Asgard Rises!

Only days ago I was left bereft with the news that Vince and the wonderful community of gamers that is Asgard were to depart our Town Centre, and their future was deeply uncertain.

Tonight, wonderful news!

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Giant Dwarves and other minor errors

A couple of weeks ago I ordered pieces for a game I have recently invented in conjunction with Vince Connolly at Asgard Games in Walsall.

It’s Games Hack time.

I love creating games from scratch. It’s fun and cool. More to the point, it’s exercising creative urges.

Since April Fools Day falls on a Saturday this year I have secured permission from Vince at Asgard Games to use his shop for a few hours to undertake a Games Hack. Working from a brief or inspiration, teams and individuals can compete on the day to create the best basic game in two hours.

You can find out more and sign up here.

Do come down and join us for some fun. It’s 8 quid ont he door but you have to sign up via the Kickstarter to confirm your place, otherwise we don’t have any cash to pay for the venue and materials.

Hurrah!

PS: Any suggestion that we might have to retire to a local public house to play test the games afterwards is going to get nothing but support from me.

Market Forces

After my little foray into the Gig Economy, I’m delighted to report I have a booking. What’s astonished me is the ease with which I managed to attract a customer, and how far we were into the discussion before it became apparent he’s in Malaysia! I’m helping to design a game for a chap thousands of miles away and it’s as easy as using a chat room in Facebook or LinkedIn.

Improvising my way into the Gig Economy

I’m fascinated with alternative ways of selling and procuring services. The recent trend towards self employment rather than having a fixed contract is a mixed blessing, and we’re seeing new vocabulary to describe it. There’s even a helpful article on BBC News to explain it.

So one night last week I sat down and introduced myself to the gig economy. I don’t expect to make any money from this but it’s an exercise is trying the principle out and seeing what happens. Right now, users of fiverr.com can offer to pay me £3.98 ($5 in GBP at today’s rate) to either write them a 500 word story or design a bespoke card/dice game.

White Hermione and Straight Biggles

When I first read Harry Potter, Hermione was white. Well, she was in my head because I’m not particularly inventive and I was much more interested in the story than painting a picture of every character in the book.

Now, she isn’t. Or rather, she doesn’t have to be. Likewise, Biggles the pilot of Sopwith Camels in the Great War didn’t strike me as being either particularly gay or straight and yet apparently his orientation has been the subject of speculation.

Steampunk Dreams and Future Proofing

Imagine a world where technology is very different to ours.

And so begins a premise which the average person has probably only glimpsed in silly season news stories about trends in costume wearing comic convention attendees, references to local bookshop Southcart Books or maybe the world of Wild Wild West that terrible star vehicle which nearly ran over Will Smith in 1999 or even The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (more diesel punk than steampunk apparently, but I’m no judge) that saw Sean Connery’s last screen appearance before retirement. I’ll just leave this here and you can roll your eyes at your leisure.

2017 in review

It’s only a couple of weeks old, so it’s probably harsh to try reviewing 2017 already, but I know there are a couple of things coming up I wanted to muse on, so here goes.

[tl:dr Reflections on stuff that’s coming up, a couple of name drops and a quick delve through recent events. Normal service continues sometime soonish.]

Defining Success

This is not an inspirational post. Or at least, not intended to be. I’m hardly disadvantaged by my own estimation.

But I wanted to acknowledge and celebrate a little milestone. I had an e-mail from Kickstarter this week congratulating me because exactly a year ago I’d successfully concluded the campaign for No Dice, and it was fully funded.

Bear in mind the average Kickstarter project might take months or years to set up, run for a month and then take another few months to even get off the ground properly let alone send out all the rewards and so forth.

Shipping and Selling

Nearly all the 60 decks have shipped now. Two to the Antipodes, nearly a dozen to the land of the free and the home of the brave. A familiar chap from my previous Kickstarter in Denmark and a couple of Dutch backers, and the obligatory UK crowd. Over thirty backers in total, ranging from a gent who just wanted a postcard to one backer who ordered four decks.

I’m very happy to say that I had some extra decks from the Kickstarter left, and I’ve put a few in Asgard Games at the standard Kickstarter price of £15. They are the last of the first edition. Get them while they’re in stock!