TerrorBull Games Blog

Over the Border

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Over the years, we've heard some pretty funny stories about War on Terror getting on the wrong side of the authorites. Today, after receiving what is certainly the best story to date, we bring you our favourite, top three "border moments".

No. 3 The first ever convention we actually got invited to instead of banned from was in Las Vegas. How could we not accept? Our border moment came as we attempted to pass a duffle bag full of 50 balaclavas, an assortment of "mine" and "unexploded bomb" signs and a copy of War on Terror, the boardgame through U.S. customs. Oh, and several hundred plastic cockroaches. On reflection, the cockroaches got us off the hook; the customs officer asked, "Is this some kind of theatre piece?" We agreed and were waived through, palms sweating.

No. 2 Our number two moment sounds like something from Monty Python. Last year, we were alerted to the tale of a young woman who had purchased War on Terror here in the UK and wanted to take it back with her to Israel. You may think you know where this is going, but you don't. She also, during her stay, purchased some cheddar cheese and for reasons that aren't fully explained, she thought the best place for the cheese was in the War on Terror box. At the airport, her baggage was overweight, so she pulled out the board game and tried to march it on as cabin luggage. Not surprisingly, a box with "War on Terror" on the front, containing an un-xrayable block of cheese set off just about every alarm in the terminal. In her own words, "They were worried the cheese was explosives. They didn't like the board game, either." She wasn't allowed to take the board game on for fear of "upsetting the other passangers" but amazingly they didn't confiscate it and instead put it in the hold for free. Read the full story here.

No. 1 It's hard to beat explosive cheese in board games, but this week, a story from 2010 surfaced that has no peer. It is a mind-boggling tale of absurd waste of resources and hilarious, po-faced government agents. The customer in question - we'll call him Tim - tells it better than we could, so without further ado, enjoy ...

"I purchased War on Terror a few years back in 2006 whilst living in Dubai, no problems there whatsoever, in fact we used to have a nice little play every Christmas with some friends. In May 2010 I decided to move back to Australia, I packed up all my possessions into various cardboard boxes, amongst them War on Terror the board game, and had a shipper send everything back to Australia on a slow boat. In the meantime, I had bit of work in various bits of the world, and wasn't planning to be back in Australia until a couple of months after my shipment would arrive. I thought no problems there, I'll have it delivered to my parents' place and they can keep the various boxes in their garage until I returned.

So, anyway whilst working in the UK I get a call from the shippers in Australia that there's been some kind of delay with the shipment. Then I get the email below:

One of the items that they have pulled up is a terrorist board game and the other items are related to terrorist nature. A hold has been put on this shipment from customs until Canberra has had a look in to it.
I will be in contact, once we have more information.
Thank you
xxxxxx
On behalf of xxxxx xxxxxxxx | Imports Controller

I then get some weird phone calls from various government types in Australia asking about the board game. My parents even got a visit from some dark-suit-and-sunglasses types, regarding them being the consigned address on the shipment."

Tim learnt later that the investigation involved a senior customs investigator and three other officials who had to fly from Canberra to Brisbane to look at the shipment. All at the expesne of the tax payer naturally. We kind of feel bad. But we also feel hilarious.

Have you got a War on Terror border-crossing story? If you do, please share it with us.

War on Terror voted 3rd best board game app of 2011!

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:00:00 GMT

This week we found out the fantastic news that War on Terror, the application placed 3rd in the Best Board Game Apps of 2011! This is no small achievement considering the site logged over 1 million votes and especially when you look at the high calibre of competition we had to fend off in order to place - Scrabble, Catan, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico.

We wouldn't be there of course if it weren't for your support and votes - we are so thankful. It means a huge amount to us to be able to call our first ever app an "award-winning app". Yay!

As you can imagine, this is very encouraging and we're hard at work on the next two updates - the first is to make the app universal for ipad too (we've shelved for now the idea of a separate app just for ipads) and the second will be multiplayer. Unfortunately "proper work" (the sort that actually brings in money) has got in the way lately and slowed things down for all of us, but we'll have more concrete news very soon.

For those of you who haven't tried the app yet, you can download it here.

Also, we'd really like to hear your ideas of what you'd like us to tackle next. Crunch is an obvious choice, but is the demand there? We get the feeling people would prefer to see something new, but that's only a vague impression. So if you have any subject/game ideas, throw them our way.

Let's finish on some random links. Here are two wonderful accounts of two different people experiencing War on Terror, the boardgame for the first time: One; Two. We're so familiar with the game these days, that it's hard to imagine what it's like for someone first interacting with it. But both Low Wen Zhen Yi and "Minstrel and Winnipeg" had the kind of first games that we hope everyone gets to have.

New Computer Game: Pandora's Box

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Last month, I took part in a global game jam competition called Ludum Dare. The challenge is to produce a complete game from scratch within a strict time frame, based on a secret theme announced at the start of the jam. This year, the theme was "Alone".

So those of you who know me personally will know that "strict time frame" has very little resonance and it won't surprise you at all to learn that I didn't finish my game until several weeks later. And here it is: Pandora's Box.

