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Making Your Own Board/Card Games?
wrinkledshirt writes "I've been growing interested in creating my own set of board games, and I was wondering if people knew of good resources for how to go about doing this? I'd love to know information on good places to get cards printed, manuals printed, plastic pieces manufactured, boards created, that sort of thing. Many companies online offer to do all of these things for you, but I'm considering doing it all separately in order to cut costs. Since I've never done this before, I'm also wondering about sources that'll give you good ideas to consider as well as gameplay pitfalls to avoid. I know google is my friend, but I'm also wondering about people's experiences in trying to do this stuff on their own...?"
I'm pretty sure they can print everything you want except a board.
And if you get your board printed on nice glossy heavy duty paper, that should be hard to make (so long as you know how to spread glue out evenly and thinly).
Making board games is like making books or video games. First you design the game and make it quality. Manufacture a few prototypes of the game. You can do this on your own with cardboard and an injet printer. If the game is quality get it published. There are a lot of board game publishers that will buy your game if it is quality. You can go all the way from Looney Labs (Fluxx and Nanofictionary) to Rio Grande (El Grande, Puerto Rico) to Milton Bradley (Hasbro, right?) If you don't want to publish your game commercialy (couldn't imagine why not) you will need to contact a professional printer. If you hadn't guessed that costs big money.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
It's really simple to grab together pieces from other board games you have lying around the house, sketch out a quick board on some simple paper, and try playing the game with a few friends. I've done this many times, and it helps you see what sort of game-play is fun and interesting, and what's not really, before you go to the trouble of making a more permanent set of cards/plastic pieces/game board. If you really do come up with a winner you think you can sell, I suppose that's the time you can go looking around for companies to manufacture it for you. And I think at that point you'd be better off going to a game company who knows what they're doing, rather than trying to farm out production to various different individual companies to save a buck, and then try to sell the game yourself.
But really: a large piece of paper, a collection of plastic pieces from various board games, some dice, and a few cards can provide for many, many hours of fun and entertainment. You're limited only by your imagination.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
- It's quite possible you've got a printer in the neighborhood without having realized it. Depending on the type of shop you could get most of your needs met there -- manual, cards, playing board, even the container.
- For playing pieces, wood adds a touch of class that plastic can't match; check your local craft store and see what kinds of things they've got that you can glue together. You can do just about anything with a source of wood and a Dremel.
- Another possibility for the playing board is to design your board on the computer and print it to an iron-on transfer, then iron that on to the cardboard. Or you could make a series of stencils you can spray-paint through (one for each color) for mass production.
- Use dice. They're cheap and plentiful.
Good luck. This sounds like it could be a rewarding hobby.1,000 Blank Cards! 1,000 Blank Cards! 1,000 Blank Cards!
Those who know this game will swear it's the most fun they've ever had! Those who don't... anyone care to let them in on this?
find your local (if you have one) school teacher supply store. They have all kinds of game tokens, dice, spinners & what-have-yous. A good paper store is handy for getting the game board backing.
I print the game boards on multiple sheets on a colour printer, glue them to the backing and then laminate them a the local copy station.
This works for simple board games for her grade 1-3 students. Should work fine for your prototyping stages. Custom plastic is going to cost you, though. You might want to look into paperboard cut outs if you want to make and distribute it yourself.
http://nwbagpipes.com/
One of the guys I work with does game design as a hobby. (Joe Huber, first published game Scream Machine by Jolly Roger Games) He buys poker decks in bulk from BJs and prints out stickers that cover the face of the cards. If the game uses a board, he usually just hand draws one on card stock. He's also purchased parts from the local science museum or used parts from widely available board games, i.e. money/markers from Monopoly, etc.
It should be noted that these are prototypes and he's usually not making more than one copy of these games.
"You can put a man through school,
But you cannot make him think."
Ben Harper
I know that part of the fun in your case is creating the board itself, but without a good game behind it, you're wasting your money.
Consider first creating or purchasing a standard "piecepack", which is to board games what a standard deck of cards is to more specialized card games like Uno. It's a board and standard set of pieces that you can use for dozens or even hundreds of different games.
The piecepack website has rules for a bunch of different games that can be played with it (nearly eighty at the moment). You can browse through those to see what makes a good game and what doesn't, and even make up your own game and submit it for peer evaluation.
Then, if your game seems fun and people like it, you could pony up the extra money to have custom boards made.
Have fun! Families playing card and board games are rare nowadays, so my hat's off to you!
