City of Games January update

Happy New Year! I hope you, your friends, and your family had a great time over the holiday period and managed to enjoy spending some time together.

Over Christmas I spent a lot of time thinking about the future and have started this year with several promises to myself, including:

Starting a new blog sharing my experiences as a publisher
Sending more regular (monthly) email updates
Being more active on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
Getting to know you better so I can continue to make games and expansions you enjoy.

If you would like to comment on anything in this update or provide feedback about what you would like to see in the future then please post a comment below!

Demographic survey 2022

I would love to learn more about you and invite you to fill in a survey for The City of Game.

Anyone who fills in this survey before Friday 14th January will have a chance to win 1 of 5 £75 vouchers for our online store.

Product update

Here’s the latest news on the games:

There was a small restock of The City of Kings Deluxe edition and several expansions in the store recently.
The new expansions for The Isle of Cats are now on ships and are expected to be available in retail from April.
Explore & Draw is on route to my warehouses and is also expected to release in April.

Publisher lessons

I recently started a new blog sharing my experiences as a publisher, in these articles I will be as open and honest as possible and hope you find them interesting.

An update on Frank

Over the last month I finally finished my games room and have been playing Now Boarding, Kabuto Sumo, North American Railways, and Nova Luna. I have also really been enjoying the South Korean series Kingdom and Japanese show Alice in Borderland on Netflix but I’m not sure what to watch next?

Until next time

I hope you have a fantastic January and I look forward to enjoying this new year with you, it may be the first time I release 2 games in the same year… But we’ll talk about that more if and when it happens!

Frank West

Frank West is a gamer and designer based in Bristol, UK. He published his first board game, The City of Kings, in 2018 and now works on other games and organising events in the local area. His goal? To design and publish games focusing on immersive themes, fun mechanics and beautiful components. If you have any questions or would just like a chat, feel free to get in touch at any time!

8 comments

Dan H.
6th January 2022 at 5:42 pm

I’m sure it won’t happen, but I’d love to see you (and every game publisher) get off of Facebook completely. There are many reasons, and well-reasoned arguments you can find for why this is a good idea, even if you aren’t using the platform for anything but game and business related activity. Supporting the platform in any way is, arguably, supporting the problems it causes.

Other than that, keep up the great work and bring us more amazing games!

- Frank West
  6th January 2022 at 6:29 pm
  
  Hey Dan, I think this is a very valid point and a goal I’d also love to see achieved in the future, as such, I’d like to offer an honest response to it. I’ve used Facebook much less for non-business activities over the recent years and look forward to the day where there are other populated options to fully replace it.
  
  From a business perspective it is very hard, as a small publisher who’s primary marketing strategy is to be an active member of the community, I simply wouldn’t survive if I switched Facebook off. At present it represents around 75% of my marketing activities and is where 90% of questions and interactions come from. Despite having many other options for communication, it still remains the most actively used and I would not feel comfortable switching that off and effectively ignoring those people.
  
  Outside of that we still lack a good option for groups and communities for the mass market. BGG works well for the enthusiasts and Discord is great for people who know about it, but neither of these platforms are discoverable enough for the wider audience.
  
  I think if a good community/group option arrives that the mass market moves to, and alongside that I can grow my community by a considerable amount, then it will become a more viable option. In the meantime I’ll certainly continue to use other platforms alongside Facebook and try to build more reach on those to reduce the dependancy on Facebook as much as I can.
  
Georgia King
6th January 2022 at 10:05 pm

Happy New Year, Frank! This is a great update, I’m so excited to see how all your new endeavors unfold!

- Frank West
  7th January 2022 at 11:48 am
  
  Thank you Georgia, and to you!
  
Youssef mansour
9th January 2022 at 9:08 pm

Hello,

Just found out about the isle of cats game this past week, super excited to play it, but unfortunately can’t find it in stock in any of the stores in Canada! Wondering when we can expect some games! From reviews and pictures of the game – you’ve done an amazing job – excited to try it out and provide Feedback after actually playing it!

- Frank West
  11th January 2022 at 2:06 pm
  
  Hey Youssef, I’m glad to hear you have discovered the game recently and I’m sorry it’s hard to get in Canada right now. There is a new shipment on route to Canada as we speak and I expect it to be back in stores by March/April.
  
  - Youssef Mansour
    21st January 2022 at 8:29 pm
    
    Wanted to follow up – I ended up getting a copy in the US! Love the game – you did an amazing job! I’m excited for when the expansions become available off of kickstarter – sadly found out about the game after the kickstarter campaign ended haha ! Keep doing good things!
    
    - Frank West
      23rd January 2022 at 1:17 pm
      
      I’m very glad to hear it Yoossef! Hopefully the new expansions will be easy enough to get in Canada in a few months!

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