The NSKN Blog

Showing posts with label W - the board game. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

First thoughts after Essen

One week has passed since our return from Spiel Essen and besides one day of full rest and another one dedicated entirely to gaming the follow-up was more intense than the fair itself. We had to do it because the memories of all the meeting are slowly fading away and our mind starts to focus only on the biggest things.

I guess that the biggest thing in Essen 2013 was a larger booth with more people visiting us than in the previous two years together.

A view from the top with NSKN and Ventonuovo together

Exodus demo and lots of people watching

The other big thing is that we had this games giveaway contest which attracted a larger crowed with every passing day. I have personally seen someone wearing 6 (six) NSKN pins to be more visible to our guys with the freebies. I do not know whether he won or not, but I sure think that he deserved to win.

Wild Fun West winners

Exodus Revised Edition winners

Unlike in 2011 and 2012, in Spiel '13 we had our full team of NSKN people in Essen and four extra guys who were the best addition to our teamm better that I could have hoped for (thanks guys!). We no longer had a problem to present games in German, which is a big sign of respect for the people hosting the fair.

It was also the first time for NSKN to show not only published game, but also prototypes. Our focus was on Praetor - the game we plan to publish next, but Perfect Storm and W - The Board Game have also had a good audience, nice feedback and many people asking if they can buy them on the spot or sign up for preorders.

In the middle of Perfect Storm

Surrounded while playing Praetor

We have also had partners this year. I am talking about Ventonuovo Games, very nice Italian guys with a passion for war games. They've displayed two impressive games and it was a perfect combination between our strategy and euros and they heavy war games.

Ventonuovo's Blocks in the West and Blocks in the East

I guess that there's a lot more to say about Spiel 2013, but these are the most striking memories, the images that I have very fresh in mind today.

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Find out more on the NSKN official website | Facebook | BGG | ScoopIT Magazine

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Preparing for Spiel '13 Essen

NSKN Games is hitting yet another milestone this year. With our third presence at Spiel Essen, we are entering a new era because, for the first time, we are able to do it according to our imagination. Let me explain why...

Every other year we managed to bring one or two new games to the fair, play them and sell them and we made a good buzz. But we never managed to bring along final prototypes of the new games.

2013 come with good news. We have three games already play-tested, with the graphic art ready and made into nice looking prototypes. We also booked a larger space so that we have one playing table dedicated to each game. This way everyone will have the chance of testing, enjoying and giving feedback on the game we plan to release in 2014.

The three final prototypes I mentioned before are Praetor, a worker placement tile laying game for 2-5 players, W - The Board Game, a strategy game about American politics for two players and Perfect Storm, a lightweight Euro-game for 2-5 players.

We'll also bring along the games which we already have in stock. Warriors & Traders will be present at the fair for the third year with a significant discount, Wild Fun West will see its second Spiel Essen and last but not least we will release the revised edition of Exodus: Proxima Centauri. This is our most expected release and we have already talked about it in a previous post and we will bring more news as we get closer to the opening of the fair.

All in all, we are hoping that 2013 will mark a new beginning for NSKN at Essen. We will focus on playing, with up to 5 simultaneous sessions and we do hope that many of you will join us in Germany.

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Find out more on the NSKN official website | Facebook | BGG | ScoopIT Magazine

Monday, June 10, 2013

NSKN @ 2 years (part 2)

I felt nostalgic today and it felt like a good time to tell the rest of the story of building NSKN. The first part ended with the 1-year anniversary of the company... well shortly after we went for the first time to the UK Games Expo, with high hopes yet knowing quite little about the event.

May 2012 - We still had only one published game, but we had ready-to-play prototypes of Exodus: Proxima Centauri and Wild Fun West and we had prepared one table for each, hoping to raise awareness and interest for our planned release in Essen or Nurnberg.

NSKN was among the very few publishers daring to show off prototypes during the expo, and while we were a bit afraid that they won't be well received, most people reacted quite well and some even wanted to pay us to make sure they'll get a copy of the final games. Pushed by people's interest, we decided to put the games on Indiegogo later in 2012, hoping to raise some money for the production and a spark the interest in Essen.

Jun 2012 - GobCon LAGNA and the first expansion. Right after the UK Games Expo, we took a trip to Italy to meet our friends from La Tana dei Goblin for the second time. We prepared for them an expansion of Warriors & Traders called Italia, with a cotton map and a more interactive game play. It was a small series of only 50 copies, but after the first week of preorders it was all sold out. Add this to the sun and wine from Italy and you have the perfect small gaming event!

Sep 2012 - We started our first two projects on Indiegogo, Wild Fun West and Exodus: Proxima Centauri. Most people thought we were crazy and we shared their opinion at first, but there was a good reason behind this decision. We knew that only one game will succeed, NSKN was too small to advertise and keep two projects alive, but with little experience in crowd-funding we did not know which of the two games had better chances. As soon as Exodus took off and reached a quarter of its goal in less than a week, we directed all our advertising efforts into supporting it. And it was worth it.

Oct 2012 -This was the craziest month in the history of NSKN. We had a place in Essen booked long time before and waiting from Exodus and Wild Fun West to arrive from China, go though customs and ship immediately to Germany for the big event. Two weeks before Spiel Essen, the ship carrying the games was delayed in Istanbul, we later found out that the games were not packed on pallets and the truck we had booked to carry the games backed out of the deal.

I will spare you the details and get to the conclusion. The games made it on time, but just 5 days before Essen. We had to rent a van and drive all the way to Germany, with 1.5 metric tons of games and furniture for the booth. While part of the team was enjoying Essen, the rest were packing games and shipping to our Indiegogo backers.