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
For example, the guys (and gal) at invisible-city.com have been making their own games for a while now, and I'm sure they'd be happy to give you some advice if you dropped them an email.
After you design it and are sure it's both playable and fun.
Go out and buy several board games that look like it has what you want as an element.
A board game where the board folds the way you want and is about the right size.
A board game with the generic pieces that are like what you want.
finally when you get to wanting cards done, Kinkos can get you game-cards that are the quality of that in a Monoply game. if you want cards that are like a deck of playing cards, I.E. coated, do a search for playing card makers on google.
finally after you get your graphics laid out for your board, Kinko's again can print it for you and then simply cut/glue it to the donor board, then buy the thin-sticky clear plastic to put over the board surfaces.
I've had a version of Uno called Glastnost-UNO made (you have to love playing when you have a mutually assured destruction card! and other evil cards like last card multiply by 10 for use on draw cards.) made and we made a nuclear capable version of Risk (including little bomb pieces for nukes to deploy, and Pog style markers for dangerous country/no troops can move) for playing in college back in the 90's and we were able to get it looking 100% professional by having playing cards printed at a US game card house (I had to order 20 decks of cards, but hey the game was a blast!) and modifying existing games parts for my own use.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I've found that those laser-cut Avery print-your-own business card sheets work nicely for prototype cards. Templates already exist for most major word processors and layout packages, if you don't want to just hand-scrawl 'em.
at amazon -- great book on the game industry, pointers at publishers and a few do-it-yourself tips...
I've made a few expansions to games I own, and
I've worked on designing new games.
Here's my $0.02:
The real question is whether you intend to sell this game to other people.
If the games are just for you and your friends,
even if there are several copies, then my recommendation is to make everything using readily available parts:
color printer +
full sheet sticker paper +
various thickness cardstock +
laminate = cards, tiles, flat playing pieces
glass beads (buy at Target, not at the
gaming store, you'll get 10x for
1/10 the price...) = money, counters, etc.
wooden pieces from craft shop (usually used
for decorating dollhouses) + paint =
any specific shaped pieces you
need, in a variety of colors.
word procesor + printer + stapler = rulebook
good friend who can draw well = illustrator for
piece/boards
pieces from other games (spares often
orderable online) = if alse fails...
With these, you can usually reach 95% of the quality of most games out there.
If you really do want to sell your game, then you should really make a few test copies using the means at your disposal (see above), then have your friends test-play the thing to death, to work out the bugs. This is the hardest part of creating a new game, and you should do it before committing resources. The last this you want to do is invest in creating a game that you decide to change later!
If you have a good game, then you can always redesign the pieces and either manufacture it yourself or sell it to a company that does this regularly. But note: New games typically sell 2,000 to 3,000 copies. The best games may reach 10,000 or more. But those are the only levels of manufacturing where it makes to. Otherwise, you'll most likely spend $1000 to make a few copies of a game that you might not enjoy next year.
Try what the Cheapass Games people did. Make the board out of big pieces of paper, swipe pieces from other games, print the cards on a laser printer using card stock, and so on. As long as the game itself is entertaining, the looks won't matter thatmuch. Once you're sure it's a good game and people want to play it, then you can think about getting fancy.
My dad owns a one man game company and his web site has a page about this.
:]
Here.
His games have made it into Games Magazine's top 100 games list more than once, so he might have some reasonable advice.
I just googled it.
Here's a site
It looks like the most fun I will ever have in my life. I need to get a bunch of friends together and play a few games of that.
//FIXME: Bad
Tom Jolly, creator of Wiz-War, has some good information.
...I'd recommend this site. Although I'm hardly an expert at RPG and card/ board game making, I liked this web site.
(2nd post, this time the link works...)
The cards you just need a few heavy duty laser printers for. You need to decide if you need colored stock or colored print. If it's colored print your looking at decidedly higher costs. You can also contact a large printing company, the smallest they'll fire up the presses for is going to cost you about $1000-$5000 but that will get quite a few full color cards on good stock cut and ready to go on a palette.
Your next tackle is game pieces, where you go for this is a bit trickey, it depends on your pieces. Decide if they are something you can design and make a physical impression of yourself or if you need an artist to do it for you. Either way contact a few plastics companies FIRST to find out what they will require of you. You can find information about completely doing this yourself on the web, what your wanting is information about molds and injection of plastic in molds, the base equiptment to create hundreds of figures can be has for under $1000 but you have materials on top of that, and still have the problem of likely needing an artist for the design and cast of your pieces.
