Help!

I've mentioned a few times recently that cash is tight at the moment.

We're owed thousands of pounds by the government. Tax refunds.

We've almost finished fulfilling the last crowdfunding campaign.

We're just making up the standard rewards now.

But we priced up the campaign in early February 2025.

Then came US tariffs.

Then the removal of the De Minimis rule in the US.

Then threats to Greenland and war in Iran.

Half of the rewards are for the US.

And we've paid twice what we were expecting to for US shipping, plus the tariffs - because we promised customs-friendly shipping.

US web sales have dropped off a cliff for all the reasons above too.

Paul and I have had to lend the company money again.

And we're still very low on cash.

We'd really appreciate it if you could recommend our games to friends/family/games groups.

Or rate/review them on BGG.

Or follow and comment on our Gal4Xeon Gamefound campaign.

The roll & writes in particular are cheap, tariff-free, and have no shipping.

We appreciate anything you can do to help spread the word!

Stagnant

It's been a slow week.

Photo by Luismi Sánchez on Unsplash

With everything going on it's understandable.

But we need to get to the point where we're sustainable.

Which means more website sales.

And better crowdfunding campaigns.

Gal4Xeon got off to a great start.

Quickly passed the number of followers Exodus had at the beginning.

With 3 months to go before launch.

It was gaining 10 followers a day!

Then 9.

Then 8.

Then 5.

This week it was 1.4.

I tried running a competition, but it didn't get any entries!

I need to be using my Mondays to drive improvements in these areas.

Just need to work out what's the most effective use of my time...

At least I've made good progress on the Gal4Xeon graphic design and another game idea this week.

Recovery

It's possible the website is fixed.

I think I've found the issue with the false orders.

And fixed it.

Meta is no longer reporting false sales.

And after a week and a half of no orders, we've had 5 in the last 5 days.

A return to normality.

And breathe.

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

With that load off my mind, I've been able to spend some time on the new roll and write.

The last few changes have been minimal.

It's stabilising.

Which means it's time to do a first cut of the written rules.

Which is required before I can start sending out playtest copies.

And getting some real feedback.

And hopefully some ideas for improvement.

Weirdness

It's been a bad week for the website and ads combo.

We normally get 7-10 orders a week.

Pretty reliably.

We spend a chunk of money on Facebook ads to get that.

Last week we had none.

Not one.

That hasn't happened for years.

We've been spending the same amount on ads though.

And here's where it gets really weird.

Facebook reckon their ads have brought in 21 sales this week.

21!

But we've had none.

What!?

I even placed an order myself to check the website was still working.

It is.

But the ads are screwed.

Need to fix that somehow...

Segue

The recent change to the De Minimis customs rule in the US is a real pain.

Historically, about half our sales have gone to the US.

Half!

Now, anyone buying from the US faces 10% tariffs (it's UK made at least - in Paul's garage).

Plus courier fees, which have been less than $10 from what I've seen so far.

It's a pain, and it'll make future US web sales harder.

So I've stopped advertising to the US.

Which is going to cost us a lot of sales.

But save us some advertising money.

How can we segue to keep things going?

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

We've always sold the P&P files for FlickFleet.

And we've now four print and play roll and write games.

They are all tariff-free at least.

Perhaps we need to promote them more?

We can advertise those worldwide.

No shipping fees. No tariffs.

But ads for them haven't worked well in the past.

I wonder if I can improve them to work in future.

Something needs to change!

Tariffs

In a lot of ways we’re lucky.

We make FlickFleet in Paul’s garage.

In York. In the UK.

So it’s not getting hit by the made in China tariffs introduced in the US.

The UK was fairly quick to strike a trade deal.

And we got 10%.

But we’ve benefited a lot from De Minimis.

The exception for orders under $800.

Half our orders go to the US.

Half!

The De Minimis rules were due to end.

In July 2027.

We had a couple of years to formulate a plan.

A few weeks ago that changed. 

It’s now next weekend.

All our orders to the US will get hit by a 10% tariff.

And whatever charge the courier feels like passing on for the hassle.

Or maybe even a higher flat rate fee?

We’ve stopped advertising to the US.

It’s going to have a huge effect on us.

For the moment we’re recommending US customers contact us about folding their orders in with the crowdfunding rewards we’re shipping in bulk towards the end of October.

Royalties

Box of Flicks 2 was largely designed by fans of the game.

A fan contributed to Box of Flicks 1.

There was lots of fan content in the Box of Pirate Flicks too.

We make a big thing about how we credit them and pay them royalties.

Their names on the boxes.

We've been meaning to pay the last lot for a while.

It includes the last year's reprint and this year's Box of Pirate Flicks.

So it's quite a lot of money.

Things started going wrong at the beginning of the year when we ran out of FlickFleet for a few months.

So web sales tanked as we had nothing to sell.

And overheads started eating into the profit from the Pirate Flicks campaign.

Website sales were pretty slow all summer.

The pot dwindled further.

