Fauxmas

This weekend was the first of our four(!) Christmas celebrations.

Fauxmas.

Paul and his family came up for the weekend.

We had an early Christmas with them.

Complete with presents.

They got me River Valley Glassworks, which is a very full box!

Christmas dinner.

Drinks.

And games.

It was glorious.

We didn't get much time to talk business, or playtest new ideas.

But we've got a weekend in Leicester together at the end of January.

For To Boldly Game at the National Space Centre again.

It's also the start of my just over 2 week Christmas holiday from the day job.

Which I need.

It's been a crazy few weeks there.

Woods

I’m in Devon.

In the woods again.

Away from the stressful day job.

And most of the Eurydice work.

Relaxing.

Recharging.

Spending time with the family.

Bracketed at either end with a visit to the in-laws and my parents.

It’s good to have a break.

Family

My parents are visiting for a week.

They live 300 miles away, and so I see them rarely.

Two or three times a year.

And dad is getting less mobile.

So it’s harder for them to travel.

It’s going to be lovely seeing them for a whole week.

Not just a brief video call.

But I run Eurydice Games in my spare time.

Around a full-time job.

And a youngish family.

So visitors pretty much pause game company work.

The print and play rewards are almost done though. Half a page left of the rulebook, then proofing and it’s ready to go.

It’ll be a month late :(

I have at least done some playtest of my mate Joe’s solo dungeon crawl (it’s very good!).

Loads of fun!

Mum, The Wife and Daughter the second joined in too!

Wales

I’m on holiday for a week.

In Wales.

With 18 members of my family.

Parents.

Brother and sisters and their partners.

Nieces and nephews.

Plus The Wife and our kids.

19 of us. And a dog.

Aged 3 to 79.

After a busy weeks at work and our Gamefound campaign, the break is welcome.

Some downtime.

I will keep up my games design streak though.

I’ve brought some prototypes.

And some prototyping materials.

I’ll make some things.

And do some playtesting.

Here.

Holiday

I’ve spent the last week away with all my family again.

19 of us.

2 years to 78 years in age.

It was great to see them all.

Hang out.

Explore south Wales.

Play some games.

But most of all to see my dad doing better after his recent operation than he has been in years.

Seeing him standing and walking unaided.

With more energy.

Staying up later.

The marvels of modern medicine.

Home now, and need to crack on with fulfilment.

First up, mopping up that last of the errors from the Gamefound campaign.

Feaster

Paul and his family are visiting for the Easter weekend.

Feaster.

A weekend of feasting, catching up, and gaming.

It’s great to see them all.

Catch up.

Plus, play some games.

We’re teaching each other new games.

Playing a lot with the kids.

Plus a bit of playtesting.

Roll and Write 4 is only a couple of weeks old. But Paul’s enjoyed it and had very few suggestions for improvements.

I love that I can turn roll and writes around quick enough that we can play it again.

But different.

On the same weekend.

Tired

It’s been an intense week.

I started a new job on Monday. The first in ten years where I didn’t know most of the staff on arrival.

Mum and Dad have been here all week for the first time in 21 months.

I’ve been staying up late chatting to Mum in the evenings.

It was my birthday too.

Around all of that I managed to send out the Print and Play rewards on Monday (a week late).

And place the last two acrylic orders.

And the penultimate print order.

And check the proofs for that and find yet more things that needed fixing (it had been proofed three times before!).

Next up is a little bit of graphic design tweaking the last print order. Placing and checking that.

Then the next big task is filling in the fulfilment spreadsheet that Paul works from and writing the 220 invoices I need to do from May and June.

There is no peace!

The Slow March of Progress

The Baby is sleeping particularly badly at the moment, a combination of teething x4 and a filthy cold. As a result The Wife and (to a lesser extent) I are also sleeping really badly too. To survive we're going to bed crazy early, which considering my Eurydice Games time is after the kids go to bed means I'm making little progress at the moment. I am making some though.

The Father-in-law was up at the beginning of the week, and bless him he did a bunch of my chores, which freed up some time. That meant that one evening I finished early enough to do some bagging of bits for the FlickFleet prototype, and then Thursday before Games Night I had a few minutes to cut out my ship dashboards and make a box. With the exception of the rule book (which is currently undergoing a revision), I have an up-to-date copy! That should make teaching it to people a bit easier - playing with out of date dashboards was very confusing.

I also spent a couple of lunch breaks mocking up a FlickFleet box:

Mock up of a FlickFleet box design

What are your thoughts? Obviously, the art is just placeholders at the moment, to get a feel for the composition. Feedback on twitter earlier in the week was it wasn't clear that the shadowy hand was flicking the beige ship - maybe extending the middle to little fingers would help.

Distractions!

Last week The Wife gave birth to our first child: a beautiful, healthy girl called Anya Janette Pope. As you can imagine I'm going to be a little distracted over the next 20-odd years, but I still hope to make some progress on my games design (especially Codename: Vacuum at the moment). I'm on Paternity Leave from work for the next couple of weeks and I've already bought everything I need to print and cut out the next set of cards, so hopefully I'll be able to find a couple of hours when I can accomplish that (around staring in wonderment at the baby The Wife and I - mostly The Wife! -have made).

I'll also try to keep posting here as I make any progress, but as you can imagine it will probably be a bit less frequent!