Report and targets 2025
- Vincent Verhoeven
- Nov 11
- 7 min read
Updated: Nov 15
Spiel 2025 convention
Our experience in Essen was very good this time. Like at UKGE last time, but unlike our previous Essen presence, we had our own booth. We even brought a big battery for the pc + display and our own furniture: banners, reception desk, 8 chairs and 4 tables. Like wizardry, I managed to stow the entire booth (except the shared walls) in my little car.
This time we also displayed the painted miniatures at the stand, drawing a lot of attention. We had a table for a short 1h astronomer demo of six rounds and one for a full 2h astronaut game. While Vicky and Ewout were explaining the game with the new extra action rules, I met with new potential partners for manufacturing opportunities suited for the new course the project is taking. Another of such opportunities is finding an alternative to offer printed miniatures in smaller amounts. Later I will elaborate more on that.
Many people from my local boardgame community came to say hi, and even some of the backers of our last campaign attempt came to meet me and have a chat.
The busiest days at our play table were Friday and Saturday. At those days we were nearly fully booked, while on the other days some of us had the opportunity to gather some loot to take home.
Exhausting ending
Once we were ready with a successful Spiel experience, we started to tear down our booth to finally gather everything on one transport cart and in one trolley. During the weekend my wife Deborah and my son joined the convention with a separate car. They left first hitting the highway for Belgium, while we followed. At a certain point in Düsseldorf I could not accelerate my car and the motor died at about 21h. We stranded at the highway's hard shoulder (emergency lane). Luckily I was insured for traveling in Germany through the VAB towing service. So, I called for help.
Initially, a Belgian tow truck would take the car back to Belgium with us, requiring a 2h wait in the dark cold near the highway, but instead a German local tow truck had to come. The reason for this was that Belgian tow trucks were not allowed to operate on the German highway.
The upside is that we normally have a shorter waiting time, if the local tow service wasn't directed to the wrong place by the German agent of my tow service assistance.
Another good thing we had going, is that Deborah was just a 30 min drive in front of us. I called her to temporarily save us from further coldness an the highway. Also thanks to her, a separate taxi service to bring us home was unnecessary. In the meantime the German police positioned their car behind the defected car as protection, but when I got a call from VAB, they warned of the local truck's misdirection adding another potential wait of 30min. I warned the police of this delay, and they decided to leave us for another emergency.
Finally the German tow truck arrived, but managed to drop me and the car off at the wrong BMW garage, where no keys could be dropped. The local security could not accept the key for safekeeping either and I was prohibited to leave the car open. So, we now where with 5 persons in my wife's electric car, forced to drive all the way to the Belgian tow service at night in Sint-Truiden to put the keys in the letterbox for a pickup in Germany 2 days later. Because of this detour, extra charging stops were required. Fighting against sleep, Deborah was obligated to hand over the wheel to me for the last hour drive, bringing Vicky and Ewout home in Ghent and returning to Lokeren to finally crash in our beds at 7h in the morning. This 12h exodus from Essen demanded 2 extra days to fully recover. Those days however, were also booked with errands, like driving my son to my mom and after that Deborah had to drive my to Hasselt for a board game design workshop.
Later after the car was delivered at the garage, I was informed that the car needed a new particulate filter. The engine can start when they removed the old filter. Nevertheless, the engine still was in bad shape, presumably the timing of the engine valves is offset. Once the new filter is installed, I will be informed of the diagnostics on the engine and further costs to the car. This was my first engine problem in 14 years. The car functioned perfectly up until now. I do hope it gets revived to save more on the project.
Some luck is still on our side
Luckily the car waited until after the convention to break down and that my work is a 20 min drive by bike, what otherwise would be 5 min by car. The downside is that I am not able to get my son from school afterwards, which takes longer to drive to.
On a happy note, especially for our son, Halloween on Friday and the FACTS Ghent cosplay convention 2025 during that weekend brought some family joy. Dressing up in costumes is one of my son's favourite hobbies. He dragged us into this dressing up tradition after his first FACTS experience several years ago, and now we roam FACTS as the Guardian of the Galaxy family. I am Starlord, Deborah is Gamora and my son is Rocket. In the pictures you can see our little fellow as Ghostface during Halloween and us posing with Leonardo and Michelangelo of the Belgian Ninja Turtles at FACTS.
