Publishing Spielunker

Going through the process of publishing is a logical extension of going through the process of designing the game.

Darkehorses idea is a good one, but I for one wouldn't mind shelling out the $50 for Oracle's idea. If we try to get preorders, we will be waiting forever to get 100 of them. We could go with Oracle's idea, then take as many preorders as possible to reduce the $5 each down to a better number... maybe that's the way to go.

In any case, as has been mentioned, we cannot publish a gae until we are done making it. By way of summary, can someone post what we've got so far? From memory I recall the following:

Some kind of action point system. On your turn you must play a tile. A possible action migth be to play another tile. Some tiles have special symbols on them, and when those tiles come up a discovery chit and an obstacle chit are placed on the tile. Discoveries are worth points- more points for the player who finds it then the following players who experience it. Obstacles must be overcome in order to score the points for the discovery. Movement between caverns and passages costs action points, and complete passages have the advantage of expediting travel from cave to cave.

Something like that. I forget the game-end idea that we went with, but I want to say it was like... players are spelunking with their cameras, each with X blank pictures. When finding a discovery, the player takes a picture of it (and will therby score points for it), and when one player has filled their last film slot with a picture, the game-end is signaled. Bonus points could be awarded to the player who first fills their film slots, and a lesser bonus awarded to other players who fill their slots but aren't the first to do so.

How close was that?

- Seth

Wow, it seems like you guys are really moving ahead with this thing! I am impressed.

However, I'm curious where you got this number from? I ask because, to be blunt, I'd be absolutely shocked if this were a true statement. Tiles, a deck of cards, pawns for the players, and the box for $4 in a print run of 500? No way!

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding how big your component set is. But the box alone is going to be a couple of dollars each, and the tiles have got to be a few bucks themselves.

That's not necessarily a bad thing; knowing what little I do know about the game, I guess I'd expect it to retail for $20. So even if you have to pay $10 to make it, I bet you're still ok, particularly since you're looking to sell it direct.

I'll be very interested to see the final product. My impression of the project was that it was a "too many cooks" kind of problem -- that any one of you probably could have designed a game that was as good or better than the one the project will produce at the end. Still, it's a cool and original idea and worth going ahead with just for the sake of trying it. But at the end of the day, having 8 authors isn't going to sell a single copy of the game -- the game is going to have to sell itself on its own merits. But you knew that anyway!

Anyway, good luck with finishing the design and moving to the next level. Doho's tiles look terrific, and I'd almost buy the game without even knowing the mechanics just on the visual appeal of those tiles alone! Keep at it!

-Jeff

Hey, me too! I think that whether or not any of us are looking to self-publish, having some idea about how the business works is important to knowing how to approach a publisher a game and what items to be flexible on. (Do I really need a deck of 62 cards, or can I whittle it down to 54?)

My guess is "volume". I would guess that many self-published games are done in print runs of 1000 to 2000. Also, I think that the more common "first attempt" at self-publishing is probably a card game like Eight Foot Llama's "who stole Ed's Pants?" or Dogtown's "Mother Lode of Sticky Gulch". Perhaps DonB can tell us more about his own self-publishing exploits, because I can't imagine it was cheap to produce the non-standard components for "Sunda to Sahul".

I have considered (hypothetically) self publishing some games, and have rejected mostly for the philosophical reason that I don't want to be a businessman, but a designer. But even setting that aside, the up-front cost of making a game is so much that I'd have to go with one of my light card games rather than a game like my "Civ lite" that I think people would legitimately like to have as part of their collection. I think I could do the latter for maybe $25 per (on my end), but for a print run of 2,000, that's $50 grand! Crazy!

Anyway, my guess is that the box is not "pennies on the dollar", but will cost you a minimum of $2 or $3 per box in a print run this small (but I could be way off!), and that will put you at $3 - $4k, not $2k. That's still not too bad from a per item cost, but you're right, you're talking about more money up front.

I could be way, way, off here. Does anyone know whether I am? I just don't see how a small print run like this could possibly come in at $4 per game unless you seriously skimp on the quality (ie, black and white graphics, cheap card stock, etc), but that would be a separate discussion you'd have to have with the others. You'd probably never get me to agree to a print run "on the cheap", but luckily, since I'm not involved in the project, you don't have to!

Hmm, this does seem to be a pickle. What, I wonder, would need to happen to make game publication more affordable? For example, "film" used to be the limiting expense that made film-making not viable for a person with no dough, but now with the advent of digital camera equipment, anyone can make a low-budget movie. What is the analogue in the printing business? What revolution could happen that could drive printing costs down to the land of the accessible? Or will it always cost a lot for small print runs, period?

-Jeff