Last day for Otters! And how to run a humble Kickstarter campaign.

Today is the final day for my Otters Kickstarter campaign, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, please go do so! The project is almost 500% funded, which is wonderful and humbling.

Speaking of humbling, I also wrote a blog post on my board game site, Clay Crucible Games, about my experience in running what I’m calling a “humble” Kickstarter campaign. While it’s mainly written from the point of view of a board or card game publisher, it could be relevant for RPG folks as well.

Thanks all!

Michael Iachini

@ClayCrucible on Twitter

Moving my board game blogging to Clay Crucible Games

Hi all! This is a bit of a meta post, about my blog itself.

I started Online Dungeon Master back in 2010, when I was fairly new to Dungeons & Dragons and was starting to run D&D games online. I didn’t find a ton of blogs to teach me specifically about how to do this, so I decided I would start my own blog, sharing what I learned as I went.

Online DM now has a ton of tips for playing RPGs online, lots of specifics about MapTool in particular, bunches of free maps, and even some free adventures. Just yesterday I received an email from someone who had discovered my Staff of Suha adventure trilogy and was loving it; that made my day!

In mid 2012, though, my gaming life took a left turn. I came up with the idea for what would become my first game design, Chaos & Alchemy. I started blogging about the development and publication process of that game, which has since been picked up by Game Salute and very successfully Kickstarted. Game Salute will be getting out to backers sometime in the next few months, and I’m excited about that.

The problem, though, is that my blog is called Online Dungeon Master, but I don’t actually play much D&D (or any RPG) anymore, and none at all online. When I blog, it’s about board gaming.

So, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to move my board game blogging over to my board game web site, Clay Crucible Games.

I’m not going to remove any of the content from Online Dungeon Master, but I do hope to mirror all of the board game content eventually over on the Clay Crucible site. And future blog posts about board games will originate there.

For a little while, I’ll still post a notice here on OnlineDM whenever I put up a new post on Clay Crucible, but eventually I’m hoping that my readers who are interested in board games will just drift over to the new site. And on that rare occasion that I do have something to say about RPGs, I’ll write it right here, just like I always have.

So, on that note, I put up a new board game post on Clay Crucible today, providing an update on my NaGaDeMon project, Otters. It’s ready to go on Kickstarter, and I plan to launch the campaign in late January or early February. I hope you’ll check it out!

Michael Iachini – the OnlineDM

@ClayCrucible on Twitter

How to print on blank game cards: Prototyping tips

Many game designers are going to need to create prototype cards at some point. You have choices about how to do this.

Some people start with index cards and markers – a fine place to begin.

For me, I tend to start with a simple Excel template (no art) that lets me print out a page with a dozen cards, cut them up, and drop them into sleeves with Magic cards.

Paper slips printed in Excel, cut up, and dropped into sleeves with other cards

Paper slips printed in Excel, cut up, and dropped into sleeves with other cards (Chaos & Alchemy Substances playtest from last year)

Eventually, I get to a point where I want to make better-looking prototype cards, but not to the point where I want to order cards from The Game Crafter or anything like that. What to do?

Stickers – too expensive

For several months this year, I went with stickers. You can get Avery name badge labels that are just the right size to stick on a poker-size card (2.5″ by 3.5″ – the size of a Magic: The Gathering card, for instance). These come on sheets that are ready to run through your printer, and you can even get templates that size everything perfectly.

Old Alchemy Bazaar prototypes made with stickers

Old Alchemy Bazaar prototypes made with stickers

There are two problems with this approach, though. The first is cost: Each sticker will run you about 8 cents apiece based on the current Amazon price of $32 for a box of 400 labels (50 sheets, 8 labels to a sheet). That doesn’t even count the cost of ink to print on these cards.

Since I was using blank white cards from the Game Crafter (about 2 cents apiece when I bought them; looks like they’re 2.5 cents now), I wanted to print directly onto the cards. I couldn’t find anywhere that taught me how to do this, so I figured it out for myself. Now I’m teaching you.

Step 1: Create the file you’re going to print

Real designers will use things like PhotoShop and InDesign to make nice-looking cards. I do have an old version of PhotoShop Elements that I use near the end of this process (as you’ll see), but I like using Paint.NET. It’s a free program and I find it to be very user-friendly and flexible.

My template basically consists of a 3 by 3 grid layer to guide my positioning of the cards beneath. The file is at 150 ppi (so, not professional print quality, but plenty good for prototyping), and it’s 10 inches tall by 7.2 inches wide. This means that each card is 2.38 inches by 3.31 inches. I’ve found this to be a good size for cards that I want to drop into sleeves with Magic cards. However, I want them bigger when it comes to printing on the actual physical blank cards.

