Thinking about running a Kickstarter? Well, 19 months after I decided to self publish my game, Magnate: The First City, I am entering the final build-up of mine. This is the inside story of the challenges, joys, thrills and spills of running a Kickstarter campaign and the nerve-racking final weeks before launch… …Today: How admin is getting me down and why publishing a game might be an especially admin hungry business. Exactly how wrong I was As I alluded to in Day 3’s post, I significantly underestimated the time that would be involved in publishing Magnate. I knew it would be investment of time, but I thought it would be somewhere in the same region as running my newspaper project:...
In September there were a lot of firsts for Magnate: we got our first ever review, did our first podcast interview and the first ever “pretty prototype” was assembled. Now our first big show is upon us! Tabletop Scotland a huge success & our first ever review At the beginning of September, I travelled north of the border to Perth to playtest Magnate for, what I only realised later, was the inaugural Tabletop Scotland. The playtesting was a huge success. It allowed me to test out a solution to the longstanding problem where players are mystified by bidding for turn order on the first round. I am glad to say that solution worked very well. I also got a chance...
Last weekend I attended a convention – and it was the best one I’ve experienced so far. Here’s five reasons why I loved it and what I’d like to see in other conventions as a result. Tabletop Scotland is a new gaming convention held in Perth. I recently attended it as part of my continuing mission to get Magnate playtested all around the country. Though only two days long, it proved the maxim that quality is better than quantity. It’s been my personal favourite so far; it’s organisers got so much so right. So here’s 5 reasons it worked so well and why I am almost certain I’ll be making the 900 mile round trip again. 1 – It has...
Progress to publishing Magnate continues to move at a pace. Here’s a quick round-up of the latest developments from August. Magnate BGG page is up I am very happy to say that Magnate now has it’s own Boardgamegeek entry. Suddenly, – as I’m sure hardcore gamers can readily imagine – it all feels a lot more real. This both makes sense and doesn’t at the same time. Of course, BGG is still the closest thing to the officialdom in the industry but if Magnate wasn’t real before, what have people been enjoying all these years? I suppose there will always be a buzz seeing your creation listed among the greats in the place for games regardless! As it turns out,...