When it came time in August to ship the Pirate Flicks games to the US we had three options.

We choose the fastest.

And most expensive.

Then VAT bit us.

The quotes were excluding VAT. I forgot that.

We had to pay them, and another £1,500 in VAT.

We'd get most of that back. In early December.

We've been almost out of cash for five months.

I've had to lend the company money a couple of times to pay the bills.

We've just got the VAT back!

And had our best ever week of website sales. And another really good one.

It's time to pay the royalties!

A weight off my mind. I hate owning people money.

I've spent most of the weekend trying to sort it out. 

The transfer to PayPal was blocked by the bank as a suspect transaction.

I'm hoping I'll have the money available to pay out this evening...

Despondent/Enthused

It’s been a weird week.

I’m still trying to get to the point where web sales cover overheads and we have a viable business that doesn’t rely on Crowdfunding to keep us afloat.

I’ve upped the ad spend, hoping to boost sales.

Now sales are just covering ad spend instead.

And with Trump on the horizon our games are about to get 20% more expensive for Americans.

That’s half of our customers.

Could have been worse: at least we don’t make them in China.

I’m feeling a bit despondent about it.

On the plus side, I finally joined Bluesky.

Come find me!

I moved from Twitter to Threads a while back.

It’s been fine.

But I missed my gaming chums.

The vast majority of the #CraftWednesday crew weren’t there.

Within hours of joining Bluesky, it felt like I’d found most of them again.

I’m feeling enthused.

I’ve found my team again.

Cashflow

Businesses live or die on their cashflow.

We're lucky that we've been profitable for five of our six years.

We had to replace a laser-cutter in the other one.

But cashflow is a continual problem.

We go from feast, after a crowdfunding payout.

Photo by Sarah Agnew on Unsplash

To famine.

Most years Paul and I have had to lend the company money to stay afloat.

Or fund crowdfunding advertising.

The last few months have been hard.

Larger than expected bills.

Getting used to paying VAT.

I've had to cover bills from our savings a few times.

And we owe people money.

It's stressful.

My goal this year is to get the website sales to cover the overheads and make a little positive cash every month.

I ran the numbers.

Worked out what we'd need to spend on ads to hit that point.

I started slowly increased the ad spent so we didn't drop back into the learning phase.

It dropped back into the learning phase :(

Ad performance has tanked.

I've had to lend the company money to cover the ad spend.

Really hoping it gets out of the learning phase soon.

Fool

I’m an idiot.

I’ve been fixated on our financial year.

This one is going to be worse than last year.

Not by much.

Only 5% or so.

But I’ve been trying everything I can to close that gap.

Or even squeak out a sixth consecutive year of growth.

Web sales have more than doubled this year.

But that’s not enough to counteract the Pirate Flicks being our second best campaign, not a sixth consecutive best ever FlickFleet campaign.

Plus we’ve missed a couple of conventions this year.

Away Team Bingo was a chance to close that gap further.

The game is ready.

So I’ve rushed the campaign.

I’ve been trying to get it delivered by the end of this month.

To hit this year’s numbers.

That’s doing it a disservice.

The campaign is far from ready.

No high ink photos.

No video.

Reviews aren’t ready yet.

Artwork is pending.

And I haven’t run any ads.

Because the campaign isn’t ready.

I’m a chump.

I should push it back.

By a month. Or six weeks.

And do it properly.

Give it the attention it deserves.

Growth isn’t everything.

Wrinkles

Paul has started fulfilment.

But the laser cutter is on the blink again.

A bit of a pain

This one is much less reliable than the previous one was.

Until it caught fire :(

We’re getting an engineer out again to investigate.

Laser-cutting is paused.

Thankfully Paul has already cut everything we need for the UK Games Expo next weekend.

And most of the deluxe rewards.

So he can take a break from cutting.

And focus on boxing and shipping for a while.

My parents left this morning.

So I’m back at it too.

Looking forward to the Expo.

Say hi if you’re there! We’re at 2-564 again - same place as last year.

Delays

We’ve had some (more) problems with the laser-cutter.

It’s cost Paul time while he worked around them.

He phoned the manufacturer. They’ve discontinued this model.

I’m not surprised. 

It was the ‘newer version’ of the one that caught fire.

Newer isn’t always better

The old one was pretty good up until the fire.

This one has been nothing but trouble.

I spent last week helping Paul with the shipping again.

Then met Paul again on Friday night to collect more stuff to ship this week.

Rocky ‘Roid is slipping as a result.

Still, we’re getting there. 

The end of the Xeno Wars campaign is in sight…

Shipping

Xeno Wars is now shipping.

The non-EU playmats have all gone.

Simple orders to the UK have gone too. 

We’re ready to send the non-EU international simple orders.

But there’s been a ransomware attack on Royal Mail, so they aren’t shipping internationally at the moment.

Hopefully they’ll fix it soon.

Or we’ll need a backup plan.

In the meantime, it’s great to see peoples’ excitement when it arrives.

