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First, let me make a short introduction for those who haven't read my previous diary. My name is Taras, and I'm a software engineer and (this is official now) a beginner board game designer. Together with my friend Alex, we created al-Khwarizmi Games, a brand named after the ancient Persian mathematician, the patron of algorithms, while also being a nod to our primary jobs. In 2022, we self-published our first two games — Space Expatriate and Ave, Leo! — and presented them at SPIEL '22.
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Given the emotions that overwhelmed me after that event, I decided to put my thoughts into this article with the hope that it might be useful to other dreamers like us.
Lesson 1: Fight 'til the End
I could have started with my trip to Essen, but something significant happened the week before. As I had committed to releasing the game at SPIEL very late, the estimated production date was basically a week before the event.
A few days before production, I got a call from my friend who was doing a TTS mod of the game. Oh, my goodness, there was a mistake in the text! To make things worse, it wasn't a grammar issue, but a wrong section heading in the instructions. As a result, in addition to being confused by the new game, the poor players would get even more confused by the mistake. I sat down and tried to talk to myself: "Well, that happens. I can explain the error while selling the game, or add a form on a website where people can request a corrected component. In the end, it's not an expensive error."
But come on, how would my selling process look like when it started with self-defense? The whole idea of self-publishing was driven by a simple statement: "We can do it no worse than big players." So apparently, we couldn't?
I took a deep breath, and it cleared my mind. Why did I decide that it was over? The next day I made hundreds of calls. Fates smiled at me. The factory accepted the change and did the impossible; they reprinted the element and managed to pack everything before Sunday October 1st, a mere four days before the event.:strip_icc()/pic7195116.jpg)
Now I realize how many other things could have gone wrong and brought failure, too, but I don't blame myself. As in many good board games, the only way to chase after the leader is to risk heavily. I did, and luckily it worked for me this time. God save me from doing that again and help me to learn...
Lesson 2: No One Owes You Anything Just Because You're Small and New
Do it properly or don't do it at all — there is no try.
Lesson 3: Releasing a Game Is a Game All Its Own
It's good to have a person dedicated to booth assembly. It's cool when someone posts on social networks for you. It's great when a designer makes advertising assets for you on a daily basis. But when you're a small company, you do most of the things on your own.
We arrived a few days ahead of SPIEL '22. After fifteen hours of driving a van from Austria to Poland and then to Essen, we deserved some rest. It was a national holiday in Germany, so we thought we had no other choice. (Apparently it was possible to start assembling your booth on that day, but thankfully we didn't know that.) We had a delicious dinner in an authentic restaurant in a small beautiful city near Essen and spontaneously attended a concert of organ music in a gothic church. I was thinking of a meeting with my Space Expatriate co-author the previous day in front of a van full of newly produced games. We hadn't seen each other for a long time. After a month of slight but constant worrying about the printing, it was good to feel relief for a short time. After that, new challenges began.:strip_icc()/pic7391241.jpg)
From left: Alex, Taras, and Ihor in front of the Opel Movano:strip_icc()/pic7195132.jpg)
That cozy place in Ratingen, Germany
Our booth in Hall 5 cost us approximately €1000, with roughly the same amount spent to rent furniture from the Messe. At the fair we saw a lot of third-party services, so we assume we could have done it much cheaper. On the other hand, maybe this is possible only for bigger companies that assemble more sophisticated booths. We will investigate this before the next event.:strip_icc()/pic7195130.jpg)
Alex vs the old man
There were many cool ideas around. I swear one day I will just dedicate some time and walk through the shiny streets of Messe halls without any particular destination point, just enjoying the show.
We had a four-meter horizontal banner, one standard vertical roll-up, beer coasters with game logos, and, obviously, flyers. (Lesson 3.1: QR Codes Also Need Pre-production Proofreading.) It seems that the best job was done by a handmade, scaled-up model of Ave, Leo! both in the new-release media show and at the booth as it attracted children and even the Messe's Instagram account noticed it.:strip_icc()/pic7195127.jpg)
The box is bigger on the inside
As our van was more than two meters high, we had to reserve a place at P2. Well, that is okay if you're just walking to the Messe from there, but when you're a publisher there is always something to carry in your hands. Daily sprints with boxes were not the most pleasant part of our journey (but great cardio). Obviously, bringing the whole print run with you to SPIEL, especially if you don't expect to sell more than a hundred boxes, is basically not the best idea.
