* who is waiting for a prototype copy of Sumeria.

The wooden pieces arrived from Germany on Friday - nearly a week before I was expecting them! This has caught me by surprise, to some degree. I spent most of last week doing financial things, not preparing the prototypes.

I've a few things to do, I've already sorted the bits and bagged them up ready to go. Yesterday I prepared the boxes ready for cutting out - I'll do that this afternoon. I also need to print out the boards, tiles and counters and glue them onto some thick card, add some diagrams to the rules and print them out. I hope to have everything done by Tuesday. Things have been slowed down by an infected wound in my (good) ankle, which caused the whole ankle to swell up and is so painful I can't really walk at the moment. I've been prescribed some antibiotics though, so hopefully things should start improving by tomorrow.

Making these prototypes, especially bagging the bits and making the boxes really reminds me of the good old days with Border Reivers and the first edition of It's Alive! It's a lot more fun when you don't have to do hundreds of them though!

In other (good) news, a restock order from America and the returns from one of my consignment customers means that I'll be halfway to my target for February by the end of day two :-)

I've spent the last couple of days doing my VAT return. So I thought I'd cover a bit about why I'm voluntarily registered for VAT and what it entails. I'm not sure how this works in other countries, and hence how useful it'll be to readers from overseas - but I think it's pretty similar throughout Europe at least.

VAT is a sales tax that is supposed to be charged when it's sold to a personal customer (rather than another business). It's charged on almost everything, and when you buy something in a store that is mostly used by personal customers it's usually included in the price you see advertised (and not really mentioned). In the UK its recently been cut from 17.5% to 15% in an attempt to boost our faltering economy.

When a VAT-registered business sells to another VAT-registered business the price is shown as 'ex. VAT' (the actual price) and 'inc. VAT' (the price they pay). That's right - VAT registered businesses pay the same price as a personal customer. So why register for VAT? First there's a legal obligation: if your turnover is over a certain threshold (currently £67K in the UK) then you have to register. My turnover is nowhere near that - so why did I register?

The idea behind VAT is that it's only really paid once - by the end consumer. Everyone else in the supply chain charges it on their sales (outputs) and pays it on their purchases (inputs). But the two cancel each other out. Each quarter you submit a VAT return to HMRC, telling them how much VAT you charged on your outputs and how much you paid on your inputs. You then pay them the difference (if you charged more than you paid) or get a rebate (if you paid more than you charged). It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's it in a nutshell. If you're VAT registered you're only really paying the ex. VAT price on purchases (saving you the 15% extra for VAT which you claim back) and you're only really charging the ex. VAT price on your sales, and taking the extra 15% on behalf of HMRC.

Since this is reducing your costs, and your customer's costs (they're only really paying your ex. VAT price) it seemed like a good idea. Sure, when you sell directly to a customer (e.g. at a convention or for pre-orders) the VAT comes out of that, but you're making a decent margin on those (almost) MSRP sales anyway.

Being VAT registered means you've got to keep your books up-to-date (which you should be doing anyway) and you've got to keep a VAT account - a record of all your sales and purchases, including how much VAT you've paid and charged. It's an added faff, but when you're making the occasional large sale to a distributor it's not too onerous. Admittedly, when I've a hundred or so individual pre-orders going out over a few days it's a hassle, but again: margins!

I've spent the last few days doing accounting-type things since the deadline for my latest VAT return (Oct-Dec '08) is tomorrow and the deadline for my income tax return for last year (April 6th 2007 to April 5th 2008) is also tomorrow. I did the income tax return first (in the UK you don't normal have to do them, since income tax is usually taken out of your wages automatically). The VAT return was Wednesday afternoon & evening and all day Thursday's work. First I had to bring my books up-to-date (bad Jackson - no banana!). I'd left off doing November and December, which was mostly due to November being a big job due to the Carpe Astra pre-orders. Once that was done I needed to fill in the VAT return. It's a simple form (nine boxes, two of which are calculated for you!), but my VAT account (which I do in OpenOffice Spreadsheet) was a bit too simplistic. It worked fine for the previous return, but this time I'd bought some things in the EU (Carpe Astra) and sold some things to the EU (my new European distributors and a few shops at Essen). There's a few boxes that I'd been able to leave blank last time that I had to fill in this time, and the VAT account took some re-jigging to do that.

Last time I got a hefty rebate, having bought the entire It's Alive! print-run at the end of that quarter, but not sold much yet. This time I owed a lot :-(

In summation then, if you're intending to buy your games in the EU, run your business in the EU and sell mostly to distributors, then I think being VAT-registered is a good idea. Of course, I'm not an accountant, so don't treat anything I've said as gospel!

