July 2022
UK Games Expo
UKGE was amazing! I did not expect such incredible love for Atikin Games and its products! I finally got to meet many online gaming friends as well as making new friends to boot. I even ran out of some stock! All of the Playful Pets games I took sold out, as well as a couple of variations of tote bags, Board Game Survival Kits, meeple earrings and keyrings! I cannot wait for next year and I may even need to get a bigger stand for 2023, how exciting!
Pride Month
There’s a new version of The Board Game Survival Kit: the contents are still the same, but now each colour version has the option of a pride flag/rainbow label. I’ve wanted to do this for a while and thanks to the success of UKGE – during pride month itself – it made sense to do it now. Thank you so much to everyone who has shown support and made this possible!
Malum Hortus
Malum Hortus was very well received at UKGE! Everyone I talked to about it seemed interested and enthusiastic about the concept. In all the excitement I forgot to tell people there is already a preview page up for it that they can follow, hopefully more people will now.
The board art for Malum Hortus is coming along nicely, I’ve chosen an ancient hand drawn map style for it which I think works well. Originally, I wanted to utilise the same intricate art style I’ve used for the flowers but it wouldn’t be possible to make the garden look as vast as it’s supposed to be with that level of detail. Given that the game itself is played over many (in game) days the garden itself needs to look vast! With that in mind the chosen map style makes sense. I’ve quite enjoyed drawing mini ‘here be monsters’ style evil flowers on the map.
Custom Orders
I’ve started to receive a lot more custom and direct orders from gamers, which I absolutely love. Making sure a customer gets 100% what they want makes me happy. Direct sales also show that people have trust in me as the creator to deliver and it means I can avoid some of the larger fees from platforms like Etsy. So, if you know and trust me, please contact me directly for orders, it all helps Atikin Games to grow.
June 2022
What an exciting month May was! Malum Hortus now has box art and has reached 100 followers on Kickstarter. All my UK Games Expo preparation has been going well and as we head in to June, I’ll actually be at the expo for 3 days!
Malum Hortus – Check out the Malum Hortus box art! I’m so happy with it. There are 8 main evil flowers that will be hunting for you in the night, I chose the Orchid for the box as it’s my favourite piece so far, it also lends itself nicely to being a mirror image of itself. On the left it is beautiful in the daylight with the right being the evil version that it transforms into at night (right before it comes hunting for you mwahahahaa). Please give it a follow on Kickstarter, if you already have, thank you very much!
UK Games Expo – If you’ll be there, please swing by and see me, I’ll be on stand 1-1058 and I’d love to meet more of you. If you have your own Board Game Survival Kit and feel like taking it along so that you can play as your colour in the open gaming areas… And if someone asks you about it you can send them my way, remember, stand 1-1058 ;-).
My husband will be conducting demos of all 5 of my currently published games on the stand, demo sign ups are open so just message or email me to get a slot, you can pick your ‘game of interest’ out of Tri To Win, Mini Memory Mischief, Feline Felonies, Canine Capers or Animal Alliance to play and you’ll still get a chance to learn about the other games if you would like. I would love to get the first couple of demo slots for Friday filled ahead of the event so that we can hit the ground running.
Preparations have been going well, if you follow me on social media, you will have seen my banners and stand test run. It was really helpful to lay the stand out more or less exactly how I want it so I can set it up quickly once I’m there and not worry about how it will all look.
My nerves are gradually being replaced by excitement as I get closer to the event, I do worry that there will be no sales and it won’t make sense to exhibit again. I’ve told myself it’s worth doing it at least once for the experience and sales don’t matter as much as that, but wouldn’t it be amazing if Atikin Games does well there and I can afford to come back and do it every year? I keep hoping that’ll be the case, keep your fingers crossed for me!
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