Prototyping Tricks and Tips
Hey folks - we have had other creators reach out to us about our prototyping techniques. From Version 0 to the current version, we wanted to run down all the resources we’ve utilized and share some lessons learned along the way!
Our First Prototype AKA ‘Version 0’
Number of Versions of this Prototype: 2-3
Prototyping Cost: $60
Generally speaking, your first prototype is a proof of concept to validate and iteration on the mechanics you’ve set up. For us, that meant spending as little time as possible creating a working version of all the parts. Almost all of the main components were hand-drawn on paper, with the exception of cards, and parts borrowed from other games (in this case I think we borrowed from Scythe for the cubes, resources, and VP gold.)
Lasering in on the cards, Estate has always been card heavy, and we had built out all of our cards that needed printing in a spreadsheet. To avoid having to manually type this out, we used a MailMerge feature from Apache Software. We wouldn’t recommend this software to anyone and there are now much more convenient mail merge tools.
If we were to do this over again, we’d recommend using the combo of Google Spreadsheets and Google Slides for a V1. There are several convenient MailMerge add-ons (usually ~$50) that will let you quickly create a slide for each of your cards and you can resize the presentation to your desired card size. If you are already familiar with or paying for Adobe InDesign, don’t buy MailMerge! You can also do this directly in InDesign with a CSV, there is some finickiness to how you setup and merge in images, so make sure to look over a tutorial before getting started.
We probably went through 3-4 variations of this version and avoided reprints by keeping extra space on the margins of our paper components to let us adjust as needed.
Version 2 ‘Unpublished Version 1’
Number of Versions of this Prototypes: 2-3
Total Cost: $350 - 400
Modified Cost (if you avoid Staples and can find a cheap place to print): < $100
For this version, we wanted to incorporate more theming and narrative. We also were trying to be more intentional about the sizing of some of our components (which initially, we erred to a size much larger than we needed). Some of the ‘printed’ components were still hand-drawn, but we added some thematic coloring and images from Dall-E to the cards to create a more immersive experience in the game. We also set up some initial iconography for the game, some of this we designed ourselves in Adobe Illustrator, others we purchased from the Noun Project, which is a great low cost resource for a lot of different images and icons!
This was our first step towards iconography in Estate and it’s become a critical tool to quickly communicate ideas in the game (and thus reduce cognitive load, which is really important for happy gamers!), and helping to create a game that is themed to the medieval fantasy world we are building - who doesn’t like looking at fancy crowns, scythes, and money bags??
This was also our first attempt at a rule book! Which we made in a Google Doc (you can see that OG version here, if curious).
We made the regretful decision to purchase print assets at a nearby Staples thinking it would save us time and if we were to go back and do it over again, we’d be going to our local library to print (which only charges $0.25 a sheet to print IN COLOR!) I think a lot of folks, ourselves included, will be concerned about how oversized prints will turn out, but there is this very convenient PDF method called ‘tiling’ which allows you to adjust the print settings and print out a larger image on multiple sheets of paper in such a way that it can then be cut and taped together. (Here’s a helpful tutorial on that!) This will save you so many dollars over the course of your print needs ( in lieu of going to Staples to do oversized prints.)
We also had a friend with a sweet 3D printer, and they offered to print just about anything, we chose Meeples.
Version 3 - Manufacturer ‘Light’ Edition
Number of Versions of this Prototypes: 2*
*We reprinted a set of the cards to iterate on some of our mechanics.
Total Cost: $300 - $400
I refer to this version as the manufacturer ‘light’ version of Estate as it was the first time we started testing out actual prints of components from game manufacturers. There are several online you can use to print one-off components from.
Again, we were a card heavy game, and we wanted to test out different materials for our cards (such as a linen finish, who doesn’t like a linen finish in their medieval game?). We used two different resources for printing:
BoardGamesMaker.com: If you really wanted to, you could print out just about every component for your game from boardgamesmaker.com, if you are a medium weight Euro game it will probably be a $500+ game, but you’ll have your game! We were pretty picky and choosy about what we wanted to print out. For our game, we chose to prioritize cards and resources.
Resources: We setup an Illustrator file with ½ inch ‘mini-size’ resources. 121 pieces in total costed us $21.00.
Cards: The cards were a bit more expensive (for our first print we had almost 400 cards across the entire game -> we’ve since down-sized that to 250 in later iterations). For this first print run we shelled out about $100.00 for this card print. It was pricey, but well worth it, as play testers loved the texture and feel of high quality cards and it certainly gave our game an edge at attracting attention in Unpublished Playtesting areas.
SmartPress: We used SmartPress to print out several copies of our rule book. This cost about $40, but it definitely drove traffic to review, read, and provide a level of feedback on our rulebook we had not had previously.
To set this rulebook up, we used InDesign to make the file and tested out several sizes before settling on one that…fit into the game box we had designed. (Pro tip: before you start making an 8 ½ x 11 rulebook make sure to check your box dimensions! Resizing this burned about 2-3 hours of our time!)
If you are going to use either of these services (and I am sure there are many others out there like them), make sure you get your files in well ahead of time for printing as you can save, quite literally hundreds of dollars on shipping.
Version 4 - ‘Manufacturer’s Samples’
Number of Versions of this Prototypes: 2*
*We reprinted a set of the cards to iterate on some of our mechanics.
Total Cost: $1250 (Plus an additional $500 deposit for future manufacturing / tooling costs)
To date, this has been our most expensive, and also, most valuable mistake. Our files had reached that critical juncture where they were ‘print ready’. We had created some really nice packaged InDesign templates for our cards and other ‘templated’ files, and Illustrator files for everything else.
We were eager to get a sample from a manufacturer to see how everything would look ‘finished’. Given our timeline to launch however, we also needed extra copies to share with digital content creators to help get the word out about our Kickstarter.
If we could turn back the clock, we should have only received one $300-500 copy so we could assess how everything was before running a print on 9 other copies. For example, we have an amazing 3D castle we’ve been designing as a stretch goal for the crowdfunding campaign. This was our first time seeing it not digitally and it’s a little too small and needs a revisit by our graphic designer.
For this prototype we chose to work with Panda Manufacturing. They have a lot of brand awareness in the industry and we have been happy with our engagement with them thus far. As a new publisher, they’ve also given us a ton of time and tips to help us succeed over some common design challenges (like that time we merged our art layer with our die lines, keep them separate folks, it’s going to save you so much time!)
Well, that catches us up to the current version of our game. We hope you’ve not only enjoyed the read but also found steps you can take to lower your prototyping costs! All in we’ve probably spent ~$3,000 on prototyping over the last four years, and if we could do it over again we can probably cut that value in half with the suggestions above.
Thanks for reading! We will continue to write about our experiences leading up to Estate’s Kickstarter launch this June. If you like Euro-style worker placement engine builders, make sure to sign up for launch updates!
Cheers,
Devon
