The Gentlemen of the South Sandwiche Islands was recently announced a finalist at one of my favorite international games festivals. Here's a link to the press release:

http://www.indiecade.com/index.php/2010/finalist_games/

I will have a chance to revise the game before presenting the version that will appear at the festival in October, so this is a really good opportunity to give me feedback before I submit a final version. I'm looking at the first edition (that I sent out) as a big round of playtesting.

Your feedback is important.

There is a nice forum about the game gathering at this link (below). Please play and rate. The ratings are an uphill battle and I need the people who actually have a copy of the game to submit opinions. Very important. Please try it and write what you think at this site: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65094/the-gentlemen-of-the-south-sandwiche-islands

Ah. I am so happy that it was accepted to IndieCade. I really like this festival.

As always, thank you for your support.

-jim

Rule Clarification and Fun Fact

Rule Clarification: To answer a question about the game that could be ambiguous in the rules:
A point is awarded *as soon* as a jules or hodge is with Lady Ashley alone on a space. (Not after a turn has passed.)

Fun Fact #47: The Gentlemen characters - the mapmaker and the manufacturer of distorted glass - each represent a different relationship faux pas. They are each brilliant in their own way, but they are intended to be tremendous duffers in the game of courtship.

Below is a picture of my apartment as a shipping warehouse!

All the games should be out by now. Please let me know if you have not received a copy. I'm sure something slipped my mind in the hustle and bustle of shipping, so please let me know if I still need to get you your game.

Here is the official website for the game if anyone needs an additional copy:
www.southsandwiche.com

Dear Loyal Backers -

If you are in LA , THIS WEEKEND IS THE PERFECT TIME to pick up your copy of the game. This party is celebrating not only the official release of the game, but also my room mate's birthday. It's gonna be great.

Here is all of the info you need. I sincerely hope to see you this Saturday.

SOUTH SANDWICHE RELEASE PARTY+
JOSH'S BIRTHDAY
WHEN: THIS SATURDAY 7/17
9PM - 2AM
WHERE: OUR APT
2622 MAGNOLIA AVE, LA CA 90007

If you can't make it, I will be happy to deliver your game by mail.

The board games have completed their long journey from Shanghai. The 84 boxes of games are now safely in my apartment. I can't wait to mail out the games! Thank you very much for your patience and support!

My Best,
-james a. taylor

Hello Loyal Backers -

I'm sure some of you are wondering where your board games are. Have faith, they are in production. However, the production timeline proved to be longer than I expected. I had to go back and forth with the manufacturer about several specifics (like the colors and the age range) - then I had to make sure to copyright all of the materials. The bottomline is: I was fidgeting with the details.

But enough is enough. The 500 games are now printing. Please forgive the delay. They will be delivered to you over the summer.

If you need one sooner, please contact me immediately at taylorjames9@gmail.com .

Thank you for your patience and support.

Sincerely,
-james taylor

Update: The Gentlemen of the South Sandwiche Islands hits Top Blog Stories in LAWeekly! After running a (somewhat controversial) profile of me in the print edition of LAWeekly, the periodical followed-up with a nice blog entry about the game itself.

Gendy Alimurung, the reporter who picked it up, has a nice eye for unusual stories. Luckily, she took an interest in TGSSI. You can find the post about the game here:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/art/art-absurd-logic-an-octopus-th/

Also, check out the new website:
http://www.southsandwiche.com/

Fun fact #37: Why spell "Sandwiche" with an "e"?

The "e" on sandwiche is not just an archaic touch. It's also very practical. Try Googling "sandwich" and it will take you to a thousand sites about sandwiches. But Google "sandwiche" and the search will lead you straight to my game. The "e" on sandwiche is an archaic stroke that, oddly enough, neatly distinguishes itself in modern search engines.

Just a brief update: Everything's moving along smoothly and, as planned, the games should come out of production in May. I wish it could be sooner, but that's just how long the manufacturing takes. This has been an incredibly eye-opening experience.

Also, here's a recent article that came out about the game. Boardgame News is an international publication with good visibility within the industry.

I like this article because I think he appreciates what I'm doing, but there's also just a little bit of vinegar in it...

http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/w_eric_martin_the_gentlemen_of_south_sandwiche_islands_kickstarting_game_ar/

Stay tuned for more articles and updates. Thank you for your kind support.

We did it! Here's a video address of me saying thanks:
http://www.youtube.com/user/taylorjames9#p/a/u/1/3ppHME4FRnA

And here's an interview I gave recently about the letters in the game:
http://remotedevice.net/blog/vast-world-indie-boardgame/

*The Games will be delivered in May

Just a heads up - the funding & preorder process ends tomorrow, Feb 9th. At that time, all credit
cards will be charged for the specified amount.