In our case, this location was dictated by conditions, but next time we will fight for a parking slot that is closer. A few days before the event you're even allowed to drive the car inside the hall and unload everything with no rush. The way Messe organizes this event, in our opinion, is brilliant.
Many people managed to place everything at their booths, but they had to sacrifice a lot of space, which we used as a playtesting area. By the way, for our ten square meters, we ordered two 120x80 cm tables, two 80x80 cm tables, fourteen chairs, a stand, a trash bin, a hanger, and a shelf, which luckily didn't arrive. (We forgot to put it into the order.) Geometrically it looked okay, but in reality, we had a hard Tetris job of fitting all of that in our booth. Luckily, our American neighbor Matt Petering, the author of Distrix, made our life easier by providing foster care for two of the chairs.
We also prepared a cashless payment solution. On the first day, we let people choose to pay with cash or card and met a lot of surprise. "Card...? At SPIEL?" I felt I was ruining a fundamental SPIEL tradition, but over the next few days, as cash probably started running out, people used the cashless option more frequently. Due to a heavily loaded network and the bad quality of the terminal, many times it didn't work for us, but no deal was interrupted because of that. PayPal helped in the worst-case scenario. Our conclusion: not a must, but good to have.
Lesson 4: The Fewer Assumptions the Better
We had a big advantage in arriving early, but we didn't always use it. For example, as we didn't have sophisticated things to assemble for the "new release" media show, we decided to go there long after set-up time had started. We assumed that our place in the show had already been predefined, but instead it was "first came, first serve", so we ended up at the far corner of the hall. At least we got a place – I heard some teams that arrived the next day couldn't fit at all.
As for the effect of the new release show, for us it was a bit of a disappointment. The description of the event says it's a way to reach the press and open new B2B contacts, but most of the time we were just talking to nearby exhibitors and buying one another's games. I mean it was fun, and we indeed met interesting people and heard inspiring stories, but I expected much more.
One nice surprise was meeting Justin Bell, a contributing author for Meeple Mountain. I had requested a review from them sometime before SPIEL and unfortunately they had rejected the request due to a lack of resources. At the show, though, they found me themselves and grabbed a copy.
Lesson 5: Your Crew Is Your True Gold
When we attended SPIEL as visitors back in the day, we usually reached hall 5 approximately on the second or third day of the event. We don't remember it ever being crowded, so we expected people at our booth only on Saturday. Well, the first people were playing Space Expatriate three minutes after the entrance opened. I can hardly remember a time when our tables were not occupied.
We had some meetings booked in advance, so we of course brought a team with us. Our good friend Mateusz arrived from Austria, and we also found an awesome couple from Germany, Jenny and Johan, who run the board game channel Spielemuschel on Instagram. We had thought this group would be enough, but luckily another of our friends, Oleg Gul — who always joined our SPIEL journey but wasn't supposed to work at the fair — helped us a lot.:strip_icc()/pic7195131.jpg)
From left: Johan, Jenny, Taras, Oleh, and Alex (Mateusz had already left)
I think you need one person dedicated to each table as a rules explainer and someone "on reception". Your own time, I would dedicate to meetings and exploring B2B contacts around the show. Our folks kind of volunteered — they got from us free tickets, games, and T-shirts — so obviously we didn't want to steal SPIEL from them. We agreed that they would work half a day. Without them, life at the booth was really hard. Honestly, for the whole week, we had no single lunch. We definitely will prioritize the question of people for the next event.
By the way, we were looking for someone German-speaking to support us with rules explanation, and this was most beneficial for Ave, Leo! as this game was played by children, among others. You will survive at SPIEL with English, but each additional language is a good welcome bonus, of course.