For NSKN it was the first fair with more than one published games, so we attracted some attention, had about 30 business meeting and around 10 interviews with reviewers, so all the effort paid off in the end. Our distribution network expanded quite a lot and our games ended up in store in 31 countries.

Nov 2012 - While most publishers are late with delivering their crowd-funded games, we managed to beat the deadline. By half of November all the pledges were shipped out and about 1/3 of them had already reached their new owners.

Every success story has its shadows. By December 2012 we started receiving complaints about the quality of the components in some of the Exodus boxes. We looked into it and asked the help of the manufacturing company to replace the defects. To this day they have refused to support us in any way. So, we sacrificed some of the game boxes and sent out replacement to every owner of a flawed games who has reached out to us. It has been a giant amount of work, but we need to make sure that everyone gets what they pay for.

Jan 2012 - We released the second expansion of Warriors & Traders, called Middle Ages, again in Italian for La Tana dei Goblin. It was our third presence in GobCon and we were already feeling like part of the community. We also showed the prototypes of Praetor and W - The Board Game and got quite a positive reaction.

Feb 2012 - We had another premiere, we had a booth in the Nurnberg Toy Fair, a quite expensive and exclusive trade fair where the big names in the industry show they latest inventions. It was out first corporate event and even though we were a bit lost in the beginning, we managed to get the most of the fair, establishing a few long term partnerships and selling out whatever was left of our stock of Exodus: Proxima Centauri.

Mar 2012 - We took out all the upcoming games and went on a play-testing spree, trying to see which of the four games (W, Praetor, Perfect Storm and Evolution) will take priority for the rest of the year. Praetor and W were the two games that stood out and made it past the finish line and even though we don't have clear deadlines yet, we are trying to make them available as soon as possible.

In 2013 we did not have a formal celebration of two year of NSKN, but we plan to do that in Essen. Being still quite an international team, we don't have that many chances to be all together in the same place, but there's always one big event that gathers all of us and that is obviously Spiel Essen.

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Find out more on the NSKN official website | Facebook | BGG | ScoopIT Magazine

Monday, May 13, 2013

How to chose your holiday destination

Long time no hear! After two years of working like crazy I felt that the line has been crossed. The winter in Poland was absolutely out of the ordinary this year. The first three months were OK. Winter, you know, cold, snowy, rainy and so freakishly dark outside most of the day. Anyway, this would be still acceptable if only after all this winter sadness ... less winter came. However mother nature had a different plan and it brought us more winter sadness! It was the end of March when the temperature dropped to -10°C with heavy snowfall and wind outside our windows, letting us know that winter was not going to leave us neither easily nor soon. And you could feel that your heaters are on the limit! They may be able to get you to April... but then what?

I have to be honest with you, I am completely weather dependent. When it's sunny outside, birds are singing and there is a rainbow on the sky - oh yeah! I feel the power! (and yes, I do sing "I got the power!", when I wake up with this picture outside of my window).

So I went to discover the sunny side of the earth, with the sneaky thought in my head: "When I come back it should get better in here. Maybe", and here comes the bold thought, "there will be Spring already in Poland."

(Just as a spoiler I will tell you now that when I landed back in Poland I sang "I got the power" again.)

However, choosing holidays destinations was not easy. The winter was long, so you can imagine that I've played quite many board games and you know how they work - they move one's imagination!

?? Should I go to Mexico and see Chichen Itza, Palenque, Uxmal, Tikal, Yaxchilan, as while playing Tzolkin I hanged on all those new places to discover? This game, Tzolkin, put so much curiosity in my head!

?? Maybe some place with nice beaches, white sand and palm trees? - Thank you Merchants & Marauders! Thank you Hawaii!

?? Or, or... I know ... something more exotic! Like in Ming Dynasty... Asia?? Asia!!

?? For adventure in dungeons with torches and magical blue potion in one pocket and a silver dagger in another I was not ready yet! Who knows, maybe in the summer... Winter and dungeons sounded too extreme in my head. Thou Descent: Journeys in the Dark filled the gap perfectly!

?? For Cosmic Encounter and Race for the Galaxy I was totally not prepared. What do I know about cosmos? What if Exodus will come and hey! what will you actually do if you discover a new form of life? Space definitely seemed too much to handle.

So Asia it was, without my gaming preferences I needed sun and I needed it immediately. Long story short - the trip was wonderful. It was long enough to detached from all the responsibilities, clear my mind and see things from a new perspective. I am now loaded with new ideas, my mind is nearly exploding! This year will bring a Perfect Storm and Praetor and W: The Board Game at least. We're planning to fit in all this also re-dressing of Exodus: Proxima Centauri this year. So, as I said, long story short - let me get back to work... I wanted to share with you that there are wonderful board games coming up this year from NSKN. And yes, I am genuinely smiling while writing this... ha! Wait till you play them!

Now, all our thoughts are focused on the preparation for the UK Games Expo 2013 on the 24th - 26th of May in Birmingham. We are printing, cutting and gluing prototypes so you can enjoy playing freshly made prototypes with Andrei and I there. Many more thing are going on at the same time.. World is never asleep and especially board gamers! So I hope to see you there!

As a conclusion of my adventure I want to share with you this picture. Some of you maybe have seen it already, as I shared it a few seconds after taking it ;-). However it is so mind blowing... imagine seeing this in reality!

Enjoy! And let your mind wonder!