February 2022

Valentine’s Day – I’ve wanted to have something in my store that would make a nice Valentine’s Day gift for a board gamer, obviously as Christmas proved just about anything on there would make a lovely gift but I wanted something specifically heart themed and mushy. To that end I’ve been working on some Valentine’s meeple keyrings and earrings. They are made from pastel pink hand painted meeples with little hearts, I think they’re very sweet and I hope they will be a big hit for board gamers this Valentine’s Day.

The Board Game Survival Kit – I really enjoyed painting up those little meeples, some of you might remember that I had always hoped to hand paint some components to expand the available colours for The Board Game Survival Kits. Well, now I have! I now have turquoise, brown, grey and pastel pink available. Aside from the pink the custom versions don’t have ‘I play [colour]’ as a label on the tin and instead have a rainbow label that says ‘I play as me’. I had these labels printed up at the same time as the originals with the hope that it meant I could try my hand at just about any colour or shade a customer might want.

Malum Hortus – Not a lot of game design has been happening recently, building up stock of all three Playful Pets offerings has been a full-time job and I’m in no way complaining. Once I have a comfortable stock level for these games, I’ll be getting back underway with perfecting Malum Hortus, I still hope to do a Halloween campaign for it this year so there’s a lot to get on with to have it ready in time. I’d love to have a demo-able version of it ready for UKGE if I can, wish me luck!

But if you get too greedy, the other players may be able to guess your target and your entire mission could be compromised! Honestly, it’s such a fun, simple game that both adults, kids, and anyone in between can enjoy together!

The next game is really unique compared to the other games in the Grumpy Spider lineup. This one is a solo-only, campaign-based, dungeon crawler that can be played with nothing but the book it comes in and a pencil. The book is small enough to fit in your pocket, and brings almost a calmness as you move from one dungeon to the next, with a few puzzly levels thrown in for good measure. What I really like about this game, though, is its combat system which is both simple, challenging, and not quite like anything else I’ve seen before. I’ll say more about it in the coming months, but I’m very excited about Pocket Book Adventures!

As you can see the text of the first draft has been completed and a first pass of fixups has been applied. Though the images are only at 10% progress is strong and the pace is fast. The core of the game is quite simple but we strive to make the rules crystal clear, so in the coming months we’ll try to do some blind rule tests. The test games so far have mainly had a rules explanation by someone from the Frozen Maze Games team.

*Click* The preliminary play-tests we’ve been doing at conventions have been great, people enjoy the game and we’ve gotten some excellent feedback as seen here. This pie graph shows an 85% positives, 10% said it was nice and 5% thought the frog meeples were chickens.

*Click* This shows a more detailed plan for the year. As Bushido Duels is ready and is shipping to stores and customers a big chunk of our focus is on promoting and getting it into stores. The rest of the time we’re working on finalizing the game components for Perilous Pond, getting all the images into the rules and later this year we will look at assembling the components needed for producing prototype boxes if all goes to plan.

*Click* That’s all we had to present at the moment, any questions? Aha, so for you who didn’t hear the question was “Where can I see the game”? We have a couple of copies of the game and will be taking them where-ever we go, so if you see us somewhere, like if there started being conventions again, feel free to come and test it.

Nothing else? Okay then, thank you for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

The Kickstarter campaign will likely happen in the Fall of this year, but there’s a ton that I need to accomplish before I get there.

More short term, I’m finally investing in a real company logo. You may have noticed that I’ve been using the Top Tale logo for just about anything I need to submit a logo for. This has served well to reinforce the Top Tale brand, but it’s a bit odd using a game logo when a company logo is more appropriate. I’ve therefore hired my go-to graphic designer to create a company logo for Yub Nub Games. I was hoping to have it done by the February newsletter, but alas I’ll just have to give you a teaser of what it’ll look like. It’ll contain elements of patriotism, Ewoks, and a tribute to my late brother. Vague enough for you?

In February I plan to attend my first tabletop game convention as a vendor! I’ll be at GenghisCon 2022, which will be in Aurora, Colorado. I’ve gone to this convention once in the past to play test Top Tale, and it’s one of the biggest conventions in Colorado. I’ll be both selling copies of Top Tale, as well as promoting the upcoming Kickstarter. I’ll be attending another conference as a vendor in April, up in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

2022 will have some significant life events if all goes well. My day job is really taxing my time and ability to work on Top Tale development, so this year’s challenge will be to still find time to grow the business while balancing my day job and my home life. It’s going to be difficult to say the least, but with such a supportive community that the tabletop industry provides, I don’t see how I can possibly fail!