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I published my book (PDF version)!

https://www.wargamevault.com/m/product/306209

I managed to time the release of my game-you-can-play-solo-or-pvp rather well, but I promise I'm not responsible for the current crisis!

As my professional contact ended last week, I've also decided not to actively seek a new contract (again: good timing) and to focus on game design and marketing for the next twelve months at least.

So now my day splits equally between schooling the kids, developing new stuff for Zero Dark, working on a new game, painting and building minis and terrain for new stuff, and pushing my products on social media.

I find the last one by far the hardest. I am naturally quite diffident, so standing up in public going "LOOK AT THIS THING I MADE!!" doesn't make me feel at all comfortable.

However, sales so far are very good and no one has complained, so I guess I'm doing OK.

R.

 precinctomega wrote:
no one has complained, .

R.

I find this impossible to believe!

Good luck on the marketing! I find that part hard as well.

Yep, I do almost zero marketing...though this is all just a hobby of mine so far (and will likely stay that way). On the rare occasion someone says they're interested in games in the genre I'm doing, I'll bring it up - but I have no social media presence, and definitely don't think too much about promoting my stuff. I do enjoy conventions though, but that's more hosting the game and watching people enjoy it.

The reality of life as a full-time wargame designer is turning out to be that a quarter of your time is spent on marketing.

Oh, and Pinterest will reject your adverts because they look like they're to do with, like, weapons n' stuff. :rollseyes:

Every new follower, re-tweet and Insta-like is treasured almost as much as an actual sale. I love the name of my game, but I'm kinda wishing I'd done a GW and given it some trademarkable gibberish name so I could do better SEO. As it is, I keep clashing with other, more important cultural things that used similar words. Weirdly, "Horizon Wars" does much better on SEO, but I suspect that's because Bloomsbury (who own Osprey) have people to do that sort of thing, while I'm just making it up as I go along.

The good times are when I'm actually working on new stuff. Planning the new campaign book for Zero Dark is a lot of fun. I've got some awesome ideas. But the trick, I think, is to avoid what I think of as the "Human Sphere Error", in which you produce a core rulebook and then produce another book that makes things so that two players both have to be playing all of the rules from both books (so both need both books).

Operation Nemesis will, rather, provide some options that will only require one player to actually have the book, because invoking them will affect both players equally. For example, introducing hackable terrain (being able to turn the lights on is pretty important in a game with darkness mechanics).

I'm also getting to lavish a bit of attention on my patrons and give them some cool extra bits and bobs to try out (motorcycles, for example).

You think now would be the time to do all sorts of stuff for game design. Alas, no.

I have been working on a battle report for Men of Bronze, very slowly. I have also been around online talking to folks and searching up other people playing the game.

However, I have a bad case of "Not really caring right now" so there you go.

All this extra time and proximity to my prototypes is stimulating my thoughts. I've managed to make a few connections I hadn't before, and I've thought up some new features to implement in my Titanomachina game. One is simplifying a new feature, which is always good. Another is finding a space between wholly voluntary and wholly involuntary movement caused by attacks. The third is putting systems in buildings so that Titans can equip them as the game goes on...

I've been doing...indirect things, such as painting up miniatures that I need for photos for my cards and game components - so while time consuming, I get a good mix of "painting stuff" and "writing stuff".

Lets see, i've formed and registered my LLC (been selling 3d terrain, which I have a different dakka account for because this account is kind of an donkey-cave and probably shouldn't be associated with any sort of business ), started revisiting my *first* game design (I really gotta learn to manage my designer ADD issues, I am *never* going to get anything done if I keep jumping between them) and figured out what I gotta do to make a super-basic playtestable prototype so I can start pushing forward, read the goonhammer interviews with James Hewitt (I like his approach and mindset, maybe if the terrain business keeps the money flowing and I manage to focus long enough to actually develop a basic playable ruleset I'll reach out to him/Needy Cat for some consultation).

I've been busy. Hell of a time to be starting up a business though.

Hell of a time to be starting up a business though.

I hear that!

Given the number of small business in the tabletop game sector it might be a good time to be shovel-ready when the bubble pops.

In that sense I'll be very very very ok, I have a full time job that pays very well, this is a side project that I do in my free time, I'm already making money on it and my costs are very very low (low enough that if sales dry up over the next 18 months I can afford to keep things rolling out of my own pocket).

After a couple of months of preliminary design work, on Friday I entered the first ACTUAL card designs into the ACTUAL database for my next Magic set. I get four more months with the set before I hand it off to the next design team for final design work.

Are you making homebrew Magic sets?

chaos0xomega wrote:
Are you making homebrew Magic sets?

Nah. Real official ones.

Ah thats awesome!

P.S. - Make more Krakens. Like, a lot more. Dragons are so overdone.

I'm on it! More krakens, coming right up!

Don't do that, don't give me hope.

In that case, I'm sorry to inform you that we're retiring the Kraken creature type, starting with the next set. There just wasn't any interest in it.