It's a choose-your-own text adventure, along the same kind of lines as the Ewe of the Falklands game I made last year (which was also a belated entry into another 'strict time frame' competition).

However, while Ewe of Falklands was absurd, mildly amusing and utterly flippant, Pandora's Box is dark, doom-laden and generally f'ed up to a level that even took me by surprise.

I put this down to the odd development process I followed. After drafting the game idea and basic narrative flow on paper, the first thing I actually did was compose the music and sound. I'm still not sure why, since sound is my weak point (OK, one of my many weak points), but it just felt like the sound would drive the game. And that's exactly what happened. In fact, as a special treat, if you're interested in ambient nightmarish soundscapes, I've uploaded the full 23 minute version here for you to download and enjoy. (It starts to gets really good at 12:43)

One of these days I'll actually finish a game in the allotted time. Anyway, you can read more and download the game free here.

Vote for War on Terror as Best Board Game App of 2011!

Vote for War on Terror for Best Board Game

"Always end on an urgent appeal", they told me at blog school. Quite astonishingly, our War on Terror iPhone app has been shortlisted for the Best App Ever Awards 2011 ("ever" being used in its alternative meaning of "past 12 months"). The game receiving the most votes in this shortlist will win the category and possibly the overall best app category too. I think we really have a chance to bag the "Best Board Game" category as it's pretty quiet. Voting only takes a second and you don't need to submit any details, just click a button and this little action will make us disproportionately gleeful and appreciative.

Oh yes - VOTING ENDS TODAY!. Be quick! Vote here. Thank you!

P.S. If that weren't enough excitement, we've taken this opportunity to rejig our Games section and add Facebook comments to each individual game page. Go crazy.

The Top 15 'War on Terror' Product Placement Coups

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Designing board games is not very glamorous. No one wears the latest board game on the red carpet, no one cites board games as influences in cool music and/or art circles, there is pretty much zero celebrity in board games and certainly no one turns up to board game launch parties (in fact, I believe we're the only people who are foolish enough to try and attempt them). All of this is actually quite refreshing and helps keep board games an unpretentious, if still socially awkward, pursuit.

Yet, despite this, our very first effort at designing a board game has got itself into places that board games definitely should not get into - the front pages of newspapers, the front lines of wars, encased in gallery cabinets and caught up in police weapon hauls to name just a few examples.

Since this has been part of our reality from the very first days, it's never appeared that odd to us. However, there's no doubting that War on Terror has, mostly accidentally, secured the kind of product placement that many companies spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on. And seeing as it's almost five years to the day that we launched the game, it seemed a fitting tribute to gather together some of the best examples from what has been an unusually glamorous, star-studded, absurd, funny and joyous ride:

Front Page News

"Terrorism Boardgame Branded Sick" screamed the Cambridge Evening News in a previously undiscovered font size, appropriating our misspelling of "boardgame" to boot. The following FOUR PAGES were filled with invective and carefully commissioned outrage about a board game with cartoon graphics. And no, this wasn't the weirdest thing that's happened to us - not by a long shot.
Related link: Local Outrage at 'Terrorism Boardgame'

On the I.T. Crowd

As well as being a comedy legend, Graham Linehan is a bit of a game geek and got in touch about War on Terror very early on. Thanks to this early interest, War on Terror has been a set fixture of the delightfully cave-like I.T. department in Linehan's award-winning sitcom, The I.T. Crowd, since season 2. Initially, only the eagle-eyed picked out its bright primary colours from the shelves behind Moss's desk. It wasn't until Season 2, Episode 4 ("The Dinner Party") that Moss and Roy are seen briefly playing the game and we suddenly got 50 phone calls from people excitedly telling us about what they'd just seen (three of whom were actually just complaining that Moss and Roy weren't playing the game correctly).
Related link: War on Terror Cameo on The I.T. Crowd

Exhibited in the Akademie Der Kunste, Berlin

War on Terror made minor radio history when it was played live for an entire hour on Resonance FM. Some might call that a broadcasting error, but we thought it was pretty artsy. When we were subsequently asked if War on Terror could feature in an exhibit on "Embedded Art" at the prestigious Berlin Academy of Arts, it was official: games are art. It just takes someone brave enough to say so. Ironically, encasing it in glass renders it not a game, so instantly undoing our claim of "games are art". Hard to be both, if we're honest.
Related link: War on Terror at the Berlin Academy of Arts

A Dangerous Weapon

Back in 2008, War on Terror made headlines again when it became the first board game ever to be classified as an offensive weapon. Several copies were seized as part of a weapons raid on an environmental camp in Kent. Police claimed the balaclava in the game could be used to "conceal your identity if you were going to commit a criminal act". This little episode exploded all over the internet and caused our server to go into meltdown. I think we sold about 80 games in an hour. We love the police.
Related link: Police Seize War on Terror Games

Infiltrating Intelligence Circles

This is one of our all-time favourite photos. Not only is it a wonderfully sinister portrait of a battlefield and simulations expert playing War on Terror with an assortment of his high-ranking buddies in the Intelligence community, but it also acts as a kind of metaphor for our own positioning within the wider 'war on terror', namely: "We must be the good guys because everyone else is evil". Amazingly, we have it on very reliable information that the game has also wormed its way into the doors of the UN Counter Terrorism Directive, the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, MI5 and a number of embassies worldwide. No wonder our security intelligence is so unreliable ...

