War on Terror Blog
Friday 27th April 2007
Leaving Las Vegas ...
The last day of the toy fair is traditionally a quiet affair and we prepared well by getting an early night for once, although Andy S somehow managed to end up at the Playboy club alone, "just taking a look around".
But the third day was as full-on as the other two. We barely get a moment to rest, especially as today is the day The Distributors do the rounds and nervous new publishers try and entice them over to change their fortunes.
Luckily for us, the word on the street appears to be that WoT is a must-have game. For the first time in our brief commercial existence, we were actually spoilt for choice. Instead of begging shops and distributors to look more closely at the game and reconsider, we had retailers telling us they "had to have it, no matter what". We rounded the day off with a couple of meetings and something about Santa Claus and sodomy and that was it.
When the bell sounded, we packed up knowing that the fair couldn't have gone any better for us. Overwhelmed by everyone's response, helpful advice and encouragement, we left with that warm glow that comes from being wanted and appreciated - or possibly it was just sweating inside an orange boiler suit for 3 days straight.
We particularly liked their creative marketing ideas, mostly involving Santa Claus and sodomyNo sooner had we packed up, than we were in the car, on the road, heading out of Vegas on a scenic route taking in Death Valley, the Mojave reserve and on to Los Angeles. It was an unspeakably moving experience to watch the buildings of Vegas trickle and stutter to a stop as the desert started, the sun setting brightly in front of us. We did what any normal human being would do: we stopped and played frisbee amongst the cacti until we could see no more.
After spending the night in the slightly 'Dusk to Dawn'-ish Long Street Hotel Casino - a state-border casino in the middle of nowhere - we set off early along the edge of Death Valley park, through Shoshone and Baker and down through the Mojave desert. We can particularly recommend the Shoshone museum and the Ashford's silver teapot.
The desert was too vast and impressive to take in all at once, leaving us all in quiet appreciation and awe for most of the journey. Again we expressed our amazement at the desert with a spot of frisbee, this time in a place called Baghdad. Apparently once a bustling little town, it's now only marked by a single tree. Let me tell you, looking for a tree in a desert is no easy task, so it deserved a stop once we eventually found it. Incidentally, we can also recommend the desert as a near-ideal frisbee location - still, warm air is perfect for straight, steady flying.
The other place of note we stopped was Amboy on the historical Route 66. It's classified as a ghost town, but really, we decided, it was just a bad business decision. Some one built a motel, it went out of business, end of town. We got talking to some friendly bikers at the non-functioning gas station and then hit the road again.
The last image of the day was driving into LA at night, passing endless development for a good 40 miles until the dramatic downtown skyline loomed suddenly into view. We crashed the first night on Bill's floor - the guy who had organised the tournament - almost too tired to speak, but we quickly found out Bill was a cool dude when we woke to coffee and doughnuts the next morning.
- posted by TerrorBull Games on 27 April 2007 - 0 comments
Tuesday 24th April 2007
Awesome!
Day one of the games fair and it's a rough, slow start as we managed to find a decent bar in Vegas the night before and celebrated finishing our stand in style with crazy bikers and bar girls who brandish megaphones. We knew we were in for a good night when they stopped the music as we walked in to announce, via the megaphone, that Andy T had taken away the 'Napoleon' title from a regular, due to his apparent similarity to Napoleon Dynamite. TerrorBull Games fully endorses 'Hogs & Heifers' in downtown Vegas.
So we arrive at the games fair a little late and sweating whisky, only to have to put on our jumpsuits which increases our body temperatures by another 10 degrees. We managed to get them on just in time for the big opening. Before long our stall in surrounded by retailers and press and within 30 minutes we've lost count of the number of 'Awesomes' we received.
The general reaction is 'your game looks great', 'your stall looks great', 'where did you get the banners made'. Not one bad reaction. Not one person telling us we're 'sick'. In fact, we even heard 'best game here', 'best stall here', 'best outfits here', so all in all fairly positive, which is the moral boost you need when hungover at a games fair. Everyone seems to get the joke, and most people couldn't believe that Essen, London and the other toy fairs wouldn't let us exhibit.
Business cards flying back and forth and it seems our game will be turning up in a fair few US shops just as soon as the new stock arrives over here. Other exciting 'business deals' were talked about and we've got a number of 'power meetings' arranged for the next couple of days.
Before we know it, it's the end of day one and we're feeling great, so many people wishing us well and lots of useful advice and information about the games industry, it's about time we started to learn about this stuff.
Back to the hotel for a power-nap and to spruce ourselves up for the 'GAMA High' prom-themed welcome party. Not quite Hogs & Heifers, but we'll take the megaphones just in case.
- posted by TerrorBull Games on 24 April 2007 - 0 comments
Monday 23rd April 2007
Our stand is rubbish
For somewhere so 'dirty', Vegas is a clean town, but luckily we can sniff out trash anywhere. Scouting around motorways and behind Casinos we managed to find enough junk to decorate our stand. Blown-out tyres, bits of piping, old beer bottles, jazz mags and some sand bags. It's amazing what you can find if you look in the right places.
