Happy & poor: One month into ‘game design Mondays’

Go Play Listen business card 2015I started my attempt at making a living from my hobby six weeks ago (initial aims here), so thought I should post an update on the early progress.

It’s been an odd start as there have been three Bank Holidays in the first six weeks, meaning I haven’t had full days off from my ‘real’ job. But while frustrating, I have made progress.

First up, business cards (pictured). While a little pricey these seemed like a good idea, as I’ve been asked for them quite a bit – especially at Essen – and they seemed like a strong statement of both intent and professionalism.

The website

I spent my first couple of weeks researching and then actioning my transition to my own domain for the blog, which was a lot less hassle than I’d feared. Having sourced a good amount of feedback I went with TSO Host and everything has gone well so far.

Next I signed up with the UK Gaming Media Network (linked on the right) and created a logo that fully reflected my site’s shift in emphasis to almost 100% board games. It felt important to get the ground work up and done early, and it feels like a gaming site now – but is there anything more I can/should do? Any feedback welcome.

While I’m yet to have any success with sponsorship or similar, I’ve recognised the fact that ‘income’ in terms of the site doesn’t need to be in the form of actual cash. Clutching at straws? Maybe, but I’ve already received a free game to review (and a good one) and a press pass for an event I would’ve had to pay to get into, which between them have more than covered the cost of the business cards and the hosting for the year. It’s a start!

Unfortunately several other publisher approaches have met with deaf ears, but I’ll persevere – at least one is looking hopeful if I can get my rankings up (and that’s happening). And while I haven’t yet looked into AdSense (not that I’m getting the traffic to make much money), otherwise I think I’m making good on my initial goals.

Game design

UK Games ExpoWhile I’ve made a few small inroads into two new games – one collaborative and one of my own – new design work has largely been on the back burner due to some positive feedback from a publisher on a game I was pushing last Essen.

This is potentially great news, and at worse good news – so either way it’s a positive.

It would obviously be great to get the game signed, but even if it doesn’t happen the work I’ve been doing on it over the past few weeks has really improved it. I’d be much more confident putting it in front of other publishers in future if this one doesn’t bite.

The lack of progress on other titles is frustrating, but its easy to forget just how long game design takes – and how much writing up is as much as experimenting, especially in colaboration: doing it in this kind of programmed environment really brings that home. When I was just tinkering it was something I did of an evening without a care for what was really achieved. Now I’m on the clock I’m realising just how long something like writing rules or cutting out some cards really takes!

I’ve also realised I need to get more organised: get a list of game ideas, with a sense of each one’s progression and what I feel I should be prioritising. But also a list of publisher contacts, with an eye for already starting to think about a strategy for Essen.

But before then there’s just a few weeks to go until the UK Games Expo, so I need to really prepare for that – both in getting a prototype ready in case I get in on the play-test area and seeing about starting to build a network of contacts. While it isn’t yet the kind of internationally important event it could one day be, it’s the best the UK has to offer and I’d be foolish not to see it as a big opportunity.

So all in all it feels like these are exciting times and – so far – I’m glad I took the decision to try this out. I’ll check back in at the end of the quarter.

Reclaiming Mondays: Board game design and website targets

creativity is intelligenceI recently wrote about going to a four-day week to pursue my ambition of making money out of the things I enjoy doing creatively – or at least helping ends meet enough to get by. This becomes a reality this week: as of April 2015, this chapter begins.

In the past I’ve found listing my goals and challenges here to be a real motivator because even if no one else reads/cares about them, I know they’re here. So what better way to start the project than with some objectives and ideas?

Monetising the website

This may seem a little pie in the sky, but even if I can get a small regular income it could make a difference. And this doesn’t have to be as straightforward as cash in hand:

  • Explore possible sponsorship: As the site is now getting more than 2,000 views a month it would be great to get a relevant banner ad or two up here – maybe a store.
  • AdSense: It also seems sensible to get an unobtrusive Google ad panel on here too, as such clearly targeted traffic has to be worth something.
  • Explore my own domain name/hosting: What can I do in terms of advertising while this is still a free WordPress site? Do I need my own URL to up my game?
  • Review copies: If I can get publishers to send me games, I can review newer titles and get more views – while free games equals competition prizes, sale items etc.
  • Get more into the community: Who else is out there? What can I join, share links with, bounce ideas off? How do I extend my reach while making friends?

Game design

2015 has started slowly on the design front , but I feel I’m starting to get my mojo back. We’ve been sent the contract for game number two (hopefully a 2016 release) which I hope proves Empire Engine wasn’t a fluke, so again it’s time to kick on:

  • UK Games Expo: I need to see if there will be any opportunities to sit down with publishers, or with prototypes, at the event. May have left this too late.
  • Push War!Drobe: I put this in front of a few publishers at Essen 2014 and didn’t get a bite, but I think its good enough to make the grade so I need to go again with it.
  • Take the lead on collaborative projects: I’ve started on games with both Matthew Dunstan and David Thompson in 2014 and need to get back on track with them.
  • Empire Engine 2.0: I have an idea. I have a theme. I have enough to start fiddling with a prototype – so it’s time to get it made and to the table.
  • Football prototype: A good action-based football game is possible, I’m sure of it. It’s time to take my initial thoughts to the next level.
  • Revisit my old ideas: I’ve had ideas that have either gone into notebooks or been dropped after early failures. I know more now, so they’re worth another look.

