The Scorpion and the Pandemic

I didn’t want to talk about COVID-19…

It seems to me that everything has already been said. This illness has already become the sole subject of conversation between families, friends, lovers; I didn’t really want to add anything to this, and to talk about something else. Anything else! But I realise that to ignore this, in our current environment, would verge on the indecent.

First of all, I sincerely hope that you, dear readers, are healthy, and that everyone close to you is as well. On our side no ‘Scorpions’ have been affected, even Carl and Matthew, who were on a work trip in the United States, and who came back on March 13th, when everything started to go a bit nuts in North America. The entire team is working from home, full-time! I am extremely happy to be able to keep everyone in their positions, while millions of newly-unemployed people find themselves in virtual waiting rooms, queueing for essential financial aid.

I am thinking a lot about game stores, which have been forced to close for a significant period of time. Without these stores, distributors can’t sell, and when they can’t sell, they don’t order our games. This whole story serves to remind us of the extent with which we all live in an ecosystem, and the importance of taking care of each other.

We are currently busy contacting our distribution partners to find out how they are doing, what their needs are, and reducing or delaying their orders, if needs be. We are also taking advantage of this situation to improve our work-from-home procedures. In the meantime, we have finished up work on Master Word (releasing in September), and we are analysing the feedback of the 5 families who playtested the Zombie Teenz: Evolution adventure (releasing in October)! We are also working hard on the development of our 2021 releases, and we will be getting started on putting together a provisional calendar for 2022.

For my part, I am busy living through different scenarios in my head: optimistic, realistic, pessimistic, catastrophic… The good news? None of them put Scorpion Masqué in any danger. I am able to sleep at night, and, very humbly, do my part to support others.