Father-Son Bonding Activity for the Head of MI6

On the rare occasion we try to set up our own photo opportunity, it goes stupidly wrong. We got a tip-off that ex-head of MI6, Richard Dearlove was in town talking about the 'war on terror'. We ambushed him with our beautifully pertinent gift and asked for a nice pose and a photo. "Only if it doesn't end up on the Internet tomorrow", quipped Dearlove. So we waited a full week before publishing. Unfortunately, Ben, our photographer for the evening, had been drinking since 3pm and so the critical capture is less-than-spectacular. Anyway, Dearlove said he'd play the game with his son. Imagine if that game was the only quality father-son time they spent together?
Related link: Richard Dearlove "will play war on terror with son"

Caressed by Kandyse McClure

At one of the many conventions, actress Kandyse McClure was there as a special guest and after her signing session, approached our booth and sheepishly admitted she liked board games. We sheepishly admitted we didn't know who she was (that's harder to do than you think when you're speaking to someone beautiful and charming and clearly recognised by most as famous). She bought one of each of our games and seemed particularly taken by WoT. This is her enjoying a quiet moment with the box of terror. It went OK.
Related link: Kandyse McClure Digs Our Games

Studied by Naomi Klein

We went to Housman's Bookshop in London to meet Naomi Klein at a signing session for her new book "The Shock Doctrine". We had the bright idea to present her with a game of War on Terror. She'll enjoy this, we thought to ourselves. But of course, handing someone an oversized 2kg box who is about to spend several months on the road, dealing with baggage size and weight restrictions every few days, wasn't maybe the best idea we'd ever had. Not that Naomi didn't accept our gift graciously and with what seemed like genuine joy, but it was only later that we felt bad about the ungainly object we'd foisted upon her.
Related link: A Quickie With Naomi Klein

The Green Zone, Iraq

We realised long before we got the first pictures that War on Terror was proving surprisingly popular with the armed forces. It was (and still is) very conflicting to know that our game - as much a critique of violence as a means of combatting violence as anything else - is being consumed and enjoyed by the War Machine. But nothing prepared us for the brain-frying power of the photos we would later get sent of frontline soldiers kicking back with a darkly satirical boardgame to pass the time inbetween patrols. It's still weird.
Related link: Washington, Iraq and the ICA

Taking Baghdad by Storm

The beautiful thing about War on Terror is that it's proved to be educational in many ways - not least for us. We learnt a lot about the soldiers fighting this war; we learnt to see them better as individuals and accept they shared many of the misgivings and concerns we did. We also learnt they have a very, very cynical sense of humour.

On Tour in Afghanistan

A crate of War on Terror was even requested by the Chaplain of the 1st Royal Welsh infantry to help keep the boys "relaxed and grounded" for their tour of Afghanistan. He added that it would also help with literacy and numeracy. No kidding. This lovely photo though is of Pete W, Task Force MED in Afghanistan. I think the sign translates as "We need 5 people to play war on terror with, it'll only take 100 minutes".
Related link: Original image and (hilarious) comments on Board Game Geek

A Dominatrix's Sex Toy

When we exhibited at Erotica we got a fair bit of stick from people claiming board games weren't remotely "sexy". Despite the obvious extra-curricular uses for the balaclava, people remained unconvinced. But then a professional dominatrix approached us, said she was a big fan of the game and that she used it in her sessions. Not just the balaclava, but the entire game - wired people up to electrodes and punished them for poor tactics. Pure, evil genius. She later forwarded a selection of photos, this being the only one we can comfortably show. Could easily be a Tory MP. But it's not. Obviously.

Invading the High Street

In between Virgin Megastore becoming Zavvi, our first big retail order of War on Terror was delivered. We had borrowed a considerable sum to get these games made and flown over to meet their Christmas demands. Alas, the new CEO of Zavvi wasn't a fan of our game and tried to pretend they'd never ordered any. A long legal wrangle ensued and just as we were approaching bankruptcy, they caved, paid for the games and let us keep half the stock too. We responded in the only way we knew how - we celebrated by giving away over 100 of those games to happy shoppers outside Zavvi's flagship store on Oxford Street. The cops were called but only ended up praising our organisation. And our pal Graham Linehan turned up for moral support, which was lovely. Especially after the stress of the fight and almost being pulled under, this was one of the most fun, most joy-filled afternoons we ever spent.
Related link: THANKS, ZAVVI!

An Expensive Paperweight

Late in 2008, our attention was brought to this thread on Board Game Geek that had unearthed a much earlier posting over on ronaldreagan.com. This original post appeared to show George W. Bush in his office with a corner of a War on Terror box just visible in the background. We wanted so hard for this to be true but it seems to just be a very good fake. Internet detectives unearthed the original image which shows no game in the background, however to my eye the original photo looks more doctored than this one. The funny thing is, we *did* actually send President Chimpface a game and we never heard back. Stranger things have happened ...
Related link: George W Bush a Fan of War on Terror?