It has been quite some time since I last played Tikal, the previous play being in 2006. So we brought out this old classic. We needed a refresher before starting off.

You see a lot of complaints these days about the prices of games, whether it's the price of games coming into the UK or the price of games in the US. Why are prices where they are?

There are four links in the chain: manufacturer, publisher, distributor and shop/online store. Each one has costs and each one needs to make some money or they won't be around for long.

The manufacturer's costs include: set-up costs for all the manufacturing (things like litho-printing plates, die-cut tools), staff costs, electricity, ink, paper, cardboard, wood and the assembling time. These will have increased recently (especially the electricity costs and the transport for cardboard, paper and wood). Plus the manufacturers will need to make a cut for themselves - I've no idea what the manufacturer's mark-up is.

This is obviously the one I know the most about! The publisher's costs include: the manufacture, shipping from the manufacturer, royalies, advertising and warehousing. In addition, there's a few minor incidentals that might be easily forgotten: registering for barcodes, taxes, phone calls (all over the world), etc. I've read in a few places you should aim for a margin of 100%, i.e. if the game costs you £3 to manufacturer, you should charge £6 for it at wholesale. I've not managed to get a 100% margin on anything yet, but it's a goal! Out of that have to come your warehousing and advertising costs and some profit for your company/wages.

The distributor buys games at around 40% of retail and sells around 60%, so a 50% markup. Distributors costs include: paying the publisher, warehousing, advertising to their customers and shipping (both from publishers and to shops). Distributors seem to do ok on their 50% margin, they generally have several staff - even the smaller ones in smaller countries. Distributors can improve their cash-flow by taking games 'on consignment', they take the games, but only pay for them once they've sold them. Consignment deals usually require the distributor to regularly report how many games they've sold, so the publishers can invoice them for those sales. Publishers can often get more for games on consignment since there's less risk involved for the distributor and the deal helps the distributor's cash flow at the expense of the publisher's cash flow.

A shop has a very different situation from an online-store so I'll treat them separately. First the physical bricks-and-mortar shop. The shop gets what sounds like a big cut. If it was manufactured for £3, sold to a distributor for £6, sold to the shop at £9, then the RRP is £15. The shop's cut is £6, the largest of all. But, unlike everyone else, they have to pay expensive rent on retail space, rather than a cheap warehouse and/or office. Additional costs include: staff, taxes (certainly in the UK VAT would come out of their cut).

An online store occupies the same link in the chain, but they can run their business very differently. Without the costs of retail space and with fewer staff they can reduce their outgoings. They can run their business from a warehouse in a low-rent area, and through the internet can reach a lot more customers. For the successful ones, this means they can buy in greater bulk and hence earn discounts from the distributors. This allows the online stores to offer the games at a discount below the RRP, which further increases their market share.

Why are game costs so high? The currency fluctuations at the moment haven't helped. A game from a German pulisher that costs a distributor 8 Euros, was at one point £6.15, which led to a RRP of approximately £15.40. If the same distributor re-orders the same game from the same publisher at the same price at the moment, the exchange rate changes everything. The game now costs the distributor £7.54, and the RRP changes to £18.70 a hike of £3.30 or 20%. Further to this, the high oil prices recently pushed up shipping prices, and seeing as these affect the publisher and distributor these increases are multiplied through the margins.

So in answer to the early question: it's complicated!

How big to make a print run is a classic publisher conundrum - where you're publishing board games, books or pretty much anything else where the cost is largely made up of the components of the finished article (unlike computer games where the cost is mostly development, not production).

If you make too many then you're going to be left holding the ball. You'll be paying the costs for warehousing your stock, you're unlikely to break-even and hence will end up out of pocket and it'll be very demoralising.

Conversely, if you make too few, the cost per item will increase, possibly pricing your product out of the market or significantly reducing your margins. Even if your product is affordable and you sell out of your print run - do you do another printing? Will the demand that appears to be there evaporate before the re-print reaches the market?

You've got to hit the sweet-spot, where your product is competitively priced, your margins are enough for you to run your business on and you ideally sell out of the whole print run. But where is that sweet spot? That's really hard question to answer.

I don't have a really good grip on the market yet, I'm too new to it. So instead I'm doing the smallest runs I can afford - possibly a mistake, but it's the least risky route to take and at the moment I can't afford too much risk.

The way I determine the print run size is to price up the cost of the components, artwork, playtesting materials and designer's royalties. On top of that I add my cut which includes: marketing, my salary (hopefully at some point!), warehousing and transportation. This is the wholesale price. Wholesale is approximately 40% of retail (the distributors and shops need to make a cut too), so multiply that figure by 2.5 to get the retail price. Now we have a problem. It's a £25 game and the price I've just got from my calculations is £250. Hmmm. Needs some work. So then I try to bring the cost down. I can change the components for cheaper ones (though I'm loathe to end up with something that feels cheap - I think the quality of Carpe Astra is just right), cut the art budget or make more copies.

