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News
(latest at the top)
18th to 20th October 2007
Ludorum
Games will be showing
at Spiel07 in Essen, Germany (18th-21st July 2007)
Come and visit us in Hall 5, Stand 76 (sharing with JKLM Games).
20th August 2007
Fagin's Gang and Ludorum Games had a very successful weekend
in Stoke, at Shire Games' The Cast
Are Dice
event. Fagin's Gang continues to garner praise, and we
had many return players from the UK Games Expo. We also playtested
our new game ICE
FLOW, which went down very well. Thanks to Nick and Sue
Fisk for organising a great event.
2nd July 2007
We are thrilled to announce that Fagin's
Gang has been picked up by another major UK distributor.
"Esdevium Games Ltd. is the leading distributor of hobby
and mass-market gaming products to the UK and Europe".
Thanks to Tom
Pike for his support for our game. Further details here.
4th June 2007
We are pleased to announce that Fagin's Gang has been picked
up by a major UK distributor. JKLMnP Games and Distribution
supplies boardgames to retail outlets in the UK and Europe, and
will soon be expanding into the USA. Thanks to Markus Welbourne
and Paul Evans for their support for Fagin's Gang. Further
details here.
3rd June 2007
UK Games Expo
- Day 2. We have had a very successfull day. Firstly, a
number of people visited our stand this morning to say that they
bought Fagin's Gang yesterday, played the game at their
hotels, and loved it! Dean was interviewed by Steve, whose podcast
report will appear soon (more details to follow here). Feedback
for the game has been very positive all round. Alan How arrived
to give us a copy of his Counter magazine, issue 37 (in
which Fagin's Gang is reviewed) - thanks Alan. AND, to
top the day off, Fagin's Gang won the prize for
BEST NEW BRITISH BOARD GAME. The Shortlist included: Brass,
from Warfrog; It's
Alive, from Reiver Games; JKLM Games' Phoenicia;
Surprised Stare's Scandaroon;
and the 2nd edition of Canal
Mania, from the Ragnar Brothers.
2nd June 2007
UK
Games Expo - Day 1. The inuaguaral
event opened in Birmingham UK, and appears to have been a great
success. We hear that over 1000 came through the doors of the
Clarendon Suites to be greeted by games tournaments, traders and
exhibitors from all over Britain. The Fagin's Gang pitch
was very busy, with some very positive feedback about the game,
and some useful networking going on. We had the pleaseure of meeting
Richard Breese (Keythedral, Aladdin's Dragons, Reef Encounter),
who came across to see us - and perhaps to talk to Markus Welbourne
from JKLM Games, who spend 45 minutes at our table and has been
very helpful with advice and encouragement. A great day was had
by us. We look forward to Day 2...
31st May 2007
Fagin's Gang has been reviewed in the UK's premiere gamers'
magazine: Counter. Thanks to Alan How for his rigourous
and honest comments, including: "All
the mechanics work well and I particularly liked the market option...".
We also have a Q&A session in the same edition, in which Dean
explains to Stuart Dagger some of the finer points of Ludorum
Games and Fagin's Gang's development.
17th March 2007
Fagin's Gang
will be played at this year's The
Cast Are Dice gaming weekend in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. Shire
Games has
finally released details for this year's sequel to last year's
very successful innagural weekend.
2007 event dates are: Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th August.
This year will be even bigger and better, but numbers are still
limited, so book your tickets now: http://www.thecastaredice.co.uk
23rd February 2007
We are receiving a lot of enquiries about Fagin's Gang for
PC. This is now close to the beta testing stage, but development
has been delayed by the arrival of Microsoft Vista, which,
so I am told, is likely to have 'reliability issues' until the
first service pack is available. I won't tell you what our programmer
called Vista: it wasn't very nice!
10th February 2007
Fagin's Gang should now be available at your favourite
UK games shop. If it is not, please get in touch with them - or
us.
9th February 2007
All of our pre-orders around the world have now been sent. Many
thanks to everyone who ordered - and thanks for your patience!
8th February 2007
After some delay, our UK stock has finally arrived in our UK offices
- and it looks great!
3rd February 2007
FAGIN'S GANG has hit the German shops. Marcel at spielgilde.de
e-mailed to say all is well.
