Kingsland
The game revolves around the knights you have, starting with 3. With them and yourself you will try to outwit the other players armies by defeating them in battle or gain so much honor that the people put you on the throne.
The game is played on a hexagonal tile map which you all build in the setup, each knights has their own region producing goods to your economy.
KingsLand is divided in three phases. Event, economy and strategy.
* Event phase – everyone draw cards and play cards. The three main types of card are court intrigues which concerns your court. Knight tricks which give your knights advantages in the strategy phase and in duels. Event cards, a happening occur.
* Economy phase – Manage your economy. Training armies, building improvements etc. there are 6 resources; Food, Gold, Wine, Stone, Wood and Iron.
* Strategy phase – moving your armies, battle each other, duels, and conquer new regions.
The theme
The game try to catch the medieval essence. Well think about King Arthur. Knights in shiny armor honorably duel each other in the midst of battle. Throw dirt in each other face, shove in an extra dagger or two in a defeated opponent when no one sees. Not all knight are honorable but some are. This as well as the player try to trick each other, make unholy alliances, All with a friendly and charming touch.
The Knights
I want to stress the knights role in the game once more. The knights are the one who spread flavor and actually make the game what it is. Everyone has their own special ability and niche to help you, and fluff to catch their essence of knighthood, or lack of it, some are not titled knights. There are ladies, counts, lords etc. however they all goes under the same rules. The knights leads your armies and duel each other to gain honor in your name. There are foul knights and brave knights everyone with their distinct touch.
The Plan
This is my rough plan for the project:
1. Test play a couple of times more with friends
2. Revise the rules
3. Test play and read through once more to remove any sloppy mistakes
4. Make a better game prototype – maybe use thegamecrafter?
5. Blind test with strangers
6. Revise and adjust.
7. Bring it to convents for approval and researching the possible market for the game- hopefully Gothcon 18th April (but probably not. Too early)
8. Find a good graphic and layout artist for some quality art
9. Start a crowdfunding for the game
10. Finish the game
11. Send to production – probably china. Been in contact with Panda games, Wingo and some others. Wingo is the one with best response and best pricing. Any comments on these?
12. Make huge profit :)
Comments
The numbers don't lie
Crowdfunding campaigns normally do not make big profits. The average number of backers is between 200 to 300 backers. Rewards must be priced accurately to account for *fees* (10%), shipping of the game, the cost to manufacture and deliver. A pallet of games is between 300 - 600 games (depending on the size of the box). You also need to have the storage space for the resulting game sets...
Artwork is also *costly* to produce - but depending on your game, you may have less of it to produce. If you are using *cards*, artwork will most probably *soak* up a big percentage (around 15 to 20%).
Once your games are delivered, you need to have the *time* to ship individual orders. That could take about a month time (boxing the games, packing your car with boxes, going to the post office, etc.) Maybe more depending how many backers you get...
Now you tell me what sounds more *interesting*:
Do the math to figure out which path is best for you...
Good luck with your game!
Thanks for your comment.
What I have understood it's a costly business to actually profit from a game. There a lot of other stuff that takes shares of the actual profit. As for me, In Sweden I think the VAT for games are 25%. So that is also a huge loss.
As for now I work with the plan where I will sell the game myself but I might as well, when I'm closer to completion show it for some of the publisher and see what they offer.
I'm not too found of money but my dream is to make a living of game developing. But see as many copies of my games on the market would be more worth than a higher amount of money.
I will of course make a good calculation and estimation before I throw myself into the business.
For now the actual business is far off in the future and I will try not focus on it right now. Test playing and focusing on making the game is far more important. But it's good to think about it now.
thanks for your reply.
EDIT: What I have understood is that crowdfunding takes some percentages as well from the already strained profit :/
//Albin
Interested to know the stage of your project
Hi!!
I am interest to know what is the stage of your project. As I have just set up a publishing company myself and are about to get my first game on Kickstarter, I wonder if we can help each other out. You can put your game on my site to sell too. We are building a e-commerce platform to sell our games as well as other developer's games.
Let me know if you are interested.
Vence
Hi Vence Glad to here from
Hi Vence
Glad to here from you. I guess you are further ahead than me then. I'm working on my first revision of the game rules. In other words I still need to game test it further until I'm ready to go onto blind testing.
I hope to have something more finished by late April. I guess I'm not much of a help right now :/
You have any link to show of your game?
//Albin