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Galaxy's Edge - manufacturing

box_pre_top_only.jpg

As we are closing on a deal with a Chinese manufacturer to produce Galaxy's Edge, I thought I'd start a blog on that.

Here I intend to describe an experience of printing a game in China from start to finish -- I think this may be of interest to many on this forum. We are a very small company and GE is our second game to be published.

At this point of time, here is what already happened:

- Game design. We spent over a year playtesting and fine tuning and I can say I am quite happy with the result :) There were certain goals for this game I and feel I have achived many of them. I'll write a little more about the design later.

- Art, produced by Josh Cappel (OutsideLime). Fallen Lands was the first game Josh illustrated; since then he's gained a lot of renown, to the point where it is hard to find a spot in his busy schedule. But the end result is brilliant, as always.

- I have found a reference to the manufacturer, Xinghui Industries, on this forum. Out of several printing houses I talked to, these people appeared to be the best. This not only about the price tag, but

- professionalism: do they make sense when they talk about differen components and processes? Do they send you complete specifications? Is their house in order?

- consistency: do they tell you one thing today and another thing tomorrow? do they suddenly add a charge that was not mentioned before?

- openness: can they itemize the price? are they ready to talk about specific charges? do they make sure you agree on the time table and the order in which things are done?

- experience: have they made any board games in the past?

I have exchanged emails with many representatives that avoid answering difficult questions and just keep telling you "don't worry, it will be the highest quality board game". I have learned to avoid these.

Tony from Xinghui was a pleasant surprise; so far I can give him the highest marks on all of the above items. Right now we have acccepted their offer and are about to sign the contract. I will be updating you on how this develops, problems, quality of the product and so forth.

Of course, we still had to negotiate the price :) GE has a lot of wooden components (80+ disks for colony markers, 80 star base markers, 4 flagships and 4 "ban" markers) Originally we were using wooden stars for star bases (mainly because that's what I used in my prototype). The break through came when we thought of substituting stars to triangles. Triangles are a simpler shape and that made a lot of difference in price. And I think they will work even better for the game play. Live and learn :)

Comments

Excellent blog concept, and

Excellent blog concept, and thanks very much for sharing. Please do keep it up, it's great information, and fascinating to boot!

definitely, i look forward to

definitely, i look forward to hearing more :)

Congratulations!

Thanks for the tip! The GE box looks sweet.

Hope to hear more

This is a great blog topic. I'm looking forward to further developments. Also, good luck!

From Fallen Lands to Galaxy's Edge...

Just wanted to say that I played Fallen Lands at a local game store's Game Day (a regular brought his copy) and liked it so much I bought it and have been spreading the word by playing it with as many people as I can. I look forward to seeing your next game!

Good choice of art

Josh Cappel is the only name I actually recogonize when it comes to game art. He is very talented and has a unique art style that lends itself well to games. I will probably own this game sooner or later. Hopefully sooner ;)

Great info!

Thanks for sharing. I'm even pondering a pre-order. ;)

sushi wrote:Thanks for

sushi wrote:
Thanks for sharing. I'm even pondering a pre-order. ;)

We will start sending out pre-orders tomorrow. :)

quality

Better quality than the samples?!?

The second round of samples,

The second round of samples, taken from the mass production line, was much better quality. I do hope those samples were representative, and we are getting high quality games.

I will have to open several boxes tomorrow to inspect them.

How did your experience with Xinghui Industries turn out?

adagio_burner: I'm curious, how did your experience with Xinghui Industries turn out? I'm in the sampling stage with them right now and am having some major reservations.

I'm interested as well

I'd like to know how adagio_burner's experience was with Xinghui, because Tasty Minstrel used them as well for Terra Prime and Homesteaders, and as you can see on BGG, that didn't go to well for us.

Whatever you do do NOT use

Whatever you do do NOT use Xinghui. They talk all nice and they make promises and they are cheap... but the products are all sub-par. We did 2 board games and 2 card games with them and MayDay Games did one too... every single one was a mess... alignment of the cards were almost never right. Products were shipped moist and if you have any wood in the box you'll have mold. Etc. etc.... Trust me. DO NOT USE THEM!!! BACK AWAY QUICKLY!

James
http://www.MinionGames.com

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