Making more copies makes things cheaper for two reasons: fixed costs and variable costs. Fixed costs are things like artwork, the artist will charge the same whether you make 10 copies or 250,000 copies. If they charge £2,000 and you make 10 copies the art adds £200 to the price of the game (times 2.5!), if you make 250,000 copies it adds 0.8 pence to the cost. The variable costs are things like printing and components. It costs more to print 250,000 copies than 10 copies. But the increase is not proportional. Modern factory manufacturing is at its best when it's churning out loads of the same things. There are set-up costs and labour costs associated with changing tasks. So the more you make of something the cheaper each one gets. So printing 250,000 games is cheaper (per copy) than printing 10 copies.

So the aim is to make as many copies as I can to reduce costs. But wait a minute, a minute ago I said that making lots of copies is too risky. If I make too many I'm stuffed, I'll lose money - not make it. And, there's another problem: Capital.

When I made It's Alive! and Carpe Astra that was my first time dealing with two different manufacturing companies. I had to pay half the estimated price up front (you pay for way they deliver - which can be within 10% of what you asked for, e.g. if I asked for 2,000 copies they can deliver and charge for anywhere between 1,800 and 2,200). The other half was due around the time the games were delivered. This time round I'm a known quantity, so I get slightly better treatment (I've got a month to pay after invoicing - around the time of delivery). Still, I'll not get a chance to recoup much money before the manufacturing bill is due. Pre-orders pay when the games are ready, but most of my sales go to distributors on 30 days payment terms - I'll get no money from them until after I pay for the manufacturing. So in addition to not wanting to make too many games, I can only make as many games as I can afford to pay for before I start selling the game itself.

It's a fine line to walk. The real money is in big print runs, but I'm not yet in a position to do those, so I have to stay small. This means smaller margins and more expensive games. Hopefully, I'll get a winner that I can re-print confidently soon.

On 17 Jan 2009 when Han came to play, our main course was Axis & Allies, the 2004 edition, which is also called Axis & Allies Revised. We both planned to buy the Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition which just came out end of last year, and were keen to play it. Since neither of us had it yet, we decided to play the 2004 edition, to at least temporarily quench our thirst. We planned for this session about one month beforehand. That's how keen we were.

Actually I was so anxious for some Axis & Allies action, I asked Simon (who has played many games with me but is in no way a gamer, and has never played anything like Axis & Allies) to play with me when he was in KL, on 2 Jan 2009. We started at 11:30pm, explaining the game took some time, and we finished at 5:30am. It was a good game, but unfortunately I didn't take any photo.

I played the Axis, and Simon the Allies. USA mostly ignored Japan in the Pacific and both UK and US concentrated on preparing to attack Germany. Germany's excursion into Africa was slow but steady. USA only sent forces to Africa once and after that ignored the African theatre to concentrate on Europe.

USSR had some initial successes, but Germany won one big battle, using its big stack to kill off USSR's big stack. I had been careful in the positioning of my German troops, in pushing my infantry forward, and in preserving my tanks as much as possible. That big battle was a big blow to USSR, killing off many Russian tanks, and USSR immediately got on the defensive. Later Germany also took Caucasus, which had the industrial complex, and had been heavily defended throughout most of the game. However this was at the expense of not defending Western Europe and not trying to get it back, allowing an Allied foothold.

Eventually Germany fell to a one-two-punch attack from UK and USA which I had underestimated. I had thought it was too premature for Simon to attack Germany. But the USA forces won, despite only having one tank and one bomber surviving. That was a crushing blow to the Axis. Although USSR was on the verge of falling, it still had enough forces to withstand Germany's last desperate all-out attack. When Berlin fell, the German troops were too far away to take it back. They were all right next to Moscow, and there was a big swath of nothing in Eastern Europe.

Japan, having been left alone in the Pacific theatre, had been expanding aggressively. I tried a one-two-punch attack on Russia, but by then Russia had been reinforced with British fighters, and my attempt was too little too late. I conceded defeat after that last desperate failed attempt. The whole of Africa, Middle East, India, China and almost all of USSR were under Axis control, but Japan will not be able to fight against the combined forces of the 3 Allied countries. It was only a matter of time for USA and UK to take back all those vacant Axis territories.

I still think Kill Russia First is the best strategy for the Axis, and similarly Kill Germany First for the Allies. Not that I'm any expert in Axis & Allies. I may be just unimaginative. Supposedly the Anniversary Edition addresses this problem (assuming this is a problem).