A Diplomatic Peace Offering

A much clearer fake this time, but funny enough to just make the grade and also get our list to a nice, round 15. This also cropped up on Board Game Geek (what is it with that site?). Before seeing this, we never harboured secret desires to play a game of War on Terror with Obama and Chavez round the same table. Now it's all we can think of.

And that's the end of our list. To cap it all, we're going to be on the telly next week - a rerun of the excellent BBC Games Britannia series, wherein presenter and historian, Benjamin Woolley says we're the future of British board games. If that's the case, I feel sorry for British board games. But it does make a pleasing conclusion to this pictorial potted history of War on Terror.

To celebrate these 5 Glorious Years (and to off-load the last remaining stock) we're knocking a 1/3 off the original edition of the game. That's a saving of ten whole English pounds. And just look at its pedigree! Look at it! You could own that piece of history right now. Then make it into a dress and wear it at the next awards ceremony you attend. Go, grab a bargain.

War on Terror app - first week post mortem

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:00:00 GMT

It's been just over a week since the launch of War on Terror, the application. And what a long week it was. The list of things to do seemed to grow, hydra-like, with every new thing we crossed off. So we thought it would be a good moment to reflect, to share what we've learnt so far and to wheel out some juicy stats and figures. Everyone loves statistics. And graphs. Ooh yeh.

Going into this, we were working pretty much in the dark. There's a wealth of information about getting your app noticed (which all boils down to some marketing and PR basics) but not much in terms of solid advice and figures. The best sources information we found were case studies that other developers had written up, so we're doing the same here in the hope that someone will find this equally useful.

So we uploaded our finished binary around the 5th November and set the live date to 25th November. Initially, we had set it to go live as soon as Apple approved it, but after reading around, we realised the benefits of being able to set a firm date and build some marketing activity around that date. Even still, we felt a little handicapped and we definitely held back on the marketing front while Apple delayed our approval and told us they would require extra time. In hindsight, if we weren't so near Christmas and at risk of being engulfed by seasonal bullshit, I would have put the live date right back another couple of weeks or so, just to give us the certainty of a live date we could rely on.

Apple approved our app on 17th November and that's really when we started emailing people and giving out some advance codes. Note: your promo codes work the minute your app has been approved, even if you haven't set the app to go live on the App Store.

While we're talking about promo codes Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã¢�� they're a big pain in the ass. Apple (and after much thought I'm still at a loss as to why) have decided that you only need 50 promo codes per release. Most people on the web seem to say Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã��that's fine, quit bitchingÃ�¢Ã¢�¬Ã�� but we used these up virtually in the first week. Having produced solid products for years that literally cost us money to give out, we have accepted that you can't be stingy with these things. Freebies grease the dirty cogs of PR and there's no getting away from it, so don't fight it. Now we have a digital product that costs us nothing to give out, with a beautiful, immediate and free mode of delivery Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã¢�� and our sales agent limits the freebies!? That's bonkers. Apple, you are MENTAL. Let us publishers do what we want with our own games please.

If that weren't bad enough, Apple provide no administration of these codes. Once ordered they expire in 4 weeks and there's no way of knowing who or when the codes were used. In our research, we unearthed about 212 viable review sites that might be interested in our app. We could cover a quarter of this list and then Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã�¦. wait...? Luckily, there is a type of arcane ritual that you can go through and manually check each promo code using iTunes, as explained here. It's annoying and slow, but better than nothing.

The first thing we learnt Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã¢�� all those promo codes we gave away in newsletters, tweets, forums etc. - total waste. We should have set up some kind of promotion where first responders were gifted the app. Promo codes, once you work out how to track them, are invaluable because they tell you which of the mythical review sites have actually responded to your desperate email. Because let me tell you now, it's pretty much like shouting into the void. Even the biggest review sites are getting by on what can only be described as a skeleton team. You aren't going to get a response. Even if they like you. So the only indication of success might be whether that promo code has been redeemed or not. Now we have to write to reviewers saying Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã��we'd like to gift you the game if you send us your ...Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã�� No dice. It's an extra step they have to take and when inundated with requests, guess where ours goes?

Anyway, the first week went astonishingly well. As you can see from the screengrab to the left, we even secured a coveted "thumbnail" place for a short time in 'top grossing UK Board Games'. (Yeh it's pretty niche but we were proud).

We actually hadn't set up any goals or expectations (we had nothing to go on!) but we have a broad ambition (and I hope it's realistic) to sell 10,000 games total. After tax and Apple's cut, this gives us and our developer a non-laughable amount for the year's work we undertook that would encourage further work and collaboration.

Although we didn't get the coverage we were hoping for, our launch was still fairly well anticipated and eventful, thanks mostly to you, dear readers and supporters. There's no doubt we were at a massive advantage with an already existing customer base. Some pre-press from the likes of Forbes and the front page of our own local newspaper didn't harm any either.

We secretly moved the live date forward a day, the evening before just so we could satisfy ourselves that everything was as it should be and there were no hitches. Also, insanely, this was the only way we could preview our app in the iTunes store. Apple don't provide this functionality in any shape or form. Again, mental.

