I've sent out requests for quotes from a half-dozen US-based printers. While I wait back to hear from them, I now have to either do the art myself or find an artist, with the latter obviously preferable.
Next steps:
Just a friendly reminder: if you're reading this from BGG.CON and you're a fan of economic games, you can seek out the Tasty Minstrel booth and ask to try out Titans of Industry when they playtest it.
As a completely biased party, I think you'll be happy you did.
Since we last checked in, I have taken care of the tax and banking items on my to-do list. Issuing shares of stock to myself was fun. I'm still hopeful that all of this preparation is not necessary, but I am moving forward nonetheless. I am going to target end of year to launch my Kickstarter project, so I need to keep up my pace of activity.
The Eminent Domain Kickstarter project was successful, which (for reasons I've explained before) makes me happy. In fact, as of this writing they are at 165% of their goal, which is quite impressive.
Next steps:
As I said previously, once Titans of Industry was going to be looked at by a publisher for the first time in nearly two years, I knew that there were some changes I wanted to implement. This past weekend I tested those changes and the results were astounding.
The first major change was to change advancements from randomly drawn cards that could only be purchased by one player to the tech tree pictured at the right which can be explored by all players. This significantly reduced the randomness of the game.
The other big change was to alter how building real estate moved the game's timer forward.
Previously, the game's three Ages would each end when a specific number of real estate had been built. This led to a problem where each player refused to build the final real estate to end the age because they would then definitely not be the last person to affect the markets. The game would stall for many rounds as it was in no player's individual interest to trigger the Age's end. It also led to analysis paralysis as each paler's turn was calculating what would happen if the Age ended immediately.
The new method has cards drawn from a deck based on how much real estate has been built. This eliminates the stalemate because players can still build real estate without it being absolute certain that the Age will end immediately. It also means that as long as a single real estate has been built, that the game will move inevitably, if slowly, towards a finish.
I had my group playtest these changes this past weekend and the result was a satisfying game that took about half the time of previous playtests. In fact, it finished so quickly that I tweaked the new mechanics to slow the game back down slightly.
I made a few other minor changes and sent it out today. BGG.CON is a week away, so it is time to try to relax and not obsess over what else I could have done.
Not much chance of that.
It has been a over a year and a half since I last sent Titans of Industry to a publisher. It has been two years since I decided that design work on it was "done". (Of course, no design is ever really done until it rolls off the presses.)
So it is with great excitement that I can tell you that it has been taken out of retirement. Seth Jaffee of Tasty Minstrel Games has announced that he will be playtesting Titans of Industry at BoardGameGeek.CON in a couple of weeks. He is doing this as part of Proto Alley, where many prototypes will be available for play by attendees.
In the long time since this has last touched my table, I have had a few ideas on how to attack the two things that most nipped at the back of my mind: the game's length and the too-high randomness of how advancements were purchased. This week I'm implementing my ideas physically and will ship them off just in time to be tested at the convention.
So, if you are going to be at BoardGameGeek.CON and love economic games, make sure to help test Titans of Industry. Just check out this thread and make sure to speak to Seth at the Tasty Minstrel booth.
If you do play the game, please make sure to come back here and let me know what you think.
Update: I was incorrect in stating that it would be played as part of Proto Alley. Please see Seth's comment on this post for a clarification. Also, don't let this stop you from playing Titans! :-)
As mentioned in my last post, I will self-publish one of my designs if another publisher has not bought one of mine by the end of the year. Since choosing a new logo, I filed to incorporate Visible Hand Games, Ltd. Since I received a receipt from the NY Department of State, I guess I can assume that was completed.
Side note: right in the mail with the receipt were several advertisements for credit card machines addressed to Visible Hand Games. It's funny how many people knew I had incorporated before I received notice.
I also decided on which prototype I want to publish and got an initial quote from a printer in China. It didn't seem that cheap and they had a high minimum order number (1,500 units), so I want to get some more quotes for comparison.
Specifically, they were charging $6 per unit, which is already half of what I wanted to sell the game for. Once you add in a fulfillment service and shipping to customers, I'm going to be selling at pretty close to cost. I'd be fine with that, except my goal is to break even and it would mean I would need to sell all 1,500 copies to do that. I don't think I'll be able to sell that many. That isn't because it is a bad game. I actually think this particular design is highly marketable. However, I assume I won't be very good at the marketing side of this since it is my first try.
Anyway, I need to spend some time getting more quotes for either a lower price or a lower minimum print run. I think I could sell out 500 copies (yes, this is me being optimistic). This means either finding a printer for $6 or $7 per unit willing to do only 500 copies or one who can do 1,500 copies at $3 or $4 per unit.
Next steps:
