First War

Well, Hi!

Three weekends ago, as the games were finally getting to our warehouses, I was planning to quickly have the first playing session and post some pictures to show you how a table with W&T on it looks like.

Then I got a bit lazy and prefered to play some more instead of actually posting about playing - that is until now. Here's how it looks like - a picture from my fifth playing session with the boxed version of the game:

here's a detail with a section of the map:

and here's how the full layout of the game looks like:

Click on the photos for larger versions.

Cheers,

Join us in Essen

This autumn, like every other autumn, the biggest event for board game 'geeks' takes place in Essen. It is one of the biggest gaming conventions in Europe and the place where the big names in the industry show their newest creations for the first time. I am, of course, talking about Spiel '11.

We are joining them and will launch our own game, Warriors & Traders™.

With the amount of new games announced for Spiel '11, this year's convention is bound to be a hit. We are hoping you'll stop by our stand and enjoy a game under direct assistance of the very game creators!

Another attraction of this year's exhibition is the Inventor's Booth. This is the place where game creators show their yet unborn games. This is a unique chance to see what's going to be on the board games market the next year. We'll also be there, with a new concept. I wish I could say more, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.

There are already people out there playing Warriors & Traders... in Essen you also have your chance!

Did I mention when and where? 20-23 October, Messe Essen, Germany.

The games have arrived

It all started one and a half years ago with a dream and now it's stone cold reality! The games are in the NSKN warehouses and ready to be delivered to our first customers.

Making the games was much more than a game, it involved hard work, imagination, patience and more hard work. The last step was to bring the games from our partners in Germany who physically produced the games to our storage places in Belgium and Romania.

This was supposed to be an easy task, we had everything arranged way ahead of time and it was not the best time for surprises. But life has its own twisted sense of humor... Just a few hours before the pick-up time, the transport company who was responsible to load a full 20 tons truck of games for Romania cancelled on us and another two hours later the van for transporting to Belgium became unavailable.

With a supreme effort of calling, begging and threatening, we managed to limit the delay to only 24 hours. Calling almost every single transport company in Belgium and Romania, we found our salvation. Last Wednesday, in a foggy German morning one truck and one van were loading all the brand new boxes of Warriors & Traders and just yesterday everything arrived without further events in our warehouses.

It looks like every part of the making of these games has its own story to tell and we're hoping for more stories, happy ones from the people who will very soon enjoy our games.

Preorder!

Yes, it is true!

Since we're preparing an online store where one can just come and buy with the credit card, we thought that the pre-order option will be just too much trouble. But, after seeing how many people are interested in having Warriors & Traders now, yesterday if possible, we made it happen!

Now, everyone can sign up on the Warriors & Traders website and get the game at the earliest moment possible.

Why pre-order? First of all, it's a matter of pride, you'll have the game before the others and, most important, you could be playing before the official release, in Spiel'11 Essen, at the end of October. Second, there's a significant 20% discount, namely 10 EUR, and the shipping is included.

Pre-ordering will be possible only before 10th of October 2011. Afterwards, the online shop will come online and the board games will be available for it's original price. So, there's only one thing left to say, hurry up! 

The beginning (part 1)

The idea of Warriors & Traders came to me in February 2010. 

Being in a group of board games enthusiasts, we were playing almost anything we could get our hands on. One day, during a game of Risk, the dice were not on my side and I started complaining heavily, so a good friend said the magic words "If you don't like this one, why don't you make your own board game?!".

Those words stayed in my head for a long time, until it finally came to me, why don't I start designing my own game? I had already though about this, but the idea seemed overwhelming. I needed something different from everything we had played until then.

By April 2011, the answer was clear, I needed to make a board game that is interesting, fun to play and  involving no luck! Having this settled, I chose the environment, the Dark Ages of Europe, and I started working on the mechanics.

Warriors & Traders - version 0.1

The first version of Warriors & Traders looked nothing like it does today, but it kept the paradigms of game design that can be found in the commercial version: military strategy, economic development and social interaction through trading. And let's not forget about balance and no luck.

There was a map, there were armies, many, many types of armies -, there were development cards and a very basic set of rules, on a small piece of paper.

During the first month of testing, the versions were changing from one day to the next and testing involved only another person, who I have to thank for the patience and diligence. The main issues were having a coherent set of rules and ... making it playable.

For the next two months of testing, the time between two consecutive versions increased from a few days to a few weeks, but still I was already at version 0.11 when I decided that it was the high-time for larger scale testing.

The first to see the game were the very people that are now involved in NSKN and made this project possible.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story...