August has been a very busy month with both of us having holidays, but we’ve still managed to ship all the Gamefound rewards for our last campaign on time and get our next campaign: Away Team Bingo up in draft and approved (launching 8th September!). It’s a print at home roll and write where you send an away team down to a planet’s surface to try to make interesting discoveries. There’s big bonuses available if you can stay the course, but lots of bad things can happen too – can you push your luck long enough to win a big payout? And can you do it without losing too many crew? Obviously the ones in the red shirts don’t count, their expendable! The game takes about 15-30 mins to play and supports 1-4 players and the campaign will be live for a week from 8th – 15th September. You’ll be able to save 25% on Away Team Bingo by backing the campaign, and if you’d like our other print at home roll and writes (Rocky ‘Roid and The Planets My Destination) then there’s a further £1 off for the bundle deal. One game for £3 or three for £9!

Away Team Bingo on Gamefound

Star light, Star Bright, First star I see tonight, let it be part of a constellation! In Stargazers, you’re all trying to draw the constellations you see in the night sky, but naturally each of you sees something different. In this play-and-pass game, you’ll spot stars, then connect them with lines to make constellations. Each star can only be used in one constellation, so be fast to ensure your constellation uses the stars first! It’s a mix of planning ahead and thinking in the moment.

Players will place 1 Star then take an action which includes drawing a Constellation card for scoring, drawing another Star, or protecting a Star they have previously drawn on the sheet. After the player finishes their turn, they pass their sheet to the left. This mechanism really shines with trying to maximize positions for yourself while also minimizing beneficial Stars for your opponent. Players will find plenty of strategy as they search for the right constellations to match the sheets as they have been passed.

Kickstarter link

Well, it’s been an insanely busy couple of weeks, thanks to the One Box Wargames design challenge taking off in incredible style on our Discord channel. For a while now myself and fellow designer Mike Hutchinson have been putting out a series of game design conversations relating to designing miniatures games on our YouTube channel Rule of Carnage. To allow people to discuss those game design issues more fully and create a community we set up a Discord server of the same name, and a few weeks ago one of our members suggested a design challenge where people can pick a single box of miniatures and design a game around it. Since that point, the challenge has exploded, we have coming up on 100 entries, a creative and vibrant community around the challenge and sponsorship from Wargames Atlantic! Games will be put up for a public vote to win free minis sets, or at least vouchers towards them, and WGA themselves will pick a single entry to publish on their website!

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If you have any interest at all in designing games for miniatures, I’d strongly suggest swinging by the Discord and giving it a try, there’s really nothing to lose, and a whole lot of fun to be had!

Sorry if that’s too many exclamation points, but it’s been that sort of week.

Our Discord channel

Great news for fans of Partners: the two player RPG of detective duos – this month saw the release of the newest expansion! The Master and Servant File adapts the award-winning Partners system to the dynamic where one person is in charge and the other is their long-suffering helpmate. Perhaps the helper is really the one in charge, of course, or there’s an even more antagonistic relationship. Are you hero and sidekick, villain and minion, buffoon and butler, or boss and secretary? Dastardly and Muttley, Hornet and Kato, Jeeves and Wooster: they’re all here and ready to play.

Speaking of expansions, we also have a new scenario for Relics: A Game of Angels. The epic heaven-shaking campaign that began with The Devil’s Own Luck has revealed that the company Babble is manufacturing demon-killing weaponry. Can the angels break in and find out what’s going on or will they be baffled by Babble bouncers? What God Hath Wrought comes out in September. And there’s always, always more to come from Tin Star.

The Master and Servant File

The Atikin Games online store now has an apparel section! That’s right, I now have a range of backpacks, hats and belts in a variety of colours with board game themed designs applied by my very own hand. You can check them all out by following the link below.

The designs I originally chose to use for the apparel are a meeple and D20 cutout for the belts as the buckles are quite a small space to work with. For the caps and backpacks I could be a little more creative, I created a range of designs and asked on social media and a couple of discord groups which they preferred. Thanks to that feedback I was able to work out how many of each design to make ahead of UKGE.

I made some with a meeple heart cutout design (by far the most popular choice from the comments), a meeple with star design and a lucky meeple with a four-leaf clover cutout design. As well as the text “Game Night with My Meeple” where the circle in the o and p are replaced with meeples, “Board Game Addict”, and “LOVE” where the O is replaced with a meeple.

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These designs have proven to be popular so far and I can’t wait to expand on them in time.

I’ve also had a wonderful interview in the form of a blog post with Joe from whatifgames.co.uk. We talked about the manufacturing side of games production and I shared my experience with both mass production, prototype creation and how many of my games are handcrafted. Joe was wonderful to work with and I hope you’ll take the time to visit the blog and check it out, he was even kind enough to give this very newsletter a shoutout at the end of the blog post. Thank you!

In other news the house move has been delayed, whilst at the beginning of this year I thought I would be launching Malus Hortus on Kickstarter by the end of the year, it is now clear that any new big projects will have to be pushed back to 2025. It’s an upsetting time for me as a business owner and game designer to have to expand my timeline but that’s why in the meantime I’m focusing on listing all the wonderful board gaming accessories I’ve been making along the way, especially in time for Christmas, I’m always looking for a silver lining after all.

Atikin Games apparel

When I last wrote here, Poll & Write was live on Kickstarter. After a successful campaign, I’m still working on the final version. My graphic designer Rob (from Stop, Drop and Roll) has helped to finalise the map and bring his clean design wizardry to the party sheets. Matt is working away on the party-leader illustrations, and I’m finalising the rulebook and solo bots. Everything is coming together to be ready for digital delivery to backers, which may well be done by the time you read this!

If you didn’t back it back in July, you can still “late pledge” on Kickstarter to order your copy of this print-and-play game about the 2024 UK election.

It feels strange to finally be properly finishing a game, after something like seven years of designing and playtesting. As I write I’m away from home considering my next steps in game design and publishing.

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It’s an exciting time for me, and I am starting to appreciate the genuine and heartfelt sentiment that you often see gamemakers express: how grateful we are for the community of gamers who playtest with us, who back the games on crowdfunding platforms, and share their enthusiasm for our games with others. At the risk of sounding overly sentimental, it really is a beautiful thing to see up close.

Poll & Write Kickstarter (late pledges)

Lots of big news on the Ministry of Lost Things front: read on to learn more about our new puzzletale that’s coming to Kickstarter soon!

Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition is the first case in a whimsical puzzletale series about the secret lives of lost objects. Explore a parallel dimension full of forgotten items. Searching for those misplaced umbrellas, stray remotes, and literally anything you drop in the seat gap of your car? It’s all in the Elusiverse. Take on the role of a M.O.L.T. scout, piecing together clues to reunite lost items with their companions.

We’re also thrilled with our box cover art! Nicole Gustafsson (of Nimasprout) did an amazing job with it, and we think it beautifully complements the story and theme of the game.

Want to help us preserve the fabric of spacetime? Become an Elusiverse Scout Captain today! If you place a $1 refundable deposit now, you’ll receive an official M.O.L.T. enamel pin ($8 MSRP) when you back the game on Kickstarter. And, most importantly, the glory of being an Elusiverse pioneer!

Reserve your game here