Games night last Sunday

Last Sunday I went to a friend's house and we played games. The friend was someone I met at the MericopaCon I already blogged about. I had exchanged numbers with a few people, and then David reached out to me and invited me over.

There were eight of us and the first game we played was all together; we played Captain Sonar. My team did not win, unfortunately, which puts my win rate at Captain Sonar 2-1. 

We then broke off and played two different games, each four players. While four played Viticulture Tuscany, I played, for the first time ever, Terraforming Mars. Because I own and have played the card game version, I was familiar with a lot of it. I didn't do too bad, although I didn't win.

That game finished up before Tuscany, so we played a quick game of Xactika. I won that one.

Then we ate dinner. All during the day there were snacks out. It's unfortunately the only picture I got of that night.

The snacks.

After dinner we played an eight player game of Sushi Go Party, in which I came in dead last.

Then it was late so a person went home. But the host, David, wanted to play Expeditions with someone, and I really wanted to play, so me and another guy there joined David. He taught us and we played for about an hour and a half but then the other guy had to go so we tallied up the scores. The other guy and I had 27, but David had 28, so he won. It was really fun though and I look forward to playing it again. 

So that was my games night last Sunday.

Kickstarter facts I did not know

Hello. I am writing a blog post. Tomorrow I do not have work. I do not know what to write about. Well, I have lots of stuff I could write about, but I am tired. So let's just talk about some Kickstarter facts I learned last weekend.

Potions of Azerland has now hit over $43,000 on Kickstarter. When I was at the games convention last weekend I got to hear Gray and Tyler talk about it. Here's some facts: The artist they chose, Andrew, also illustrated the games Everdell and Tapestry, and thus was very expensive. But some people are going to back the Kickstarter solely because of the art and for no other reason. Also, the video you see at the very top of the Kickstarter, it cost about $50. . . . per second. And that video's about 126 seconds long. Gray and Tyler said that to break even with the project they'd need about $100,000. So why didn't they put that as they funding goal; why did they put $24,800? According to them, it was because of the algorithm. Games that are funded really quickly then look better, get out and is seen by more people, and are more likely to be successful. So those are some things I learned. They must have done a LOT of research into this. Heck, they got Andrew Bosley to illustrate, so they're pretty dang dedicated to see this succeed. 

Why do I create games? I've done it for decades now, and have never gotten any money from it. There are tons of projects I've started but never finished. I know why I do it. It isn't for the money (there isn't that much money anyway).

I do it because I love it. I do it because it brings me joy. And yes, I would love it if one of my games was published one day, and that still is the goal and the dream, but even if that never happens I'll still have fun on the journey.