It’s that time of year and everyone is GenCon crazy in the gaming world. Well I’m on the wrong side of the Pond, so I have to be content with just watching the videos and so on like most of you guys; but all is not dull here at Quirkworthy Central. Oh, no. Quite apart from my painting endeavours, I’ve just been given a green light on a new project months ahead of when I expected it!
So what’s it about? Can’t tell you, I’m afraid. As is so often the way with the creative world, things are subject to Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) till all the details are in place and the beast is ready for a public appearance. Still, I can tell you that this is an opportunity for me to get one of the games that has been languishing on my done-but-not-yet-published shelves for some years out into the Big Wide World of gamers. Just sorting out the art & layout and we’re ready. Assuming I can remember how to play it 😛
And this is one of those shelves. This is an unsorted one (as you may have guessed). Attack Sub is really that game (not sure why it’s here), as are the ones in the pile on the left, but the other boxes are just boxes and have various prototypes of different games I have designed in. I have some blank rigid boxes as you can see, but they’re very expensive to buy. Much cheaper to buy a cheap game or jigsaw from the local charity shop and chuck away the contents. Before anyone comments on Puerto Rico, that’s a copy I found cheap in a game shop ‘cos someone had pinched some of the bits. For me it was just a cheap source of pieces and a nice box. Needless to say, I have a proper copy elsewhere 🙂
Lest you all think that I am completely untidy, here is a photo of a more organised shelf. All the boxes are colour coded and labelled, but I’ve blanked them out for this. It wouldn’t do to give the game away now, would it?
As you may also have noticed the top picture has a few notebooks and files in too. Boxes are a bulky way of storing games, and many designs don’t make it to a box as much of it would be air, and I’d soon have no space on the shelves at all. Well, I don’t anyway, but you see what I mean. Notebooks can hold masses of work in a tiny space, and even in these days of digital everything there’s nothing like a pad of paper for doodling board layouts and calculating card deck distributions on, alongside the rules themselves, cover roughs, lists of possible titles, ideas to show artists and sculptors and everything else that goes into a game. Sometimes, if I’m really lucky, I can even read my writing!
Quirkworthy 
As a gentleman who is almost completely electronic, I have a handfull of memory sticks with various bits of “stuff” on them, which may or may not ever be finished.
But, I can’t wait to see some of the contents of that shelf… assuming you’re up for sharing with your mates. 😉
I had another games writing brain bubble this morning… and so began the creation of “The Search for Sugary Goodness”… patent pending!!!
If you’re completely electronic do you have an off switch? ;P
If I had my way I’d publish most of the games on that (and the other) shelves. As ever, it’s the “route to market” that’s the tricky part. However, I’m not publishing things in a shoddy and slapdash fashion. The web is full of self-published crap, and the gems that are among them are very hard to find (though they do exist as I’ve found a few). Standards, dear boy, are the only way forward. Incidentally, that’s why you’ll never see all of the games on that shelf. Some of them are simply not good enough. Which brings me to an interesting post or three, which I might go and incorporate into my page on designing games.
Why don’t you show ’em a picture of the rest of the room and let ’em decide how untidy you are!! ;P
You can’t hide behind a cool name, Bob. I know who you are 🙂
It’s as tidy as a room can be when it holds 9 things and would comfortably fit 3 (ie rather more like the first pic than the second). This is lucky as it leaves nowhere to stand to take such an imaginary picture. Anyway, it’d take ages to blank out all the classified info. That’s a good excuse. I’ll claim that 😉
Awesome news. Its always nice when somebody shows some faith in you and your ideas and gives you the green light. Congratulations.
Thank you. It is indeed 🙂