The official Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã��launchÃ�¢Ã¢�¬Ã�� was really very exciting. We all had a tonne of work to do but I must have spent at least 4 hours sat on Twitter and checking the rankings in the App Store. As we climbed rapidly into the charts, I suddenly got quite nervous. We topped out at #6 in Board Games and #3 in Strategy here in the UK. Not expecting to reach the top 10 of anything, I was suddenly gripped by the fear that this visibility would be short-lived. I started viewing all the other apps in the top 10 with resentment and dismissing them out of hand. I fretted about what we could do to maintain and build upon this early success Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã�¦ Certainly, Seneca had it right when he said that you fear nothing only when you have nothing to lose.

The actual download and sales figures are compiled at around 8am PST the day following your complete day of sales. That meant we'd have to wait until about 4pm on Saturday to find out what this all translated to, but I have to admit, when we hit the #1 spot for top grossing Board Games in the UK and held the spot for 24 hours, I guestimated that this had to translate to over a thousand downloads Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã¢�� possibly thousandS. Alas, this was a gross over-estimate and surprisingly it turns out you don't need to shift that many units to get visibility in the App Store (at least in the sub-categories), which should be encouraging to all developers. However, one thing we got an idea for is the massive amount of resources, money and dedication that the larger publishers have at their disposal, shoring up their apps and ensuring not one place gets dropped without a fight. I can tell you this, if you get into the top 10 of any category, no matter how briefly, you've done a GOOD THING.

So without further ado Ã�¢Ã¢�¬Ã�¦ the graphs! Yay!

We sold almost 1500 games in the first week. Possibly it was a mistake launching on Black Friday, just before a weekend, but we have nothing to compare to.

As you can see we did well on home turf. The lack of industry coverage, combined with Thanksgiving and Black Friday probably didn't help things in America.

Succes was short lived but good while it lasted. The opposite of a roller coaster: exhilarating on the up curve and slightly nervy on the way down.

The highest we reached in the overall games chart was #45 here in the UK.

And the highest rank was achieved in the Strategy subcategory where we held #3 in the UK for about 12 hours. At least we beat Risk.

And that's about it. Simultaneously better and then worse than expected. Obviously if we could net Ã��Ã�¼3,000 a week 52 weeks a year then it'd be very tempting to ditch board games altogether, but right now it feels like a daunting prospect maintaining that level of visibility. The app store clearly works very well for a small number of publishers. It'd be nice to see the curve levelled out a bit. Maybe an Indie Games subcategory (However you might define that)? Anyway, everyone who's bought the app, thank you and if you took the trouble to review or rate it, triple thanks. We count on you more than you probably know.

Ã��Ã�

In other news ... we were meant to be in the Observer Gift Guide the other weekend but we got ditched unceremoniously. So we were left with having to do our own advertising this year instead. We made up a 6 metre x 1.5 metre banner and affixed it to the side of the road near a major roundabout on the way into Cambirdge. Look, it's beautiful:

In starring out the 'u', we actually thought we were being quite reserved for us. But within days, it had been vandalised:

Normally I'd get really annoyed at something so pointlessly petty, but it's actually pretty funny. I think it's the politest graffiti I've ever seen. They've taken the trouble to carefully censor two more letters from "fuck" (obviously there's nothing offensive about the letter 'k') and left the rest of the banner well alone. Not only that, but they've chosen gold spray paint which is not only pretty transparent but also adds to the festive air of the banner.

Still, I don't see anyone defacing any FCUK shop fronts. It is amazing the quiet authority millions and millions of pounds gives you.

War on Terror app goes live on 25.11.11

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:00:00 GMT

It's almost time! War on Terror, the application will be available on the iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPod from tomorrow. (iPad and Android users will have to wait a bit, I'm afraid - that's the price you pay for being technical innovators - but we're working on it).

It's been a busy week since Apple finally approved our game. With rather brilliant timing, a war crimes tribunal in Kuala Lumpur commenced hearings this week, charging George Bush and Tony Blair with crimes against peace. We'll be following the progress of this story closer than the fate of our app.

Then we almost got arrested in Cambridge while shooting the trailer video for the app. The concept was basic - to say the least. I film Tom in various locations, wearing a balaclava and playing the app on his iPhone.

Thing is, when we headed into the Army & Navy store, wearing our EVIL balaclavas, someone called the cops. We had just enough time for a quick chat and catch up with the guys in the shop (awesome guys by the way; they've supported us by selling the game from virtually Day One - and continue to do so) and when I turned to go, confidently declaring that "we'll just have to rob somewhere else", we came face-to-face with two bemused and confused policemen.

They didn't see the funny side, even after showing them the game and explaining it all. "Not a smart move" said one. "Next time, know your audience" added the other, quite cryptically, I felt. At this precise point, we were approached by a young lad who shook our hands and thanked us for making "such an awesome game". Whoever you are, young man, your timing was impeccable.

The rest of the filming went relatively smoothly and we're just stitching that all together right now and preparing for THE BIG DAY.

So on Friday (25 November), it would be awesome if you could help us shout about the app going live. The first 24 hours are really crucial in "app land" and if we can break into any of the lists, we might have a shot at getting War on Terror onto the first page of the board game category - and wouldn't that be incredible?

