The Ruined Blog

Ready to Rumble

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 20:44:00 +0000

It’s been a while since the last update, but rest assured Circulari is ready to rumble once again. We’ve used the time wisely to keep polishing the game with new artwork and a revised solo mode. Take a peek below at the beautiful box new illustration by game artist Szymek Dmitruk. Set your sights on mid-2022 as we once again head towards the launch of a crowd-funding campaign and getting the game into print!

In the mean time, we have a few conventions planned before the big day arrives to help get the word out. Come and along and try out Circulari for yourself. A short demo experience will give you a taste of the full game and only takes 20 to 30 minutes to play.

Dragonmeet 2021 @ Novotel London West is only a few days away on Saturday the 4th of December and we’ll be exhibiting in the Upper Hall. It will be our first real-world event since early 2019. Time to shake off the cobwebs and get back out there. Online ticket sales have now closed, but you can buy them on the day for £12 per adult and £5 per child 11-16.

Next year will bring AireCon 2022 @ Harrowgate Convention Centre and, the big one, UK Games Expo 2022 @ Birmingham NEC. We can’t wait!

Virtually Expo

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 23:59:00 +0000

The original plan was to exhibit at the UK Games Expo’s Birmingham extravaganza for the first time this year. However, the new plan, for obvious reasons (cough cough), is to take to the internet and attend the UK Games Expo’s Virtually Expo instead. An entirely digital event about analogue board games, fit for the pandemic age. The Virtually Expo is entirely free to attend and will hopefully tide you over until physical conventions can reopen. We look forward to welcoming you to our stand in cyberspace on the 21st to 23rd of this month (August).

We’re hard at work preparing Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia versions of Circulari, ready for you to digitally demo. Here are a few things you can do to get ready too:

Make sure you have UK Games Expo and Discord accounts created and linked together. Discord provides a chat platform for communicating with exhibitors and other attendees. You can join the Ruined Sky Games chat server too.
Consider purchasing a copy of Tabletop Simulator if you don’t already own it. Tabletop Simulator provides a 3D virtual sandbox for playing board games online. You’ll need this to take part in some games.
Create a free Tabletopia account. Tabletopia also provides a 3D virtual sandbox, but is entirely browser based. You’ll need this to take part in some games.
Check out our Saturday and Sunday live demo events and add them to your Virtually Expo Schedule so you don’t forget ;-).

We’ll be streaming live demos on our brand new Twitch channel during the Expo. You’re free to just watch, but there will opportunities to play too!

We aim to regularly start a new demo at 15 minutes past the hour. We’ll be playing a truncated version with a point handicap so that, given some time for rules explanations and technology wrangling, we should be able to fit a petite but complete experience into about 45 minutes. A taste of Circulari! Here’s how to take part:

Install Tabletop Simulator and/or create a free Tabletopia account.
Join our Discord server and check out the #demo-events channel.
Sign up to an available time slot by clicking on the green tick icon. Make sure to check whether Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia will used during that slot.
When the appointed time arrives, you’ll be invited to join a Discord voice channel for communication and connect to the game. The game will be streamed live on our Twitch channel.

See you there!

Prototyping Boards

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Five months ago, the pandemic was still a phenomenon mainly confined to the Chinese mainland. We were busy packing our suitcases ready to visit relatives in Hong Kong for Chinese New Year with only a mild degree of trepidation! Little did we know what the future would hold.

Amidst all this however, I also had something else pressing on my mind. I had a then new process for prototyping dual-layer boards and had been trying to capture all the steps on camera. It’s surprising how much harder it is not just to do something, but to get good take of doing it on camera. Fortunately, I managed to get the last piece of raw footage done before we had to get out of the door, leaving me to enrich my holiday by spending some time recording the voice-overs and editing it all together.

I actually uploaded the resulting video to YouTube in that distant age before the UK entered lock-down. That is to say, I got almost everything done with the exception of writing this blog post and telling people about it. It seems fitting somehow that, as the government tentatively flirts with returning the UK to normal, I should get around to posting this now. Like putting a new battery in a stopped clock, in one sense no time has passed.

It’s only the second video I’ve made and first one to include any speaking. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, although on reflection, successful videos tend to be more exciting or humorous, and less instructional. Still, one must start somewhere.

The process has also improved a bit since I made this video. I have the artwork printed onto thin cardboard now, which is a bit more sturdy, and glue all the layers together at the end rather than trying to cut the mounted artwork. This combined with using more layers of thinner board has made the cutting process a lot less time consuming than it used to be because fewer passes are needed. It only takes one slip for the machine to ruin a board, so it’s better to get through them as quickly as possible, even if more are needed.

Now, onward to the many other things which need doing. The next blog post should be about the either the new artwork or an update on the computer modelling, depending on which materialises first. Until then!

After Action Report

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 23:45:00 +0000

In the vast gulf of time since the last blog post, we’ve checked two board game events off our to-do list!

The first was Dragonmeet last November, a major London convention with a role-playing focus but which is nevertheless board game friendly. We were joined by an extra pair of hands in Jim from Laserlout Studios who brought his expert demoing skills to the table. He helped us to deploy a new shorter version of the game for demoing which allows people to get a taste of Circulari in 20 minutes or so without having to sit down for a full game. The new demo experience was well received and helped to get more people to give the game a go.