Grid to overlay card designs for prototyping

Grid to overlay card designs for prototyping

From there, I manually create cards by typing in text, coloring backgrounds, adding picture, etc. Here’s a sample page from the Apprentices mini-expansion for Chaos & Alchemy that I’m currently prototyping.

Sample cards for Chaos & Alchemy - Apprentices

Sample cards for Chaos & Alchemy – Apprentices

Now, the one thing I don’t love about Paint.NET is that I have a terrible time trying to print from it. Thus, I copy the merged image from Paint.NET into Adobe PhotoShop Elements and save it as a PDF. That’s what I’m going to print.

Also, to get a clean printout without grid lines, I want to save a version of my cards without grid lines (just hide the grid layer in your file).

Same as above, but with the grid lines turned off

Same as above, but with the grid lines turned off

PDF of the blank grid

PDF of the card images

PDF of the cards WITHOUT the grid

Step 2: Print a template on card stock

So far when I’ve done this step, I’ve printed the actual full image with the words and pictures and everything, but I’ve since realized that I could instead just print the grid.

As I mentioned, I’ve sized this file so that it works if I want to print on regular paper, cut it up, and drop it into sleeves with Magic cards. But if I’m printing directly onto full-size poker cards, I want the image to be bigger.

Fortunately, I’ve found that if I just tell my printer to use the “Fit” option when printing from Adobe Acrobat Reader rather than the “Actual Size” option, things work perfectly.

Note that the Fit option is selected, not Actual Size

Note that the Fit option is selected, not Actual Size

This leaves me with a piece of card stock with a blank grid on it. I made a little note to remember which side is the top; that’s the side that goes through my printer first (it’s more or less symmetrical, but better safe than sorry).

Printed grid, ready for glue

Printed grid, ready for glue

Step 3: Put a dab of 2-way glue in the four corners of each spot on the grid

This was the piece of the process that I struggled to find: Glue that would hold the cards in place on the template as they went through the printer, but would let them go cleanly afterward. I went to a craft store, and someone pointed me toward ZIG Memory System 2-Way Glue (I use the broad tip version).

When you put this glue on your card stock, it will be blue at first. But if you wait a few moments, it will turn clear. The beauty of this type of glue is that when it’s clear, it forms a temporary bond. Perfect!

You can barely see the glue spots, so I've circled them

You can barely see the glue spots, so I’ve circled them

I’ll note that when I first tried this stuff, I smeared it all over the template. That turned out to be overkill; a bit in each corner of each card does the trick much more cleanly.

Step 4: Wait for the glue to turn clear, then position your cards on the template

Pretty straightforward. Make sure you press on each corner of each card a little bit so that it will hold.

Ready for printing!

Ready for printing!

Step 5: Print the no-grid version of your cards – Use the Fit option again

If you’ve positioned everything properly, this should work like a charm.

Tah dah!

Tah dah!

Step 6: Peel your finished cards off the template

Make sure you let the ink dry a bit first so that you don’t smudge it

Finished Cards

Step 7: Position new cards on the template and repeat

No need for more glue! I’ve done five or six pages of cards in a row without having to worry about reapplying glue. I imagine you could do a lot more than that if you wanted to.

Caveats

First, let me clarify that this is only appropriate later in the development process, when you want some nicer-looking cards than the scraps of paper in sleeves approach.

Second, this is not the only approach. I know some folks will print cards on heavy card stock and then cut them out, even rounding the corners. I’m sure that’s a great approach; I haven’t done it myself.

Third, yes, you only get nine cards at a time this way. It’s still pretty quick to do, but the process is stick blank cards on the grid, print one page, peel the cards off, repeat. If you’re doing 200 cards, it will get old. 50 isn’t bad at all, though. And it’s no slower than stickers.

Fourth, this works best if you’re okay with a white background on your cards. I’ve tried it with borders, and it can work if you’re really careful, but that’s tricky to pull off. With white borders, even if your card is shifted a bit on the template, it’s not a problem.

Fifth, I recommend printing on “draft” or “fast” quality. Blank cards aren’t the same as photo paper, and even on “standard” rather than “high” quality, things can come out a bit muddy. Also, it takes longer for the ink to try if you go above “draft” quality, at least on my printer.

Sixth, I’ve only tried this with a color inkjet printer. I have no idea if this would work on a laser printer.

The finished product

In the end, I’m really happy with this approach. With stickers, the extra thickness made the cards a bit weird to shuffle; that doesn’t seem to be the case with this approach. It’s cheaper, and it feels less wasteful.

If anyone else tries this approach to making some nice-looking prototype cards, I’d love to hear about it!

Some sample cards from Otters - along with the star of this show, the glue

Some sample cards from Otters – along with the star of this show, the glue

P.S. I’m still eager for people to try the print-and-play version of Otters. Download the cards here, and download the rules here!

