As we come to the end of the year (Gregorian calendar) I wanted to look both back at the last 12 months and forward to 2012. I’ll do my crystal ball gazing on New Year’s Day, which seems more appropriate. Today I’d like to look back at 2011, and rather than focus on what I’ve been playing, look at what I’ve been creating.

For me, 2011 has marked a big push and a major ramping up of my attempts to get some of my games published. As you may have gathered if you read this blog regularly, designing games comes very naturally to me – getting them published is always the challenge. Over the last 18 months, and particularly the last 12 I’ve focussed increasing amounts of effort into making this happen, with some success.

Mantic Games published the first of the Dwarf King’s Hold series at the start of the year, and the Dwarfs and Undead of DKH: Dead Rising were soon followed by the Orcs and Elves of DKH: Green Menace. The third set, DKH: Ancient Grudge, is finished and ready for release in January 2012. I’ve been very happy to see folk enjoying the various incarnations of Dwarf King’s Hold at a number of conventions and online, and it’s been pleasantly surprising to see the sets so popular that they’ve sold out twice. Not only that, but Dwarf King’s Hold: Dead Rising was given one of the rare and much coveted Approved by Cats awards. Praise indeed!

Tribes of Legend has also been announced, and I’m happy to say that it’s dodged the Somali pirates on its way from China and is now in the UK, awaiting an end to the holiday madness so that it can be officially released. This is an unusual rule book as it contains not one but three games: solo, skirmish and mass battle, all set in the world of mythical Greece. In some ways it’s a bit of an experiment, and one I’m very happy Foundry have backed with whole new range of mythical creatures and characters (and gods) to go with the mass of Ancient Greek models they already produce.

Tribes of Legend is the precursor of a lot more to come. As with most of my work, the lag between me finishing it and it being available to the wider public is very long. Without going into all manner of detail I’m not supposed to divulge yet, suffice to say that Dwarf King’s Hold has been one of the smaller projects I completed in 2011. There’s a lot more that’s all done and dusted (by me), but which has yet to be released.

The last thing I want to (or can) talk about is this site: Quirkworthy. It’s a lot of (unpaid) work, it’s not even slightly finished, but it’s loads of fun and I learn a lot from our discussions. I’d like it if more people would visit as it would enlivened the debates even more (so if you feel like pimping it up on a forum or two, please go ahead), and I’m constantly puzzled by which posts get the most traffic. That’ all part of the fun though. It’s a big learning curve, and I’ve made some great new friends through it – some of whom I’ve even met in real life!

Overall 2011 has been a good year in my gaming world 🙂