I can't believe this game has come so far. I sincerely look forward to distributing these copies.
Realistically, they will probably start arriving at your doors in the month of May. (I will post a video with an update about the manufacturing process.)

Thanks so much for your support and interest.

-jim

In this video - my buddy Sean Plott breaks down the math for the Board game!
http://bit.ly/cBKMVQ

Here's a recent VIDEO of me explaining the game to someone who's never seen it before. (Ha - It's not a thrill ride, but hopefully it will give you an even better sense of what this strange little logic puzzle is all about.)
http://www.youtube.com/user/taylorjames9#p/a/u/1/6G1wuDbQgaI

I suppose I should also address the fact that WE JUST HIT OUR FUNDRAISING GOAL!!!!! WoOOO HOOOO!!!!....and we did it a MONTH before the deadline!! ... More on this to come...

You guys are the greatest. I simply could not have done this without you. I'll collect addresses and place the order from the manufacturer towards the end of the funding period (on February 9th). Everything is in good shape.

Check out the video if you want to learn more about the game.
http://www.youtube.com/user/taylorjames9#p/a/u/1/6G1wuDbQgaI

My Best,
-James Taylor

Dear Loyal Backers –

Thanks to your generous contributions and pre-orders, this game is well on its way. This morning we hit the 90% mark of our fundraising goal, and again, it’s all thanks to you.

Taking a product to market is a very new experience for me, and very exciting. I recently described to my brother that, “I’m 24, I’m living in LA, and I’m trying to sell something.” I continued to explain how, “there are these grenades of reality exploding all around me and I’m quickly realizing things like: ‘Oh, that’s what advertisers are trying to do. Oh, That’s what sales reps are. Oh, that’s what business people think about. Etc”’

So maybe “grenades of reality” isn’t the perfect metaphor, but nevertheless, in the course of this project, I’m trying to relate that my understanding of the world is quickly expanding, and I’m gaining some new sensitivities to the processes of marketing and business at work in the world around me.

On a slightly different topic, some of you might have noticed that there was a delay since my last backer update. This is because I decided to step away from the game and the marketing for a few weeks in order to gain some perspective. In addition, I thought it would be nice to give everyone else a break – because there’s really no need to harangue people over the holidays. I try to be sensitive about haranguing people, but still, sometimes when I’m explaining the game, I feel like I’m cornering a person and all but holding them upside down by their ankles, waiting for the change to fall out of their pockets – convincing them that yes, yes they would like to buy a copy of my delightful board game.

I joke, but I really do hope that nobody feels harangued. One of my primary concerns is mixing my social world with my marketing world. It’s a dangerous territory to be in, and of course I sincerely invite your feedback and advice along the way.

At a little dinner gathering over the holidays, a family friend asked me what I do, and I said, “Well, I sort of hold people hostage and enthusiastically explain my board game.”

A little later in the same evening, several people asked to see it and I found myself bringing the prototype downstairs and putting it on a coffee table in the middle of the room where people gathered. For a brief instant, before addressing the small crowd, I wondered if I should just go ahead and lock the doors for good measure. I wanted to start by saying, “Alright, everyone just stay calm. This will only take a minute. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but nobody’s leaving until I’ve thoroughly explained my excitement about this board game.”

So, yes, I’m very thrilled to be selling this board game, but because I’m so new to this, I also want to make sure everyone feels good about it and no one feels bombarded, or turned off by receiving just one too many emails or pressured to buy a copy, or anything like that. That’s why I took some time off – just to make sure I’m going about things in a positive way as I continue to spread the word about the game.

I know myself too well, and I can easily envision, in some version of the future - I can just imagine myself taking it too far and shaking some little old lady by the shoulders and exclaiming: “I SAID, WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY A COPY OF MY DELIGHTFUL BOARD GAME!?” ….Marketing, light robbery. Oh god, screw it, what’s the difference…

So, bottom-line, I’m thrilled about my board game (I built the symbolism in such a way that I myself would continue to find new meanings in it, and new threads of interpretation) but I’m also wary of how my marketing comes off and still learning a lot along the way. Thanks for your patience.

I have to say that, all things considered, my backers are my favorite people to address, because I feel like you’ve at least shown some interest in what’s going on here. You’re on board (or at least curious), and that means a lot to me. In a project like this one (which is very new and very strange and unusual) it’s very easy to get discouraged. Some days I’ll look at the box and materials and wonder. “Wait, what am I doing? Does this make sense? Am I deluded? Why on earth would anyone want to interpret the materials of a board game?” But then there are you, my backers, who assure my that – yes – this seems to make sense and it is interesting and unusual.

This means that all of you are not just my financial support, but also my secret stash of confidence and resolve as I move forward with this game.

Thanks so much for your loyal support. It goes a long way.