I want to give a few well-deserved and overdue thank yous. First, everyone who donated so we could buy "Running the World" - I still can't believe you crazies responded to that. Thank you. Our testers - you did a great job and helped us bring it all together in an insanely condensed schedule. Rob Owen for the fantastic job he did on the sound and composing some astonishing music for the game. Seriously, if you're one of these people that gets a new game and heads straight to the options screen to mute all sound, you'll be missing out. We are detail junkies here at TBG and the sound is no exception - there's lots of hidden joys in there. And fart noises. Ben for giving me the idea of Evil Clippy (still raises a chuckle). My wife, who patiently (happily?) put up with hardly seeing or communicating with me for the past month except through Skype and this blog (hi, Jenn!) because I've been holed up in the bunker, working like a fiend. Tom for being ever-dependent and picking up everything that would have sent me over the edge. And of course, David Partouche, our developer. This app literally wouldn't exist - we wouldn't even think about how it could exist - without him. Thanks, David, you made a brilliant game that we're all really proud of. I know David wants to thank the Incredible Hulk. I don't know what it means, but I'm just the messenger on that one.

All that aside, while you wait for Friday, check out the app page with screenshots and stuff.

Roll on Friday!

P.S. While you're in the app store, check out ECT (English Country Tune) by our good friend Stephen Lavelle (aka. increpare). It's an awesome zen-like puzzle game. We've been helping him beta-test it and co-incidentally it also goes live tomorrow.

Under review ...

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:00:00 GMT

This time last week, we held a "testing party" in advance of submitting our app of War on Terror to Apple for final review. It was a long night - we finished at 5am - and the few photos we took to mark this momentous occasion are, even we have to admit, quite underwhelming. But we made it. Done. Finished. Uploaded.

The thing is, if I could go back in time and tell 8-year-old me that in 27 years time, I'd be running a GAMES company and we'd be having a testing PARTY that didn't finish until 5 IN THE MORNING, then I'm pretty sure that 8-year-old me would absolutely spazz-out with excitement and then probably wouldn't sleep for, well, the next 27 years out of sheer, exuberant anticipation. The reality, sadly is far more prosaic. Sorry, little 8-year-old me. You know, it's time you grew up anyway. Welcome to the world.

Here's how the evening went down:

20.00 We all meet, sleep deprived but wired from working 100-hour weeks to get the app ready for tonight
20.10 Got to play this fucking game again ...*
20.30 .... and again ...
21.20 The fart noises still make everyone laugh. Surely a good sign (yes, it has fart noises; there's not much this app doesn't have)
22.30 Curry break
23.00 Long discussion about the credits screen. Should they be centred after all? And let's just try something ...
00.00 Spotted a graphics error in the war animation. MAJOR disaster
01.00 Everyone's playing the "nuke happy" version just to confirm the text in the alert box that pops up. Terrifying.
03.00 Andy S: "I should probably write a description for the app"
04.30 Click "upload". Breaths are held. It's done!

* Actually, I can honestly say we are all properly addicted to it.

The only downer is that we just got an ominous email from Apple to say that our app was going to require "additional time" to review. They didn't tell us why exactly, or how long, but this could be a bad early sign. With our history, we're not expecting too much.

But if all goes well, the app will be live on 25 November 2011!

We did it!

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:00:00 GMT

By "we", we mean "you" - YOU bloody did it. You answered our call when we asked for help and you gave more supportingly and generously than we could ever have hoped for. And now ... now we have enough money to buy the rights to Jarvis Cocker's "Running the World". Thank you!

This will be looked back upon as an exciting and happy chapter in the story of TerrorBull Games. It's particularly humble to know that we have built up such a store of goodwill that people are willing - especially in the current climate - to give money to something so superficial and seemingly inconsequential.

However, those of you that pitched in, you clearly saw what this meant to us and to the game and it was wonderful that you shared the same desire that we did to make this thing as great as possible.

And it is looking - and sounding - great. Here's another sneak preview as a little way of saying "thanks". This little fella pops up when you start the game:

Once again, everyone who donated, tweeted, liked and generally helped us on our way, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of our balls. You've made our day.

DiGRA 2011: Gamification, Morals, Mimes and a Hungover LARP

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Last week, I was asked to take part in a panel on board games at DiGRA 2011 at the Utrecht School of Arts in The Netherlands. It's three days of jam-packed, pretty intense debate, discussion and, of course, play centred around academic research into games. Seeing as that sounded like my idea of a GOOD TIME, I attended the whole thing. Here's what I learnt ...

First, I was pretty amazed at the breadth and sophistication of the state of games research, considering how relatively new serious study of games is. There was discussion on everything from meta-analysis of what a game is, to sociological and cultural evaluation of the impact of games, to how they work and communicate with the player. What struck me is that these conversations are pretty rare amongst game designers themselves (from what I've observed), which is odd. I mean, while you don't necessarily need to know, for example, why a great painting works in order to produce one yourself, it does seem somewhat of a handicap.