The event itself was busy as always and plenty of people came to look at our stand. We even had enough space to run 2 demos at once when the demand presented itself. Much like buses, when demoing sometimes you’re idle and sometimes everyone turns up as once.

Next up was FBG Con just last month in February, a new convention based in Stevenage run by review blogger The Friendly Boardgamer. It was a small event to test the waters, but it went well and they’re already planning larger premises for next year. We ran a few demos and in between them I play-tested the latest solo rules for Circulari. While I’m not normally a big solo player, this variant seems to have improved a lot over my earlier attempt and I was enjoying trying to beat my own high score.

We’ve learnt a lot as we’ve attended more events and run more demos. One of the things you get a lot of practice in doing is explaining the rules to people. It’s interesting because when you’re designing a game it can be hard to imagine what that will be like and sometimes I worried it would be too complicated to get across (apart from the times I worried it would be too simple to be fun). There are somethings you can only find out when you make contact with the real world and I’m pleased to say that actually people seem to pick up Circulari very easily and go on to have fun.

Another vital thing that we’ve learnt since our first convention is how hard it can be to read people’s hand written e-mail addresses. That’s why, starting with these events, we’ve replaced our mailing list sign up clipboard with an Android tablet!

Conventions 2019-20

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 23:47:00 +0000

It’s time to take Circulari to the world, or at least trek it around England. We’re booked to exhibit at a number of key events on the UK board gaming calendar between now and the middle of next year. We’ll be demoing Circulari and drumming up interest ready for a future crowdfunding campaign.

In fact, we’ve put one event behind us already. We made our convention debut at Tabletop Gaming Live at the end of September. Read more about it in our blog post. There’s lots more to come though and we hope to see you at one of the events below:

Dragonmeet, 30th November 2019

Dragonmeet, nestled in the heart of London close to Hammersmith tube station, is just two weeks away now. While the event has something of a role-playing bent, good old board games are equally welcome. Circulari will have a table in the demo area. Come and check it out.

Dragonmeet 2019 @ Novotel London West — (buy tickets)

FBG Con, 8th February 2020

Running for the first time next year, this brand new event is the creation of board game reviewer The Friendly Boardgamer and it promises to be just as friendly as he is. While primarily an opportunity for some serious open gaming, there will be a small number of games being demoed and Circulari will be among them!

FBG Con 2020 @ Springfield House Community Centre, Stevenage — (sign up)

AireCon, 13-15th March 2020

Now in its fourth year, AireCon is still the trendy rising star of British board game conventions. Possessing perhaps the largest open gaming space in Europe by their own estimations, AireCon is sure to be a lot of fun. One of over 30 exhibitors, we’ll be demoing Circulari on our stand.

AireCon 2020 @ Harrowgate Convention Centre — (buy tickets)

UK Games Expo, 29-31st May 2020

A giant amongst its kind, it barely needs an introduction, the UKGE is the largest board gaming convention in the UK. Held at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, two giant trade halls contain hundreds of stands and thousands of products from exhibitors around the world. Not to mention, there’s more space on top for tournaments and open gaming. We’ll be there, so keep an ear out for our stand number to be announced and get ready to pick your way through the crowds!

UK Games Expo 2020 @ Birmingham NEC

Tabletop Gaming Live

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 08:06:00 +0000

Our first ever exhibition took place last month at Tabletop Gaming Live. Now in its second year, Tabletop Gaming Live takes place at Alexandra Palace in north London and for the span of a weekend turns the Great Hall into a microcosm of the board game industry. Aside from the giant areas given over to Asmodee subsidiaries, lots of independent designer-publishers were in attendance such as Wren Games, Naylor Games, Stuff by Bez, and of course ourselves!

The stand came together on Friday in just four hours of carefully affixing velcro hooks to the backdrop and trying, failing, and ultimately succeeding to roll it onto the 2.4 metre high felted shell. While on reflection the shell walls did make the stand feel a little enclosed and hard to spot, many people commented that it looked very professional. Still, the lure of easy to use roll up banners will be hard to resist in the future.

I was fairly nervous as the show opened on Saturday morning, but fortunately the requisite Circulari marketing patter soon came to me. I saw a lot of different people visit the stand over the course of the show and we’re grateful to everyone who showed an interest in Circulari. Interactions ranged from a quick explanation of the game’s key points to the many delightful people who sat down for a full game. Despite forgetting to more often that I would have liked, I also got lots of people to put down their e-mail addresses for our newsletter.

One of things I found difficult was judging what kind of experience a given person was hoping to have and crucially the amount time they wanted to spend having it. It would great to have a more compressed but still playable demo experience for expos. It was also difficult to manage the manpower requirements of both attending to casual interest from show goers and running demos. A bigger stand with more people to run it and delineated areas for different activities would help with all of the above and is definitely something we have planned for the future.

