundle deal when buying from my website. However, money is tight in the current economic climate, and many of the people offering support already own my games, so here are a few more ideas I came up with:

Already got my games and want to help?

• Play them with friends you think might like them
• Take them to conventions/games nights and get them to the table
• Offer to demo them in a local shop
• Get one as a Christmas/birthday present for a friend or family member you think would like it
• Write a review or a session report of one of my games on BoardGameGeek

Don't yet have any of my games?

• Ask a friend to bring a copy to games night/a convention
• Ask your local store to carry my games
• Read the rules to It's Alive!, Carpe Astra or Sumeria on my website - anything take your fancy?
• Recommend one of my games to a friend who you think might like it

Once again, thanks to everyone who has supported Reiver Games over the last three and a half years, and for your recent messages of support - they help!

If you've got any more ideas please let me know in the comments.