wooden board games

Our best selling game (Siegestones) is a wooden board game. So... I can give you some things to be aware of:

1) Wooden games get a higher price - but not much higher. The materials have to fit the concept. For example, would you pay more for a wooden version of checkers than for a cardboard version? What about Chess?

2) Wood = heavy. I realize that shipping costs seem trivial, but they really will be a drag on your sales.

3) It is much more difficult to find good manufacturers of wooden board. When we did our first run, I had a terrible time finding anyone that could do what I wanted - until I tried a company that makes award plaques. (unfortunately, I can't remember their name right now, but as soon as I do, I'll post it.) In any case, with that one notable exception my experience with producers of wooden game parts was ridiculously negative - missed deadlines, changing prices, incorrect cuts, and so forth.

4) Wood doesn't always look good. Do research before getting going. For example, we had one manufacturer who tried to stain the wood instead of using a clear lacquer. Big mistake. The boards were sticky and rough at the same time.

5) Warpage isn't a huge problem. The wood in our boards actually is layered, with the grain facing a different direction in each layer. This prevents any serious warping and gives you an interesting look when you look at the "edge" of the board.

6) Getting the image on the board (which I thought would be very difficult) is actually trivial for the manufacturers. It's just screened on. I suppose you could burn (or carve) it on the board if you wanted a more rugged look, but I don't know how expensive that would be.

As you can tell, all my experience is from the point of view of working with manufacturers to produce a fairly large number of boards. If you're looking at doing the woodworking yourself... that I can't help you with.

- Pat