Now Hiring: Community Manager And Event Coordinator

We are now looking for a "Community Manager and Event Coordinator" for our company. This will be a very broad role and we are looking for someone who is very driven and creative. The tasks will range from the simple, such as:

• Managing our social media accounts and platform-specific communication channels (such as Steam communities and PS4 Game hub).
• Answering various emails.
• Coordinating and booking special internal and external events.

It will also include much more complex tasks such as:

• Planning and coordinating PR for a new game release.
• Making plans for improving our social media and implementing these.
• Overseeing a revamp of all our webpages (company and game-specific).
• Becoming the company's catalyst for generating interesting posts and events on all of our public channels.

The basic requirements are as follows:

• It's crucial that you are a person who is highly able to work on your own initiative. No one will be laying out an exact schedule of things that you must do - you will need to drive your own workload. You will also need to be a creative member of the team, bringing a lot of your own ideas and suggestions to the table and then going on to implement them when possible.
• You must live in Sweden or be prepared to move here. Note that any employment starts with a six month trial period, and there is no need to move until that is over.
• You must have excellent writing skills in English.
• You need good knowledge of how social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, works.
• You should have a burning interest in video games and an understanding of the market.

It's worth noting that we do not require any special education or experience. While these are of course good to have, what really matters is that you fit the requirements above.


In order to apply, start by doing the following assignments:

1. Imagine that SOMA is about to be released. Write a short (at most 150 words) and playful cover letter that will be sent out with all of the review copies of the game.
2. We really need to become much more frequent in our social media usage and communicate what we do as a company and what we are like as individuals. In 200 words or less, explain how you would try to go about increasing the number of interesting posts on our social media channels.
3. An angry user has written an email complaining that our games have all become worse since Penumbra, as they no longer have proper puzzles and gameplay. Write a response.
4. Being proactive and self-starting is crucial for this position. Therefore, write your own question similar to the ones above and answer it.

Compile these into a PDF that has a pleasing layout and send it, along with your CV, to apply@frictionalgames.com.

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Troops On Parade - 28Mm ECW Royalist

There is something very cathartic above setting a gaming collection out on the table for inspection. It's something I have reet enjoyed since starting this feature a few years back. Is it the joy of seeing the collection all together on the table or looking at the mass ranks with a sense of achievement, I don't know, but I do know that most of my fellow gamers will "get it".

As is becoming the norm at YG I have done a Yarkshire TV special on the Utubes to accompany the post (link above), for those that prefer static photos and text see below. For rules we play a homebrew  modified version of Forlorn Hope.

All the figures are metal, this was before the days of cheap plastic soldiers, all the bases have a reassuringly weighty feel.

Starting on the right of the Army we have Prince Rupert (with his dog) and his group of Cavalry. These figures are all from Perrys bar the command which are Bicorne.

Over on the left I have my other wing of Cavalry, these are made up of Bicorne miniatures with a single unit of Renegade horse. At the head of the line is the Kings Mounted Lifeguard.

Another view of the left wing of Cavalry

The Infantry in the middle are all from Renegade, I can't remember the exact details but I bought a load of them in one go during a deal they were running.

Those of you familiar with the period will recognise the flags of the units on show, rather than go for a specific army in terms of location and year I have picked and chosen from a number, with units from the Oxford Army and the Armies in Cheshire most prominent. Front rank here right to left as viewed are Talbots, Lifeguard and Ruperts.

The Lifeguard was a particular joy with the extra flags. Forlorn Hope is a 33:1 scale (in terms of men to models) game so my units are between 16 and 30 figures strong but generally 20 or 24. We have found that units are just not viable with less than 16 figures.

You can see from the bases that this is pre grass tufts days, some units in the Army have the original versions of tufts. We used to buy packs of coloured bristles from Railway Modelling shops, clump them up and glue one end, wait for them to dry and chop the top off. It was very slow and I have up on it, maybe 4 or 5 units in the Army have them.

My favourite unit in the Army is this little 16 figure Chester Milita Regiment with its own made up flag "Forward for God and Cheshire" it implores.

The personality figures are all Bicorne, here we have Sir Jacob Astley Commander of Foote.

Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Commander of Horse.

The main man himself King Charles, with Royal Standard carried by Sir Edmund Verney, odd figure, whatever I do the flag won't come off 🤔

The guns are mostly Old Glory with a couple of Perrys Figures, I do seem to have bought rather a lot.

In between the guns are a number of individually based figures from Wargames Foundry which cover a number of functions, Forlorn Hope, Engineers, Rappers and Snipers.

I love an army with lots of flags, it's not quite the Italian Wars but it's not far off. Most annoyingly after packing all the figs away I realised I forgot to put out my two units of Dragoons (mounted and dismounted) as well as my single unit of Cuirass 😣

Hopefully you have enjoyed that bit of fun, hopefully in a few weeks tine we will be back gaming.

Game Analysis: Starman

Last week I was searching for games on Nintendo Shop to play on my Switch and I came across a game that was costing only 89 cents (!). The game icon immediately caught my attention and the name "Starman'' evoked good feelings in my mind. I downloaded the game, a production created by Nada Studios (a Spanish indie game company) and had a great surprise.



Starman echoes games like Limbo and Monument Valley. A depressive and beautiful atmosphere runs through the game where you must complete a series of nine stages filled with excellent (and clever) puzzles.



Each level takes you to a different oniric scenario. You control a character that, in a moment, is a retro club with a pool and, in another, is in a sci-fi movie environment. Starman invites us to participate in an interesting co-creation exercise with the game designers behind the gaming experience.