Michael Iachini – Clay Crucible Games

@ClayCrucible on Twitter

NaGaDeMon 2013 Part 3 – Otters – hiring a graphic designer

Recap: I’m participating in National Game Design Month (NaGaDeMon) again this year, making a kid-friendly card game called Otters. Previous posts:

Graphic design

Now that I have the mechanics of the game and the art for the cards, I need good graphic design to bring it all together. Specifically, I need:

  • Card layout
  • A game logo
  • Card back illustration (incorporating the logo)
  • Rules layout (probably on a card)
  • Maybe a box design (depending on how I make this game available for purchase)

For Chaos & Alchemy, I worked with a friend who is also a professional graphic designer, Bree Heiss. You can see my post about her awesome graphic design work on the game here.

Fortunately for her, Bree now works for Wizards of the Coast, doing awesome graphic design work on their games. That’s a bit unfortunate for me, though, since it means I need a new graphic designer.

Making my choice

I put out a call on Twitter, asking if anyone had any recommendations for graphic designers. Several recommendations came in, and I followed up with three different designers.

Ultimately, I decided to hire Dane Ault. You should definitely check out some of his earlier work over on his portfolio page.

By Dane Ault

By Dane Ault

Dane has done a lot of work for kids, and I love his aesthetic. I almost regret that I’m using photos instead of illustrations on Otters, since Dane’s illustration work rocks. But, since I want to get this game out before the end of the month, the photos are much faster to work with.

Want to play Otters?

While the graphic design isn’t finished yet, Otters is completely playable right now with my own (kinda crappy) graphic design. If you’re interested in trying it out, you can download a PDF with the cards (and my experimental “rules on one card”) right here! If you’d like some more detailed rules (which would probably help), you can download the rules here. I’d certainly love any feedback that you might have, especially if you try Otters with kids.

Photos by Paul Stevenson, Steven Zolneczko and Tambako The Jaguar

Photos by Paul Stevenson, Steven Zolneczko and Tambako The Jaguar

I’m aiming for a game that’s interesting for adults to play (with some strategic choices), but accessible for kids, probably ages 6 and up or so. Try it out, and if you have some feedback (good or bad), drop me a line at claycrucible@gmail.com

Thanks!

Michael Iachini – Clay Crucible Games

@ClayCrucible on Twitter

NaGaDeMon 2013 Part 2 – Otters – Creative Commons photos

In the spirit of completely making a game for NaGaDeMon 2013, I’ve decided to dive all the way in with Otters. You can read part 1, about the idea behind the game, here. As a recap, Otters is a simple, kid-friendly card game that’s mechanically inspired by Smash Up (but greatly simplified).

My initial play tests have left me pretty darn satisfied with Otters the way it is right now. So what’s next? Let’s publish!

To be clear, this is a little nutty, yes. Generally a game needs tons and tons of playtesting. But this one is very simple, and it just does what I want it to do as-is.

Now, if I’m going to get a published, purchasable game done by the end of November, I’m not going to have time to commission a bunch of illustrations for the cards. That’s okay, though, since part of the inspiration for Otters was how much I love looking at photos of otters online.

Of course, if I’m going to be able to use photos, I’ll have to license them. This is new to me.

Picking a photographer… unsuccessfully

I started by going to DeviantArt (an awesome web site when you’re looking for artists) and finding a photographer with otter photos that I liked. I sent a message via DeviantArt’s system and later followed the photographer on Facebook and sent another message… but no response.

Stock photos? No.

Since I’m trying to move quickly on this game, I had to try something else. Some other designers had suggested I consider stock photos, such as from iStockPhoto or Shutterstock. Unfortunately, Shutterstock does not allow their images to be used on merchandise, including game cards, and iStockPhoto only allows such use if you buy an Extended License, which appears to cost about $200 more per image.

Yeah, that’s not going to work.

Creative Commons – woo hoo!

Finally, I realized that the power of the open source movement could help me here – Creative Commons!

I’m no intellectual property attorney, but the basic idea behind the Creative Commons licenses (there are different versions out there) is that you can put a creative work in the world and allow people to use it for various things. In some cases, people will even let you use their Creative Commons licensed stuff (like photos, but also music and more) in commercial products. Frequently, there’s a requirement that you provide the creator with credit for their work.

And as it turns out, there are tons of awesome Creative Commons licensed otter photos out there! Many of them can be found on Flickr, but I did most of my searching using the Google Image Search tool; the Advanced Search options let you specify that you only want to find images that are available to do various things with (such as use and modify, even commercially).

Cute otters!

Fortunately, I don’t need a ridiculously large number of different otter pictures for my Otters game. There are cards with the number 1, 2 and 3 – so, three different otter pictures there.

