Shameless self-promotion

[Scurra]

I would have posted this in the "What made you happy today" thread, because it did.
But my first published boardgame (being released at the Essen games fair in October) was officially listed on BoardGameGeek yesterday.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/78733/key-market

Somehow this makes it feel more "real" to me, even though I've been seeing all the separate parts as the production process has been going along; a BGG listing means that other people are starting to get to know about it as well. (It's a relatively heavyweight "Euro-style" worker-placement game for those who know or care what I'm talking about.)
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New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[jesternl]

Awesome!

[Zag]

Way cool! Congratulations!

[Scurra]

Which bit?

"Relatively heavyweight" means longish playing time (especially for new players) but it's not a six-hour epic. I have an expected play time listed of 30m plus 30m per player (so it's about 2hrs for three.) The best player will generally win (since there is only a little luck) but it's not guaranteed.

"Euro-style" means that it is more about crisp interlinking mechanics than strong thematic or simulationist approaches. Basically, an elegant or interesting system will trump immersion - although it doesn't deliberately include clearly silly things. Here, for instance, there is a "market" (hence the name of the game) but one in which there are defined rules about buying and selling that make the game interesting but would never exist outside of a game environment like this...

"Worker placement" means that the central mechanic is based on the idea that the player has a limited number of pieces that they need to deploy in order to collect the resources needed to enable them to place more pieces and so on in a growth cycle. The game has a fixed length to ensure that this growth cycle ends just before you are quite ready to really exploit it!

Here, the game is based around using workers to produce resources (crops and livestock) but the trick is that there is a shifting season pattern that means that different resources produce more or less (or even nothing!) during different turns of the game. However, since the production pattern is known ahead of time, you can see where the "best" spots are on the board - but so can everyone else...

These sort of games basically offer you a limited number of actions which are never quite enough to enable you to do everything you want, so the challenge is to determine which are the most effective, both at the strategic and tactical levels. They also tend to be more based around "indirect" player interaction - you can't attack another player's workers, for instance, but you can get in their way quite successfully if you know what you are doing.

I'm obviously pretty pleased with it as a design, and I know that people who like this sort of game and have so far played it seem to generally quite like it, which is about all I could reasonably ask for,
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_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Poisonium]

Congratulations! Also, your name is cool.
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I tried apt-get install lifebut it only returned E: Couldn't find package life

[Zag]

Thanks! That was exactly the description I needed. Also, it sounds like the sort of game I would like!

[Scurra]

There's a reason I love the fact that you can hide behind pseudonyms far more easily on the interwebs...

But indeed, that is my "real" name. And believe me, I've heard them all
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_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Trojan Horse]

I saw this geeklist (describing your game) the other day. Had you not posted this thread, I never would've made the connection.

[Scurra]

Well, my game "sold out" before the first morning of the Essen Games Fair. By this I mean that all the production copies have been accounted for, but some of them went to retailers who still have it in stock (although there still aren't that many copies around!) There were some production issues but at least we got most of the games produced in time for people to pick-up - some companies (even quite big ones) had far worse problems than us.
And the general response has been pretty positive too.

So I'm pretty happy right now. And hey, I might even get some royalty payments at some point.
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_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[AcidFast]

That's awesome, Scurra! Congrats!

[Chaz]

Chicka badass! =D

When is the ubb version coming?
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The enemy's base is down.

[Zahariel]

Scurra will be pleased to see this glowing review on BGG (where I am a regular browser and occasional contributer):

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/588226/played-key-market-at-bgg-con-2010

Sounds like people really enjoy Key Market! I might have to look into picking up a copy if R&D does a reprint.