[Spiel Essen] The first impressions

[StefanS]

Cool :) Since I'm sure that non-German-speakers are also interested in what is said about the Forge booth, a rough translation of the relevant part:

_____________________________________________________________________________
\_______________________ Projekt Odyssee & The Forge _______________________/

This time there's a combinated booth of two very similar projects, which are both inclined in exchange among RPG authors, mutual support and all other potential sorrows of the writing sector.
While Projekt Odyssee surely is the right venue for German authors and small presses, The Forge is it's English speaking counterpart.
From both projects respectable products have originated, which no established press would touch... maybe except Mario Truant ;) [Note for foreigners: Mario Truant is a RPG press which among other things translated In Nomine]

So, a look at the booth is worthwile, since there lay out some rule books for inspection and partially for buying. Exots, which you won't necessarily find at the gaming store next door...

It's in hall 6, so ask for directions on site.

[Matt Machell]

More when I have the chance, but for now, I think my main takeaways are:

The Pro Indie, GroFaFo and Projeckt Odysee folks are a wonderfully enthusiastic and friendly crowd. That enthusiasm really comes across and sells games. They also made me feel like one of the team instantly.

Spiel isn't GenCon, so needs a slightly different approach. However the same method holds up, if you can demo it, you can sell it.

Thursday and Friday were comparatively quiet (apparently a scheduling issue we had no control over). They did give us a good run up to get used to how things worked and adapt. Saturday and Sunday were manic.

Spiel is a great chance to make contacts who can promote your game later. I talked to one PDF distributor and a couple of e-zine folks, all positive contacts that I wouldn't have otherwise made.

We needed more chairs.

-Matt

[Jürgen Mayer]

Congrats on the Project Odyssee / Forge booth at Essen! Great people, great demos, great vibe!

As always, I'm here to supply photographic evidence:
http://madmoses.livejournal.com/121545.html

[oliof]

more photos here and there.

[Daniela Nicklas]

Still a little bit hoarse and tired, but full of fair fever (which, forgetunatly I can act out the next four days on South Germany's biggest game fair in Stuttgart).

Most of the previous impressions pretty much resemble my experience: with most of the people, we had a hard job to catch them at the booth, but when we had them, the demos worked out very good thanks to the excellent material. Great job! (by the way: is that stuff available for download somewhere?)

What I exspecially liked was the idea of letting several people share a character in the demo: you have to explain less things if only one sheet is on the table, and they the discussions of the players were great -- like different personalities in the head of the character.

One little anecdote: in the MLWM demo, there where three prepared characters. Once, I had five players, so two characters where played by two players. They decided quickly that the babbling genius was talking ot himself all the time (the Gollum thing), and the crippled musician were actually siamese twins which turned out to be utterly hilarious in game.

From my lessons learned, the ideal booth for next year would be part of a new indie-/small publishers rpg alley (together with Lodland, Degenesis, Opus Anima, Prost, ...), which share a common play ground of tables in the middle. A big banner tells something like "New rpgs: Come in and try out", there are grafic artists and authors signing their work, and all is in the heart of hall 6.

Just dreaming :-)

  Daniela

[JasperN.]

Congrats to you all - super work. You rock!

As regards to the sales, I really don't see why you should be dissatisfied, quite the contrary. I went to SPIEL two times with Unknown Armies / Degenesis, two established lines with a decent fan base,  and let me teel you this: we didn't do that much better. In fact I think these sales are pretty striking. It's a LOT more than I would have guessed, really. If you then consider the fact that you had a somewhat unfortunate placement obviously and also weren't listed in the directories, I think you should be slapping each other's backs like maniacs, because you clearly superceded everyone's expectations. Folks, this is great. NO ONE I know of sells hundreds, let alone thousands, of copies at SPIEL ,except maybe Fanpro and MAYBE Feder& Schwert, but I'd doubt even that. So: no monkeys, no cry.  You came, you saw, you sold - and well.

[Frank T]

Thanks for the photographs. This one is my favorite:

http://pics.mausdompteur.de/main.php/v/spiel2006/RIMG0062.JPG.html

Sais it all.

[Paul Czege]

Frank, that's a great photo! Can I ask who's running that demo? The woman in the middle on the far side of the table looking down at her supplies?

Paul

[Eero Tuovinen]

Yeah, that's Agatha. I was really surprised by how professional and energetic her work on all her games was. I had this MLwM demo that I thought was great, but she had just read it through and made her own in German. As I understood it, it was about a French Master who collected brains.