Why did we decide to make The Blog Master: Exploring Europe and where did the idea come from? To answer this we need to go back to the very beginning...
We began as a traditional mom and pop woodshop; making many hand crafted items -- from cutting boards to clocks with a few items like cribbage boards thrown in. Over the years we added more products to our catalog that fit into the "Gaming Niche", but 2020 really changed everything for our small woodshop!
We had a request to make a wood replacement board for Settlers of Catan in the fall of 2019 but took a pass on making it since we were not active gamers and knew very little about the game. Although we were making scorecards for many card games, cribbage boards, and even the occasional chess set - Tabletop Gaming was something we just did not feel comfortable getting into. With that said, in Feb. of '20 we received a call from my daughter informing us that her college was shutting down. She needed us to come get her and her stuff as they did not know when classes would resume - obviously we got in the car and made a quick trip to her school :). On the way home we talked a lot about the woodshop and what effects we though the world shutting down would have on our small business. During our quick stop at Walmart to pick up some odds and ends we grabbed a copy of Settlers of Catan. Unsure of anything we figured we would take some time and learn what the game was all about. Needless to say it was love at first play and a week later I had created our version of a replacement board / hex tiles and put it up on ETSY to determine if there was any interest. Guess what - they sold as fast as we could make them. So over the next couple months we added all the expansions and other Catan related accessories to our shop and the tabletop game side of our business was off and running.
Fast forward to the summer of 2021- our gaming products now made up about 75% of our overall product sales and we began to realize this was the niche we wanted to be in. We were having a great time learning many games ranging from Carcassonne to Wingspan and coming up with cool accessories that gamers would like to make these games even better. During our summer vacation Ellouise commented that the one thing missing was the development of our own game! She said it in jest, but it was true...
Over the next year and a half gaming accessories became our primary business and accounted for almost 90% of our annual revenue. We went back and forth several times about the idea of making a game. Things like: what should the theme be, how did we want it to play, who would be interested in our game, and many other general ideas... Ultimately, with the retail holiday season behind us, in January of '23, we decided it was time to finally buckle down and actually start developing a plan. What would it really take to go from "an idea" to a finished game and get it into the hands of our customers. This turned out to be much more involved than we anticipated - but who doesn't like a challenge?
Once we had our theme - Worldwide Travel - (our biggest passion outside of work) we needed to decide on the mechanics and style of game we wanted to produce. Then it was a matter of creating a functional prototype. This allowed us to start testing and refining the game. Our goal was simple - to create something we not only enjoy playing but would be proud to put our name on! Since then the game has taken many iterations, but soon you too will be able to enjoy The Blog Master: Exploring Europe!
If you would like to know more about our journey through the game development process be sure to follow our blog or join our newsletter as we hope to be posting a lot more articles about the adventure! Our newsletter will contain special discounts, development news, and the latest information on it's release. We anticipate releasing the game via Kickstarter in late May / early June of 2024 and hope everyone loves it as much as we do!!
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