May 2024

I’m back in the Indie Tabletop Newsletter with a splash, as I recently launched a Kickstarter for MicroMay, a print and play under the label Microdot Games.

I chose Microdot Games as a nod to my passion for tiny games. “A microdot is text or an image substantially reduced in size” and I want to make games that pack a lot of gameplay into a tiny package. A single sheet of paper seemed like a good place to start.

Roll A Coaster Park is a roll and write game of building a rollercoaster park and filling it with guests. It’s designed to be a crunchy game that combines simple rules with tricky decisions. You have to manage your money, fulfill the guest requirements and connect and fit your polyomino buildings into a small space.

There are map packs and expansions planned, so if anyone fancies some playtesting please get in touch! As with any new project I would super appreciate if you would take a look at the Kickstarter if you have a spare moment. Hope to see you in the comments! Cheers, Alex – Microdot Games.

Roll A Coaster Park Kickstarter

Four cats living at house No.29. Four “gifts” left for their owner. Four objects knocked off a tall bookcase. Which cat is responsible for which feline crime?

The Feline Crimes of No.29 is a set of two logic puzzles. Both are on A5 greetings cards (with envelopes and everything!), so you can send them exactly as you would a birthday card. And really, who would send any other card when you can send one with a mystery to solve?

The logic puzzles take about 10 minutes each. There are two designs so far, but we expect another couple of designs later this year…possibly for Christmas.

Come see us at UKGE! We’re on stand 1-571, and will have some of these greetings cards for sale. We’ll also have the very last copies of Library Labyrinth, and we’re expecting to do not only a reprint, but also a smaller card game based in the same library!

Check it out here

Roll and Write Revolution is off to the amusement park, come along with us as we feel a need for speed! Roller Coaster Revolution finds players telling the story of the fastest and craziest rides on the planet! Designed by Rob Cramer (Turbo Drift, Skyscrapers, Zebra, Grand Carnival), this game will have you clinging to your seat as the turns whip by!

Players play simultaneously mapping out the paths of their coasters using the dice values to plot the next lengths of track. Challenges are presented at the start of the game with the lead player rolling two dice and the players marking those goals. There is a race to complete those for the 3 points each! Players will also find themselves plotting their coaster tracks to enclose other rides, ice cream carts, and more as they wind their way around the map. Is it better to make short coasters that bring about quick scores or is it better to have long winding coasters that overlap themselves as they careen around the entire area?

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Each coaster has its own powers that will help the players complete their goals from the Twisted Coaster that overlaps other coasters to the Turbo Coaster that makes every value 1 die into a value 7 die!

Players can also tinker with the dice results spending wrenches to adjust the track position to just the right spot for themselves. With 3 spots to start tracks, the players will find themselves challenged every game looking for the perfect combination of coasters!

Kickstarter link

Well, the main exciting event this month is that Mike Hutchinson and myself have officially (more or less) concluded our writing of “The Fundamentals of Tabletop Miniatures Game Design” for CRC press. Which is a long title, but it’s an academic text and they like lots of words, as is my understanding. About a year and a half ago the academic publisher CRC press reached out to me on the back of our YouTube channel Rule of Carnage making us pop up on the first page of google if you search for miniatures game design to write a book on the subject. That was more than enough to get us to create and submit a proposal which was accepted and a contract was duly signed. Forward to today and we’re finally happy with the book enough to send it off for publishing.

I’m very proud of the book and excited to see it going into the world at large, or at least moving towards doing so.

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In it we examine the theory and philosophy of what makes a miniatures game the sort of game we think it is, the mechanics that make such a game up along with the strengths and weaknesses around them. I think it will be a really useful book for people working on their own minis games, thinking about designing one, or anyone just interested in a different way of approaching some design problems.

We don’t have a date of final publication yet, the book has to go through final editing checks and formatting for publication (and we’ve got to create an index after that), but I’ll certainly let everyone know when it does. Until then, we’ll be talking about it and the subjects in it on our game design podcast/video series Rule of Carnage, so please drop by and follow along there.

Rule of Carnage on YouTube

Happy June all! In classic April fashion we’ve had a whole host of different weather so hoping that May brings us a little more consistent warmth and sunshine!

For Unfringed, April has mostly been focused on preparing and running the campaign for our 2nd game, Molehill Meadows! You play as Mika the Mole, a furry adventurer with a love for treasure and juicy worms in this flip & write board game. Strategically tunnel across flower-filled meadows by rotating, and flipping tunnel tiles to expand your molehill home. Make connections, achieve bonus objectives, and combine mighty worm powers to score as many points as possible! Be careful not to attract too much attention with any extra molehills though!

By the time this newsletter goes out the campaign will be funded (209% as of writing) and the short campaign will be finished but I wanted to say another huge thank you for everyone that shared, backed or have just generally supported Unfringed over the last few years!