Your Friend,

-James Taylor

ps. If you find the opportunity, please help spread the word about the game. I will write more backer updates in the weeks to come.

Dear Loyal Backers –

Thanks to you, this project is gaining not only funds, but also some real momentum. I can’t thank you enough for your support. This project seems to have a very nice, natural “lift” under it – which is a wonderful feeling.

You should be proud to know that with your contribution, you are supporting a very small company called Taylor and Gray. With the help of Kickstarter and our dedicated backers, we are slowly changing the relationship between the customer and the company; we are proving that – yes – there is an audience for strange, fun board games that are more about ART rather than INDUSTRY.

Episode #3 - The Invention of the Game and the First Version

I began working on this game last January – almost a year ago. I had a dream one night about trying to talk to someone alone in a city. We were with a group and I couldn’t quite find a moment with her alone. I got out of bed. I got out a piece of construction paper and a black Sharpie marker.

I hesitated before marking the paper. I knew that the way that I made this first prototype – the first lines I set down, the makeshift pieces I used at the very beginning – would inform the ways that I would continue to structure (and think about) this game throughout its development. Making the first marks on the construction paper was very intimidating.

Eventually, I mustered the courage to draw 9 squares on the construction paper. These were city blocks, and I linked them with crosswalks (little striped lines) that only let a certain number of people across. The game, at this early stage, was called The Intersection. The basic mechanic (of trying to consult with someone in private by crossing the crosswalks) was there; but there was plenty of room for improvement. All of that would come later….

Here’s an interesting detail about the game at this stage. The pieces were little colored corners of construction paper (red, blue and beige). The main characters (instead of Jules, Hodge and Lady Ashley) were labeled “You” “BF” (for Boyfriend) and “Her.” These were simply the characters in the dream, and I used these names as a shorthand for the characters; however, the more I thought about it, I couldn’t help but notice the profound implications of having a piece named “You” …. After all, when two players sit down to play the game – who gets to be the character named “you?”

I began to entertain the possibility of calling the main characters “you” and “me” – to double the effect – and send the problems of identity ricocheting throughout the players’ minds. I wanted to do this to make it profoundly complicated for a player to choose his/her main piece. Moreover, having characters named “You” and “Me” on the game board created some interesting problems for communicating about the game in the course of play:

“Whose turn is it?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“No. It’s you, then her, then me?”
“You go after her?”
“No, I don’t. But the turns go Me, you, her. Like that.”

You get the idea. At this stage in the game’s development, communicating about the turns and the pieces became a “Who’s on first”–type of conundrum that forced players to actually point to the piece on the board in order to refer to it. This renders the act of naming the pieces utterly useless – and creates a nice little reverberation of identities across the two players and amongst the game pieces themselves. Either the players would point to the piece on the board in order to refer to it, or the players would rename their pieces.

But it goes deeper than that. Let’s think this through.

Two players sit down to play the game. One player chooses to be you and the other one me. The words, you and me are not specific labels: they only have meaning in relation to the speaker and recipient. As I’ve tried to demonstrate, naming the characters “you” and “me” creates an impossible dilemma that mixes the identities of the two players playing the game. Yes. But there’s more. The male characters both have the same objective on the board: to leave the others and speak to the girl. You have to bear with me. Classical theater often reduces a character’s identity to an objective. In other words, in most stories, you are what you want. Objective is arguably the most express form of characterization. So if both of the characters have the same objective (to talk to Her alone), perhaps it makes sense that their identities are so dynamically interchangeable.

COMMERCIAL BREAK: We’re doing great! But this Game still needs help! Please help spread the link to a community of interested people.

Here’s the link to the project on kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1883736289/the-gentlemen-of-the-south-sandwiche-islands

Or you can join the facebook group here to show your support: http://www.facebook.com/group.php...

…Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Fortunately for all of us, the game pieces are now named Jules, Hodge and Lady Ashley. This makes it possible to communicate about the game without feeling like you’re at the butt of a maniacal practical joke put on by a crazy linguist.

Yes. Fortunately, as the art for the board game began to mature, the setting changed from this warped city intersection to a set of islands, and the characters changed from “you” “boyfriend” and “Her” – to “Jules,” “Hodge” and “Lady Ashley”; that said, in the new version of the game (on the Sandwiche Islands) there is still a trace of this original dilemma of name, character, identity and reference.

Here’s the historical spillover:

In his memoirs, Jules (the manufacturer of distorted glass) kept careful accounts of each time he played the board game with Hodge. Sitting down to play the game, it made sense that Hodge would play Hodge and his servant Trotwood (the beige pieces) and Jules would play Jules and his servant Puff (the blue pieces). However, after a long string of losses, Hodge insisted on swapping out his unlucky pieces, and demanded to play using the blue pieces. So, on the islands, when they played the board game, often they were playing the game with pieces that stood in for themselves; however, sometimes they would play the game and switch who was who by swapping pieces.