In this game against Simon, my biggest mistake was probably underestimating the attackers approaching Berlin. In fact, the British attack, i.e. the first half of the one-two-punch attack, fared poorly. And I probably should not have allowed D-Day to happen so early. Anyway, good lesson learned, which prepared me for the game against Han two weeks later. I was playing the Axis too, since the last time Han and I played this game in 2005, he played the Axis.

So here's the session report of the game against Han on 17 Jan 2009, with lots of pictures.

Game setup. I like the game setup of Axis & Allies Revised. There are interesting, i.e. tough, decisions for each country. Of course some of the decisions will depend on the outcome of battles in previous players' turns, but I think Round 1 is interesting, and often its outcome will determine the strategy of the players for the rest of the game.

This was Round 1, UK's turn. USSR had taken West Russia, that territory right next to Moscow with Germans on it at the start of the game, and Germany had taken it back. Soviet forces consolidated in Moscow, Causasus and the eastern border near the Japanese. The Germans had used a transport to bring troops from Italy to attack Trans-Jordan. The German submarine in the Atlantic had gone to Canada and had sunk the British transport there. German forces in Algeria moved to Libya, to prepare to attack Egypt. Now the British battleship, with the support of the fighter in Egypt and the fighter in the Indian Ocean, was attacking the German battleship and transport in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. This attack was successful, sinking both German ships, but the British also lost one fighter. The British sub south of Melbourne later attacked the lonely Japanese sub north of New Zealand, but only managed to get itself sunk.

Round 1, end of Japan's turn. The UK fleet on the west coast of UK had moved to the east coast. The UK fleet in the Indian Ocean had moved west. If you watch closely you'll notice that the British bomber is gone. Unfortunately (for Han) it was shot down over Berlin in its maiden strategic bombing mission. UK had built a factory in India, but it was immediately captured by the Japanese, which used the transport off Kwangtung to ship infantry over. Japan really went all out to capture India, including the support of the southern Pacific fleet. In hindsight, UK probably should have defended India more heavily. Japan attacked China, but that battle turned out to be mutual destruction. Well, at least the Flying Tigers (US fighter) were killed. Pearl Harbour happened, no surprises there. Japan built three transports.

Round 2, during UK's turn. USA had invaded the unguarded Algeria. The US infantry in Sinkiang came out to defend China. USA also started to rebuild its Pacific fleet. I think USSR took West Russia again, and then Germany captured in yet again, in the process destroying all Russian tanks. USSR has been very defensive, buying mostly infantry. Germany, which bought mostly infantry in Round 1, now bought mostly a mix of infantry and artillery. My plan was to buy slow moving units early, and then tanks later. Germany had conquered Egypt, leaving Algeria vacant. The Baltic fleet had come out to attack the British fleet (with some air support, of course), and won the battle! That was a bonus for me, because I didn't expect my Baltic fleet to survive. I only wanted to sink the British ships, which would help to delay D-Day. British aircraft were now attacking my Baltic fleet. This later ended as yet another surprise victory for me. He lost many precious fighters. I must have had a pretty good admiral. Han mixed his combat and non-combat moves, so you see his Mediterranean battleship had already moved west to Gibraltar, and his Indian Ocean fleet and Australian transport had already moved towards South Africa.

Round 2, after USA's turn. Japan had conquered China, and also broken through the eastern border of USSR. Now the path to Moscow was cleared. Japan had also conquered Persia, putting some pressure on Caucasus. Japan built 3 tanks in India, preparing to support Germany in executing Kill Russia First. The Indian Ocean fleet moved towards Japan to join forces with the Pacific fleet, because the Americans were threatening. The American troops in Algeria had another bloodless conquest - the vacated Libya. And finally the American fleet (from North Africa and the Atlantic Ocean) sunk my remaining German ships off Norway. UK was getting rather crowded so I put a marker on it and let Han place all the units off board (top left corner). I did the same for the American Pacific fleet which was building up off Los Angeles.

This was the American Pacific fleet being rebuilt. Two battleships, two carriers, one destroyer, one transport and three fighters.

This was where they were on the map.

These are the units in UK, now put off board because the populace was complaining about overcrowding.

The two Japanese fleets were about to merge into one giant fleet, in anticipation of the upcoming showdown with the Americans in the Pacific.

I think this was Round 3 after UK's turn. I can't recall what happened exactly on the Eastern Front. I know USSR attacked the Japanese-occupied Persia and won. Germany was now very close to both Moscow and Caucasus. I left West Russia vacant so that I wouldn't have to spread my forces thin. USSR didn't have land troops that could threaten my fleet of fighters in Belorussia anyway. I now dared to leave Western Europe lightly defended, because I had built a big group of tanks in Germany. I had also built a bomber to support the war on the Eastern Front. Rommel attacked the Americans in Libya and wiped them out, with some air support, of course. I left one infantry to guard Trans-Jordan against the Russians. I was betting the Russians would turn back to defend Caucasus. UK's battleship from the Mediterranean moved to the coast of France, and UK build two transports.

