I have been playing the first two tests of a new SF game, somewhat along the lines of Germania(tm). It has been a struggle to get some fluidity into it (a hallmark of Germania(tm). I'm not sure whether I'll pursue it much further at this time.

The (tm)s, by the way, indiate that I am trademarking the name Germania. Over Christmas I read a guide to PDF publication (aimed at role playing gamers) and saw that the primary means of declaring/securing a trademark is to declare it, with the tm. While I don't expect to publish boardgames as PDFs, I do have a collection of Diplomacy variants, and a set of rules for pitched battles for D&D-like games, that I'd like to see published somehow. PDFs are the "last resort" when a conventional publisher cannot be found.

I've created a yahoo group and registered a domain name to use in playtesting games, but neither is "in business" yet.

I also ordered "Vinci" to see what it's like, and tried to find out how to get hold of a 1995 game, Kampf um Rum (Struggle for Rome), which appears to bear some resemblance to Britannia. Evidently it was published only in German, and I cannot find a source for it (though I found an English translation of a card-game successor with the same name). Boardgamegeek has an entry for it, but no comments.

As an experiment, I am setting up a blog for my boardgame design. I hope this will help when I begin working with non-local playtesters.