2nd February 2007
We have a game! FAGIN'S GANG
is on its way! Our games are out there on the truck/ship to England.
In fact, they were put together and sent on Wednesday (31st Jan),
but our German manufacturers didn't mention it! Our trade orders
have now been sent from Germany. Thanks to everyone for your patience;
you may well see the finished game before we do!
1st February 2007
We have a secured a Spanish translator for the rules. More details
soon.
26th January 2007
False Alarm! Another delay. I guess this is part and parcel
of being a games publisher with no manufacturing arm, but it is
all very frustrating. Our suppliers in Germany have e-mailed us
to inform us that their suppliers have still not got the wooden
components right! The colours of the pawns, yes; the colours of
the discs and cylinders, no. As a result, we have to wait here
in England while the problem is sorted in Germany. To compound
matters, Nürnberg 2007 is close and the factory is very busy.
We can only apologise to the the people who have already ordered
around 25% of this first edition. Please be as patient as we are;
we thank you.
26th January 2007
Success! We have been asked to submit our dipatch notes to Germany
for our Fagin's Gang pre-orders Hooray! We must have a
game. We will launch online at the weekend.
23rd January 2007
New Production Day - we hope! We await confirmation from our manufacturers
in Germany.
22nd January 2007
We've had a rather curious objection from a retailer in UK to
our game's tagline: "What are YOU going to steal today?".
This FLGS owner seems to feel that our
"obnoxious advertising by-line" may serve to encourage
"con-men and shoplifters". It is perhaps unnecessary,
but we should state here for the record that FAGIN'S GANG
is what is commonly referred to as a 'game'. It is in no way meant
as a celebration of stealing or a manifesto for thieves. In fact
readers of Dickens will tell you that Fagin himself meets with
the strong arm of the law at the end of Oliver Twist; a
moral message for us all. I wonder if our objecting retailer stocks
Tigris & Euphrates, with its wanton destruction of
civilizations; or Puerto Rico (slaves); Monopoly
(greed); Killer Bunnies (cruelty to animals); any war game;
or even Power Grid, with its irresponsible sale of fissile
nuclear materials on the open market. Comments welcome.
19th January 2007
Problem solved! To their credit, our German manufactures have
spotted the problem with the wooden components, and are replacing
the light natural wood pieces with darker versions. However, this
will push production into next week. We now expect delivery around
29th January.
18th January 2007
Problems! We have just received in the mail samples of the
wooden components to be included with Fagin's Gang. Unfortunately,
the white playing pieces are very similar (too
similar) in colour to the natural
wood pieces. The wooden pieces we used in play testing are quite
a bit darker than these, so the problem did not occur to us. It's
too late to change, so we will have to go with this situation
for the 1st edition. It may be necessary for people to add a blob
of coloured paint to one set of playing pieces. Nick has optimistically
pointed out this situation only affects 6-player games. Dean's
girlfriend has been even more optimistic by suggesting that will
make the first edition a collector's edition!
18th January 2007
Printing Day! As far as we are aware, Fagin's Gang
is being printed as we write this. We await confirmation from
Germany of the birth of our baby. We expect delivery next week.
13th January 2007
We now have a very good German translation of the rules, courtesy
of Frank Dohse. Thank you Frank. All
our translations will be made available on our download
page once Fagin's Gang has been released.
11th January 2007
We now have a distributor for the Benelux region...
If you are a retailer in Belgium, The Netherlands or Luxembourg,
please visit our Retailer Zone
for details.
10th January 2007
The game is being translated into German as we speak (or "jetzt",
I should say). All our translations will be made available on
our download page once Fagin's
Gang has been released.
January 8th 2007
We have received written confirmation from our German manufacturers
that FAGIN'S GANG should be ready for "week 03/07";
that's next week, which is very exciting! Watch this space.
January 6th 2007
Our game has now been translated into Dutch by Melissa
De Lombaerde and our friends at spellenwinkel.be:
Luk De Lombaerde, Pascal Taillaert. Many
thanks to them. If there are any Latin translators our there,
we would be pleased to hear from you.