Wooooo! by Kris Mackie via Facebook

Thanks for sharing!

‘Exciting’

… is one word for it.

Frustrating is another.

Worrying also works.

I’ve placed the order for all the wooden bits we need.

There’s a long lead time, so best to get the order in early.

Paid via Wise. It usually takes 3 hours and has low international fees.

It took eight days. For ‘verification’. Then at the end of all that they refunded me.

I need to fix the problem and try again.

I also contacted the box-maker to check the quote I got a couple of months ago is still valid.

They’ve gone out of business!

I need to find a new box-maker.

‘Exciting’.

Or frustrating.

Or worrying.

Lasers

Our laser cutter caught fire two weeks ago.

Our supplier had two in stock and could install in early December.

It took us a few days to consider some funding options. 

Look at a few alternatives.

By Friday we were ready to place an order.

But in those few days the lead time had gone from early December to mid-January - they’d sold their last stock.

I spent the weekend looking at more alternatives.

They had a bigger, more expensive model in stock - it was too big.

We considered other suppliers.

They didn’t have it in stock either.

We considered other machines.

Then we settled on a like-for-like replacement.

And mid-January.

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

At least Paul will be able to get up to speed quickly with it.

Setbacks

The week before last week everything was rosy.

Fulfilment was back on track.

I was enjoying game design and making progress.

This last week has taken a toll.

I found a discrepancy in the books and spent my evenings cross-checking three different spreadsheets to try to track it down.

No games design progress.

And then laser-cutter caught fire and was destroyed. 

An acrylic fire destroyed the internals

Paul, his family and his house are all fine, but fulfilment is stalled while we source a replacement and set it up.

Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches.

Manifestation

A heat haze forms. Yet it is not that warm on this late September afternoon in Germany.

The air begins to bubble. Then boil.

An eldritch scream. The air is rent asunder. A Lost One manifests in this reality.

Normality returns.

Photo by Brandable Box @brandablebox Unsplash

It appears an unassuming box. It’s cardboard exterior looks ordinary. Pedestrian even.

Within, it seethes. Phenomenal cosmic power. Waiting to wreak destruction on an interplanetary scale.

It moves. Slowly at first. Then gathering pace. It takes off. Speeding through the sky as it approaches the nexus.

The nexus: North Yorkshire, UK. Calm. Peaceful. 

The box approaches. Soon it will burst. Spewing conflict and interstellar war across the globe.

The box has arrived at our supplier in Germany and is on its way back to us again.

Kickstarter fulfilment is near.

Frustration

The box that’s stopping us fulfilling the Kickstarter has spent two weeks in a depot in Germany.

Why?

I guess returns aren’t a priority.

The supplier has chased it with DHL.

Still no movement.

This is all so galling.

Before Brexit this would have just been delivered.

In a couple of days.

Job done.

It all went wrong when we didn’t receive a letter telling us there were customs due.

So we didn’t know it was waiting for us.

Now we’re waiting for it.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

At least Paul’s now finished cutting the deluxe rewards.

So things will move quickly when it gets here.

For now, the wait is on.

When will it get here?

Soon I hope.

Brexit

If you follow me on twitter you'll know I loathe everything about Brexit.

A monumental act of self-harm

From the nationalist lies that sold it to the voters to the terrible effect it's had on my European friends in the UK.

It'll make us culturally and financially poorer as a country.

It limits my daughters' rights to experience other countries.

And now it's biting Eurydice Games.

We buy our wooden pieces from a supplier in Germany. 

They are no longer shipping to the UK.

Will they in future? I hope so. I don't know of an equivalent in the UK.

It's also harder for us to ship to European customers. They may end up getting charged VAT or import fees.

Everything about it sucks.

I only hope that we get to rejoin before too much damage is done.

I fear I'm hopelessly optimistic.

Past Jack Says: Tough Week

I usually write my blog posts on the weekend or before work on a Monday. I’m currently in Scotland in a tent though, and have been since Friday, so this one was written last Thursday on a train. 

Last week ended up being very stressful. I did manage to get the P&P files finished and posted, but that was the least of our worries. We found out on Monday that our 11 year old car had probably been written off in the shunt that my wife received on the previous Friday. 

With the holiday looming we needed a replacement car pretty quickly (ours didn’t look badly damaged, but apparently the reinforcement beam behind the bumper had caved in). So I ended up taking a decent chunk of the week off work trying to rapidly find and buy a replacement car. 

Could have done without that. 

Anyway, as far as The Box of Flicks goes we’re still on track. I’ll be closing the pledge manager tonight when I get home (hopefully everyone will have placed their orders by then - at time of writing there’s still 33 outstanding. 

Once we know exactly what’s been ordered we can go ahead and order the acrylic, wooden bits and dashboards and get cracking on the production. The next target is all the deluxe rewards by the end of September and there’s rather a lot of them! At least all the games and expansions are done and it’s just the add-ons we need to do.