Lesson 6: You Need to Prepare for SPIEL like a Kickstarter Campaign
One important thing that I discovered at SPIEL is that our games are quite good. Approximately 80% of people who played Space Expatriate bought it in the end. (I mean, one or two copies for the group.) This may sound like a good result, but if you have two tables and the play session takes around one hour, that gives you 14-16 sessions per day. Even with a good conversion of demo-to-sale, that equals 10-12 copies sold. What really helped was that sometimes we could conduct a 5-10 minute demo for a person, and that was enough for a deal. I have no idea how good we are in sales, but we had to exercise a lot.
We were told that SPIEL usually doesn't pay for itself. Your presence at the show is more about advertising yourself and opening new contacts. We didn't care too much because for us being in SPIEL was a priceless experience — but even so, SPIEL is a yearly golden chance and it's stupid not to try to use it for sales. Here's what we concluded based on this first experience:
1) Sales could be much better if people come to buy a game that they already know. In our case, it was difficult because we had our boxes ready too late. With Space Expatriate, I reached some reviewers with digital assets or my Tabletopia version, and I'm really grateful they tried to help. Giveaways on Instagram and a French review by Vin d'jeu brought us some people, but in most cases, people had never heard about our games before. Next time, we need to ensure we have some publicity in advance.
2) SPIEL is a good way not to spend money sending boxes to reviewers. It's very convenient to agree with reviewers on a loot handover at the show.
3) Of course, it's good if you manage to schedule meetings in advance and host them at SPIEL. De-virtualization is very beneficial. It is also a very good way to share the box with potential localizers and publishers. Do not underestimate business cards, by the way!
Lesson 7: SPIEL Is Not About Money; It's About People
And now my favorite part. Let me finally step out from all these pragmatic things, cost optimization, number of sold boxes, etc. SPIEL is just a fantastic show, first of all! Each year that I attended, I couldn't precisely explain what was so special about the fair; now I finally can. What is happening at SPIEL can happen only there.
Imagine a guy rushing through the crowd somewhere in the direction of the main halls, stopping at our booth, and asking to quickly buy a copy of Ave, Leo! because the game looked solid. Then he added he was from "XXX Show". When the guy realized we had never heard of it — it took several attempts for us to understand the name was "Tric Trac" — he looked disappointed and confused. Of course, he couldn't simply leave it at that, so he found an episode of the show on YouTube with Bruno Cathala as their guest. While he was doing that, I silently took a copy of Space Expatriate and offered it to him. He was interested but unsure — then I resolved his internal conflict by saying it was free. He dropped a word of appreciation, then ran away in the same manner he had approached us. "What was that?", Alex and I said to each other at the same time.
There were also a few retailers who spontaneously bought a couple of cardboard boxes from us. Invoices – later, payments – later, good memories – forever.
Or another good one. It was the evening of the third day of the event, and I could hardly speak. Half an hour before the end of the show there was a company playing Space Expatriate. They were tired the same as me, but instead of playing, the guys started to make fun of the game. One of them was doing irrational moves, the other was making jokes about him because, obviously, his scoring was far from successful. I had a feeling they were trying to break the game, which made me a bit irritated. I was thinking it wasn't a good time for this kind of testing — than all of a sudden, one of them stopped and said, "All right, I like this game. I want to localize it for a French market." "Surprise, surprise", said the other one. I smiled and offered to meet the next day to discuss details. Who knows, maybe it was a start of a great partnership...
SPIEL and al-Khwarizmi Games
In my diary about Space Expatriate, I already wrote one sad but honest thing: We were okay with licensing. We went into self-publishing because we believed in the games we had made and wanted to give them a chance. It's funny because now we need to think about what we're going to release at the next SPIEL. Publishing is a lot of fun, but it's another full-time job and we already have one. We would be happier to concentrate on the design still.
