Bye bye 2013

2013 has marked the third year of existence for NSKN Games and it has been one great yet challenging period for us. We had ups and downs, we sold a lot of games and we made mistakes which made us learn and improve.

Jan 2013 - For the first time in our brief history, NSKN Games attended the Nürnberg Toy Fair, a fair very different from everything else we had previously experienced. From the board games world only a few publishers made it there due to the prohibitive prices and also because it's not a trade fair - meaning companies may not sell games to the public and the attendance is restricted to traders. Nevertheless, it was a  very proud moment, NSKN was the only company of its size to exhibit in Nürnberg.

Feb 2013 - The first edition of Exodus: Proxima Centauri became officially sold out at publisher level. With the exception of a around 40 copies especially saved for gaming conventions, there were no more games to sell to distributors or retailers. This was another proud moment, because Exodus became the first ever published game of our to be completely sold out.

Mar-Apr 2013 - The spring was dedicated almost entirely to working on the new prototypes, games planned for late 2013 and 2014. As it turned out, our plans changed a little throughout the year, however the outcome of the spring was that NSKN had no less than four fully tested prototypes ready for showing to the public: Praetor, W, Perfect Storm and Evolution.

Besides working on prototypes, we have also decided to re-print Exodus, backed by popular demand. Taking into account the issues encountered with the first edition, we decided to produce the game in Europe.

May-Jun 2013 - The first month of summer was dedicated to gaming conventions. We went first to UK to attend for the second time the UK Games Expo and what a convention that was! With a new venue and almost double the attendance, it's one of the fastest growing gaming events in Europe. Add to this experienced gamers and very positive people and you have the ingredients for a great event. Next we went to Italy for the 5th time to attend GobCon organized by La Tana dei Goblin and we had fun, we played cool games and sold whatever was left from our "convention stock" of Exodus.

Jul-Sep 2013 - Reprinting Exodus was no easy task. With the decision to produce in Europe and to keep the same retail price, we had to work really hard to re-engineer the game. We changed all the think paper components to 2mm cardboard, we gave a new look to the game without changing core concepts and we supervised closely the entire production process. It was very hard work, but we saw the light when we opened the first box of the game. 15 punchboards, 2 decks of cards, 72 dice, almost 200 wooden pieces and 48 plastic space ships added to a total of 6 pounds (3 kilos) making it a massive games really well packed in a standard box. Another moment to make us proud.

Oct 2013 - This October, the same as the for the two previous years, was dedicated to preparing and attending Spiel Essen. For the first time we went with a large booth - 4 times the standards 10 sqm - and we brought our remaining stock as well as three final prototypes to be displayed on five gaming tables. It was a real success and you can read more about our experience in the posts we wrote before, during and after the convention

http://nskngames.blogspot.com/2013/10/spiel-essen-day-2-playing-and-preparing.html

http://nskngames.blogspot.com/2013/10/spiel-essen-day-0-playing-and-preparing.html

http://nskngames.blogspot.com/2013/10/space-battles-or-spiel-essen-days-12.html

http://nskngames.blogspot.com/2013/11/first-thoughts-after-essen.html

Nov 2013 - The Essen follow-up proved very fruitful. By the end of November, Warriors & Traders and Wild Fun West were sold out at publisher level, meaning that we kept enough copies to fulfill a few online orders and cover the next gaming convention we plan to attend. On top of that, the orders for the Revised Edition of Exodus: Proxima Centauri exceeded what we had in the warehouse so we had to turn down a few orders and work hard on the upcoming expansions. As a consequence, NSKN Games experienced another great feeling, that of having an empty warehouse and lots of games in the stores and on gamers' tables.

Dec 2013 - Our next big release is Praetor, our first worker placement game. We plan a massive production with editions in English, German, French, Japanese, Romanian, Korean and more. We have just finalized the graphics and we plan to release the game early next year, so the next few months will also be very busy for everyone at NSKN Games. But before that happens, we are going for holidays, some well deserved two weeks of relaxing and... playing, because we are gamers at heart and mind.

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