I managed an actual playtest of my game this weekend, the second occurrence of it since I started trying to make it!

It went well. We established that the game was taking too long, so took steps to correct it. combat system was basic but seemed remarkably balanced. Resource management was not, however.

(Principle is that you mine resources then spend them for cards)

Ultimately we both mined more tokens than we ever needed for cards, so I need to up the cost for cards.

All in all, it went really well. I now have a few changes to make and then I have to write up the rules in a proper first draft, and then it's time to test again!

 Pariah Press wrote:
In that case, I'm sorry to inform you that we're retiring the Kraken creature type, starting with the next set. There just wasn't any interest in it.

Took photos of minis and such on the table, looking pretty, and in a battle report to help me advertise online.

Also, got a payment from my Publisher! Woot! Woot!

I learned how to colour STLs in 3D Build.

I had another playtest last night, the game went well and actually was quick enough to reach a conclusion this time

Made an improvement to the resource management, which made it a lot less of a given that a player would be able to draw cards every turn. Also have concluded that I need to add more ranged weapons, and increase the range of some of the existing ones. Currently, by the time you're in range, you can be charged!

Next step is to draw an actual hex-grid out instead of staggered squares, and to amend the cards with new values, then playtest 3 will commence!

 Easy E wrote:

Also, got a payment from my Publisher! Woot! Woot!

Got my latest royalty statement from Bloomsbury.

 precinctomega wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

Also, got a payment from my Publisher! Woot! Woot!

Got my latest royalty statement from Bloomsbury.

I am sure as time goes by, they get smaller, and smaller, and smaller. But, mailbox money is mailbox money.

I was having a conversation with a freelance author friend of mine, and he had this insightful comment for me:

"If you publish one book.... great. You can;t even get a cup of Joe from what they send you each month. However, once you have published 50 books, now you start to make ends meet from published books."

So, three down for you and 47 more to go!

chaos0xomega wrote:
Lets see, i've formed and registered my LLC (been selling 3d terrain, which I have a different dakka account for because this account is kind of an donkey-cave and probably shouldn't be associated with any sort of business ), started revisiting my *first* game design (I really gotta learn to manage my designer ADD issues, I am *never* going to get anything done if I keep jumping between them) and figured out what I gotta do to make a super-basic playtestable prototype so I can start pushing forward, read the goonhammer interviews with James Hewitt (I like his approach and mindset, maybe if the terrain business keeps the money flowing and I manage to focus long enough to actually develop a basic playable ruleset I'll reach out to him/Needy Cat for some consultation).

Hit me up! You can send an email through the Needy Cat site.

We're running a game design course at the minute, you know. Talks a lot about steps you can take (and processes you can use) to get good at *actually* making games. Plug plug plug.

 lagoon83 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Lets see, i've formed and registered my LLC (been selling 3d terrain, which I have a different dakka account for because this account is kind of an donkey-cave and probably shouldn't be associated with any sort of business ), started revisiting my *first* game design (I really gotta learn to manage my designer ADD issues, I am *never* going to get anything done if I keep jumping between them) and figured out what I gotta do to make a super-basic playtestable prototype so I can start pushing forward, read the goonhammer interviews with James Hewitt (I like his approach and mindset, maybe if the terrain business keeps the money flowing and I manage to focus long enough to actually develop a basic playable ruleset I'll reach out to him/Needy Cat for some consultation).

Hit me up! You can send an email through the Needy Cat site.

We're running a game design course at the minute, you know. Talks a lot about steps you can take (and processes you can use) to get good at *actually* making games. Plug plug plug.

Im still a long ways off from it being worth hitting you up, but youre definitely on my radar! Ive got frighteningly little to show for 15+ years of work Actually theres probably the basics of a full core ruleset there, just most of it is in my head/very little of it is written down :/

I saw you were running a course but it looked like it was a "live" thing which unfortunately doesn't work with my schedule, will it be available for purchase as pre-recorded content anywhere?

 Easy E wrote:

I am sure as time goes by, they get smaller, and smaller, and smaller. But, mailbox money is mailbox money.

And zero is zero.

 precinctomega wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

I am sure as time goes by, they get smaller, and smaller, and smaller. But, mailbox money is mailbox money.

And zero is zero.

Indeed. Good thing you are probably pulling in Wargame Vault money now. The pass-through to you is much better anyway but the marketing is a bit more intensive.


I worked on the Campaign system for one of my WIP games on the blog a bit. Then stupid real work got in the way and derailed me.

Edit: So far, 2020 has been a good year for sales. Let's see if that changes now that the Pandemic has hit full stride globally.

Spent the weekend doing yard work, but I was busy thinking about a "Dexterity style" game in the vein of Little Wars only as a first person shooter. More of a hybrid wargame/dexterity/shooting game.

More to come soon......

I also made some paper templates for testing out my Space Game with Altitude Band designs

Edit: You can find it here: https://www.wargamevault.com/product/309158/Foam-Force-Five