Waggle You Buggers, Waggle!

Ok, so the Waggle Dance is getting rave reviews from all over the place, really impressed with PR machine chaps, well done!!

However, it still needs some funding to get this game out into the world.

If you've never backed a kickstarter before then here's a helping hand;

1. go to the page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1811420414/wag... 

2. play the video... read all about the game... watch the 'final thoughts' video for an independent assessment - yes, he got sent a copy of the game but he didn't have to review it, and he certainly didn't have to like it as much as he obviously does!

3. decide whether you want to support a fledgling Cornish games producing company. This is their second project and they delivered a fine product first time round and on time too.

4. if you're still in then it's time to pledge some money. You don't get charged if the project fails. You only get charged on it succeeding, on Sunday 29th June 2014.

5. click on 'Back this Project'.

6. choose your pledge level - £22 for UK addresses, or £27 for EU, US and Canada, etc.

7. follow the payment requirements, nothing out of the ordinary of course.

8. spread the word... Facebook, tweet, all those things.

9. thanks!!

Finding Liam Neeson...

Liam Neeson. How to contact the great man, that's this morning's question. He has a little something waiting his attention but he possibly doesn't even know about it as yet. His agent surely owes him this opportunity? I wonder what he'd make of it? Liam that is, not his agent!

So I'm sat outside having my Bran Flakes this morning and the bees flitting around the newly planted flowers grab my attention. They go over and over the same path and then will rest suddenly, or is that when they're doing the business end of their reconnoissance? I guess so. For me, one of the best things about Waggle Dance is the set up you can put in place in the early rounds. Extending your bee population, or your hive makes sense but you don't want to miss early opportunity to collect pollen if your opponents aren't able to, and maybe the Queen Bee Cards will bring you a huge favour early too, who knows?

In the mid-game the pollen collection is what it's all about and having some good Queen Bee Cards by then is crucial. And it could well be time to restructure the hive or pick up the odd piece of pollen to ensure you've not wasted any. All that honey needs producing; I bet bees are efficient little buggers!

The kickstarter campaign for Waggle Dance started with a real flourish and on the back of the UK Games Expo I expected this to then take off even further. It's choogling along quite nicely but needs a little helping hand. Just like the bees. We need to give them a chance, hence the Hora garden having more flowers this year, and we've left the sage to flower with it's beautiful mauve stalks that the bees have been going crazy over for weeks now.

So, for an outlay of £22 you get a copy of this lovely game, delivered. You help a small Cornish publishing company with their second game, and they've also put together a ton of info on bees on their website, a fascinating study in itself. Another level among the kickstarter pledges is the one just for Liam. His own special opportunity to assist. That's why we need to find him, urgently!!

All help greatly appreciated, obviously...

Okay, take me and Liam to the page...

Kickstarter: Copper Country and more Thalatta

Well, another busy week - by my pretty laid back standards - has seen me tidying through papers, chucking out lots of it and feeling good about that. Went to the first Spearmint gig in aeons and it was straight back into a lovely evening, some great new songs, a few surprises that I love, The Whole Summer Long and Your Southern Skies, the latter providing fond memories of my first driving tour with Shirl, Si and Little Jim in Jan 2005. Anyway, you'd be shocked if I hadn't enjoyed it. It was wonderful seeing them all again plus all those other people that go to Spearmint gigs too. A real treat.

Most of the rest of the week has had me writing out the rules for Thalatta as well as a little bit of marketing spiel too;

The designer has been great to work with. He's let me ask the daftest questions, and lots of 'big' questions that I should have got straight a lot sooner! Never mind. I think we're there, he's whizzing the files around the world this weekend to play-testers he's lined up. All very exciting.

And after a couple of kick-starters finished last weekend I had a bit of a gap in the future production line-up and thankfully it was easy, very easy to choose something to slot in. Copper Country has been a game of interest for a while. There's been a growing swell of information about the game from the two designers for some time. They made some excellent videos, posted some enticing photos and brilliant artwork.

They sent an email through announcing the start of the campaign this week and so I duly signed up immediately. They sent a personal 'thanks' message straight away, always a good sign. And then replied to my response too... I find if you try and engage with the project a bit at the start you'll soon find out about how keen, enthusiastic, serious, the project leaders are. I recently backed out of a kickstarter for the first time. No reply to my mail, and no answers to a few questions raised. It looked interesting, some great art, but never mind.

Copper Country is all about mining in Michigan. I like mining games, this one seems to have quite a bit of depth - no pun intended. Here are a few Copper Country pieces to whet the appetite;

Take a look on the Geek

Kickstarter Value: In Security

Three kickstarter projects caught my eye over the last week and they're all a little different from my usual games fare. Firstly, I plunged in a bit blindly to back NGo, New Global Order. It had been on ks previously and taken down, clearly not going to reach its target. The new campaign came in at such a low threshold that I doubted the project leader quite a lot. My due diligence was warning me off I have to say.

But when you look at the enthusiasm, the quality of the presentation, I was a bit keener. Half of the issues seemed to be around language with the project leader speaking Spanish. Once other backers got involved the rule book translation took off and this again encouraged me to back. I love the look of the map, but then you'd do well to design a map I didn't like! The components look interesting too. Anyway, I'm fully committed and I hope they manage to produce the game in due course. 