Right – better get on with it then. As always, any and all feedback is most appreciated.

The board game design buzz

back-to-the-futureFor the past few months I’ve been working on two new card game designs; one with Matthew Dunstan and one on my own. Due to Matt having a busy schedule things have gone slowly on our follow up to Empire Engine, so I’ve mainly concentrated on my own little card game, currently titled War!Drobe.

Without going into detail, it’s a two-player combat game played with a small shared deck (20ish cards) that lasts about 20 minutes. Each player is a wizard controlling their warrior in a training battle with their opponent; with the ‘wardrobe’ idea seeing you changing the armour and weapons of both warriors as you clobber (sorry) each other.

I ended up being very lucky with Empire Engine. The game popped into my head almost fully formed, with the devil being very much in the detail (you can read about designing Empire Engine here). With War!Drobe, I haven’t been so lucky. Hopefully this will give anyone interested a glimpse into the frustrating world of game design; and remember, this is a very light card game with just a handful of components and rules!

From brain to bin; do not collect £200

  • 1.0: Each warrior has two stats (health and energy) and three card positions (armour, weapon, helm). This seemed a great idea, as it meant that while a heavy weapon could do a lot of damage it would also tire you – giving you something to think about. In a turn you’d flip two cards – one would have to go onto each warrior, replacing any old item. Then the player on turn would choose which warrior hit the other. In practice, while it worked, it wasn’t fun.Combat involved too much maths for a light game, while on the other extreme their weren’t enough decisions.
  • 1.1: I removed the energy stat and allowed players to draw three cards, discarding one. To make up for the simplicity I added more complexity to the cards; some ‘classes’ so they’d react together, while adding ‘special’ cards instead of helms to let me have a bit more fun with more one-off abilities. Again, the balance wasn’t right. The extra card info simply moved the maths, rather rather reduced it, while drawing the extra card helped a little but didn’t move far enough away from luck to judgement.
  • 1.2: More tweaking later, I removed cards that ‘did nothing’ (basically weak cards that had funny names but no real purpose) and let players draw two and choose one; then do the same again for the second item. I also reduced the health stat to shorten each game. It was definitely the best version to date, but still lacked decisions – the complexity had gone, the silliness had gone, and I wasn’t left with enough to make an interesting game out of. At this point, I almost shelved it.
  • 1.3: To try and fix the card draw, I turned to a designer staple: wooden cubes. Each player got a few cubes to spend on seeing extra cards, plus an extra cube if they finished their round with a particularly bad card. To alleviate the amount of overcomplicated cards, I added ‘arena cards’ that affected the whole play area when they came into effect. The arenas added confusion and again just moved the maths, but the cubes worked a treat, giving players another level of decision making. They also opened up the design space; what else could players spend these cubes on?

By Jove, I think he’s got it (well, something at least)

lego awesome1.4: Two weeks later, the fifth version of War!Drobe went into my bag for playtest night. Arenas were gone, but more cards had cubes – which could also be spent to heal and in some situations do damage.

A combination of simplification and card icons helped make the maths more palatable, moving more decision space to the cubes.Three players who’d played before got another bite at it, as well a someone totally new to the game. This time, universally and unbelievably, it got the thumbs up.

It’s hard to describe the buzz I had on the way home; I just sat on the bus with this massive grin on my face. Conversely, when the testing is going badly, it’s such a huge downer. You hear comedians talking about ‘dying on stage’; at least they don’t know the people that are staring blankly at them – plus they’re looking out on a sea of faces, rather than one to four of them who are also sitting at your table and it’s your round.

I’ve done creative writing courses, which are equally scary, but there’s something disposable about fiction; you’re often writing a piece each week and it’s really practice – you don’t expect them to go anywhere. Designing a game is a different animal; if it goes well and gets published, it could be something people are playing for the rest of their lives. You’re trying to make something permanent, perfecting it over time. It’s more like a novel – but one you have to keep reading to your peers out loud as they pick big holes in it.

It’s only just begun

And of course all this really means is I now have a ‘proof of concept’ in place. The positive vibes led to the next questions: what’s the format? Is there enough cards? how do you think it should be packaged? What about design – what kind of art and graphic design do I need to think about for these cards?

And even when/if I get that far, it’s time to start thinking about which publishers might be interested. How do I contact them and how/where can we meet? And if we do arrange meetings, it opens up the door for those inevitable ‘its not for us’ conversations, and the very real possibility it will be rejected by anyone and everyone – all over again! You may get through the first tier of rejections, only to be defeated by the next.

But there is a silver lining to that rejection cloud. There is a brilliant ‘print and play’ community out there always looking for new games. And who’s to say your game may not rise from there to the gaze of a publisher you’d never though of, to finally find it’s way to the shelves? Every little game can dream.

And of course another idea for a game popped into my head on the bus on the way home from playtesting, but that’s another story…