Otter 1 by Paul Stevenson

Otter 1 by Paul Stevenson

Otter 2 by Steven Zolneczko

Otter 2 by Steven Zolneczko

Otter 3 by Tambako The Jaguar

Otter 3 by Tambako The Jaguar

There are special cards that let you play an extra card, play the top card of the deck or move a card from one spot to another.

Extra card otter by Peter G Trimming

Extra card otter by Peter G Trimming

Top card otter by Tambako the Jaguar

Top card otter by Tambako the Jaguar

Move an otter by Jay Gooby

Move an otter by Jay Gooby

There’s also an alligator card.

Alligator by John Magnus

And finally, there are otter playgrounds, so I needed beautiful lakes.

Lake in Canada by eleephotography

Lake in Canada by eleephotography

Peyto Lake by Jane Belinda Smith

Peyto Lake by Jane Belinda Smith

Lake Quinault by Tom Harpel

Lake Quinault by Tom Harpel

Next step: Graphic design

Now that I have the art for the cards completed, I need some graphic design help. Specifically, I need someone to:

  • Lay out the cards with the appropriate numbers and text
  • Design a logo for the game to put on the backs of the cards (along with anything we need for the background of the card back)
  • Lay out the rules (probably on a card, front and back, in order to use DriveThruCards for publication

I’m working on picking the graphic designer now. If all goes well, I’ll have final, laid-out files soon!

Michael Iachini – Clay Crucible Games

@ClayCrucible on Twitter

NaGaDeMon 2013 – Otters: Part 1

Last year I participated in National Game Design Month, better known as NaGaDeMon. In case you haven’t heard of it before, NaGaDeMon is inspired by NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. Instead of trying to write a 50,000 word novel in November, I’m trying to design a game.

My effort last year was called Gods & Champions. It was the second game I tried designing (after Chaos & Alchemy), and while I ended up with some fun stuff, I ultimately realized that the core mechanic I wanted to explore just wasn’t that fun. I could have a fun game, but it would involve going in a totally different direction, so I decided to move on to other games instead.

Example Blessings 01

This year, I’ve decided to work on a game entirely inspired by theme:

Otters!

Otter photo by Dmitry Azovtsev - http://www.daphoto.info

Otter photo by Dmitry Azovtsev – http://www.daphoto.info

Let’s face it: Otters (especially river otters) are freaking adorable. As a kid, I loved the Christmas special called Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas. It featured adorable otter Muppets that sang and played musical instruments. Later in life, I visited an aquarium and was captivated by the cute river otters.

So, for a few months now I’ve known I wanted to design a game themed around otters. I wanted it to be kid-friendly, and I wanted it to have adorable otter art.

What would be the mechanics of this otter game? I had no idea.

I started by researching otters and what they do. And while they’re adorable creatures, nothing about their lives really inspired any game mechanics in my mind. I let things just simmer.

Scavenging mechanics from other games

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I found myself playing a game that I really want to like but that I actually don’t enjoy much: Smash Up. The theme of Smash Up (pick two cool faction mini-decks, like ninjas and wizards, and shuffle them together) sounds like a lot of fun. The art is awesome. And yet the game has been a drag both times I’ve played it.

Smash Up by AEG

Smash Up by AEG

Smash Up seems like it wants to be a simple, quick, wacky game, but most of the factions have some fiddly mechanics that can lead to analysis paralysis. It’s also quite fiddly to keep track of everything on the board; with all of the abilities from the base cards plus the ongoing abilities from the creatures and actions that have been played to those bases, it can be really hard to even know what the total value of cards at a base currently is. The game ends up taking way too long for the amount of fun it contains, in my opinion.

Otters – The basic idea

So, my idea for the otter-themed game: Take the basic idea of Smash Up (playing cards from your hand to shared “bases” on the table in an effort to bring the total value of the otter cards on a base up to a target number) and simplify it, using cards with pictures of adorable otters.

Thematically, the “bases” will be playgrounds for otters (ponds, lakes and rivers). When you have enough otters in a playground to fill it up with fun, you score points for that playground.

Prototyping

Typically, I make quick and dirty prototypes for the earliest designs of my games. However, since Otters is all about adorable pictures of otters, I started using cards with art right from the beginning.

Now, I don’t personally own the rights to any otter photographs or illustrations, so I’m not going to show you what my prototype looks like here on my web site. Suffice it to say, I found adorable otter pictures online and popped them into a simple template.

Playtesting – you can help!

So far I’ve playtested Otters four or five times, with only small tweaks to the mechanics and rules along the way. It’s actually pretty much where I want it to be right now.

Otters is a quick (10 minute) 2-player game that’s easy for kids but still contains interesting decisions for adults. I might end up trying to expand it for 3 or 4 players, but I’m pretty happy with where it is as a 2-player game.