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As we head into May it’s getting close to UK Game Expo time, one of my favourite events of the year. This year we’ll be on Stand 1-325, with Zuuli, plushies (1 new one!), Molehill Meadows and of course a new Zuuli promo card. I’m also excited and a little nervous to be doing two signing sessions over the weekend for Moving Wild, Oink Games reimplementation of Zuuli, so please do come and say hi on the Hachette UK/Oink stand.

That’s all for now and I look forward to chatting in person with all of you heading to the NEC for UKGE this year!

Back Molehill Meadows on Gamefound

The Morrison Game Factory is continuing fulfillment, and it’s been lovely hearing from so many of you who’ve enjoyed the game! US, East Asia, and Australia fulfillment is almost complete, with the UK, Europe, and Canada shipping out very soon! The second edition of The Emerald Flame has completed production and is on its way to the US! It’s due to arrive at our warehouse in a month, and orders are on track to be fulfilled by the end of May. We’ve also got several upcoming projects in the works, and we’re deep in the design and prototyping phase for our next release. We’re excited to share more about these projects with you soon! For more sneak peeks of what’s in the works at PostCurious, as well as bite-sized puzzles and game recommendations, follow us on Instagram (@postcurious) and like us on Facebook.

Follow us on Instagram

Events – As you might imagine my main plan for May is preparations for the UK Games Expo that starts on May 31st. If you haven’t been before I can thoroughly recommend it, it gets bigger and better every year and I’ve managed to secure the same location for the third year running which I’m very happy with, come along and see me at stand 1-1058!

It’s a full three day weekend of gaming goodness and it’s almost tradition now that I run out of stock of something on the Friday (no, I’m not complaining hehe), though I am doing all I can to make sure I have plenty of stock of everything I can, especially the three Playful Pets games, they always seem to do really well at UKGE, clearly I need to make more pet based games in general.

Ahead of UKGE I’ll be attending Gweeplefest on May 11th, it’s a lovely gaming event run by the Gweeples board game group in Didcot. I love the smaller board game conventions and I really wish there were more nearby that I could exhibit at.

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If you’ll be coming along to either event and you know something you want please let me know and I’ll set it aside for you, placing an order ahead of the convention means you save on postage by collecting it there and it also helps me to plan ahead and make sure I have what I need for the weekend. Photo of me at UKGE last year, because, why not?! If you’re coming by, look for the very bright hair and you’ll find me 😊.

Social Media – There’s a lovely little group of indie designers on Instagram using the hashtag #BoardGameProtoHype, every week there’s a new theme for us to post about, I’ve really enjoyed it, there’s been great engagement from everyone and it’s a wonderful way to meet new designers and find more indie games to fall in love with!

With that in mind you can find me on most social media platforms as Atikin Games, I try to keep active on there, even if it’s just a post here and there when I’m busy. See you there!

Atikin Games shop

This month we’ve been continuing to work on our dog-pirate adventure game Tails of the Sea. Be the first to build a wealth of bones, through exploration, trade or piracy. Expand your pack of Muttley Crue and do what dog pirates do best – bury your treasure of bones, mark your ‘terriertory’ or perhaps challenge your opponents to a dastardly doggy dice duel!

Borrow against your pack’s goodwill to achieve success, but don’t push your luck too far, or you might end up with a ‘muttiny’ on your paws! Play competitively or in co-op and solo game modes against the menacing Measley Moggy Fleet! The game offers a combination of pick up and deliver, push your luck, light economics and terrier(!)tory building amongst other mechanics.

You can check out the explainer video that will be on the Kickstarter campaign this summer by searching for Teleporthole Games on YouTube.

We’ve also got a new Murder Mystery themed card game under development and have started to playtest the game with our friends at Playtest UK.

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We’ve had some great initial feedback and will be progressing this whilst the Tails of the Sea Kickstarter is underway. With a good headwind, we should have this ready for publishing in Autumn. More info to come…

Tails of the Sea Kickstarter

This is a very busy month at Eurydice Games as we enter the main Gamefound campaign fulfilment phase. Unlike most other companies, we make the games in Paul’s Garage on a laser-cutter, so Paul is laser-cutting flat out to make the hundreds of rewards we need to complete everyone’s pledges. On top of that, it’s the UK Games Expo at the end of the month in Birmingham, UK. Due to clashes with family holidays this is probably the only UK convention we’re attending this year, so we need to get some stock ready for that too. As usual, we will be running our competition during the first and last hour of every day for a chance to win a deluxe copy of FlickFleet and four of its expansions worth over £300! If you’re coming along to the Expo too, please swing by our stand in Hall 2 (2-564 – same place as last year) and try your hand in the competition. It’s a 5 minute solo challenge and one of the highest scores will win all that FlickFleet goodness!

FlickFleet space battle dexterity game