Lucky Duck Games

by Az Drummond, Crowdfunding & Community Manager, Lucky Duck Games

You are Kalia Lavel and you’ve always wanted to fight crime like your famous ancestors, so you joined the elite BelCor forces. BelCor made you into a highly trained cyber-agent, but it didn’t take you long to figure out that your bosses didn’t care about justice for ordinary folk. So you handed in your badge and were stripped of your cybernetic implants. It doesn’t matter though, as you can finally do what a Lavel is meant to do: solve crimes.

Chronicles of Crime is the smash-hit franchise that has sold more than 500,000 units across three standalone games and two expansions. The fourth standalone game, 2400, takes Chronicles of Crime into the future for the first time and introduces a cyberpunk setting that is hotly desired by gamers of all generations. Each of the four scenarios in the game offers a unique criminal investigation with an expansive narrative (averaging over 65,000 words per scenario!). The game is fully cooperative and all players work together to solve the mystery.

Like all other Chronicles of Crime games, 2400 is a digital hybrid, meaning that it is supported by a sophisticated digital app. The Chronicles of Crime app allows players to scan locations, evidence cards, and characters in order to interact with the setting. Scanning characters will trigger an interrogation allowing further scans of evidence or other characters to ask targeted questions. The app also presents players with virtual reality crime scenes. Players can look around beautifully-realized visuals to uncover evidence and key pieces of information. Chronicles of Crime 2400 introduces exciting new mechanics that draw players into the world of high-tech devices and digital environments. Kalia’s body is fitted to use Cyber-Implants allowing her to augment her body and get access to unique abilities. Players can use Cyber-Implants to get the upper hand over the suspects. However, using these enhancements requires Energy and players will need to manage the battery life of the implants.

Kalia may plug into Cyberspace to travel to virtual locations and meet avatars surfing virtual reality. There are places to have fun, places to find love, and exabytes of information to acquire. However, as with the physical world, Cyberspace has its own dark secrets. When talking to Avatars in Cyberspace, you can never be sure who the person you’re talking to is in reality.

Connecting the Avatars with the characters and real-world evidence can be key to solving a case!

Chronicles of Crime: 2400 comes with four scenarios and also a guided tutorial mini-case with its own unique short case to solve. This tutorial acts as a perfect introduction to the game and as a fantastic in-store or convention demo. The three standalone games in the Chronicles of Crime Millennium Series offer players a chance to solves crimes in medieval 1400, industrial 1900, or cyberpunk 2400 – meaning that there’s a world to enjoy for everyone.

by Jennifer Ward, Crazy Squirrel Games

As retailers, we’re often focused on managing two of our most important resources: time and money. Then once a year GAMA’s Expo trade show rolls around and we’re asked to give up a little of both. Sure, our dues pay for our ticket to Expo, but we also have travel and entertainment costs and, for most of us, it requires four or five days away from our stores. To some, it can feel like an unneeded sacrifice. So, let’s dive in and figure out the Return on Investment for those four days in March.

Education and Training

Expo starts off strong with a couple of days of both peer-led educational seminars and Premier Publisher Presentations.

The Retailer-to-Retailer sessions provide real-world sessions for all levels of retail experience on a gamut of topics. These sessions come from your retailer suggestions and are organized by the Retail Voting Membership Group GRD leadership team. Presenters are chosen for their knowledge in the topic area, their presentation skills, and their willingness to help make the entire retailer tier better by sharing their experience and knowledge.

Recent topics have included improving your accounting skills, taking a look at managing a team, finding new ways to diversify your product offerings, developing your brand, and breaking into e-commerce.

A new push by your GRD includes adding more in-depth, hands-on sessions by both retailers and other industry professionals. Two such classes were offered at Origins: grading CCG cards and identifying fakes, and improving your photography skills specifically for social media.

These sessions also present a chance to get to know your fellow retailers and develop some industry relationships that can go a long way to improving your business. Please feel free to introduce yourself to the presenters and perhaps exchange business cards. Then when the day isn’t as full, you can reach out; perhaps making a new ally in the industry.

Education pro-tip: bring a way to take notes. At the end of the week, go through your notes and pick three-to-five things you’d like to change or implement at your store. Highlight one or two to pursue immediately, and keep the others in mind to work after you get the first one or two done.

The Premier Publisher Presentations are a great way to find out what publishers – both big and small – have planned for the upcoming year. It’s a great way to find out what the larger publishers have in the works but also to discover what publishers you may not be familiar with have to offer. It’s not unusual to find something new either in these presentations or in the vendor hall later that week that will become a top seller in your store upon release.

In addition, if you’ve ever heard of “The Box,” you earn it by attending the publisher seminars. The Retailers Appreciation Box is a collection of games and accessories provided by Expo publisher sponsors and shipped to your business after EXPO. Within it – and it’s usually way more than a single box – you’ll find games to learn, items for your demo library, and products you can sell in your shop. We’re working every year to make this product selection as relevant as it can be and a fantastic way for publishers to communicate to retailers about the product of which they’re most proud.

And if you love to learn new games or see them in action before ordering, don’t forget the Game Nights. For three nights, publishers set up throughout the hall and offer to teach or run games of all kinds – board games, miniature battles, role-playing, and card games. It’s a relaxed atmosphere and gives you a chance to not only see the games, but also to see reactions to them in a real-world setting.

Spending money to make money

As the adage goes, you’ve got to spend money to make money, and Expo’s vendor hall can be a dangerous and wonderful place for your product acquisition budget. For two afternoons, hundreds of publishers of distributors will be set up in the Vendor Hall, ready to share their current library and upcoming titles, as well as take titles. With many, there will also be show specials. Often specials include free shipping, a demo copy, or special pricing – but they’re only for a limited time and only for GAMA members.

This is a good time to not only get a better look at the items you heard about in the Publisher Premier Presentations, but also to have more in-depth conversations. And the opportunities to work with newer or smaller publishers can result in wonderful changes. At Origins, retailers worked with PYE Games to develop ways that made it easier for retailers to order bundles of games, but also the idea that PYE could personalize their displays for individual shops. PYE can get more orders and retailers can have a more streamlined process – everyone gets a win.

Because there may be new or upcoming products in the Vendor Hall, it can also be a great chance to help stoke interest in your customers back home. Take some photos and post info on your social media platforms. (Just be sure to follow any “do not photo or record” warnings a vendor may have posted, please.)

Come prepared with the usual business vital information and your checkbook and/or credit cards.

Networking and developing new relationships

Expo also offers plenty of opportunities to relax with friends or create new relationships. Retailers have a few organized meals. These are perfect to sit with strangers – who may soon be friends – and find out what’s going on in other parts of the world. You may find yourself getting a new idea or sharing some of your own knowledge to help a fellow retailer find more success.

It’s also a chance to meet your GRD – those are the Retail Membership Group leadership team – and give them constructive feedback about what you’d like to see both from GAMA and in the industry as a whole. They represent you to the GAMA Board of Directors, and also regularly communicate with people throughout the industry: creatives, media, publishers, distributors, and more.

Plus you can meet the Board of Directors members as well as the Home Office team – they’re the ones who run GAMA. Well, the Board determines the direction and the Home Office executes. Together the work to improve all tiers of the industry throughout the world.

Get ready to pack your bags

Expo is really four days of improving your business. It gives you an annual chance to work ON your business instead of IN your business. The payoff is long-term: educational to help you improve your business, product knowledge to make more informed decisions, and industry contacts that keep you better informed.