Highlights of the conference included Eric Zimmerman's frenetic and inspirational opening keynote. He triggered a note of introspection that lasted the duration of the convention. Two themes seemed to persist. The first was how to ensure games were taken more seriously and the other was what to do about "gamification" - starting with the very definition of the word. Gamification is currently the hot buzz-word in marketing circles and that's pretty much the kiss of death when you're trying to build credibility. So understandably there were quite high levels of hostility towards the idea of bringing game mechanics to everyday processes (like Foursquare).

The accusations levelled at gamification are that it's a lazy and crass attempt to coerce customers to engage with your brand. But then, as was pointed out, it doesn't have to be lazy or crass - anything poorly implemented will always be poor; that's not a compelling argument in itself.

I'm not sure where I sit on the matter myself. Reward schemes have been around forever and are a type of game. My main concern is that people should naturally want to engage in an activity - if they're doing it just for a gold star, then that may even supplant natural desires in time. It becomes just about accumulating stuff - an extension of capitalist ideology where nothing has intrinsic worth, only if you slap a value, a prize or a badge on it. In short, games do not improve everything, sorry Jane McGonigal.

The board game session on the first evening started with a keynote from Reiner Knizia. I hope Reiner doesn't need an introduction, but just in case you don't know, Reiner is like the China of board games. 90% of all games out there are designed by him. Well, so it seems. He has published an astonishing 500 titles.

Reiner's talk could be paraphrased as "5 rules of board game design". It was interesting, witty and humble, but pretty flawed ... I know, quite a claim when he's sold literally millions of games. Clearly he's doing something right. But these "rules" just didn't hold up. Take #3: "If you're clever and have something to say, you don't need to shock". Well, that's pretty limiting, but OK. The next rule was a poor extension of the same point: #4 "If you're clever and have something to say, you don't need blood". Wait a second, so shock and blood automatically rid something of any artistic, cultural or social value? I guess that's bad news for, well, every artist who's ever lived.

The thing is, Reiner is a *good guy*. He personally walked round the hall before his talk, giving away free copies of his game, Pickomino. - how nice is that? He oozes respectability and is one of those people who genuinely seems not to have a bad bone in their body and to be honest I feel bad picking him up on this as I write. But there was a degree of self-denial in these proclamations of games as upright citizens of the entertainment world. It was a bit like being lectured on game design by Victorian Dad. Sitting there, watching Reiner's talk, I had the growing, slightly uneasy feeling I'd been drafted in for the panel simply to be the living embodiment of everything Reiner disliked.

Sure enough, when the panel got underway, the conversation soon drifted to the idea of games having morals and the morality of game design. Reiner asserted that games should be positive experiences and therefore need to re-enforce positive morality. I should say at this point that everyone on the panel had vastly more knowledge and experience of games than I, but were all far too polite to challenge Reiner. All eyes looked to me and I took up the gauntlet. I recapped Reiner's #1 rule: "Games are about real life" (which he illustrated with a game of his about building a caravan through the desert - and let's be honest, that's real life for a really limited section of the world's population). I strongly agree with this first rule by the way but I pointed out that life is not all positive - it's often complex, difficult and nasty, and those things need representing too, otherwise we're just creating fairy tales. Reiner responded to this by saying that this didn't mean we have to design games where you "fly planes into skyscrapers" - obliquely referring to War on Terror.

What's interesting is that Reiner (who hasn't played the game) raised an objection that we encountered verbatim more than once upon releasing War on Terror from rather reactionary camps who hadn't even seen - let alone played - the game. For some reason, lots of people jumped to the worst possible conclusion they could and made up game mechanics that were far more depraved and far sicker than anything we could ever dream up. And that reminded me of the discussion about gamification earlier in the day. I suddenly understood Reiner's worry very clearly - games that shock are frequently lazy and crass. And while it may have been lazy of him to assume our game was about something so void of value as getting points for hitting skyscrapers, Reiner merely fell into the trap that the gamification critics did of assuming that because a lot of the implementation of a certain idea is badly done, then the idea must be bad in itself.

This is probably the only time you will ever see my name and Reiner's mentioned together in the same tweet. Savour it.

Later in the conference, Mary Flannigan, in an excellent, ideas-packed talk, would sum up this imperative for games to grapple with serious issues far more coherently than I did on stage. She said, "in a polarized world games help people take a position and experiment with it". That line could almost be our mission statement.

Reiner and I argued the point further for a bit in an exchange that someone later described as "enjoyably uncomfortable", before moving onto safer territory. The panel went on for well over an hour after that and it was a real privilege to have such a stimulating conversation with such an interesting group. I got on especially well with Douglas Wilson, co-founder of the Copenhagen Games Collective and designer of the beautiful, balletic game, Johann Sebastian Joust. Douglas likes to play with those spaces in games that exist between the rules; I think that's why we saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things. I'd like to briefly thank Ben Kirman and JosÃ��Ã�© Zagal for arranging such an enlightening session and of course for inviting me to be part of it.

