About 2009
In April 2009 I made the decision to quit my office job for good, and to try and achieve my biggest goal: to be in a position where I can work on creative projects that do good. My first product was a board game, because with a board game a designer has the freedom to, for example, use different materials (like glass, plastic, paper and carton) and to create different sizes of elements (a foldable board, a box, cards, tiles). I figured that, if I would create a complete product in a specific market, I could learn a lot about important processes (like investigating my target audience, basic promotion etc.) that will return in any other creative project I would do in the future. My main subgoal for this year was to introduce myself to the world as a board game designer and to sell the complete first print of my board game "Day & Night". Well... In October my team and I received the International Gamers Award for best 2 player game of the year and in December we sold the very last game from the first print. Time to make news goals for 2010!
Main goal for 2010: To be financially independent; to earn enough to be able to work full time on my projects.
Sub goals
- To release a second print of Day & Night (at least 10.000 copies in at least 5 languages)
- To release a new multi player game
- To create a book about the board game business
- To create a children's book
- To create a board game business system (a website with many essential tools like a website with a content management tool, an invoice database tool, a contacts tool etc.)
About my current projects
Day & Night: Currently I'm working on a second print edition of Day & Night. First of all, the size of the box is probably going to be a bit smaller so it fits better in the series of our American distributor. The box will have a cover illustration, featuring both characters. Also the board and probably the back of the cards will be less 'abstract' and feature a new illustration Eerin Vink (illustrator and friend) is currently working on. I would love to replace the current pawns with nice glass ones, but I'm not sure yet if this will be possible.
Together with my business associate and friend Sebastiaan van den Roovaart we're making contracts with distributors with foreign versions of our game. By the end of January, I'm hoping to have everything done for at least 10.000 copies (an American, Chinese, French, German, Italian version and maybe a Czech, Japanese and/or Greek version).
New game "Meteora": "Meteora" is a result of everything I learned about the board game business in 2009. At this point I prepared the theme and main mechanics. I'm trying to finish a document with all basic information as soon as possible to continue to the next step; finding investors.
I wish all readers a creative, meaningful 2010!
