A dragon's tale (part I)

Simurgh was the first game ever picked up by NSKN Games after a pitch, and it is the first ever project in which we had to work with a designer who was not part of NSKN Games.

It all started at the Nurnberg Toy Fair back in 2013. It was our first appearance at a large fair besides Spiel and it was as surprising as our first presence is Essen. A lot of famous designers come to Nurnberg to present their new ideas because unlike Essen which offers some incredibly busy four days, Nurnberg it 6 days long and quite relaxed, with fewer visitors and time to catch a breath.

That's where we met Pierluca Zizzi, a charming Italian game designer who pitched a "board building game with some awesome worker placement mechanisms and...dinosaurs", and we were intrigued. The game was sharing some game design principles with one of Pierluca's other designs, so we had to wait for another 5 months to actually play the game.

Our first game of Simurgh (back then Mu) took place in GobCob later that year. We said yes to the game the very same day and we brought along the prototype for further testing, but we already knew known that we had found a gem.

You need to know a few things about the earliest prototype we've seen. It did not feature dragons, but dinosaurs. Everyone, including the designer, knew that dinosaurs are not there to stay, nevertheless we had lots of fun imagining dragon... pardon me... dinosaur raiders foraging through some ancient forest. Dinos are not a bad thing - take a look at Evolution or Dominant Species - they were just totally out of place, not fitting at all with the game mechanics. But the game itself was so good that we decided on the spot to publish it after we found the perfect theme.

It wasn't long until Simurgh found its name and theme. It took some 12-hour car ride, a ridiculous amount of emails (if you have not tried brain storming by email, do not miss this unique opportunity... just kidding) and a few months later we were ready to dress the game into some beautiful artwork and present it in Essen. That was still back in 2013.

Dragon sketch by Enggar Adirasa

A legitimate question at this point is "Why dragons?" and what does the name of the game mean. We must admit that we were somehow conditioned by the original dinosaur theme and we were not able to shift our thinking into a completely different plane, so we gravitated around "stuff which can fly, stuff which can be ridden" and "a mythical universe", "of man and... (add word here)". Add to this mix another key ingredient - we like dragons  -  and we had the cocktail ready for a dragon themed game. The truth is that all the game mechanisms fit perfectly with the theme we chose and we were very happy to see the metamorphosis of Mu into Simurgh.

Our dragons were never meant to be evil. Scary - yes, by all means, but never evil. The legends of many peoples are filled with dragons, from Asia to South America and from Europe to Africa. We search the mythology for a perfect match and the Persian Simurgh came as the obvious choice.

Stay tuned for the second part of the story, coming up in a few weeks.


__________________

FIND OUT MORE NSKN official website | Facebook  | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: @NSKNGames

Convention report - Nürnberg Toy Fair

One week ago Nürnberg hosted the largest toy fair in Europe and NSKN was present for the first time. We went there with little understanding of the event, knowing that unlike Spiel Essen, this will not be open to the general public. The only attendees were the "traders", company representatives from all over the world on the hunt for novelties from the toy and hobby industry.

NSKN booth before the opening hours

The space allocated to board games was limited, there were at best 20 publishers, but there was heavy representation from the manufacturing companies and other adjacent businesses. We're trying to improve the quality of our board games, so we had a lot of meetings with specialized companies from Poland, Germany, China and Russia trying to find the best compromise between price and quality.

Zvezda - Russian manufacturer of miniatures

Trefl - Polish manufacturer of board games and puzzles

For us, the main focus was to expand our distribution network. We scheduled several meeting before the fair and we had many more impromptu meetings with results above our expectations. 

It would take to long go through every relevant experience in Nürnberg, but we can sum up the immediate results. We had the pleasure to meet Bergsala Enigma, the largest distributor of board games in Scandinavia and as of this week all our title will be once again in stores across Denmark, Sweden and Norway, we reached a new agreement with GTS Distribution from USA so that NSKN games will reach even more hobby stores overseas and we're going to have direct distribution in Canada.

Bergsala Enigma - our Scandinavian distributor

We have also established new contacts in France, Italy, Poland or the Netherlands and these days we're following up attempting to get our games to those countries where we have a smaller presence on the market.

