Sep 122007

On Monday, I got a package in the mail with an important component to my game: the bag. Each game will come with a nice soft brown leather bag (actually, I’m not really sure of the material) with a cool authentic texture. They look much better in person than they do in the picture on the seller’s website. I’ll post a picture of it when I get the other components. Everything about them seemed great, except…

Cinching the bag closed still left enough of an opening that contents could fall out! If there’s one thing you want your bag to do, it’s hold things inside securely. My first solution was to tie the drawstrings once, like I did for my prototype’s bag. Unfortunately, the drawstring on the bag was made of a thin silky material and would not stay tied. To be honest, I didn’t think this would be a problem. I am going to wait until I get the other components to check if they will actually fall out. If they still do, I have a solution where I’d replace the drawstrings with a more tie-able material. String is cheap, and I’d rather take the time to replace it than have players lose their components each time they put their game on the shelf.

Now we wait for the other components…

Sep 052007

I have decided to publish a game myself. After a couple years of going through the regular channels of submitting games to companies and getting nowhere, I felt that I wanted to change it up a bit. My goal for this project is firstly to get a game out there, and see how the general gaming public reacts to it. My second goal is to learn the process, the costs, and all the other things that publishers handle with as little risk as possible. Finally, and least of all, I’d like to make a small profit to turn around and pour into my next project. The game I am going to produce is small enough that I should be achieve all of these goals.

My first step in the process was to create a nice spreadsheet analyzing the costs. I used google docs for this because it has a handy feature to share file with other users, which is great when I want feedback on something that I’m constantly changing. After making the bare bones spreadsheet, I went shopping on the net for my components. To offset the fact that this is a home brew game, I wanted my components to be more interesting than the off-the-shelf variety. Another consideration I had was that I wanted the pieces to be color-blind friendly. I used this site to convert the images of the components to show me how well they could be distinguished from one another. Hopefully the real components will be similar to the color pictures on the web. I do believe that I found the best pieces for the price, and I am excited to see how they all look when brought together.

I have ordered the components and should be receiving them in a week or so. Until then, we wait.