Print and Play Games at The Game Crafter

The "quality seals" you are talking about are the Accolades you get from SALES?!?! If so, you can't BUY them. You earn them as you SELL quantities of your game(s). Not sure what meant by this comment. Just wondering if that is indeed what you were referring to!?

Having had a Crowd Sale of over $800+ (30+ copies sold of Tradewars), the Art Test is optional but it helps for your PEERS to know what they think of the artwork for your game. If you've got GREAT ART, see IF other Game Designers agree with you. And it doesn't cost MONEY. It cost TGC points. If you BUY games or help TGC with their crowdfunding campaigns, you can earn extra TGC points (15,000 Points). And in terms of monies, it's about $4.99 USD (a fiverr for people to critique your art...) I got a 94/100 for Tradewars... And that's before Mike re-vamped the card layouts.

Secondly, Sanity Checks are REQUIRED for Crowd Sale admissibility. Also IF you have a rulebook (for ANY game)... I would RECOMMEND TGC "Sanity Check" of your rulebook. It costs only $30 USD and an expert will review your rules.

I know you probably think everything you design may be "perfect as-is" but I personally like being REVIEWED by other people and sure I've written a couple (three so far) rulebooks and I've used Family to proof read... But really I paid for the Sanity Check because I wanted to ensure that the way that I wrote my Rulebook was good.

Believe me... It wasn't. I paid for 3 tests to reach a score of 70%. So it's not wasteful if you don't know what you are doing and what those services have to offer people from ALL walks of life DESIGNING.

Anyhow different strokes for different folks and all... Accolades are important. They are what SETS you apart from the rest of the crowd!

I get it that you are not a TGC "fan" ... If you would be, you would probably be like me and I would encourage ALL the TGC services to make and sell a game. My next game is going to be made in the USA by The Game Crafter... Right now, I am waiting for a Quote on Custom Dice. I have quantities of 750, 1500 and potentially 3000 dice to be made. The TGC Laboratory is checking to see IF they can do it and how expensive it will be...

Otherwise the game will be "Made in the USA"... But the dice might have to be made in China and exported to TGC. They even ALLOW THAT! Sky's the limit... Once you work around their formats, sizes and parts ... The more I can get done in the USA and lower the EXPENSIVE costs of shipping, the better!

I'm just saying don't knock it ... until you've TRIED it. You'd be surprised at how some of those services can go a long way to HELP designers... If I've got over 60 sales of Tradewars on TGC ... I'm proud of my Tachyon badge ... Over 50+ sales. Heck I would have loved to have gotten 100+ and maybe even more.

The bottom line is IF a game HAS sales and Accolades, the better the ODDS that it is a GOOD or even GREAT game. Food for thought...

Cheers!

It's not a reflection on you... I just wanted to show you how many of those accolades (badges if you prefer) are NOT achieved through money. Most of them you don't BUY. Most of them are through peer review. Like the Art Test or the Sanity Test... A "peer" (or many peers) will review an aspect of your game to see how well that aspect is.

And then there are a bunch of SALES accolades which indicate HOW many copies of that game was sold.

Lastly there are the Reviewer accolades. Those are on a case-by-case basis... Each one of the Reviewers will no doubt put up a write-up about the game and give their own impression of the game. If they do so... And thanks to all of them, you'll get a badge for their review (your badge should be able to directly link to your review...)

So, I get you "thought" all those accolades (badges) were a bunch of BS. But in truth they are NOT. As I mentioned above, they ADD "Value" to your game. No accolades ... means this is a very new and "unknown" design and/or game. It could be a good game... But not enough people have had a chance to TRY and DETERMINE the value of said game...

A similar rulebook review would cost upwards of $90+ USD. Depends on the Developer and his hourly rate + the amount of time that he will interact with you.

TGC's Sanity Check cost a fraction of the Amount $30.00 USD... But you may need to repeat the exercise two or three times, depending on the complexity of your rules and how elaborate your rulebook is.

Something 12 pages will take less tries that something with 20 pages. And again something with 2 pages might be real quick to gloss over and comment here-and-there and voila it's DONE!

But that's what this Sanity Check is about: how efficient are your rules.

If you come to BGDF and ask other Designers to comment on your rulebook... Some might indulge you... But even so, a question of FORMAT sometimes needs a 2nd look. That's when you can rely on something like the Sanity Check for a particular aspect or formatting of your rules.

I'm not saying everyone should do it (actually everyone should at least do it ONCE to get a proper format to follow). After you get your first rulebook Sanity Checked, then your future rulebooks are good to go, based on the format that was provided to be most efficient for conveying rules and instructions to the players.

Again ... Take-it-or-leave-it. If you've never had a game published and this is your first game (maybe 2nd too) ... I'd spend the $30 to get some feedback and take it from there... Cheers!