Galaxy's Edge - manufacturing

As we are closing on a deal with a Chinese manufacturer to produce Galaxy's Edge, I thought I'd start a blog on that.

Here I intend to describe an experience of printing a game in China from start to finish -- I think this may be of interest to many on this forum. We are a very small company and GE is our second game to be published.

At this point of time, here is what already happened:

- Game design. We spent over a year playtesting and fine tuning and I can say I am quite happy with the result :) There were certain goals for this game I and feel I have achived many of them. I'll write a little more about the design later.

- Art, produced by Josh Cappel (OutsideLime). Fallen Lands was the first game Josh illustrated; since then he's gained a lot of renown, to the point where it is hard to find a spot in his busy schedule. But the end result is brilliant, as always.

- I have found a reference to the manufacturer, Xinghui Industries, on this forum. Out of several printing houses I talked to, these people appeared to be the best. This not only about the price tag, but

- professionalism: do they make sense when they talk about differen components and processes? Do they send you complete specifications? Is their house in order?

- consistency: do they tell you one thing today and another thing tomorrow? do they suddenly add a charge that was not mentioned before?

- openness: can they itemize the price? are they ready to talk about specific charges? do they make sure you agree on the time table and the order in which things are done?

- experience: have they made any board games in the past?

I have exchanged emails with many representatives that avoid answering difficult questions and just keep telling you "don't worry, it will be the highest quality board game". I have learned to avoid these.

Tony from Xinghui was a pleasant surprise; so far I can give him the highest marks on all of the above items. Right now we have acccepted their offer and are about to sign the contract. I will be updating you on how this develops, problems, quality of the product and so forth.

Of course, we still had to negotiate the price :) GE has a lot of wooden components (80+ disks for colony markers, 80 star base markers, 4 flagships and 4 "ban" markers) Originally we were using wooden stars for star bases (mainly because that's what I used in my prototype). The break through came when we thought of substituting stars to triangles. Triangles are a simpler shape and that made a lot of difference in price. And I think they will work even better for the game play. Live and learn :)