The thing is that while the games are not different from prototypes at all, now we somehow have many more people considering those for a co-print. The whole idea of publishing your first game is to break an "egg and chicken" problem. Everyone wants you to have published games before, and how can you do that? Maybe we should have gone with Kickstarter, which we don't like, or we should have focused on events hosted for game submissions. Now I understand that it would have made more sense to reach out to small publishers, but we couldn't know about them because they are often under the radar like we are. SPIEL didn't give us all the answers, but it revealed one thing – it's definitely not over. We need to keep moving, be clever, and learn a lot. Finally, we've started to be treated seriously at least by some.
There is a German online shop, Aroshops, that lists our games now. Their business model is to work with small indie publishers and help them grow. We met their Chief of Operations, Markus, at SPIEL and, of course, made a crazy deal that was possible only in the world of small players. Poor Markus had to make multiple sprints to P2 with a trolley full of boxes. After the last one, pale and breathing heavily, he stopped and told us one thing. "At some point", he said, "we will be sitting at the fair and making jokes of these times." Oh gosh, I'm looking forward to that!
Sincerely,
Taras & Alex
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Archive for Taras Tomyshch
Publisher Diary: Hall 5 Lessons Learned, or How to Participate in SPIEL with Your First Game
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Fri Mar 10, 2023 7:00 am
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Everything started with these colorful decks of cards.
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What I love about board game design is that you get inspired by random things: quotes, art, movies, history, animal behavior, recalled child fantasies. This time, the idea was born at SPIEL in Essen back in 2018. I was touching nifty materials for board game design in the store when I found a deck of cards in four colors. "Production chain!", I thought. That evening I spent diving in the ocean of pure inspiration without giving a damn how all of this would work together — a moment of happiness.:strip_icc()/pic7020073.jpg)
Well, of course, everything started a long time before. I was fond of computer games back in school, but the real gems for me were those that encouraged creativity. Essentially, I learned the basics of my future job — software engineering — when I was creating maps and scenarios in the map editor of Heroes of Might and Magic IV.
But as you know, the development of computer games requires a lot of technical knowledge, so board games became an answer for me years after that in University. I'm Ukrainian, and the board game industry was making its first steps there at that time, but after playing classics like CATAN and 7 Wonders, I clearly understood that I want to design something similar.:strip_icc()/pic6989004.jpg)
The next significant event happened to me after I moved to Poland. There, thanks to the guys from Fabryka Gier Historycznych, I realized that all you need to start developing games is a paper notebook and unrestrained passion. Though, that isn't enough to publish one...
I met Ihor Chulinda in Poland as well. We played a couple of my prototypes — there was no Space Expatriate among them yet — and he shyly asked me if I needed help. Very soon we admitted that when it comes to developing some particular mechanism, Ihor was much better than me, so after three prototypes developed together, I can say with confidence that we have a roadmap:
1. I come up with a raw, general idea of the game — which is unplayable, of course.
2. I show it to Ihor, then we redesign almost everything, keeping the main concepts.
3. When I feel Ihor has contributed no less than me, I solemnly announce that he has just become a co-author.
Designing together with someone is hell, but very beneficial for the game. We were basically finishing the development of a complex Eurogame when I started realizing how difficult it will be for a no-name designer to make someone interested in your game. In order to make entering the market a bit easier, I suggested going further with a much smaller Space Expatriate.
Well...that didn't help. I hope someday I will understand the reason better, but hardly anyone answered our game submissions. Maybe the game is not appealing enough, or maybe the filtering is indeed very strong. Here, I would like to thank Hans im Glück, Board&Dice, and dV Giochi for dedicating time to examine the game and give feedback.
Anyway, I just felt we couldn't wait anymore. I had no idea where to look for an artist — then fate gave me the contact on its own after I moved to Austria. I was afraid to write the rulebook alone; now I think about how to make it shorter. I didn't have a clue as to how to design a box cover; in the end, it was definitely not the hardest task. The last thing was to invest in manufacturing, and we did it ourselves. Somehow we appeared to stand at the beginning of the most difficult part of the road, but I’m not afraid anymore. There is nothing more to lose. Now, we can only start gaining...:strip_icc()/pic6976652.jpg)
Space Expatriate originates from a duel that was extended to a four-player game after being reviewed at SPIEL by one of the publishers. Indeed, there was no objective reason to keep the game as a duel. Probably, I just got influenced by a trend of making duels at that time.
