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December, 2023 December offered both ups and downs. A planned online test of Karlskrona ended up with only one other player while a planned physical test had to be cancelled altogether. At least I managed to finalize the event cards, perhaps motivated by the movie Napoleon. I still think the Soviet theme is better but now I'm prepared to retheme the game, should WODC have another contest. The popularity of the Soviet theme was further underlined by yet another sale of my Soviet mini games Comrade, Gulag and Politburo. Now all three games have been awarded "Red Stone Seller" at The Game Crafter so perhaps I should try pitching them again. We'll see what 2024 holds in store. 
November, 2023 Due to a vacation this month, I had little time for designing games. However, I did enjoy playing games at the game convention Tyskhelg, particularly the asymmetric power game Hegemony. Some of the mechanics did inspire ideas about an ITIL game, where deliveries are represented by cubes added (player time) or removed (bugs) from bags and where players are rewarded based on project priorities (time, cost, quality). However, the question is if not Find the Bug! - Projects already covers this theme with better mechanics. Finally, I was happy to acquire a replacement to the recently sold Iwari, namely the simpler predecessor Web of Power. October, 2023 This month's work covered both new and old games. Besides some more testing, tweaking and tuning of Karlskrona, I had the opportunity to test On Shelf with some new colleagues and the result was two small steps backwards. First, I decided to remove the special rules for storing and stacking items in stock and make the rules more similar to how items are handled on the shelves, where you simply place items by type and color and ignore first in-last out rules. Second, I returned parts of the old victory points by rewarding players for stocking/filling missing items. The first step removed a rule that added more complexity than depth while the second step was necessary to prevent stalled games where the players rather play suboptimally than risk helping opponents. I was also happy to have last month's triple sale of my Soviet mini games repeated. With this, not only Comrade and Politburo have been awarded "Red Stone Seller" at The Game Crafter but also Gulag. They certainly deserve to become my next focus games! Speaking of them, I also made some progress in the retheming of Glasost to the French Revolution. The Reformers and Repressers have been replaced by Royalists and Revolutionaries (with the Bonapartes lurking in the background) while Economy, Military and Security have been replaced by Economic, Social and Political reforms or repressions. There is still more work to do but with no deadline for the next WODC yet I'm in no hurry. 
Finally, my game collection saw a reduction as I sold Stockpile and Iwari, both great games that sadly don't get to the table. September, 2023 With the summer vacations over, I returned the co-design of the game Karlskrona. Co-designing has the advantage of generating more ideas and perspectives but also the challenge of putting all this together. Thus, I applied my frequently used method of writing down the rules to get a holistic view and identify inconsistencies and complexities. After some streamlining, it turned that the core of the game was simple enough with two turn actions (build and work) supported by three card actions (resource, skill and transport). The next step is to provide good victory conditions that reward the players for skilful use of those "sandbox mechanics" and offer them with meaningful decisions on the way. A key to success is to make the building types interdependent so that the player strategies constantly have to be adapted to the game's changing supply and demand. Unfortunately, this left too little time for a game review this month. It's a pity, because last month's review of Pax Pamir ended up on BGG:s hotlist and I also got a request to have it translated and published in Korea. 
Finally I was happy to record yet another sale of my Soviet mini games Comrade, Gulag and Politburo. Comrade and Politburo have now been awarded "Red Stone Seller" at The Game Crafter, something that only Apokalypsis, Cosmoclasm and Find the Bug! have accomplished. Perhaps they deserve to become my next focus games? August, 2023 With the reception of the 4th WODC prize certificate I was ready to move on to the next challenges. 
Two games were selected to participate in the next Fastaval: the satirical Social Tourist on the European immigration policy, based on the mechanics of Fair Trade, and the Mediterranean trading game Navigare Necesse Est, based on the mechanics of Foundation. I also managed to write another review and this time I explored how Pax Pamir manages to create a conflict game play without take that or bash the leader mechanics. 
July, 2023 Great news! Politeia/Hellenica won the 4th WODC and was offered a licensing contract. This is the first Nova Suecia game to be licensed and I look forward to the cooperation with Yoka Games. 
I also managed to complete the game test of Foundation. Some important changes that improved the game experience was to prevent space ships from sharing star gates and let the Empire ships move around the board instead of inwards and outwards. Naturally, this also meant a lot of adjusting and balancing colony tiles and goal tiles but the game is now ready for external tests. 