The music is a relaxing dark ambient soundscape and it fits perfectly in the gaming dark mood.

I played Starman entirely last week. I avoided searching for hints on the internet and finished the game by myself. It's available also for mobile platforms.

The kind of game that I presently look for in my life: a strange narrative with immersive puzzles and minimal design.

Search for it! And congrats to the brothers @eiprol and @jeicob for the game!

#GoGamers

What Does It Profit A Man...?

I was in my local Second Hand games store today, I'm not a collector of games, but I enjoy keeping an eye on how much things go for these days, and I like to see in real life a few of the old games I used to play and enjoy.

Anyway, as often happens on these trips, I was thrown back by the price of a few of the old games I saw, especially some very mediocre PS1 games, games being sold with a price tag WAAAAY beyond their quality! It's incredible! Star Ocean 2, £79! Ehrgeiz, £49! Then looking over to the SNES- Secret of Evermore, £79! And for the NES, Popeye, £79!

It got me thinking a little bit later about the value we put on things,

These games are expensive more because they are rare than because they are good, they are sought after, they have a value from their limited availability.

And then what about my immortal soul?

The crazy thing is, in God's point of view, my soul has a value of an inestimable amount, it was ransomed neither by gold or silver, but the blood of the lamb without stain.

So we are talking like a Stadium Events or something, really rare, super valuable.

And what am I willing to trade my soul in for?

Thank Almighty God for instituting the sacrament of confession....He didn't need to, it could have been a no refunds policy- you trade your soul in once, you've lost it. Praise the Mercy of Almighty God for confession, we can get that Stadium Events back even if we traded it in for Fifa 2000, we can come before Almighty God in humility, through His minister the Catholic Priest, a be restored once again with that precious soul, that soul of incomparable worth- My friends, keep it mint in box, so that when its true owner inspects it He finds it worthy of His collection.

The Storm Is Everywhere

Stewards is how I describe our relationship to the gaming subculture. The days of stores as taste makers are long behind us, although you can leverage and channel interest through events and demos. I felt this strongly selling role playing game during the holidays.

We certainly sold our share of gaming books, but with the slower, wiser, release cycle of 5E, there are a tremendous number of players who just don't need any books, most of the time. The sheer number of these new customers and the slow book release schedule meant dice and miniature sales have been stratospheric in the trade. You couldn't have enough of either in 2019. Customers have money and they want to spend it and it will be with you, or increasingly, elsewhere. This season I could feel the Etsyfication of the hobby.

There have always been low volume makers of stuff for gaming, but players are now tied into an omnichannel environment, where games are bought and played and talked about virtually everywhere. We are just one channel and perhaps not their primary. I know game trade buyers at distribution and they do their best to follow trends, but there are just too many makers and Kickstarter projects to keep up with and not enough budget to follow every line. 

We have customers that have gravitated away from our sales channel nearly entirely, as well as those who live and play the games we sell without knowing or caring we exist. It's not that they have better options (selection and price), like in the past, but they have different options. Their experiences and purchased products only have vague overlap. My store is full of customers three nights a week, and if I could just read their mind, tap into their other channels. 

I had holiday customers arrive with a list of titles with little resemblance to my reality, as if they were stringing random words together. There is not a strong understanding amongst casual consumers that these channels don't merge at the end point of brick and mortar retail. When that light bulb goes off, we'll find ourselves marginalized, if we haven't been already. Who wants to shop where they sell half of what you're interested in, when there's a source with 100%? If you have the budget and the knowledge, attempting to get in on the action of another channel is a wise move, although you'll never really tap the potential of the other channels. You don't need to be all channels but you don't want to be the worst channel. You don't need to outrun the bear, just outrun your buddy.

Breaking out of our channel requires budget, insight and being on trend. As I get older, I am often not on trend, such as my mystification as to why people watch hours of gaming when they can just do it. I understand why people watch professional sports, but gaming seems more accessible, especially when there's always hours of research and prep for a D&D game. I mentioned this on my personal page and have been educated, so you don't need to explain it to me. I get that there's evolved mastery of the game on display, rather than a scripted farce, which is what I see because I'm so very far from personal mastery of the game. I'm more in the Colvillian camp of slight deviations from the baseline.

The new D&D book, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, is a web series tie in by Matt Mercer, of Critical Roll. Even Wizards of the Coast has no choice but to get on trend, to figure out what players want, and of course, they are omnichannel oriented, including deep discounting on Amazon. The grognards like me shake our fists, demanding a reboot of Planescape, much like how the grognard retailer in me shakes my first about those deep discount Amazon D&D sales. 

But Wizard's knows to follow the trends, to tie into the energy in the room, to play the channels. My employees weren't even alive when Planescape was published, which is true of most customers. Maybe ride the channel while the riding is good? Critical Role is right now, at the subcultural forefront, with 758K subscribers with dozens of videos with over a million views. 

These problems are opportunities, don't let me depress you. These are problems you want to have, the catching of raindrops in a thimble during a hurricane. The mass marketization of the game trade is really an omnichannel endeavor, as the mass market is mostly dead. Hobby game stores are closing in droves, as they're unable to catch enough water in their thimbles. The smart ones, the larger ones for the most part, are making larger thimbles, sometimes creating their own literal channels. We saw the clouds and knew the storm was coming, but we were wrong about its origin. The storm is everywhere. 

From Deedle and Thread