First, the bad news. After a very productive six months in development with Goblin Toboggan, the publisher we were working, Smirk and Dagger Games, with has decided to move on. While it was disappointing news, the truth is that I feel grateful for the opportunity to have worked with a fantastic publisher as a new game designer. Curt Covert at Smirk and Dagger is great to work with and put a lot of time and energy into play-testing and developing this game. As a result Goblin Toboggan has come further in the last 6 months than in perhaps the 18 months prior to GenCon 2014 where I first pitched it. I also appreciate that the Smirk and Dagger gave some valid reasons as to why the size of the game and style of play were ultimately not a fit for their game line, along with some advice as to where I might pitch it next.
I am of course moving forward with additional enhancements and though I would have loved to be moving towards production, I still feel optimistic about bringing the improved Goblin Toboggan back to GenCon this year for pitching and play testing. I also appreciate that on-going supportive communication I have had with Curt and his willingness to help a new designer. For any game designers who have a well-tested game that features cutthroat backstabbing mechanics (Smirk and Dagger's niche) I encourage you to consider pitching to Curt.
In other news, I had a very positive run through of Jim's Fabregé Chickens this morning. A picture of the board during the second round is below. The chicken meeples are from meeplesource, and I just glued them onto some standard meeplesource discs in the player colors to make player tokens. The game seems nicely balanced for 3 rounds of play right now and I believe we are on track to share this at GenCon this year as well.
I am of course moving forward with additional enhancements and though I would have loved to be moving towards production, I still feel optimistic about bringing the improved Goblin Toboggan back to GenCon this year for pitching and play testing. I also appreciate that on-going supportive communication I have had with Curt and his willingness to help a new designer. For any game designers who have a well-tested game that features cutthroat backstabbing mechanics (Smirk and Dagger's niche) I encourage you to consider pitching to Curt.
In other news, I had a very positive run through of Jim's Fabregé Chickens this morning. A picture of the board during the second round is below. The chicken meeples are from meeplesource, and I just glued them onto some standard meeplesource discs in the player colors to make player tokens. The game seems nicely balanced for 3 rounds of play right now and I believe we are on track to share this at GenCon this year as well.