All in the all, we had a great time exhibiting at the show, but it was also a fantastic learning opportunity. We have a long list of things to improve upon and can’t want to get started on it. We’re booked in already to exhibit at Dragonmeet 2019 and AireCon 2020, and hopefully will also be appearing at the UK Games Expo in 2020 too.

Going to HandyCon

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 07:31:00 +0000

HandyCon is biannual board game convention which focuses on playing games as opposed to accumulating them. It was originally held in High Wycombe and takes its name from the Handy Cross roundabout on the edge of town. Tragically however, news of its existence took a long time to filter into our Wycombe-based headquarters, and by the time it reached us they had skipped town for the sunny uplands of Maidenhead.

Despite this setback, we are pleased to announce that we’ll be sailing down the A404 this coming weekend for HandyCon 6, HandyCon August 2019, or whatever you wish to call it. Not to mention, we will be seizing on yet another opportunity to playtest Circulari! We have another couple of gameplay tweaks to test and we’d love to have your feedback.

Playtesting at HandyCon works a little differently to other events we’ve been to. At a typical Playtest UK event for example, designers have relatively short slots and there are a lot of volunteers to help funnel players into games and keep occupancy high. I’m told that HandyCon, on the other hand, is a more leisurely experience. Table slots are nice and long, but the getting people interested in playing is subject to fate.

Come and help fate smile on us, Circulari will be on the table:

All day on Friday the 9th the August
From 3pm on Saturday the 10th of August

at HandyCon 6 this weekend.

New Logo Revealed

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 06:55:00 +0000

Lots of things have been going on here Ruined Sky Games headquarters lately: the first playtests of Circulari’s solo rules variant, our attempts to use a cutter-plotter to make prototype components, and work on validating game balance using a computer simulation. Clearly we’ve got a got a lot of blogging to catch up on, but this post is dedicated to just one thing – our new logo!

The old logo dates back 7 years.

I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s much more attractive than its predecessor. It incorporates the company name in an attractive font, so you can tell who it belongs to at a glance, and comes in range of different arrangments suited for every ocassion. It even looks fetching atop the Circulari black hole graphic as pictured above.

All that remains is to update everything. From favicons to social media accounts the old logo has wound up in lots of places. Got to catch ‘em all!

UK Games Expo 2019

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 07:47:00 +0000

Alas, the UK Games Expo comes but once a year. It’s over now for 2019, but 2020 dates have already been announced and everyone on Board Game Twitter seems to be frantically booking hotel rooms already. The circle of life continues!

I had attended the expo before, but we made our first trip this year as a family-slash-corporate-entity. We had a fabulous time and, apart from all the waking up in the middle of the night, having a baby in tow barely cramped our style.

We managed to play 4 games of Circulari while at the expo. The first one was on Friday with our friends Jim and Tori at Laser Louts Studios. This was the first outing for a number of new gameplay tweaks and thankfully the results were good. Eliminating one of the resource sinks seems to have dealt with the problem of fallow turns whilst heating up the economy a little, but not too much.

The following day I hit the Playtest Zone and got 2 games into our slot. Playing Circlari involves a lot of thinking and I often find myself looking at play-testers' furrowed brows with a bit of trepidation during the game, so it was such a pleasure to find out that both groups really did enjoy themselves at the end. As a bonus, I had a chance to meet YouTuber To The Table Games who joined in the first game and then recorded a short video of me taking about my favourite game component.

Lastly but by no means least, on Sunday we met up with Oliver Kinne from Tabletop Games Blog to play our fourth and final game of the expo. We’ve been reading Oliver’s blog for some time now and it great to meet him in person. Although we failed to execute on our plan to let internet celebrity win, he seemed to enjoy Circulari anyway and you can read more about his experience of the expo and first impressions of Circulari on the Tableop Games Blog.

Aside from playing Circulari, we also tried to see as many of exhibits as we could and got the chance to meet a few Twitter handles in person. Janice from Wren Games was promoting their new Kickstarter for Sensor Ghosts, Phil from Cards of Fate sold me a copy of Forest of Fate, Emma from Emmerse Studios tried to explain Quirk! to us before being mobbed by some children, and I even managed to steal a few minutes with Matt from The Friendly Boardgamer while he was manning the Zatu Games stand.

Can’t wait for next year!

Introducing Circulari

Sun, 19 May 2019 08:21:00 +0000

Things are beginning to fall into place, not least our new name. The game formerly known as the The Disc is now Circulari.

I was fond of the original name and it was tough to let it go. It had a certain austerity to it which still appeals to me. However, but I think the new one is more distinctive and will work out better in the long run. These days it’s important to have a name that’s easy to search for and a single pre-existing word might be a struggle, not to mention the international variations in the spelling of “disc”. Most importantly of all, it avoids in any way conjuring up a fantasy setting such as, er… Discworld in people’s imaginations.

Circulari is a game about extracting resources from that most difficult of terrain, the vicinity of a black hole. Thankfully however, no one will have to suffer player elimination at the hands of its gravity well. Players scrabble for victory safely out in accretion disc, competing and ocassionally cooperating over the limited resources at hand. It might be a Eurogame, but multiplayer solitaire it is not!

Circulari is targetted for a 2020 release.