Furthermore, the only components are 54 cards. That’s it – no dice, no counters, no meeples, no board, not even some spare coins. Just a deck of cards. One of those cards is just a rules reference! I’m thinking I might ultimately make this game available via DriveThruCards or something like that.

If you’re interested in helping me to playtest Otters, send me an email at ClayCrucible@gmail.com, and I’ll send you a PDF with the 54 cards of the game. I personally recommend printing them on regular paper, cutting them up, and dropping them into sleeves with Magic cards or something similar.

I’ll continue to post about my progress on Otters throughout November. I may be able to go from zero to game-available-for-sale during the course of the month. That, of course, will rely on me working with a graphic designer to make the cards look nice as well as acquiring the rights to some adorable otter photography (plus an alligator image as well as some ponds, lakes and rivers). I think this can be done, though. (If you have any tips on where I might be able to get such rights, let me know.)

Wish me luck!

Michael Iachini – Clay Crucible Games

@ClayCrucible on Twitter

Board game club for high school: First meeting

Halloween 2013 saw the first meeting of the “nerd out” club at the local high school, which I have volunteered to help with. While the kids are talking about watching movies and sharing other nerdy fun at future meetings, the first meeting was all about board games.

And since it was Halloween, costumes were welcome! I went as a minion from Despicable Me.

When I arrived, the “meeting” was already in full swing. There were about 20 kids on hand, plus the teacher who is supervising the club. I spotted a game of Settlers of Catan getting underway along with a war game that I didn’t recognize. I had brought a stack of games like Carcassonne and Ra, along with a box containing my own designs.

The teacher introduced me to the class as a local game designer, and I had about six kids come over to the table where I was sitting, interested in trying out a game with the designer. I taught a bunch of them to play Chaos & Alchemy.

A couple of kids had to leave after a few minutes, while some others drifted in, so we had a bit of a fluid composition of players at the table. It turns out that Chaos & Alchemy was an excellent choice in that environment, since it’s easy for a player to leave and have someone else take their place (or just continue with fewer players if need be).

We played once with the base game, and then a couple of times with the Apprentices expansion I’ve been working on. It went great!

After that, I was down to just myself and one guy who wanted to play more of my games, so I broke out my super-early prototype of a game I’m calling Otters. It’s a quick and very simple card game, and I had only tried it solo before this, but it played pretty much the way I wanted it to. I’ll be writing more about this one soon, I promise; I think I might make it my National Game Design Month (NaGaDeMon) project.

The club meeting only ran from 3:00 to 4:30, but that was enough time to meet a bunch of the kids, share some love of gaming, and get some play testing done.

Next time, I’m probably not going to bother bringing games aside from my own designs; that’s what the kids seem most interested in. I’ll also go with a more structured plan in mind next time. I was expecting that I would be going around to different tables and teaching people to play different games, but the kids were already doing their own thing in many cases. I’ll go with the plan to teach / play test one particular game and let the kids who are interested in that game come to me.

Michael Iachini – Clay Crucible Games
@ClayCrucible on Twitter

Board game club for high school: Prep for first meeting

A few months ago, I noticed several online posts in the board game community where people were talking about their involvement with board game clubs at local high schools. Most of the time it was a teacher, but there were some cases where students were talking about these clubs, too.

My own high school years ended just before the era of modern board games began, but I would have loved this sort of thing when I was in school. I decided to see if any club like this existed at the high school near my home so that I could volunteer to help out. Helping to build the next generation of board gamers seems like a great idea!

Getting involved

The tricky part of this plan is that I’m not a teacher, nor am I even a parent. I discovered that you have to be sensitive when volunteering to help out at a school when you’re just a resident of the community (especially when you’re a man, I think).

Ultimately, I had some good luck. I called the local high school and was given the email address of their volunteer coordinator. After I emailed her, she wrote back to let me know that she had heard that one of the teachers had agreed to coordinate a new “nerd out” club at the school, which would include board gaming. She gave me the teacher’s email address and let me know that I would need to fill out a volunteer application (which included a background check and references; pretty intense, but okay with me).

I met with the teacher in his classroom one afternoon, along with a couple of the kids who were behind the idea for the club. Basically, the teacher didn’t really know anything about gaming, but the kids were so enthusiastic that he agreed to help out. I had brought a copy of my first game design, Chaos & Alchemy, and the kids wanted to play it on the spot. Fortunately, the game is quick, so they were able to try it and had a good time.

Chaos & Alchemy play area

Chaos & Alchemy play area

The date was set for the first real club meeting: Halloween 2013. That’s today!