The game is basically quite simple. Players control their space stations, which are made up of station modules of four types. Open-action drafting defines what happens at some particular point in time. Also, the selected action is docked to the active player's station, which makes players always consider two aspects: whether they need a card itself, and whether they need an action.
The game is conceptually a bit different depending on the number of players, a feature that was not designed, but rather discovered. In a two- or three-player game, the untaken actions are discarded, so players always tend to pick an action that they need. When played with four, it is guaranteed that all the actions will be executed, so the main aim of the players is to prepare for each action as well as they can. Often the most beneficial choice is to pick the least appealing action in order to obtain benefits that are granted to the active player.
During the game, players build production-consumption chains made of delivery, engineering, and terraforming station modules. Producing and selling resources for points doesn't sound new, but I hope we've managed to contribute to the board gaming industry a bit by introducing a common resource pool and engineering cards that enable chaining. Whenever you produce resources that you're not able to consume, they go to "space garbage", not back to the bank, and the next time you deliver resources from Earth — this is what production is called in terms of the game — you subtract the resources in space garbage from your gains. This applies to all players, not only you individually. Conceptually, humanity refuses to share resources that you're not able to use wisely. Ihor is damn proud of this explanation.:strip_icc()/pic6988990.jpg)
The terraforming action is another interesting thing. During the action, you may undock three or four of your modules and send them to the colonization mission. Instead, you would retrieve a colony. Sweeeet! These cards with unique effects give you permanent benefits and basically define your strategy. You may start getting additional points for docking new station modules, or you may take control over a resource pool or many other things.
But wait, are they really worth three or four cards? Here we come to the main idea of the game. In general, a chain of synergistic cards is better than a colony — but a colony is definitely better than a set of cards that integrates badly with your station. Moreover, what if the colony itself is synergistic with your other colonies? Or what if you feel that your chain is in danger of being destroyed by direct impact (as explained later) or through indirect economic pressure via space garbage? It's so much pleasure to see how players suffer deciding whether they want to sacrifice their brand new, just-finished chains and take a colony...then you put your hand on it just before they would.:strip_icc()/pic6988992.jpg)
Military cards are cool, but don't really help if misused, and this is true across all the cards. The key conception of any column of cards is to be good enough, but not to grow endlessly. Delivery cards will produce a bunch of trash when not consumed. Engineering cards won't help on their own. Terraforming can't consume a vacuum.
Military cards will give you tactical advantages like turn priority or a better choice of cards in hand, but building more than is needed is as useless as in 7 Wonders. I could have stopped here, but there is one thing I have to confess: This game is not a pure Euro. Through military action you may steal a card of your choice from any player. However, I couldn't live with the design until we made the next changes. The victim is basically rewarded when being attacked, depending on how militarily advanced they are, so it may easily happen that the compensation is more valuable than the loss. That's a huge relief, huh? If you don't want to invest in war at all, well, you might find yourself a target one day, but if you do just enough comparing to other players, you can sleep safely.
The game ends when a number of colonies is cumulatively built by all players, e.g., twenty in a four-player game. The final score is calculated based on the number of terraforming points gained during the game (mostly via a delivery action) and the number of colonies, so each colony loses the value of its effect gradually during the game but gains the brute VP cost. This makes colonies equally profitable to build both at the beginning and at the end of the game.
Phew! This appeared to be a long story, and I'm grateful for a chance to tell it. Will I be able to tell another one? Let's see what trail is prepared for Space Expatriate, starting in Hall 5 at SPIEL '22...
Sincerely,
Taras Tomyshch
al-Khwarizmi Games
P.S.: The best way to support us now is to click "Must have" / "Interested" on Space Expatriate in BGG's list of SPIEL '22 releases.
Sun Sep 11, 2022 1:00 pm
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