A zoomed out view to show the British ships from the Pacific Theatre still moving slowing to Europe. The Suez Canal wasn't an option since I had conquered Trans-Jordan in Round 1. You need to control both Egypt and Trans-Jordan at the start of your turn to be able to use the canal.

Round 3, after Japan's turn. The Japanese navy had joined forces off the coast of Tokyo. Now I was daring Han to attack me. If he dared to come close I'd probably attack with the support of my airforce.

Zoomed out view, to show that one of the Japanese tanks had blitzed through Sinkiang and was now at the gates of Moscow. The slower moving Japanese infantry and artillery had also conquered Yakut SSR. Actually, this was already USA's turn. The USA fleet off Norway joined forces with the UK fleet off Normandy. The bored US fighter in Algeria thought it would be fun to attack the lonely German fighter in Egypt...

... and got itself shot down. Oops.

I think this was Round 4, after Germany's turn. On USSR's turn, it attacked and conquered Trans-Jordan. It also got Novosibirsk back from the lone Japanese tank, and took the vacant West Russia. Germany tried to take Trans-Jordan back, but retreated back to Egypt when the battle went bad. However on the Eastern Front the battles went well, and both Caucasus and Moscow fell to the Axis. It was a costly victory, almost wiping out the German airforce (only that lone fighter surviving the battle of Caucasus). But the fall of Moscow was a big victory for the Axis. Han conceded defeat. D-Day never happened, and Midway never happened.

I had many lucky rolls in the early game. Han was very unlucky with his bombing runs over Germany. Not only he lost his British bomber on the first bombing run, he also later lost an American bomber, I think on its second bombing mission.

On the Eastern Front Han was mainly defensive, purchasing mostly infantry. He protected the factory in Caucasus well, and I didn't dare to attack until quite late in the game. On the Western Front the build-up for D-Day was too slow. So D-Day never happened.

We actually played with one random national advantage for each country. Russia had harsh winter - declare harsh winter at end of USSR round, and from then until USSR's next turn, Russian infantry defend on 3 instead of 2. Han used this, which made me delay my attack into Moscow by one round. Germany had wolfpack - when a group of 3 submarines attack together, they attack at 3 instead of 2. I never used it. UK had Middle East oil - if a British plane landed in an Allies-controlled Egypt, Trans-Jordan or Persia, it gets a free non-combat move. This was never used. Japan had entrenched defenders - infantry on islands defend at 3 instead of 2. Never used. USA had marines - infantry attack on 2 instead of 1 in the first cycle of an amphibious assault. Never used. Maybe next time we should play with 2 random national advantages instead. Or maybe more.

I definitely benefited from the recent game against Simon, in which I played the Axis too. Han was at a disadvantage because the last time he played was 3+ years ago, also another game with me. And there was a misprint on the UK chart. Fighter cost should be $10, not $12. He used the wrong price for all the Allies for almost the whole game, because the UK chart was the one right in front of him and he referred to it. Well, and the dice gods being on my side didn't help.

One thing about Axis & Allies Revised that I have a very different opinion of compared to other people is the graphics. I actually quite like the graphics. I like the dark map, more so than the 1984 version (lighter coloured), and also more so than the Anniversary Edition (natural coloured). I like the style very much. It has a feeling of doom. I prefer it over the 1984 version because of this. I prefer it over the Anniversary Edition because it is "cleaner". It has a serious tone. The one thing I didn't quite like is the production values. The cardboard pieces are quite thin. They also forgot that 6 and 9 look exactly the same when you don't know which direction to look from. They should have used a full stop or an underline on the army markers for 6 and 9. Well, I have never had to use 6 or 9, so this didn't impact my enjoyment of the game, but it just shows there was an oversight. The fighter cost on the UK sheet is a more serious error (and Han would definitely agree).

I used to read a lot of strategy articles about Axis & Allies, in the days when I played it more frequently with Ricky using the PC game version. That was still the 1984 version, way before the 2004 Revised version came out. Axis & Allies is very much about knowing what to purchase and knowing how to plan ahead. It is about preserving your units (especially so for the Japanese) and maximising your battle odds. It is easy to lose sight of the strategic view and the long term planning, when the game is long and there are many battles to absorb you into the tactical aspects. Naturally there is a fair bit of luck in the game, because of the dice. But I have learnt to not get frustrated with bad die rolls, and instead laugh about them. Before the dice are rolled, I should have done all I could to make the odds as good as possible, and if I haven't done so I should accept the risks of making the attack or the consequences of not preparing enough for the defense.