Second up was the wonderful art of Black Forest. I'm not that into the gothic vibe despite visiting the Plage Noir festival in Northern Germany the year before last. However, this looks to me quite 'vicious': scary, angry, and that appeals. With worker placement, card drafting and a hidden traitor as the main mechanics I was hooked. Both of these are slightly on the high side budget wise but both need support to get two well-thought through games to market. That's what ks is all about and I'm happy to help where possible.

My third punt was a little easier. Based in England, designer Koen is another full of enthusiasm. He won a game design contest on BGG with his 'micro-game' In Security. Value for money wise this project couldn't be cheaper, £2. Wow!

Although it's a dice game a lot of gamers will have some dice they can use and so for your £2 you get the rules which come on the back of players' mats. Playing 2-6 over 20 mins it sounds a lovely little filler. Koen also had a rather low threshold of £250. Another wow from me. Needless to say he's picking up backers pretty easily.

Palm Sunday and Toe Dipping

Surprisingly, Josie and Mrs Hora accompanied me to church today for what's always a particularly moving mass on Palm Sunday. We collected our crosses and had them sprinkled with holy water by Fr Stewart. Am looking forward to this week, the first Easter at home in a million years and so I can attend the whole caboodle of celebrations at St Bridgets.

The back of the church has this painted on the ceiling, I love it

So, last week in Suffolk Nana gave me some pocket money and on our trip to Bury St Edmunds - yes he'd died again - I bought two commercial albums, something I'm very shy about doing although I have managed to surprise the children. So, Rudimental's 'Home' and John Newman's 'Tribute' have been placed between Blaine Reininger and Sarandon, and Myrna Loy and New Musik respectively. John's nasal tones are not liked by Mrs H but he doesn't use them that much in fact. Really liking his songs after a couple of listens I have to say, very very catchy. I like the Motowny, Northern Soul vibe he's using to great effect.

Been working on Waggle Dance, preparing my thoughts to feedback to Henry and co at Grublin Games. Still hoping the family will indulge me later today to trial out and comment too. There's stickers in it for play-testers for starters! Backed another kickstarter during the week. Tony Boydell is a much respected - by me anyway - English designer and he spread the word about 'Of Mice and Lemmings'. It's a simple looking card game but I'm happy to back another UK project.

Another game I'm trying to help at the moment is from a small Finnish publisher. For some reason I think I like Finland a lot. It's the next country in Europe I'd love to visit. No idea where this has come from but there's a great quirky Finnish film, 'Frozen Land', and a band that supported Spearmint once, Laakso, were superb. I've also bought a few games through lautapelit.fi, top service. Anyway, here are two links to two ks campaigns that look like they could well do with some support; Of Mice & Lemmings and Troll Hunt.

I encourage you all to dip your toes into different worlds, track down the books of Norman Collins and Jojo Moyes if you've never read them, Spearmint's 'A Week Away' album is on spotify if you have to, and play a blinking board game, modern games are unbelievably good, start with Ticket to Ride Europe and go from there...

kickstarted Dangerous Obsession #23

Manifest, a board game designed in New Zealand about delivering passengers and goods around the world in the 1920s, is finishing on kickstarter in three days' time, sixty-nine hours to be precise. For anyone who doesn't know about kickstarter it's a place to try and get funding for your project. You load up the details: videos, photos, testimonials, anything you think might help, and then you set some prices for a finished good or service. Punters lodge funds and should there be enough to meet the funding goal then the money goes to project. If not, it doesn't, simple as that. If you're lucky there might be 'stretch goals' to incentivise over-funding, this can be interesting although sometimes I'm a little uncertain as to the value of these.

You might want to be careful and do a little due diligence before you back. Just who are you giving your money too? There are some stories of rip-offs but generally it seems to work well. I've backed twenty-two completed projects to date. All board game related, eighteen full games, three expansions and one to support a video reviewer, Joel Eddy. I collected four of these at last year's Essen, the World Board Game expo in October. So far all projects have delivered, most comfortably on time, all impressive in their communications, and no problems suffered. I'm looking forward to receiving another nine games over the course of this year! I've also backed three projects on different 'crowd funding' platforms; Pledge Me in New Zealand - yes the same NZ, indeed, the same company with an earlier game, Granny Wars, it's ace, trust me! then a German game throughSpielschmeide and a book of poetry through Wefund, a UK based company.

And that's not it. I'm in for a further five ks projects at the moment including my second non-game, a bit of plastic wizardry that's going to help me with my iPad, the 'plinth'! Plus another bit of support for a video reviewer, Rahdo. The man makes the greatest videos of board game run throughs. You really get to understand the rules, the set up and how it's going to play. When you're wondering if a game is going to live up to the marketing copy you can be sure to get a good look at what the experience might be like through Rahdo. He's cost me more than the family ever have done.

For me, it feels exciting to be supporting fellow enthusiasts in their goals of producing board games. Each project is different obviously but there's a camaraderie established with fellow backers and the project leaders during the thirty days or so of the campaign. I can honestly say I have garnered a couple of good friends through one particular campaign. (Not sure how they feel of course!) It's exciting when the project looks as though it might be stalling or struggling, trying to find ways to help without simply throwing more money at it - the family do need some food, clothes occasionally too. Like when I first stumbled into ebay and would be constantly refreshing with seconds to go to try and time my winning bid as late as poss (snip.pl, i am indebted to you, really). Adrenalin buzz, etc.

So there you have it. Whilst writing Manifest has moved another couple of hundred New Zealand dollars closer to being funded, hurrah! Now, let's see if we can hit that stretch goal to get a dual sided map, would love that!