My Online Store Has Launched!

What a miracle! Great times are upon us! After working on this project for exactly one year, I have launched my online store. A large international store, selling everything I ever made and probably everything I will make, which obviously includes the many board games and video games I design.

You can visit the store now: The Wayward Melody | Educational Games and more!

I’ve written a more in-depth article on my personal blog. It details more of the reasons why, the systems used, the general plan for the future. It’s the main announcement, if you will.

I wanted to write a seperate short article, however, for Pandaqi Blog. Because this website is special. Pandaqi is my biggest and most-visited website. It’s easily the one on which I’ve spent the most time, and the thing that made me a serious game designer and game tool developer over the past ~5 years.

It’s also the oldest of all my websites. Its code and design were an incoherent mess, left over from the old days. All its games were free, some have been broken for years and I didn’t know, and this all led to a “meh” reputation. People were finding the website based on being professional and big enough, and people were leaving it behind because it wasn’t really professional or consistent.

And so, as I worked on this online store, I also regularly worked on a massive Pandaqi update. I basically wanted to (re-)release both websites at once, as a new beginnings sort of thing.

This launch marks a few important changes.

  • The Pandaqi website has received a total makeover. A much simpler design, completely consistent, with all previous games slotting right in. It’s not amazing, because my design efforts mostly went into the online store, but it’s solid and clear and professional.
  • All games currently on it will remain there, and they will always remain free. I merely “ported” them to the webshop too (to have everything in one place), and sell their original source files/assets for a low price (to anyone interested). If I earn enough income elsewhere, those source files will just become free too.
  • All games still have their link to Google Drive (with the rules and materials PDFs), as that’s what 99% of people will be interested in. I started porting their code over too, but I didn’t finish in time, which is why I turned off the “interactive rules” and “material generator” for many games (for now).
    • Don’t worry, I’m quite close to getting them all working again and the functionality is all nicely build into the website.
    • It just felt silly delaying this massive improvement to Pandaqi for 6 or 12 months just to have “100% of games 100% working again”.
  • But all future board and video games will be on the online store and paid. Because I’m now asking a price, the board games I’m making are far more professional, polished, time-consuming, you name it. They’re just a cut above the “hobbyist work” that’s on Pandaqi for free, and the price reflects that. Their rightful place is in the shop, not Pandaqi.
    • Other crucial differences between the “old” and “new” games are that the new ones are mostly marketed as “educational games” and “self-sufficient”. Most do not use that generator anymore; you just get a final designed PDF file. I can also sell video games in the shop now, using my own standalone (non-web) system.
    • Speaking of that, I moved over all my old video games and made them paid. I actually did that a year ago already. That price is mostly symbolic, but still important to reinforce games are worth paying for and that this is a proper shop.

Pandaqi Games has a massive amount of free board games. I’ve worked on them for years and years. Some have really powerful, beautiful, interesting generators to get new material or interactive examples. There’s a lot of good stuff there, and the always rising number of visitors reflects that (I believe).

At the same time, I desperately need some sort of income, and because I’m asking money my work for the online store is just on a different level and with a different purpose. They don’t fit with the other Pandaqi work. And yet, this will be the kind of games I’ll make for the foreseeable future.

Pandaqi Games is too big and valuable to let die, but my game work (both board games and video games) will now almost exclusively live on in the “games” faction of the online store. And so the website received a massive makeover and all those necessary updates I procrastinated on for years … but no new games will appear.

Even if Pandaqi would ever die, all that work now has a second home at the online store. This is also a nice backup for the day that Google might end their 15GB of free storage, which is what Pandaqi relies on to host all those game files! I mean, I’m not doing anything strange or annoying, but it’s a mega corporation and they can terminate my account willy-nilly if they so desire.

Pandaqi Games is now my best possible “entry” for new fans. My best “marketing billboard” for anyone looking to get into my world of games. For anyone to end up at my online store and perhaps buy the one game they were looking for. It’s not the childish mess that I started ~10+ years ago; but my numerous ideas for board games I had planned for 2026 originally became paid and moved to the store. Sorry. I need food.

Similarly, any “devlogs” about games made will be in the “Library” of the online store. If I write more general articles about game development, they’ll likely still be at Pandaqi Blog, unless they have some strong connection to the store or education. For example, if I join some informal game jam just for funs, that’s the kind of article and work that ends up at Pandaqi Blog.

That was my announcement for today. Check out my online store if you want.

Until next time, keep playing,

Pandaqi