There’s always another layer of depth... But I think that’s a good stopping point for tonight.

As always, I appreciate your dedicated support.

Next week’s episode is called: Manufacturing Plastic Game Pieces in my Kitchen: learning the hard way about chemistry, safety and ventilation.

My Best,

-James Taylor

Support the Project Here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1883736289/the-gentlemen-of-the-south-sandwiche-islands

Dear Loyal Backers -

You're investing in a story. This is a blistering narrative that is moving so fast that I'm barely in control anymore; I can actually feel it rattle as it accelerates - yet the bolts hold strong as we careen forward into the 3rd week.

Check out the fun facts below. I'll print more stories from the development of the game in the weeks to come.

My Sincere Thanks and Gratitude,

-james taylor

TGSSI Fun Fact #7: Jules' Servant -

Mysteriously, Puff is the only character - of six - who is not shown in the character booklet. We know from Jules' memoirs that Puff had a penchant for collecting insects. From the same memoirs, we also know that Puff was frequently "mumbling on" about how the beetle varieties here (on the Sandwiche islands, just south of the galapagos) were slightly different than the same beetles found on the mainland... This is truly astounding. It is 1801 and Puff has a precarious grasp on the theory of evolution... well before Charles Darwin. Sadly enough, Puff's discoveries went largely unnoticed.

It makes you wonder what other ideas are floating around out there.

TGSSI Fun Fact #12: On Creating a History -

From this present moment in time, there are multiple, branching possibilities for the future. Yes, the future after this exact instant could go in a number of directions. But now let's take that graph of the future and flip it on it's axis. So now - not only can I do any number of things from this present moment, but I also could have arrived here in any number of ways as well. By creating a history for this game, I'm literally taking the branching possibilities of the future...and flipping them into the past.

Dear Loyal Backers -

Some of you I know, and others I would like to know so that I can thank you personally. Thanks to you, this project is gaining not only funds, but also some serious momentum.

I've just come back from a very exciting trip to the Chicago Toy and Game Fair, where The Gentlemen of the South Sandwiche Islands was played by a lot of people who know their games. I can say yes, this game is definitely worth moving forward with. By this point, the game has been playtested more than 200 times. It is both well-refined, and still entirely unique - a hard combination to come by. I can't wait to send you the copies of the games that you have preOrdered. I completely stand by this game. It is a quality product.

Also, in case you are wondering, I will collect everyone's address towards the end of the funding period so that I know where I am sending the games.

You should be very proud to know that by investing in this game, you are investing in a very small company called Taylor & Gray. I'm Taylor and Dan Gray is the artist responsible for the board and most of the illustrations. With your help, we can bypass big companies and produce interesting, exciting high-quality games that are not subject to the mass-market formulas of production and distribution. Kickstarter is a new outlet for marketing that is really making this possible.

This is a very exciting time. Before leaving for Chicago I packed a bag. I threw a loaf of bread into the bag, and that was my food budget for the trip. (Luckily they provided some of the meals.) Earlier in the month I booked my hotel room for 2 nights, knowing perfctly well that I would be staying in Chicago for 4 nights. ...This is the type of adventure and excitement you get when you're working from nothing - when you're trying to build something - when you just believe in an idea.

The trip went great. Not only did the game get some serious exposure, but I got to meet the British lady who invented Jenga. Last night, I listened to the guy who invented the game of Life give a very inspriring speech. I also heard a lecture from the guy who invented tickle-me-elmo, who happened to have a degree in "aeronautics" - making him technically a rocket scientist turned toy inventor.

The trip was great. It gave me some very important contacts and a nice stack of useful business cards. That said, it's still very important that we move towards our goal of printing the first 500 copies of the game. We are still a long way from $7,600.

Please check in with the site every once in a while and try to spread the word as much as possible. If a large number of people contribute even a little bit of money, then everything moves forward. By investing in the game, you are helping to change the relationship in this country between the company and the consumer. With the kickstarter resource we can bypass huge distributors who are unwilling to take risks, and we are coming a little bit closer to seeing board games on the shelves that are more about ART rather than INDUSTRY.

WE STILL NEED HELP. PLEASE TELL YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK ABOUT THIS PROJECT.

I appreciate what you are doing for me. I can't believe that I'm actually moving through with this. It feels great to be out on a limb. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed. I will try to write updates every Sunday evening.

Sincerely,

Your friend,

-jim taylor

ps. the historical element was meant to be a bit more tongue-in-cheek. I realize there was some confusion here, so I've tried to make it more clear on the site. You can read more about the history in the Henry Jenkins article http://henryjenkins.org/2009/11/how_do_you_sell_an_artsy_board.html