As great as our panel was, it wasn't the highlight of the convention. That honour goes - without a shred of doubt - to Antanas Mockus, who delivered his keynote via Skype from Colombia. Mockus is a true radical, a real games revolutionary. He is the ex-Mayor of Bogota and during his time as Mayor he experimented with a number of unusual and daring public games (although he didn't see them as games) that he devised to rewrite the social contract and make the town a better place to live. My favourite anecdote was his solution to the flagrant traffic abuses that the police were too inept, lazy or corrupt to fix. Mockus drafted a small army of 400 mime artists to publicly and visibly call out road users who broke the law. In effect, the mimes - in a playful and comedic way - plastered over the cracks in the social contract and made it socially unacceptable again to run red lights. A bonus side effect of this strategy was that the mimes were so disliked that when the police did turn up, they were greeted as heroes. Citizens and police were united by the common enemy of mime. It sounds like the plot of a Family Guy episode, but this is very much for real. Check out the documentary 'Cities on Speed' for more on this fascinating character.

Last but not least, I was inducted, on the final day, into LARPing (Live Action Role Play). Previously I had a massive prejudice against LARP, understanding it was largely about dressing up in the woods and waving latex swords around with other people pretending to be orcs. That was until I was told about Nordic LARP. Nordic LARP seems to be less about fantasy make-pretend and more about unregulated psychological experiments from American universities in the 1970s. Take, for example, a LARP they did, set in the time of the Cuban missile crisis - except in this game, World War III actually breaks out. They got everyone into a bunker, set up the situation, told them the boxes were full of supplies and then "dropped the bomb". It's at that point they find out the boxes don't contain food, they contain speakers and the ground literally shakes with the "explosion". Then they switch off the lights, cut the power and lock them all in there for 22 hours. Apparently some people emerged with post traumatic stress disorder. Others were crying. Some were too stunned to speak. FUN FOR ALL THE FAMILY! I realised that Nordic LARP makes our games sound weak and feeble in comparison.

Anyway, author of the Nordic LARP book, Jaakko Stenros, lead a "hungover larp" on the last morning of DiGRA. It was a kind of whodunnit, but one that has no resolution. There were ten of us locked in a darkened room with empty bottles lying over the floor and party snacks scattered on the table. The scenario is we all awake after a riotous house party, we all remember different snippets of the previous evening. Oh and there's blood all over the sheets on the bed upstairs. Basically this gave way to 90 minutes of pretty hammy acting, some genuinely insightful moments and many, many laugh-out-loud moments, which makes it tough to stay in character. All in all, it was an interesting experience. I certainly see the appeal now. Stay tuned for the forthcoming Guantanamo LARP from TerrorBull Games!

OK, you've been really good and you've finally reached the end of this epic post. Drawing lessons from gamification, I hereby reward you with the "EPIC BLOGREADER" achievement badge. *ching! ching!* - and here's your special unlocked bonus material .... Kid Koala at the opening party playing moon river. This was incredible so I'm really sorry about the appalling sound quality. Enjoy:

For more pictures of the insane opening party, check out the gallery and also DiGRA's own videos of the event.

Our Present to You Today: The "Never Forget" Calendar from TBG

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Making a game about the War on Terror gives you some strange insights. One unintended example is that we have been receiving Google alerts for 'war on terror' for about 7 years now. Over that time, we've seen an interesting evolution in both the use and discussion of the term.

In general, results have moved from fear-heavy "news" reports to more reflective "opinion" pieces. Then the official ditching of the phrase by the Obama administration in 2009 was incredibly effective and the mass media - with rare exceptions - all towed the line. The torrent of alerts dried to a trickle virtually overnight. Mentions these days are either mostly from Far Eastern news sources or are being used in retrospect to label the period 2001-2009 (as if the 'war on terror' were over).

We're not sure which is scarier - fighting a made-up war on an abstract concept that no one can effectively define, or fighting a made-up war that no one can name.

Regardless, there is a time of year when our Google alerts tumble in like the good ol' days. Each year, the first half of September is filled with (mostly regurgitated) comment pieces and 'remembrance' of the 9/11 attacks. This year, being a 10 year anniversary, has seen a particular abundance of such content. So, in the interests of nostalgia, we thought it was high time that we marked the event ourselves.

It's perhaps our distorted sense of importance regarding 9/11 that is the most defining feature of it. The cultural and political impact of those attacks and our reaction to them speaks volumes about the unquestioning, assumed authority that we placed in the United States of America to be able to do whatever it wants in the world without fear of retribution. The continuing military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recent escalation of the war into Pakistan and the current use of force in Libya shows that those assumptions are far from fading.

So, inspired by The Other 9/11 and also this excellent article about the over-stated importance of 9/11, we set about making a calendar to mark the many historic events that deserve an annual day of reflection, but barely achieve the odd column-inch if they're lucky.

Click to enlarge

Highlights include:

12 June 1898 Emilio Aguinaldo declares Philippine independence from Spain. Spain then sells the Philippines to the United States for $20 million.
17 April 1961 U.S. invades Cuba using recruited Cuban exiles and mercenaries in the failed 'Bay of Pigs' invasion.
6 August 1990 Economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, leading to the death of up to 1.2 million children. U.S. repeatedly vetoed lifting of the sanctions, despite clear evidence of their devastating effect.
7 December 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Start of 25 year occupation with UK and US military support in which 100,000 East Timorese are estimated to have died.

... and many more!

We hope our calendar goes a small way to redress the balance. It's a work in progress, by the way. Available in no shops anywhere soon.