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Hello, I am General Washing Machine.

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GenWash
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Joined: 07/31/2012

Hi all,

My name is Thomas. I am 28 year old Special Needs Teacher with a BFA in Media Arts & Animation. Typically my degree and my occupation do not go together but when I see little opportunities I make the best of them. In my spare time I tackle a variety of creative endeavors such as Graphic Design, Writing, and most recently Game Design. A friend and I have attempted to create a few games in years past with minimal success... but OH was it exciting coming up with possibilities!

A few months ago I dove into the vast world of designer Board Games for the first time. I discovered BGG. I discovered the Dice Tower and Tom Vasel's wonderful reviews. I discovered that I could combine my other hobbies of Graphic Design and Writing and pour them into this one.

I had no idea how deep this pond was. I've been trying to collect and trade games of various types with what little hobby money I budget for myself. The benefits of this new entertainment is at least twofold: I get to spend better time with my wife than if we were watching TV or engrossed in individual activities, and I'm consuming* games for fun as well as to inspire further and better game creation. I've since made about 5 duds and 1 "dud with potential" (see image).

That's why I'm joining this forum. I'm looking at each failure as an accomplishment and an opportunity to learn as I share my ideas with others. I would also relish passing on anything I learn to other users.

My dream is simple: Create a fun, playable game.
One of my favorite sayings is "The difference between a dream and a goal is a PLAN."
Therefore, here is my (tentative) goal, and I'm asking anyone reading this who has a big heart and a teacher's mind to help me get there:

Have a game published by July 31st, 2013. One year from today.

-General Washing Machine

*By consume I mean purchase, learn, experience, etc. NOT ingest.

Dralius
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Joined: 07/26/2008
When I started back in 2003 I

When I started back in 2003 I also had the goal of getting published within a year. Not self published which I did do but instead getting a publisher to license a game from me.

It didn’t happen that quickly. Here is a short timeline of what happened.

2003: Started PyroMyth Games to self published Cannon.
2003-2008: submitted games to numerous publishers. Some looked like they were going to be picked up yet they always changed their minds at the 11th hour. Published Print and Play games.
2008- Current: Decided to stop publishing Cannon and was able to license it to several POD publishers.
2009: Licensed 2 family style games to a company in India. Due to delays they still have not been published. Not sure if they ever will at this point.
2010: Licensed 2 games to minion games; Nitro dice & Tahiti.
2011: My game Snag won a Game design contest run by Blue Panther LLC. The prize was publication.
2011: Nitro Dice is released.
2012: Tahiti is funded through Kickstarter and is due for release this fall co-published by Minion games & Queen.

What have I gotten out of it?

Honestly not much money so far. I have on the other hand made a lot of friends in the industry; publishers, game designers, etc… and that has made it worthwhile.

What does the future hold?

That’s yet to be seen but I know that if I had become discouraged after a year my game design career timeline would be very short indeed.

Orangebeard
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Joined: 10/13/2011
No time to lose...

Hi GenWash,

ok, I'll bite...

I am assuming the games you tried to develop in the past were based on themes that were appealing to you as a game player - what did you come up with and how far into development were you? What was the "road block" that ended development? Are the themes of yesterday still appealing to you today?

What's your next step?

larienna
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Joined: 07/28/2008
Quote:That’s yet to be seen

Quote:
That’s yet to be seen but I know that if I had become discouraged after a year my game design career timeline would be very short indeed.

Maybe game designer should have Longer longevity like elves. You know something like 500-800 years. So that we have the time to get the recognition we need to publish our games and so that we also have all the time we need to make our design ideas work.

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