January 2nd 2007
January Sales! We are pleased to announce that we are offering
FREE WORLDWIDE POSTAGE to anyone who orders and pays for FAGIN'S
GANG before its scheduled release date at the end of January.
Offer ends February 2007. Details here.
January 1st 2007
The New Year has arrived! At Ludorum Games we feel
that this is going to be 'our year', but we're not greedy: you
can have a piece of it too. Jim and Dean would like to wish gamers
everywhere the very best for 2007.
Meanwhile, Romania and Bulgaria have now joined the European
Union. Welcome! Unfortunately, it
now means that they will have to pay VAT (value added tax) on
purchases along with the rest of the EU. The rest of you can still
buy FAGIN'S GANG tax-free!
December 25th 2006
Dean is in Barcelona with his girlfriend, walking around this
beautiful, historic city. Rather surprisingly, most things are
open on Christmas Day, so we have visited Gaudi's famous house,
Casa Batllo and the stunning Sagrada Familia. Both highly recommended.
We brought Wolfgang Lüdtke's Caesar & Cleopatra
with us (a favourite of Dean's girlfriend - as well as small and
light), but we haven't had a chance to play yet.
November 2006
Sorry, things have been hectic here at Ludorum Games,
so this news page hasn't been updated for a while, but it will
be soon, I promise
October 1st 2006
Our "coming soon" advert on the Bardgame Geek site
(see here)
is coming to the close of its 30 day stint. Over 1000 people have
clicked through to this site from that one, which I think is pretty
good. Thank you if you are one of those people. Ane let's hope
that this initial interest translates into sales!
September 30th
We are still waiting for our German manufacturers to return
to us with a response to our latest small query, which has taken
over a week now. It's very frustrating as each small (but important)
query seems to take a week to reply to. We can't finalise data
until we get a response. I hope the printing isn't this tardy.
The end of November deadline is looking shaky.
September 17th 2006
Apparently the games that use ISBNs are breaking the guidelines!
These games are not listed in the regular Nielsen BookData's bibliographic
database. We have been advised to contact the EAN people, with
whom we should be registering Fagin's Gang in the UK. Watch
this space!
September 16th 2006 (even later the same day)
The ISBN people have undertaken to look into the matter. Our
e-mail has been passed up the line at the International ISBN Agency!
September 16th 2006 (later the same day)
The ISBN people are very efficient and, it has to be said,
adamant that ISBNs are not used for boardgames. We have replied
to our correspondent with a few examples: High Society
(0-9740913-2-4), Lost Cities (1-892081-23-7), Amun Re
(0-9719420-9-9), Samurai (1-892081-15-6), and asked for
clarification of this apparent contradiction.
September 16th 2006
Barcodes. All games have them, they are easy to generate,
but which type to choose? For those not in the know, which included
us just 24hrs ago, barcodes come in many shapes and sizes: EAN-8,
EAN-13, UPC-A, UPC-E, Code 11, Code 128, Postnet, Royal Mail,
ISBN, RSS-14, FIM C, etc. The list goes on. For a better undertsanding,
take a look here: http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter.
As I said, easy to generate a basic UPC-A barcode, but is it the
right type of barcode? As many of the German games have ISBN numbers,
we have contacted the International ISBN Agency at: http://www.isbn-international.org
September 14th 2006
More questions and requests for clarification have been sent
to the printers. This includes the component correction. It has
to said that, whilst the printers have very good English (better
than our German), the language barrier may well be causing problems.
We have decided that our next game should be based on Pythgoras'
Theorem - at least that is universal. We await the further response
of the printers. Our only concern is hitting our November deadline.
It could now be tight!
September 13th 2006
Our updated quote has finally arrived from the German company.
It's better than the last one: more complete and cheaper; however,
some of the components that were listed correctly on the last
quote are now listed incorrectly! We are deciding whether it will
be necessary for Jim or Dean to go to Germany to check each component
before it goes to press.
August 14th 2006
Good news! A local firm has returned with a fair price for
the rule booklets, AND may well be able to cope with the boxes
and boards, and can certainly handle the die-cut components. Time
will tell. Meanwhile, our complete-project quote is being prepared
in Germany.