Preparing for the first meeting

My main job at this point is to decide what games to bring. The kids are interested in my own designs, so I knew I would be bringing some of those. Beyond that, I want to bring games with certain features:

  • Quick to teach
  • Not too complicated rules-wise
  • Quick to play (90 minutes at the absolute maximum; preferably shorter)
  • Variety of styles (co-op, competitive, thematic, euro, etc.)
  • Portable (I have to carry all of these at one go)

I went through my collection and thought about games that I’ve taught to new gamers. I ultimately decided on this line-up:

Club games 1

I may trim this down by a game or two before I head to the school this afternoon, but this is my current planned line-up.

What do you think? Are any of these bad choices for new gamers? Any obvious choices I’ve left out?

Wish me luck!

I’m hoping that this ends up being a fun experience for the kids and a fulfilling experience for me. I’d love to teach young people about how much fun board games are, and if any of them are interested in learning to design their own games I’ll be happy to help teach them that, too.

Has anyone else out there been involved with kids and gaming, especially in schools? Any advice for me?

Michael Iachini – Clay Crucible Games

@ClayCrucible on Twitter

Pitching games to publishers at Gen Con 2013 – Part 2

Yesterday I talked about my first day at Gen Con 2013 and the experience of pitching my game designs to publishers. Today, I pick up where I left off in order to talk about Friday and Saturday. And yes, another reminder about the Chaos & Alchemy Kickstarter campaign!

Meeting 4: Medium publisher follow-up: Everest

On Friday while I was eating a late-ish lunch with my wife and a friend (at a restaurant called Patachou, which I STRONGLY recommend if you’re looking for healthy food within a block of the convention center at Gen Con), I received a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. I decided to step outside and take the call – and I’m glad I did! It was from one of the publishers from the speed dating event who had seen Everest. This is a medium-sized publisher, with over ten card and board games in publication (plus role-playing games). The rep wanted to meet with me that day, so we set up a meeting for an hour later.

Everest game board

Everest game board

This was pretty exciting for me, as I wasn’t expecting to get attention from such a well-established company, especially for my secondary game! The meeting itself was great, I think. Since Everest is such a quick-to-play game, we were able to play an entire two-player game in about 15 minutes. We won in round 8, which was a fantastic result, too (Everest can be hard!).

The rep had lots of questions throughout the meeting, all of which I answered honestly and was glad to see that the rep liked the answers. In a couple of cases, I was worried that my answer would not be what this company was looking for, but it ended up being a really nice fit.

We talked a bit about a possible re-theme, which had also come up with some other publishers during the speed dating event. This was surprising to me, as Everest is really my only theme-first design so far (cooperative mountain climbing), but as I thought about it, I realized that the mechanics could also work for any theme where a group moves through tougher and tougher challenges. This could be a dungeon delve, a group infiltrating an enemy base, going through deeper layers of Hell, etc.

As with the previous night, I left this publisher with a no-bits prototype copy of Everest. I’m curious to see if this meeting leads anywhere!

Meeting 5: Pre-arranged meeting with up-and-coming publisher: Alchemy Bazaar

I had arranged to have dinner with the head of a small but quickly rising publisher Friday evening, after which we would play Alchemy Bazaar. Dinner ended up not working out, as the restaurant we met at had nothing my wife could eat (she has a gluten and soy allergy, and everything there was cooked in soybean oil), but the gaming afterward happened as planned.

I sat down with two people from the publisher and two of their friends and taught them to play Alchemy Bazaar. The game itself went just fine, though I realized that I hadn’t shuffled the Formula deck well enough and we ended up with a glut of gigantic Formulas on the board, which was not ideal. I plan to try cutting down the number of those Formulas in the deck, and to explore ways to cycle undesirable Formulas, too.

Alchemy Bazaar components

Alchemy Bazaar components

Anyway, it was a good experience, and the players were happy to sit and chat about the game afterward, offering great feedback. I was making it clear to publishers that I’m not done with the game yet – there are still a few things I want to play around with.

I got some good suggestions, as well as some ideas for other themes (one person suggested time travel, which blew my mind). I also loved hearing some thoughts about possible graphic design directions we could go with the game; for instance, making it look like a cave system with connecting passages or a deep forest with paths, if we were to re-theme it. That’s the sort of thing I never think of on my own, so it was really cool to hear.

This is a case where the publisher was already interested in Alchemy Bazaar before Gen Con, and I think the publisher is very much still interested. Good possibilities!

Addendum: After I originally wrote this but before the post went live, I received an email from this publisher telling me that his group had spent some more time talking about the game (an excellent sign) and he had a suggestion for a new theme: an archaeology dig! I love the idea, and I think it might be a great fit for the mechanics, too (possibly even solving one mechanical problem I’ve been wrestling with). I’m working on that theme now; we’ll see how it goes.