My vacation also game me time to resume my reviews with a long due "scientific approach" to Alchemists. 
June, 2023 With the testing of Politeia completed, I finally got time to start testing Foundation. Overall, the gameplay seems to work and so far I've mainly had to update some tiles with the new two actions per turn rule. (I guess it's the chess player in me who starts designing games with one action per turn whereas many modern board games provide two or even more actions to let player chain them.) I also have some ideas for the goal tiles, where the first player to research a goal may choose one of two and then reveal it to all players the following round, to increase the sense of agency. The game test has to be completed before I can evaluate that, though. 
I also did some work on a co-designed game, based on my previous idea for the city building game Karlskrona. The game builds upon a deck/tableau building mechanic, where cards slide and combine to provide new actions each turn, which are used to build interdependent buildings on a common map. It's harder than I thought to co-design and keep the game coherent but it'll be interesting to see the outcome. 
A third game that got some love was the old Fair Trade. Inspired by the test in March and games like For Sale, I made the economy closed by returning farm payments to the players to add some extra tension to the game. A simple solution to the player income challenge that will see some tests later. Finally, I was happy to receive Rallyman GT as a birthday gift by some friends. The game may be a bit random but uses an interesting turn order mechanic to convey the racing feeling. I also acquired the heavier game Trickerion, which features an interesting combination of worker placement and action points together with a "Lacerdian" complexity to collect everything you need to perform the best magical tricks in the theatre. I'll not be bored this summer! May, 2023 This was a very focused month with all my attention directed to Politeia. As expected, I struggled a lot to streamline the rules and remove every little exception and corner case. One key change was to go from twelve different actions to four action groups with a general rule and three variation rules (take in different regions, place at the bottom of cities in different regions, replacing the top citizen with different "support" and pay different items for different rewards). I did have doubts about the "request" that discs removed by players shouldn't earn victory points as well as about the "overpowered" sacrifice action being not only underpowered but also a bit boring since it only gave victory points, not anything "gamey". However, after much agony and many ideas rejected because of the increased complexity (an Olympos with more victory points and regular rewards to the players who sacrifices the most, a sacrifice track with rewards "on the way" and so on) I finally came with a simple and elegant solution. With three "warmonger actions" that bring discs to Hades, which options does the peaceful player has? The solution was to let each sacrifice not only bring discs to Elysion but also to return discs from Hades (own to the hand, opponents to the supply) to decrease the risk of war and give some immediate return on the spent resources. A problem solved and a missing piece found in the same mechanic! I also had some doubts about potential first-player advantage problems as well as last action advantages (due to the "sudden death" nature of the game) but the many tests refuted those. If anything, the first player has few good options for his or her second turn and the attempts with a final turn after the end game trigger felt not only boring but rarely changed the result anyway. Whether WODC approves of the changes remains to see but they are good enough to motivate a third edition of the game. Will my next game be about markets? I did get a chance to add the market manipulation game Stockpile to my collection so hopefully it will inspire economic games in the future. 
April, 2023 Finally it was time to go to Fastaval and demonstrate Glasnost. The journey there was better planned this year with a stopover at Karlstad to visit my brother and taking the morning ferry from Gothenburg instead of the night ferry. Then followed three consecutive days of gaming, which saw three very engaging and interesting game sessions. All the players immersed themselves in their roles of the Soviet politicians and played well too as all of the games ended with successful coups. 
Unfortunately, Glasnost did not make it to the final, not so much because of the gameplay but because the rules and the graphics could have been better. Thus, the game's future remains uncertain as few publishers seem interested in social deduction games nowadays and the controversial theme doesn't help either. 
Anyway, the journey turned into a pleasant vacation with a dinner at the Michelin star restaurant Restaurant Frederikshøj, ferries back to Scania (for lunch at Holy Smoke BBQ) and car on to Småland (to visit my father). Will there be a third Fastaval? It really depends on how much time and effort I can put into a really professional production. My next game Foundation could have been a candidate and had some very good tests with only minor adjustments, such as two actions per turn instead of one. Unfortunately it may not be submitted to Fastaval again but perhaps to WODC. 