I just received my copy of Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition. So the next time that we play, it will be this deluxe version!

Wow! What a response. Not only did I get three or four times more comments than a single response has received before, but the most hits for the blog ever in a day, by a factor of three too. I hope some of you hang around and continue to read!

Sumeria is moving along fairly swiftly now. I've signed Harald Lieske (Sutter's Mill, ...aber bitte mit Sahne, Dominion) to do the art and I've started getting the bits together for the prototype copies. I've placed an order with Spiel Material to get the necessary wooden bits (there's quite a lot) and I've got a manufacturing quote from LudoFact, the Germans who did a great job on Carpe Astra. I'm getting enough bits to make five prototypes. I'm sending two to the US, one to the UK (there's already another couple in the UK, mine and Steve's) and one to Europe (there's already another in Europe too). I'm trying to hit my main markets where I already have distribution (hence no Asia or Australasia - sorry!). The fifth set of bits I'll hang onto and use to make a prototype with the finished art to submit to the UK Game of the Year award which is given out at the UK Games Expo.

With an artist decided and a manufacturing quote I've been able to finalise the price at £25 - higher than Carpe Astra because of the large number of wooden pieces and the quad-folded board. I've started taking a few pre-orders too.

I'll decide today where the prototype copies are going, then I can start getting them together. I'll knock up a rough box, add the wooden pieces from Germany when they arrive and add a board and the tiles which I'll have to paste-up and cut out by hand. It will be a return to my roots, making games by hand :-)

In other news, I've just signed a distribution agreement with Alliance Games Distributors, the largest distributors in the US to carry my games. They are going to start with It's Alive! and then hopefully take some Carpe Astra shortly. I've also received an order from a Taiwanese distributor, so things are looking up. January is looking to be my second best month ever, after October which got a huge boost thanks to Essen.

Thanks to everyone who offered to playtest Sumeria for me. I was overwhelmed by the response - thanks!

I've chosen the winners for the playtest copies using some incredibly arcane judging criteria:

• UK: Andy Evans
• Europe: E Decker
• North America: FunkyBlue & Sorrellbo

I'll be contacting the winners via email/Geekmail shortly. Thanks to everyone who volunteered - better luck next time!

Han was in town over the weekend of 17 Jan 2009, and came over for some games. He had just picked up his new game Ghost Stories, so we gave it a go.

Ghost Stories is a cooperative game, where the players are Taoist monks defending a village from an onslaught of ghosts. The big bad ghost Mr Wu Feng is trying to came back from hell to do bad things to humanity (something like that). His minion ghosts are trying to locate his urn which is hidden in the village. The monks have to work together with the villagers to hold the ghosts back. To win the game, they have to defeat all incarnations of Wu Feng that appear during the game. There are many ways to lose. If all the monks get killed, you lose. If a certain number of village tiles get haunted, you lose. If you can't defeat all incarnations of Wu Feng when the ghost card deck runs out, you lose. Sounds like Pandemic doesn't it? One way to win, many ways to lose.

On a player's turn, he first does the "bad stuff" (in the game, called the Yin phase), and then he does the "good stuff" (Yang phase). In the Yin phase, some ghosts already on the board will do bad stuff. Some will move towards the village, threatening to haunt a village tile. Then a new ghost (drawn from the ghost card deck) may appear. Ghosts sometimes do something when they appear, and sometimes they do something every time that they are activated while still in the game, and sometimes they do something when they are exorcised (is this last situation sometimes they give a reward). After this, the active player gets to do something good. He can move, and then either get some help from the villagers, or try to exorcise a ghost or two. Each of the nine village tiles can give some form of benefit to the monks. There is even one tile (the cemetary) where you can bring a dead monk back to life! To exorcise a ghost you need to roll dice and get enough rolls of the right colour matching the ghost's colour and strength. You can make up the shortage by paying Tao tokens of the right colour.

So during the game, ghosts keep appearing and doing bad stuff to you and to the village, and you need to hold them back while trying to stay alive. The ghosts have many different characteristics. Some are easier to defeat, some are harder. Some cause trouble every turn, some only when they appear / go away. Some prevent you from using Tao tokens, which is nasty. You not only need to survive, you also need to prepare for the showdown with Wu Feng. Depending on the difficulty level, there can be one or four incarnations of Wu Feng that you need to defeat.

Han and I played one 2-player game. Well, actually we played three games, but in the first two we played wrong and restarted. The first one was too easy, because we forgot to do actions for the two neutral boards. The second one was too tough, because we did too much for the two neutral boards. We played that they can add new ghosts to the game. Of course that turned out to be quite a nightmare. Double the number of ghosts were appearing. On our third attempt, we finally played with what was quite close to the correct rules (we later found out we did make some mistakes afterall), and won.