Of course we received a few strange looks, three guys sneaking along embankments picking up any old shit we can find. Still, but we're used to strange looks, and you can always scare them off by shouting "that's right, we're here to clean up this town!"
We thought we had everything sorted and then Tom came up with the idea of burning one our 'rabbit rats', a genious stroke and an entertaining minute and a half as the rat went up in flames whilst Tom bashed it flat with a big pipe.
More than one person telling us that we'll sell thousands because 'everyone hates Bush so much'So we're ready, we've got everything we need to try and scare the hell out of everyone at the GAMA show. It's Monday, set up day, we turn up late due to car hire problems, but there's still plenty of time to make our stand look wonderful, in that 'big pile of shit' kind of way.
As soon as we fire up the screaming, blinking 'crow on skull' plastic wonder we get people poking their heads round the corner and jaws drop as they realise that they're sharing an exhibition hall with us. The most common reaction to the stand so far is 'AWESOME'.
Tom confused a few people by sitting at our stand flicking through Playboy with a sloppy grin on his face, it took him a while to convince and show people that in fact Playboy had covered our game in the May issue and called it “one of the most thought provoking games [they’ve] seen in yearsâ€. Nice.
We've met a few distributors and other 'games people' and already there's a positive vibe. More than one person telling us that we'll sell thousands because 'everyone hates Bush so much'. Hang on, surely people will buy our game because of the quality gameplay and finish, we don't mention Bush anywhere, because sadly the 'War on Terror', and our game, will last a lot longer than he does.
A few hard-working hours later and the stand is pretty much finished, and it looks great. None of us expecting a pile of crap and a stack of boardgames to look quite as good as it does. We're happy and excited, ready for the first full day of the fair. Just enough time left to iron the orange jumpsuits.
- posted by TerrorBull Games on 23 April 2007 - 0 comments
Saturday 21st April 2007
The long good Friday
Finally the day has come, after dragging ourselves out of bed with our respective ladies, we three, Andy T, Andy S & Tom MJ, manage to meet and catch the 3.30 coach to Gatwick without a problem. After the initial excitement of 'being on the road', we all pass out, arriving at Gatwick feeling rough, but in the full knowledge that we've got a way to go yet.
Gatwick doesn't present us any problems and we meet half of the WOTumentary film crew there, who look as rough as we do, which is comforting. Andy T must look the most terrorist like, getting the full search three times before he's even on a plane.
Eight and a half hours later and we arrive in Cincinnati, time for US customs... Andy T draws the short straw and lugs the bag containing the camo netting, EVIL Balaclavas and 'warning unexploded bomb' signs through customs. No questions asked, phew, the bag goes on the conveyor belt and it's on its way to Vegas.
Andy S, being the only Vegas veteran, ended up 80 dollars up, which is just about the same as Andy T and Tom lostAnother couple of hours waiting around in airports and we're on yet another plane heading for Vegas. Andy S attempts to write a press release whilst holding his eyes open with match sticks, Andy T and Tom fall asleep in each other arms, a touching moment.
We hit Vegas and manage to make it past the slots in the airport without losing too much money. A quick taxi ride later and we hit the Gold Coast hotel, our home for the next six days.
It's Friday, 6pm, our Friday started 38.5 hours ago but that doesn't stop us. We off out to check out the strip, gorge ourselves on cheap American food and learn how to lose money in Casinos. Andy S, being the only Vegas veteran, ended 80 dollars up, which is just about the same as Andy T and Tom lost.
By 1am we're dead on our feet and the bright lights, beeps and whistles start to grate a little. Time to hit the hay and catch up on some sleep...
Vegas baby, one crazy assed town, somehow we seem to fit in.
Please Note: Finding Internet access in Vegas was a harder task than we expected, but now we're set up expect regular updates!
- posted by TerrorBull Games on 21 April 2007 - 0 comments
Thursday 19th April 2007
Off to Vegas!
The day has come: we're off to the States to see what the citizens of the country that invented the phrase 'war on terror' think of our game. Hopefully we'll pull off a licensing or distribution deal, but who knows, just making it back would be good enough.
Due to extreme planing, the final day is nice and calm. We've impressed ourselves with our new press clippings pack. The stencil on the orange jumpsuits looks good. The stickers stick to the cockroaches, it's all going to plan.
All we have to do now is to see who wins the toss to take the bag with the camo netting and balaclavas through customsIt's not often you get to take a transatlantic flight with such an interesting packing list:
- 200 plastic cockroaches
- 3 orange jumpsuits
- 4m x 4m camo netting
- 3 'warning mines' signs
- Atomic radiation sign
- 4 end of world bed sheets
- 20 plastic rats
- 1 unexploded bomb sign
- Raven on skull head figurine
- 40 EVIL Balaclavas
- Cardboard cut-out burning TV falling from sky
- Flashing lights
- 1 Geiger counter
- Lots of other shit...
Quite a nice list, all we have to do now is see who wins the toss to take the bag with the camo netting and balaclavas through customs.
We're going to try our best to update this blog as much as possible whilst we're away, but who knows, we may end up losing our minds... Fear and loathing here we come!
- posted by TerrorBull Games on 19 April 2007 - 0 comments
« Hide form and comments