Expansions can be a great thing for a small designer and producer. They allow you to continue the tail for sales of your game and increase the possible value of a re-print, additionally allowing you to launch a small game and build on it as resources and interest become available. However, there are some things that can go wrong with expansions and disappoint the fans you’ve gained. I suspect that when they go wrong its due to a lack of forethought in the original design, so

So, it’s been a weird 12 months, to say the least. My intention 12 months ago was to be well on the way to launching a storytelling game called Song Of Tales on Kickstarter. We’ve got most of the artwork locked down, which is a large part of the investment, and traditionally is what slows down most of our Kickstarter releases. However, the current situation has really taken the knees out from our playtesting schedule, particularly for a game that’s about sharing tales with me

Just to get the obvious bits out of the way first, I’m not saying that funding early is impossible or that it’s a bad thing when it happens. However, I have a real problem with the idea that funding early is any kind of a necessity, something to be aimed for or something to cancel over if it doesn’t happen, all of which are ideas that I hear with depressing regularity and are by degrees untrue, unhelpful, non-sensical or downright pernicious. I’ve mentioned this in bits and p

Creating products that are environmentally sound is not only good sense for the planet, its good business sense. For two reasons, one, consumers are increasingly concerned with the environmental credentials of the products that they buy, and two, the central idea of environmental concerns is the avoidance of wastage. When you’re making a product, such as designing and publishing a game, you’re paying for everything that goes into the box, and then you’re paying to ship it. L