Games Take a Long Time
This weekend I woke up thinking about a Kickstarter video game project I backed in 2013. Maybe not super relevant, but the game is Witchmarsh (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1027299776/witchmarsh). I remember getting fewer and fewer updates from them over the years and thinking "this is not going to happen". BUT the very same morning, I received an update email saying that they are still working on the project, had scoped down and were nearly ready to release a small "prequel" experience while they finish work on the main game.
A screen shot from a Kickstarted game I’ve been waiting for since 2014
The point of this is to say: IDK, games can take a long time...
Which brings me to my news update on The Haunting at Cragpoint Manor:
One of the things I've been thinking about since the beginning of my game is who the characters are. At the outset, I made a very deliberate choice to feminine-code all the characters. Because: why not? And also, I think it's important to break some norms to get people to think about what we consider "normal". (Fun fact, my game prototype used “Nuns on the Run” tokens for characters. A game where ALL 8 of the characters are feminine!)
Abbess always looks mad https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65515/nuns-run
When we introduced the new character line up from my work with Anna Webster, we brought in the character of James. I thought it was nice to mix it up by having a masculine character. After I started working on the art with Karen Lewis that we had to make some real decisions about what the characters would look like. In my art package to Karen, I had sent images of 4 white people. It was on my mind a bit prior to talking to Karen, but I hadn't really formulated an specific thoughts on why it bothered me. After talking with Karen, I decided to enlist another writer to help me bring some different ethnic/racial backgrounds to the characters. To that end, I've started working with writer Qadira Al-Mahi (https://www.qadiraalmahi-dsc.com/) to modify some of the backgrounds to be more representative of the time and place of the game. My hope is that through development of different character stories and how characters present themselves, players will feel like this is a richly imagined world and be able to identify with the game in a meaningful way.
This line up will be adjusted. Not just white people!
The other piece of news is that I'm considering manufacturing the board game myself. "WHY???" You may be screaming to yourself or out loud. The benefits of making the game "at home" are that I'm not on the hook for the costs of printing, shipping and storing 2000+ copies of the game while I work on the marketing and sales pieces of the business. I need to do some cost calculations on the materials and labor times for making it at home, but last time I checked, it would cost between $50-$80 each for me to get small runs done at TheGameCrafter (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/), so I'm pretty sure I could do it for less than that. The other part of the equation is the hassle of reformatting all the artwork to get print quotes from different printers (including TheGameCrafter). EVERYONE has their own standards for standards (I ranted about that last month). I was getting into choice paralysis (or maybe just too much work paralysis, thinking of formatting the game 5 different times to get quotes). If I do it myself, I can make the choices for size that I think are best for the game. If I do it myself, it also means I can try some really interesting stuff (like double layer boards and transparent cards), that would be horribly expensive to mass produce. If I do it myself, it means that I can build the game I want, make 50 copies for the people that want it, and then move on with my life. In short, it means not being locked into the rat race of funding, publishing, marketing, shipping, selling, storing on someone else's time frame and budget.
And to get into the weeds just a little - you would be SHOCKED at how much a game box costs and how much the size of it affects the overall cost of the game. A lot of that comes down to shipping costs.
The classic Parker Brothers/Milton Bradley box size is about 10x20. From the beginning, I've wanted to use this format, since I want my game to feel reminiscent of that time and kind of game. there's a $6 shipping premium for that format (and I can't even find pre-made boxes those dimensions).
We had this edition of “Careers” when I was a kid.