August 10th 2006
A decision has been made to attempt to source the components
for FAGIN'S GANG individually - and as locally as possible. In
the meantime, we have are contacting another Germany-based company
for a complete-project quote.
August 9th 2006
Quotes have been received for runs of 500-5000; financial
decisions need to be made.
August 5th 2006
Headingly,
2nd day of the 3rd Test between England and Pakistan. Younis Khan
and Mohammad Yousuf put on an unbroken century stand to frustrate
England after the hosts had piled up 515. Meanwhile, the graphics
are being checked by Jim.
August 1st
2006:
Specifications are being sent to various printers and manufacturers
for their quotes. We wait with baited breath.
July 23rd 2006:
Although a number of English dictionaries allow both 'handkerchieves'
and 'hankerchiefs', a survey of Dickens' original text (courtesy
of Project Gutenberg), clearly favours the latter. The graphics
are being updated/corrected (depending on where you sit in the
office), as we speak.
July
21st 2006:
Debate has entered the Ludorum office.
For months now, the red commodity on the Seven Dials location
track has been: "Handkerchieves". Now, one of our number
thinks that, despite the fact that 'leaf' takes as its plural
'leaves', 'hankerchief' actually takes the plural 'handkerchiefs'.
Not everyone is convinced; we will look to Dickens as our arbiter.
July 18th 2006:
Play-testing is almost complete (if that
can ever be the case). We need at least one further 6-player play
'to the death' to test the longest time.
Lost Months
More to follow in here... On how the graphics were developed;
the decision to change from a phase-based game to a round-based
game; the problems of German translation; developing a website;
testing with the neighbours; development of the PC version; writing
the rules; blind-testing; and the joys of having a game that people
ask to play again and again.
February 26th 2006
The game, now called Fagin's Gang, gets its first five-player
test - with the Snell family. The new market works, but not perfectly.
However, the game as a whole is a great success. 14 year-old Ashleigh
uses bits of paper to track her progress, and is completely engrossed.
Step-father Chris suggests that the tracks be incorporated onto
a single board. He's right.
February 24th 2006
A 3am e-mail from Big John suugests a market innovation: sectors.
This way the market cannot get clogged up with commodities of
a single colour.
February 23rd 2006
The game and the basic graphics are tested at Big John's house.
It's only a three player test (with Dean and Little John), but
the new market gets a thorough shake-down. It is decided that,
whilst a market is essential to the game, the current system is
too fiddly. Dean undertakes to go away and re-think. Meanwhile,
the new graphics are very popular.
February 19th 2006
Whilst there is some work to be done, there is clearly enough
in the game to warrant starting on some graphics. The tracks provide
the central mechanism, so these are addressed first. The initial
idea is to produce the tracks as separate units to be placed on
the table in a fan formation.
February
18th 2006
Armed with a better opening setup, Dean takes the game to Jim's
house for a test. This basic early version (still
called "The Merchant Classes" at this stage) is a success,
but the market clearly needs some work. It keeps getting clogged
up with the pieces nobody wanted; however, nobody likes the idea
of the arbitrary "clear the clogged up market" rule.
It needs a natural mechanism. The very early deck of cards, conceived
with the original game, is dumped as unnecessary!
February
17th 2006
Armed with little bits of paper with numbers scrawled on them,
Dean attempts to test the game for the first time on his girlfriend.
However, they can't decide on an opening that doesn't rely on
an arbitrary setup
or the luck of the dice. The session ends in argument and little
testing.
February
16th 2006:
Dean takes his new concept to the games group. They like it! Big
John hopes that there's a version ready to test at the next session.
February
14th 2006
Dean stops work on the rudimentary prototype in order to cook
his girlfriend a lovely Valentine's Day dinner. The food is good,
but the talk soon drifts towards the new game.
February
10th 2006
Dean starts work on the tables, algorithms and quadratic equations
that will underpin the game's central mechanism. If this is not
solid, there's no game!
February
9th 2006:
Dean e-mails his rudimentary write-up of the game concept to Jim
and Alex. They like what they see.
February 8th 2006:
Dean comes up with the idea for the game mechanism whilst swimming
at the local pool. The game, however, has nothing to do with swimming.
In fact, its original title is "The Merchant Classes".
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