I find the game quite interesting. There are quite many choices - which ghosts to defeat first, where to move, which village tile to make use of, when to use your YinYang tokens and Power tokens. The game is a constantly changing puzzle of how to use your actions and resources most effectively. Sometimes there is some tough prioritisation that you are forced to do. The basic game structure is not complex, but there are many small details (e.g. the powers of each of the nine village tiles, and the unique powers of each monk) which although individually are simple, give you a wide decision tree that can be daunting when you are learning the game. In our first game we have only used a few of the village tiles. I am sure each tile can be very useful if used the right way or at the right time, but in our learning game, we have not yet appreciated all of the nuances. We tend to use the Buddhist temple (get a Buddha figure which can protect a space and instantly kick a new ghost back to hell), the sorcerer's hut (spend Qi, i.e. health, to kill a ghost) and the circle of prayer (discount when fighting ghosts or a particular colour).

As we played, the situation became more and more bleak. The number of active ghosts was growing, and we were starting to fall behind in trying to exorcise them quickly. By the time that Wu Feng finally arrived (11th card from the bottom of the stack), it was actually a relief, because we knew we just needed to defeat him to win, and we could ignore the other ghosts. And that was exactly what we did. It so happened that the incarnation of Wu Feng that we got was the one requiring 5 different Tao tokens. I already had four, and could use my Power token to use the Yellow monk power to get the fifth colour. So I instantly defeated Wu Feng on my next turn. It was actually rather anticlimatic, as if he came to save us from losing the game.

After the game, Han read the rules himself (I was the one who had read it first and I taught the game) and found that we had made at least two mistakes, both of which had made the game easier for us. (1) When using the sorcerer's hut to kill a ghost, we should not have gained the reward for defeating the ghost. (2) The ghosts which haunt village tiles only need to take two steps, not three, to haunt the nearest tile. The second mistake would have made quite a significant difference. So the next time that we play (I definitely want to play again) we probably should stay at Introductory level.

The third stage of playtesting is 'blind playtesting'. By this point you've an almost finished game and an almost finished rulebook. You provide this to people (ideally not friends and family - but people who can be honest with you) and let them learn the game from the rules - rather than being taught the game by you. You can either watch them, taking notes but not teaching them how to play, or for more un-biased feedback you can just send them a copy of the game and let them send you the feedback.

As usual, there are pros and cons. To get good feedback on the rulebook, the rule book needs to be nearly finished - it doesn't need final art, but it should have the diagrams and almost final layout. The playtesters are likely to provide feedback about the game rules too: They like it; they don't; what about changing this rule or that rule or the components. You'll have to be able to judge the feedback according to your goals. A lighter gamer might suggest something that makes the game simpler, and which makes the game much better in their eyes. A heavier gamer might suggest a change that makes the game deeper. Which do you use? Or neither? You'll need a pretty good idea of where in the market you want to position the game, and judge the feedback according to those criteria. Since this is something you'll likely do near the end of the game's development it's hard both to accept changes (you're happy with the game as it is) and conversely it's hard to stop fiddling with things. You need to be able to judge the suggested changes objectively against your criteria for the game (harder said than done) and draw a line under the game when you're happy with it.

Hopefully, at this stage you've got a great game that everyone loves. Be prepared for some people to hate it though. If you get negative feedback, you'll need to judge whether it's due to a flaw in the game, or just not the playtester's kind of game. Again, this can be difficult.

Want to find out what blind playtesing feels like? Help me playtest Sumeria. I'm looking for four volunteers, two in the US, one in the UK and one in Germany/Europe. It's a family euro-game so: simple rules, fairly deep gameplay, plenty of choices, wafer-thin theme. If that's not your kind of thing please don't apply, I don't need hardcore American gamers telling me it's rubbish because of a lack of plastic miniatures and dice-based combat!

What's in it for you?

• You get a prototype copy of Sumeria months before it's released
• You get your name in the rules as a playtester
• You're entitled to a 50% discount on the finished product

What do you have to do?

• Play the game a lot with your game groups
• Make a note of: who played, whether they've played before, who won, play time
• Provide feedback on the game (including suggested rule changes)
• Provide feedback on the rules - how can I improve the clarity and completeness

How do you sign up? Leave a note in the comments to this post stating which country you live in and why you'd make an excellent playtester. I'll pick the lucky recipients at the end of this week.

It's always hard when you move to a new area. You don't know anyone or where anything is. It takes a while to find your feet and get settled in.