Meeting 6: Follow-up meeting with a large publisher: Robo Battle

This was a micro-meeting, and hard to arrange, but this came out of the publisher speed dating event from the publisher who asked, “What else have you got?” He wanted me to pitch Robo Battle to a colleague of his, and it was hard to nail down a time.

We finally made it happen at a point on Saturday when we each had only a few minutes before another meeting. I laid out the board (just a partial setup) and a few cards and explained how the mechanics worked. It was enough for the rep to get a feel for the game, and we’ll have some conversations in the future, but I have no idea whether this might amount to anything or not. If it does, great, but if not, that’s fine; this is still an embryonic design.

Meeting 7: Follow-up meeting with a small publisher: Alchemy Bazaar

This was another meeting that came out of the publisher speed dating event. The publisher and I set up a meeting via text message on Friday to meet Saturday afternoon (in my case, immediately after the Robo Battle meeting). We found ourselves a table in the big board gaming hall, and I taught the full rules to Alchemy Bazaar.

We played through one “day” of the game (the first of five rounds for a two-player game). It was enough for him to get a good feel for the game, and he made it clear that he really liked it. When he described what type of game he was looking for, he almost perfectly described Alchemy Bazaar (medium weight strategy game, not too heavy, somewhere between Caracasonne and Agricola).

My plan is to finish my design work on Alchemy Bazaar and then follow up with this publisher in October. This was another case where the publisher and I “clicked”.

Actually, I would say that I clicked with the publishers really well in every meeting except Meeting 1 (the very large publisher) and Meeting 6 (Robo Battle). And even in those two cases, we got along just fine; I’m just less optimistic that those two publishers came away feeling like, “Man, I really want to work with Michael.” I think that the other publishers felt that they would like to work with me, and I felt the same way about working with them.

Closing thoughts

Overall, I couldn’t be happier with the way things went at Gen Con 2013 for Clay Crucible Games. My Chaos & Alchemy demos were great. I got to meet some of my Kickstarter backers (thank you all!). I picked up some sweet metal dice to trick out my own copy of Chaos & Alchemy. We picked up lots of pledges for the Kickstarter campaign throughout the Con, with great momentum heading into the final few days.

And on the game pitching front, I was thrilled. Getting call-backs from well-established publishers, finding interest in THREE of my games (when I was really only planning to talk about two – and one of those only secondarily), building good relationships… it was everything I could have hoped for. I think that there is an excellent chance that both Alchemy Bazaar and Everest are going to see publication in the not-to-distant future, and I’m feeling really happy.

So, the main lessons I walked away with are:

  • Be prepared with sell sheets and a polished, short pitch about how your game works and what makes it special
  • Be honest with publishers about your game, no matter what
  • Set up meetings ahead of time if you can
  • Be prepared to be flexible with your schedule if meeting publishers at a convention
  • Keep in mind that you’re partially selling yourself here; you want publishers to feel comfortable working with you, whether it’s on the game you’re pitching or something else that might come up in the future. Present yourself as someone who has their stuff together and is easy to work with.

And if you’ve found this post to be useful and it’s before August 23, 2013, as you read it, please also have a look at Chaos & Alchemy on Kickstarter! (Hey, this is my blog; I’m allowed to plug my Kickstarter, right?)

Michael Iachini

Clay Crucible Games (@ClayCrucible on Twitter)

Pitching games to publishers at Gen Con 2013 – Part 1

Gen Con 2013 was wonderful! While I did get to play some games, most of the time was spent meeting people, and I loved it.

This was a “work” Gen Con for me; I was there mostly to pitch games to publishers. I did a small, self-funded print run last year with Chaos & Alchemy, which led to Game Salute picking up the game for publication. That has worked out great, so yay! (We’ve just hit the $25,000 stretch goal on the campaign with several days to go – please check it out if you haven’t yet!)

But in the future, I would prefer to not deal with self-publication. I want to be a game designer, not a game publisher. That means that if I want my games to see the light of day, I’m going to work with publishers and convince them to publish my games.

Today I’m posting Part 1 of my recap of my publisher meetings at Gen Con 2013, since this ended up being a LONG post. This part covers Thursday (a busy day!). I’ll post Part 2 tomorrow. (Here it is.)

Meeting 1: Pre-arranged large publisher meeting: Alchemy Bazaar

Months before Gen Con, I reached out to a large, well-known publisher to see if I could meet with them at the Con to talk about Alchemy Bazaar. This was a little out of my league, frankly, but I figured why not?

Alchemy Bazaar components

Alchemy Bazaar components

I had 30 minutes Thursday afternoon to meet with the head of this publisher in the publisher’s dedicated room at the Con. I really enjoyed this meeting, as it turned out. I was mostly there to pick the publisher’s brain on how they think about this sort of game. The publisher liked the core “worker movement” mechanic of Alchemy Bazaar, but did NOT like the randomness from the Ingredient Die and from the Action cards.