All in all, the Toy Fair was a corporate event, everyone dress accordingly and not so typical for the board games world. As a games I found a few interesting board games for the future, but not even close to the number of cool title you can find in a dedicated event. As a publisher, this fair is a must go event, since all the important names in the industry come by to search for opportunities. 

__________________

More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

Convention report - live from Nürnberg

The Nürnberg Toy Fair is the largest exhibition of its kind in Europe and most likely in the world. It brings together companies specialized in toys, sport articles, miniatures and last but not least board games.

Unlike the other conventions we attended, the Toy Fair is not about playing or selling board games. It’s a trade fair where the big names in the toys and hobby industry show to distributors and retailers their latest creations.

For those who attended SpielEssen at least once and had the impression that it’s huge, well… this is several times bigger. There are 12 halls populated with stands ranging from 10 to hundreds of square meters and some of the exhibitors have brought really fancy stuff to show. The most striking item I have seen so far is an artificial waterfall.

I’ve told you all these apparently meaningless facts to emphasize the size of this fair. I must admit that I am proud to represent NSKN at this enormous exhibition and I must also confess that even before it started I feel a bit overwhelmed. The hall dedicated to board games (10.1) is one of the smallest in the fair and our booth is only 10 sqm. It definitely shows that we’re a growing company. But the important thing is that we are here and we’re hoping that our presence will not go unnoticed.

Our single aim here in Nürnberg is to gain awareness. We want to show our games directly to those who are able to bring to the stores closest to you. We have more than 30 confirmed meetings and at least that many with a good probability of happening, most of them with distributors and retailers.

The plan is simple, we will advertise Exodus and Wild Fun West, two board games which were pre-released in Essen 2012 but were originally scheduled for 2013. But that’s not all. We’re trying to test the market for the games we have planned for this year. There’s an expansion for Warriors & Traders called Middle Ages, there an expansion for Exodus and a brand new game that I’ve already mentioned, Praetor. And even this is not all, we’re also planning to license a computer game which we want to transform into a table-top, but since none of these are confirmed I prefer not to disclose more details now.

All in all, we have lots of plans, but our expectations are not set too high, we’re aware that this is a beginning for us and that we have a lot to learn.

To end on a positive note, we have good news for those who living in Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden, Norway). We reached a distribution agreement and Exodus and Wild Fun West will be in Nordic stores in a few weeks.

__________________

More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

NSKN at gaming convention in 2013

Throughout the whole year NSKN will attend various gaming conventions and fairs where we'll present our new releases, demo our board games and play. From the very beginning of 2013 we have quite a busy schedule.

From 25th to 27th of January we'll go to Italy for GobCon de Luxe. It's the second time NSKN is attending this winter Italian convention and we're hoping it will go just as well as the previous one. It will be a weekend of gaming among friends. We're not going there empty handed, on the contrary, NSKN has prepared a special limited edition of Warriors & Traders: Middle Ages expansion in Italian. 

From Italy we're going north to Germany to attend the Nürnberg International Toy Fair, the biggest European exhibition of its kind. This is where the official release of Exodus: Proxima Centauri will take place. We will present also the English pre-release of Warriors & Traders: Middle Ages which we plan to publish in the fall of 2013. Besides this, we will bring along the prototypes of Praetor and W, two of our upcoming games.

We have another title prepared for Nürnberg  but since it's not a sure deal we must wait a bit before announcing this title.

At the end of the spring, from 24th to 26tf of may, NSKN will attend the UK Games Expo. After the success of last year, we plan to make a habit from going to Birmingham. Besides Exodus and Wild Fun West, we're hoping to have the final versions of Praetor and Warriors & Traders: Middle Ages.

As always, the main gaming event of 2013 for our team will be Spiel Essen. This is where we're going to release our new games, meet and play. The dated have not been announced yet, but as soon as we hear back from the organizers, we'll update our website and this post.

Besides all these events we have a few more in plan, but since we have not made up our minds yet and we're still talking to the organizers it's a bit too early to talk about them.

__________________

More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad