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Custom Pieces & Your First Kickstarter Campaign

So, The Game Crafter has started a series on their blog to share their experience running or helping out with Kickstarter campaigns. I’m looking forward to learning what they have to share.

In their first instalment they discuss aspects of games that will make or break them in a Kickstarter campaign. Their basic argument is that not all games are suited to crowd funding and you should figure out if yours is one of the ones that is so suited.

Not so surprisingly, it turns out that if you need custom pieces for your games (and especially if it is your first campaign) you should think twice about going the route of the crowd funding campaign. Moulds are expensive and this will greatly increase the minimum target of your campaign.

The question I have is, what do you do if you need custom pieces? And I don’t mean you want custom pieces because it would be cool. I mean your game doesn’t work without custom pieces. If you are publishing the game yourself, where are you going to find the money? Can you self-publish anymore if you need custom pieces? Do you have to put the project on hold until you’ve run a couple successful campaigns and then come back to it?

These are just questions for now. I welcome any thoughts or comments.

Comments

The only type of games I can

The only type of games I can think of where custom pieces are absolutely necessary would be a dexterity game or any game where the physical dimensions of the pieces are vital to a mechanic that cant be changed.

Custom pieces look nice, but if their function is only cosmetic then any of them can be replaced with counters or stickered discs. Above and beyond these stock standards wooden pieces are available in lots of different shapes.

Even custom meeples have a lower cost than molded pieces, because its a lot cheaper and simpler to feed a custom DXF file into a CNC router or a laser cutter.

exactly

Thanks for your comment BubbleChucks.

I'm not sure yet that the game I'm working on actually needs custom pieces, but I haven't yet come up with a solution to a problem. I think there might be a simpler solution for my game, but in the meantime I'm wondering what happens to other games that really do need them.

As you said, the challenge has to do with physical dimensions. The game has to allow up to three spaceships to exist in the same square while allowing all the players to see which ship is above which one while also showing what ships they are (kind and color) and what direction they are facing.

Stickered discs would work fine for many scenarios in the game, but in the scenario I described you wouldn't be able to see anything but the top disc. On the other hand, getting plastic ships of whatever kind for cheap works just as well as the discs until you have to stack them -- then they just fall off each other and you risk losing the orientation. If you've played Cosmic Encounter you will have noticed their cool stackable saucer ships. These stack well enough, but, being round, you can't tell which direction you are facing (my very first playtest used these pieces and I have a mechanic that could make up for it, but it is kind of clumsy and not preferrable since the orientation has to be tracked away from the playing space).

I've been wondering if I could find simple risers, something like those raised plastic circles that sometimes come in the middle of a pizza. With something like that I wouldn't need any fancy stackable ships, I could just use whichever ones I could find.

depends

It depends on the design of your piece and is it critical to the game. My game Laker uses custom ship and cargo pieces. I produced a master, made molds and resin cast the parts. Yes injection molding is expensive but the advantage is rapidity of production once the tooling is ready. If doing short runs of a game or if it is to be a continually evolving game then look towards the slower resin casting (cheapest) or 3D printing (Slowest), neither cost as much as injection molding when you add in the tooling costs.

3D Printing

If you're self-publishing, then I would recommend two things:
- Find a friend who can do it for you
- Use what you have on-hand to solve your issues
- Make the custom pieces SUPER SPECIAL level perks/rewards

For example, I invested in the first run of Robot Turtles, a board game intended for children. There was a special level of investment where there would be laser-cut playing pieces for the game. That run was limited, but it was very special and significant for those who wanted that level of investment.

You're talking about custom pieces being essential to the game and how it's played. In those cases the first two suggestions might come in handy. Maybe a friend of yours owns a 3D printer, laser cutter, scroll saw, or a silkscreen press. Pay them from the proceeds of the KS campaign, or out of pocket.

Other folks I know have day jobs - or friends at day jobs - where high-volume printing can be done on demand, and very often at cost. In other words, you're "standing on the shoulders of giants" and using someone else's investments/knowledge/capability with their permission and goodwill.

I'm beginning to adopt the opinion that as "desktop publishing" becomes more widespread, and the reality of fabrication in a home workshop comes more to the forefront of gaming and cottage industry, the only difference between a game publishing company and an indie self-publisher is whether or not there's a warehouse full of copies of the games.

Simple Option

I thought of one simple option based on your quote:

"...The game has to allow up to three spaceships to exist in the same square while allowing all the players to see which ship is above which one while also showing what ships they are (kind and color) and what direction they are facing."

You could use blank dice (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/parts/d6-indented-blank-orange) with stickers on the sides showing the spaceship from left, right, back, front, top and bottom. These come in various colors solving your color difference requirement. The dice stickers (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/publish/product/DiceSticker) would be used to graphically show the different types of spacecraft solving your different ship requirement. These would be easy to stack and their orientation and level would be easily identifiable solving your stack-ability, level tracking, and orientation requirements.

Good luck with the game!

Cool Idea EthosGames -- Thanks!

Thanks for your idea! That is certainly worth considering. It certainly has the advantage of being easy to reproduce, which at this point is a major plus. Sadly it might be slightly more expensive than the miniatures I had in mind and a bit heavier.

The biggest complication I see is that TGC doesn't have a grey version of that D6, which might have been best. However, there might be a way around that too.

I'll probably have to get myself some and try it out to see if it does work well for orientation. I think it will work, but it might not be as obvious as just pointing a miniature.

Jacques

Thanks Ecarots

Thank you for sharing your experience. I've been asking a friend of mine about 3D printing, but like you say I'm concerned about the production speed when it comes time to make many pieces.

Thanks let-off studios

Hey, thanks so much for sharing your experience and advice.

I like your idea about saving the custom pieces for special perks, or perhaps for a stretch goal. There is likely to be a cheaper and simpler solution which will allow the game to be played but might not look so cool, but then a beautiful version could be made for those who want to pay for it.

What you say about indie publishers is something that struck me by surprise only a few days ago. I realized then that the difference between a self-published game and one published by a big company is that the designer makes the choices. The difference is not necessarily in quality at all.

After looking at the 40 cent

After looking at the 40 cent price tag per dice I figured it may be too expensive for you depending on how many ships you plan to have. A cheaper version would be to use the octbox or stick wooden tokens with a single sticker over it. This would cost between 13 and 21 cents a piece and might still accomplish what you are looking for. It wouldn't be as pretty as custom stackable ships but it migh be an option if all else fails.

Good luck with the game!

The plan is to include 18

The plan is to include 18 ships (3 different ships in 6 colors). It might work cost wise, but as you know it is preferable to keep the cost down if possible.

Another challenge of the dice & sticker idea I just thought of is that someone would have to take the time to glue on 108 stickers for every copy of the game.

Yeah, 108 stickers would'nt

Yeah, 108 stickers would'nt work.

Could you use your original

Could you use your original saucers ships with a dot on the front of the ship.

Or if you want 3D printed ships, just make the ship and and then cube it in, see through acrylic.

I know it probable is not cheap but it would solve the problem.

There are some good 3d

There are some good 3d printing options for those willing to get past the learning curve. You can design your own models for free on this browser based program: https://www.tinkercad.com/ I have not used it but I have read that it is a good place to start for beginners. The nice thing about these types of programs is that there are usually lots of youtube walkthroughs to help you get the hang of it.

After you have designed your ships upload it to shapeways.com and order a print run. They come in a number of materials from plastic to metal to ceramic. There are others out there making these parts for board games. Here are some examples: http://www.shapeways.com/games/board-games?li=nav

If stickers are not an

If stickers are not an option, what about box minis? FASA uses them years ago for some of their Renegade Legion games. Making templates is not that difficult and they are literally something you could create off your home printer with some cardstock. [I've dabbled in papercrafting over the years and box minis really are a snap if you have the artwork.]

An example over at Board Game Geek...
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/64543/renegade-legion-interceptor?size=or...
--
TAZ

for 3D designing

The least difficult way for designing 3D items for printing is Sketchup with the STL converter add on, both are free.
Then use replicator G to size and position it and skeinforge to convert it to G code. You can design all you want but until it is in G code the 3D printer can't do anything with it.

Thanks for the box minis idea TAZ

Hey, that's neat. I'll definitely keep that in mind as I go forward. It is basically the same as the dice idea, but cheaper and without the stickers. Of course, you do have to assemble the little boxes, but that shouldn't be too bad. The biggest downside I see to that one right now is that it might be a challenge to store the little boxes fully assembled.

I am currently preparing to run an experiment. I'm hiring a fellow to build me some custom sized transparent display risers. When I get them I will place them on their side so that they will stack and the ship minis I'm currently using for play testing can fit inside the riser. If I like how it works I'll have to compare the cost of this option with some of the great 3D printing or moulding options people have suggested. If it does work it will be a question of how many are needed to play the game, but that will be seen in further play testing.

I appreciate the 3D design and production ideas

Thanks to everyone for sharing their ideas. This will be a great starting point for me as I assess the options.

Would anyone who has used some of these injection moulding, 3D printing or otherwise be willing to share the cost per miniature for their project? When I was looking at shapeways.com it wasn't obvious to me what I should expect them to charge.

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