What I took away from this meeting was that different publishers are looking for different things. This particular publisher doesn’t like much randomness in games (which surprised me a bit, knowing some of the games they publish). Now, I could certainly tone down the level of randomness in Alchemy Bazaar. I think this would make for a less interesting game, but if I officially submit Alchemy Bazaar to this publisher, it’s a change I could make.

At the end of the meeting, the publisher said, “Once the game is finished, if you don’t find another publisher, come talk to me.” I realized that despite some criticism (delivered well, I hasten to add, not cruelly), this publisher is actually intrigued by Alchemy Bazaar. That’s a great sign!

Meeting 2a: Publisher Speed Dating: Everest

Thursday night, I had two hours at the Publisher Speed Dating event to pitch my games. I want to give a huge shout out to James Mathe of Minion Games for setting this event up in the first place (web site, Twitter, Facebook). This was the part of Gen Con that I was most looking forward to, and it was fantastic. Thank you, James!

From 9:00 to 10:00 PM, I was at a table in a medium-size hall (20 tables total, I believe), demonstrating my light cooperative mountain climbing game, Everest. This was for the “light family game” track of the speed dating event.

Everest game board

Everest game board

I believe at this point there were five or six publishers on the light game track (I think there were more in the 7:00 to 8:00 and 8:00 to 9:00 slots, but unfortunately I had a late-night time slot and some publishers couldn’t stay the whole time). They would spend five minutes at a table, hearing a designer talk about a game. At the end of five minutes, a bell would ring and the publishers would move to the next table to hear about a different game from a different designer.

Everest was very much my “secondary” game at Gen Con; I’ve been spending far more energy on Alchemy Bazaar. This is part, though, because Everest is fairly simple, so it didn’t take as much design work to make it a pretty polished game.

I was very energized giving these quick pitches. Five minutes is not enough time to actually PLAY any of these games, but it’s enough time to describe what the game is all about and why it might be of interest to a publisher. I usually finished talking about the game in three minutes, leaving two minutes for questions from the publishers. I highly recommend this kind of balance in a pitch; if the publisher is interested, they will want to be able to ask questions.

I’ll also note that the designers were asked to make sell sheets available for their games – a little one-page sheet that gives a publisher the important information. Here is the Everest Sell Sheet. This sheet also included my contact information so that publishers could follow up with me if they were interested in the game.

One particularly interesting bit during this process game when a publisher heard the first part of my pitch and said, “This isn’t the kind of game we’re interested in. What else have you got?” I mentioned Alchemy Bazaar, which I didn’t think would interest this publisher either – and it didn’t. But I then talked about an early work-in-progress design called Robo Battle. It’s only had three play test games so far, but it’s quite promising. This publisher was intrigued and asked me to come by his booth later in the con for a quick demo of Robo Battle. All right, then!

Meeting 2b: Publisher Speed Dating: Alchemy Bazaar

This was the “main event” for me, so I was sad that it was taking place so late at night (10:00 to 11:00 PM). The biggest-name publishers had already left by this point, but I still had about five publishers to talk to on the “heavier Euro game” track about Alchemy Bazaar. You can see the Alchemy Bazaar sell sheet here.

One highlight of this cycle of pitches was when one “micro publisher” (as he described himself; only one published design so far) sat down and immediately told me that he was at this event in part because he wanted to see Alchemy Bazaar. He already knew me by reputation and was intrigued by what he knew of the game so far. That was a fantastic feeling! He was interested in Everest, too.

Meeting 3: Micro-publisher follow-up: Alchemy Bazaar and Everest

My first follow-up meeting came immediately after the Publisher Speed Dating event wrapped up. The micro-publisher I mentioned above really wanted to see Everest and wanted to have a chance to try a bit of Alchemy Bazaar, so we stayed after the speed dating event to play some games.

This was a great meeting, even though it might not lead to anything. As it turns out, Alchemy Bazaar is a bit heavier of a game than this publisher was expecting, and Everest might be too light of a game. Still, the working relationship with this publisher was really good; we clicked well. We might end up working together on one of these games, but even if we don’t, we might work together on a different game in the future.

And since Everest is such a light game, I had made up a couple of extra prototypes without the bits (just the map, rules, cards and reference sheet), stuck in Tyvek envelopes, that I could leave with publishers who expressed interest. I left one with this publisher, which he appreciated; it sounds like his young son might enjoy this game.

Next up: Part 2!

Tune in tomorrow for more. And don’t forget to check the Chaos & Alchemy Kickstarter!

Michael Iachini

Clay Crucible Games (@ClayCrucible on Twitter)