Gaming is helping me get to know some people down here this time. When I moved to York I knew there was a board games club there, but it took me best part of a year to actually make it to Beyond Monopoly! through which I made several good friends and managed to organise a playtesting group. This time I'm going to be more organised.

In advance of our move, I asked around on BoardGameGeek for information about the area and got introduced to a few people that way. Yesterday I had one of them round for an afternoon of gaming :-). Matt and I played two games of Race for the Galaxy, two games of Dominion and my first game of Le Havre - Uwe Rosenberg's follow-up to the extremely popular Agricola.

I'm hoping to join another local group on Tuesday and then make it along to Matt's games club on Thursday. Games are a great medium for making new friends :-)

Today's main order of business is sales. I've got to wait in for the courier to collect the first order from my new German distributor, so I figure I might as well chase up all my contacts in distributors that haven't yet ordered as well as a few who's orders I'm waiting on.

I'm back properly at work now and there's a few things on my plate:

Yesterday I completed (but couldn't file due to a technical issue) my self-assessment tax return for the tax year from April 2007 - April 2008. This was for before I quit my job to concentrate on Reiver Games full-time, so it's fairly small fry and I wasn't drawing a salary (not that I am yet!). The return took nearly a full day, it was more complicated than the previous year's and as a result I needed to spend a decent chunk of the day on the phone to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. There's only so much time you can spend listening to hold music before you lose the will to live. Still the bottom line is: last year my turnover was 250% higher than the previous year (actually only 9 months) and my profit was 1000% higher. This year there will be a huge jump in my turnover, but I doubt I'll be profitable, having had to pay the manufacturing cost of It's Alive! and Carpe Astra up front and only having seven months to sell It's Alive! (it was delivered in September) and four and a half to sell Carpe Astra. Still, in the current economic climate I think I'm doing ok. Not stellar, but ok.

Today began with a trip into town to meet my new Business Specialist at the local branch of my bank. I took along It's Alive! and Carpe Astra and she loved them, she was very impressed. I think she was also impressed by how the company was doing too. We chatted for an hour and a quarter and I think I'm off to a good start with the new branch.

This afternoon, I was back to struggling with the technical issue for my tax return. After several calls I've managed to fix the problem (the error message: 'You're logged in elsewhere, or your agent is logged in at the same time' means 'This text box accepts up to 255 characters, without carriage returns' - that's some quality programming!), so I'm just waiting for the system to acknowledge that I've filed, so I can pay the tax I owe on my Reiver Games profit for that year.

In other news, I've picked up another German distributor, I'll be sending them their stock on Monday, their order came in too late for today's courier deadline.

In other news, a US distributor wants to return the consignment stock of It's Alive! they took at Essen, they thought they were getting a North American exclusive but I didn't. The crossed wires led to me sorting out deals with several other US distributors and them ending with a lot more stock than they wanted for a non-exclusive deal. They want to return 240 copies of It's Alive! Sounds terrible, but conveniently another distributor in the next state wants 250 copies of It's Alive! I can see a deal where the other US distributor gets a cheap shipping deal, as instead of paying to get the games from the UK by sea, they just pay for a couple of hundred miles haulage :-) Now that was well-timed!

We moved down South last Monday/Tuesday. Since then I've had no internet access. I've been making trips into Bedford (about eight miles away) when I can, to use the free wifi in the Bedford Creative Arts Gallery. But the company has been effectively on hold for nine days.

I've tried to keep things going: I've collected some stock from my warehouse, shipped an order of Carpe Astra to Germany, I've been investigating shipping costs for a large order to a new US distributor and I've been getting manufacturing and art quotes for Sumeria. But without regular internet access I've felt very cut off.

Now I'm back online all the time, I'm trying to close a few orders that I've been waiting on for a while and sort a few other things out that I've been waiting on.

Jack's back!

I find it funny that sometimes after playing a game so many times and thinking that I'm already an expert, I suddenly discover some rule error which I have been playing with from the beginning. Usually they are not too bad. Else it probably won't be so funny, and the game probably won't work well enough to warrant many plays. I just discovered another error I made with Through the Ages. When you have discovered a more efficient form of farming or mining, you are not allowed to "upgrade" two or more blue tokens from older farm/mine technology cards to fewer tokens on the newly played farm/mine technology card. I have always thought that you can do this any time, i.e. you get a good efficiency boost the moment you discover the new technology.

However you can make change, i.e. if you have one blue token representing 2 stone, and you need to pay 1 stone, you can move that blue token down to the Level A mine, so that it now represents 1 stone.

I still have no news about the fix pack. My Through the Ages is the 2nd edition (or 1st edition published by FRED), which has the score track error and some non-critical errors on some cards. It is also short of some tokens, but since I have never played with 4 players, I have had no issue. But it would still be nice to receive the fix pack some day.