Pre-orders base game
Although a pre-order 10% discount was offered at our booth at Spiel, pre-orders started coming in after the convention. Most of them for the USA and the UK. Many thanks for those who ordered already. The benefits of pre-ordering are huge, because:
you get a 6 EUR discount from 45 EUR into 39 EUR
shipment are prepped by our fulfilment agent, sending of games from the factory to the friendly shipping zones. Otherwise shipment will start from Belgium with 21% of VAT after EU import added costs.
you get the game before the Spiel release
Printed miniatures pre-orders
Thanks to business talks at Spiel, I manage to find an EU solution for hardcopy sales of the miniatures via bulk printing in smaller amounts. The sets will be divided into the same content as the STL-download packages. After finetuning the quotes for these sets, a limited amount of 100 boxes per set will be made available for pre-order. At first glance at the quote I received, we can offer the Astronomer and Astronaut for about 40 EUR each, and the instrument set for 20 EUR. All nicely packed in a nice box. Unlike the base game pre-order, these boxes might be sold out before the Spiel release. So don't hesitate to order your copy once we put the pre-order online, if you are not planning to print them yourself and really crave for them!
Sponsorship and T-shirts
Some small businesses want to sponsor the project outside any crowdfunding campaign and asked me for the company details to do so. In order to make their request easier, I included a sponsorship link to a form for small donations or larger company sponsorships.
Our miniatures got a lot of attention because of there fully coloured glory in their cuteness of anthropomorphic appeal to many passing visitors at our booth. Some even spotted our T-shirts and wondered if they could get them as well. For this reason I also decided to open a merch store with T-shirts and other goodies to help with the production fees.
Shop: Armillary Games | Spreadshop or via the website menu to the embedded shop.
More designs will be added weekly...
Rulebook process
We have tested the extra action rules for the non-starting players during private and public plays, and it proved to be a great enhancement on player experience, opportunities and fun. I have decided to implement these rules as a general rule in the game and we will merge the text in the final rule text, which is as good as complete, except for the solo play. This will be added asap.
My next step is to add play example texts where necessary at the appropriate sections in a separate coloured box (at the moment I decided it to be green boxes).
After that, info related that is beyond the scope of learning the rules, but greatly explains the game design choices, will be added in blue boxes. Some examples are explanations about the 4 week simplifications in the game for the moon phases, why they differ in our calendar, but do match the Chinese calendar. Or, why the daylight and armillary card are so significant in the game to emulate the star map, and what those represent in the real world.
Furthermore, I am working with www.board-game-wizard.com to make the rules accessible on their platform. This way you can ask the app via text or vocally to clarify certain rules. This really is exciting in order to further test the rulebook and test their app. As a default it also can give you a summary overview of a turn, winning conditions and end triggers, and how to quickly setup the game.
Quoting process
Since I need to finance the productions myself, I am obligated to go for a lower amount of boxes for the first print run. Some retailers, pre-orders and Spiel release sales coverage can ease the costs I will be making for 2026, but still I need to limit the first print run to max 1000 pieces in order to follow up on that first release's impression.
My decision to work with a certain factories will depend on quotes vs quality, the fastest print date, shipment and stock reserve options in Asia and Europe. Without a doubt, Panda GM is of premium quality, but my minimum amount and miniature production reach is too limited to cover their minimum mass production costs.
In the following days I am finalizing my quoting lists to potential manufactories. Current price tags are based on the last Panda quoting for 1500 boxes. After a lot of talks with other manufacturers a minimum to 1000 is not going differ much from the current 1500 in the final price per unit calculations, but a smaller total amount makes my investment more bearable and stock management/costs less demanding when separating pre-order procedures from normal retail.
These are my report and targets for now. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any question or comments regarding what I wrote here.
As always, ad astra!
Comments