5 Feb 2013

Asking your suggestions for Saboteur

The publisher of Saboteur has asked me to imagine a concept for a Promo card.

If you want to have a peak what I have in mind, if you want to playtest it or if you want to give me any suggestion, please follow the link below, which leads you towards a forum thread on Board Game Geek.

Promo Card suggestion

Besides, the publisher is planning to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the game in 2014.

If you want to vote for one or another suggestion or if you haveyour own suggestion, follow the link below, which leads you towards another forum thread on Board Game Geek.

10th Anniversary


23 Jan 2013

Saboteur is still a hit


My most successful game is still selling very well. In fact, as you can see on the graph, it sells even better and better. For a game, which is on the market since 9 years already, I think that this is an excellent result.
In 2012 almost 170000 copies of both game versions were sold, which is more than the total sales of the first 4 years.
The total amount of sold boxes is about of 660 000 samples.

Saboteur is the basic game. Saboteur 2 is either the pure expansion or the big box containing the basic game and the expansion. Both versions sell very well as you can see. The release of Saboteur 2 has clearly boosted the world-wide sales numbers.

Let's hope that the German publisher Amigo Spiele will now be convinced to release the expansion on the German market.

For newbie game designers, who might start dreaming, I want to inform them that these figures are really exceptional. The average sales numbers for games are between 3000 and 5000 copies. Mostly, the first print-run is also the last one.

Above this, sales numbers doesn't tell anything about how good your game is.  Good games doesn't sell necessarily well, while bad games doesn't sell necessarily bad. Good sales numbers just mean that people like to buy your game for one or another reason. Do not interprete this comment as if I don't like my own game. I just want to avoid that you, as a designer, get frustrated that your brilliant game concept is a commercial disaster. Success depends sometimes more from luck than pure talent.

12 Dec 2012

Rio D'Oro becomes El Dorado

Torre de Jogos, a Portugese game publisher, has released a Portugese/Spanish version of Die Brücke am Rio d'Oro.

Very curiously, the difficulty level of the game has dropped from 8+ to 6+, while the rules are similar. Apparently, the kids in the Iberian peninsula are smarter than in Germany!

3 Oct 2012

Fieser Zauber

The German publisher Haba is launching Fieser Zauber, which means "Wicked Sorcery", a new childern's game for the Essen Game Fair.

It's a dice rolling-reaction game. You roll 4 dice, look at the result and depending of what you see, you must grab 2 wooden pieces which are missing or you must pass the dice without grabbing anything. The first one who can fill his board with 6 figures, wins the game. Very stressful.

The game is enjoyable for adults too. In fact, I didn't designed it as a childern's game in particular.

The multi-langual first edition
The nice components of the game
 

9 Aug 2012

App for Nuns on the Run

Stephen Orr has written a cool application for Nuns on the Run.

The purpose is to handle all the line-of-sight issues for you (it's an assistant, not a complete game).
The application requires iOS 5.1 or later (Ipad only).












For info: 
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nuns-on-the-run-assistant/id549138502?ls=1&mt=8

8 Aug 2012

Ninja extension free playtest

Whoever wants to playtest the extension can ask me the files by simply sending an email to me.
You will get a new castle map, a new private map, 20 extra cards and a sheet with extra rules. Note that it's a prototype version. The graphics are less exciting than the original game.

In return, I would appreciate your feedback.

22 Mar 2012

Why I design games

"Why the hell am I designing games?"

Ewan Derrick asked me to give an anwer on this bold question and put it on his blog.

So, if you are curious to read some deep philosophical observations and silly anecdotes, follow this link.