Speaking of WODC, I also had a video session to discuss Politeia. Overall they enjoyed the game, particularly the mancala action selection mechanic and how it fit the area majority game, but they had some concerns regarding the innovative/less intuitive game mechanics, particularly the catch-up mechanic whereby eliminated opponents turn into victory points and the way players have to "restart their engines" after each Greco-Persian war. To remedy this, I started developing a new edition where citizens in Hades return to the players' hands as talents and where all citizens to Elysion reward the players with talents after each war. Early tests indicate that this game works as well but I expect that I also have to develop the rulebook. 
March, 2023 Great news reached us from China this month: Politeia (under its new version name Hellenica) reached the final of the 4th WODC. After this success and previous year's success at Fastaval, I may have to reconsider its market potential and pitch it to some more publishers. 
Speaking of Fastaval, I was also reliefed to receive the copies of Glasnost from The Gamecrafter and forward them to Denmark. It's a simpler game than Politeia but social deduction may have less appeal than action selection and area majority so we'll see whether the game will repeat Politeia's success. The new board looks very good anyway and I hope the players at Fastaval will enjoy the Kremlin intrigues (but to help them, I've decided to print strategic advice and bring it for them). 
Also included in the package was the new game Foundation, which I look forward to test. Unfortunately, Cobweb was not ready to include in the package but I did manage to complete its game video. Another game that did get tested this month was the old Fair Trade. It got a positive reception with some interesting suggestions, of which I chose to portion the players' capital instead of giving them a lump sum at the start. In this way, newer players don't have to worry about overbidding in the early rounds and be left without money in the later rounds. 
February, 2023
Nevertheless, I did manage to complete the game video for Foundation and publish the home pages for both this game and Cobweb. Speaking of awards, the WODC adventure for Politeia and Find the Treasure: The Card Game with the start of an online campaign. The purpose is to let the audience vote for a public award but for me the extra exposure is what I hope most for.
There is also a third awarded game that will go on tour soon: Glasnost is due for Fastaval in less than two months and there is still some work left to do. A game file was flagged by a less intelligent AI at The Game Crafter forced me to reorder the games but they have now been shipped and will hopefully arrive in time. I also made all the travel arrangements, including three ferries and four hotels (as we will go on our usual Sweden-Denmark tour and visit family and good restaurants on the way). Besides own game designs, I also helped testing online implementations of Splotter Spellen's latest game Horseless Carriage at Boardgamecore and Onlineboardgamers. I was very impressed, not only by the implementations but by the game itself with its combination of spatial puzzle (to build a factory) and market competition (to produce and market the cars the customers currently want), so I decided to add the game to my collection. There is one thing that is more fun than designing games and that is playing games. January, 2023 After some final reviews and tests I placed ordered two copies of Glasnost for Fastaval and one copy of my latest game Foundation from The Game Crafter. I had hoped to complete the homepage for Foundation but some older games required my attention. Some test feedback for Apokalypsis led to the addition of symbols on the omen cards to easier distinguish the card types "where", "what" and "will". 
However, some other test feedback for Politeia was less easy to resolve since it indicated that the game is still too complex for some players. Instead, and after reading the article Why so many games about trees and animals?, I was inspired to pursue the idea of a bare bone version of Politeia using only the two core mechanics of "mancala actions" and "stacked majorities". The result was a game with the working name "Cobweb" (since Arachnophobia sounded less family-friendly), a game where the players take the simple actions of move spider+locate discs/relocate discs upwards/relocate discs sidewards/earn points for top discs (and relocate them to the bottom). Instead of three regions like in Politeia, the cobweb has three area types that apply to different actions. The components are so simple that the first draft literally only took a couple of hours to complete. Future tests will tell if Knizia's famous principle that a game is finished when there is nothing more that can be taken away and still leave a good game applies to Politeia/Cobweb. 
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This month I celebrated the 9th birthday of Nova Suecia Games with the usual giveaway of
as many games. It's been an exciting journey, although I must admit that energy from the first
years is missing nowadays. After so many games and awards I feel that I've explored the
designs I typically enjoy in games and now that I know how much work that remains to
realize a game idea, it gets more difficult to find the motivation to pursue it. I guess
a publisher contract would relieve me from the work I find less interesting but the
competition is much tougher nowadays and even prototypes need to look professional.