Journey to Launch #1 - Reviewer Prototypes Made!
Mmm, that’s a nice linen finish on a 320GSM American Black Core Poker Card right there.
After Covid-19 delayed progress for a bit, we’re finally back in the saddle and moving forward with that sweet sweet hype momentum!
Quite a lot has happened since we last updated!
*Record Scratch* “I suppose you’re wondering how I got here…”
Firstly, all the artwork for the game is finished! The only exception being the possibility of expansion packs (gotta fund em before you make em!), the base game is fully detailed and realized by the amazing artist Mitchell Mayorga.
Mitchell has been an absolute joy to work with and has made our vision come to life in a unique and breathtaking way!
Establishing a great working relationship with an amazing artist has really helped propel us forward even more. Without his art, we wouldn’t really have been able to show you just how COOL the game in our heads was. Look for another post soon on what the whole process of acquiring artwork was like (hint: fun! but detailed).
One of those nice prototype game-boxes with a nifty stamp we whipped up just for game reviewers. :)
Secondly, we finally got real life prototypes manufactured by the good people over at the Game Crafter. If you’re curious, they make print-on-demand games and allow you to sell them in their online store! More than that, we found them a very affordable (and incredibly qualitative) prototype manufacturers.
Whereas a normal prototype from a bulk manufacturer would cost around $250-$500 per unit, Game Crafter manages to price their units at 1/10th of that. We were, honestly, quite shocked at the fact that their price didn’t require any MOQ (minimum order quantity) to produce.
If you’re looking for a solid, American-based company to make your game a reality, we absolutely recommend them. For all this gushing, you’d think they sponsored us, but nope! We just really appreciate what they’ve done!
All of this to say that we had 3 prototypes made that turned out spectacular. We have, since, had to re-arrange our rule-book a little bit to help it flow better, but that was solely our bad (rule-book writing is tricky when you’re trying to explain your game to someone who didn’t design it!).
There’s something so cool about seeing the cards on something other than a little print-n-play version.
Thirdly, with these prototypes made, not only have we begun the process of re-kindling our relationships with game reviewers (after a 7 month silent period), we have also begun to reach out to potential manufacturers for quotes!
The prototypes have given us an excellent baseline for what we know we want (what thickness and material card stock, what style of box, what dimensions, etc), and it’s been a wonderful learning experience so far! Still collecting data on that front, so expect that the next post will be all about our journey into the interesting world of game manufacturing/importing.
Got any questions so far? Feel free to drop me a line! I’m always eager to share what I’ve learned!