As for the boards, your not going to be able to run them through printing presses, what you need to do is find the stock for your boards. If you can find a company that will do the boards lock stock and barrel great, you'll likely want to go with that (you will of course need to design or have an artist design your board), otherwise you'll need the stock. If your game can be played on a basic rectangular or square board that doesn't need folded that will make your life easier, otherwise you will have to get someone to play ball or do it yourself. Could get pretty tedious depending on how many of these you intend to produce. Then you'll need to refer back to the presses for stock that will stick the boards, or simply print on cheaper glossy stock and then you can use cold laminate or laquer to adhese them to the physical boards, there are laser printers that are designed for wide stock as well and could be used for when you need it and/or aren't using segmented boards where your image could be chopped up into multiple sheets you could use your regular laser printers for.
As for the packaging, there are numerous companies that do this relatively inexpensively if you are producing these in any quantity.
If you go the route of getting the equiptment yourself then of course the advantage is that it can be reused (although running thick card stock on a regular basis through laser printers will result in a fuser change or a new printer every 3-6months, at that point toner flecks will start to appear on prints).
If you go the route of industrial style companies they front all the equiptment and labor for the task they perform, however they will have minimum runs (it's expensive to fire up a press or make molds). If you go that route remember a couple things, at this level of the game you CAN negotiate, your not walking into a grocery store where there is a price tag on everything and that's how much it costs. Repeat business is great, but sell them on concept of repeat business on other products (later boards), they will generally want to do as much as possible in a single run (since the expense for them is setup to produce your item, and running off a few more later means setting up all over again). It's better to do 5000 now than 1000 each month, and cheaper for them so your talking down will yield more fruit.
Well, it already exists. There is a network monopoly server called monopd and there are gtk and qt based clients for it. The game is totally customizable and you can make all sorts of monopoly-like games with it. I don't think you can print out your custom made boards, but you can play them right there on the screen. You can play over the net, so go have fun :)
Here's a fine site dedicated to all part of board game creation. It's been going on for over a year now and it's filled with great informations and helpful people.
There is such a thing called Make Your Ownopoly -- I think my brother or somebody got it for Christmas one year. http://store.thetech.org/mak.html Let's you make your own monopoly board, print out pieces and logos, etc.
-Ted http://www.freemathhelp.com/
Spray mount is definitly your solution. What you want to do (cost-efficiency-wise) is make the interim drafts of your game using spray mount and a sheet of heavy cardboard. Now by heavy cardboard, I do not mean 'hack the side off of a moving box'. Larger stationary stores sell well-compacted, pre-cut sheets of cardboard. So you get one of those, and you wrap the back in paper (christmas present style, folding in around the corners) and then slather on some spray mount. When you put your front on you want to line up two corners and use a ruler to press it across.
Sure once you've got a well-designed game that flows, you can probably afford to put out for a pro job, but cards and the board front can be pretty easily made with a nice color printer (go to a copy center if you have a crappy one).
As far as plastic molds, I'd just hit a second hand store and buy orphaned peices for a while. No use getting nice ones made till you're doing a final draft.
Note: it's really easy to make pewter or tin figures. I mean you can melt that stuff with a candle. Make a nice mold using plaster, rubber, or fine clay and make some metal peices a la Monopoly or Clue.
Hey,
I've got a small project management company I'm trying to build up and I've got connections to a decently priced printing company. They do not do board games and the like, specifically, but I can check with them.
However, I'm not trying to whore my services--I'm truly interested in seeing what sort of ideas you have and maybe we can pool resources.
-----
"And he raised his hands high and said unto the crowd 'Close your eyes and ye shall never fear again...'"
Herbert Kohl wrote a nice little book on designing games called (I think) "Math, Writing and Games in the Open Classroom ". His take on it is not really commercial. He was more interested in the possibilities of allowing kids to make up their own games. But it is probably an interesting resource for someone looking at designing their own board game.
I've made hundreds of small games, and have even had a few of them professionally produced. For book type games (like RPGs), I go with Documation. They're inexpensive, will do small runs, and do a great job. For card game printing, I send my stuff out to India to a place called Print Masters.
Do you realize you've made no point whatsoever? You compare using Spray Mount to commuting in a Hummer -- and that's supposed to establish one or the other (or both) is evil. But you've provided no proof of either point. Are you assuming the rest of us will assume you're self-authoritative?
In all the web, you couldn't find a single link -- even to an environmentalist advocacy site to support your arguments? (Information from environmentalist sites might be considered questionable because of bias -- but at least it's something.) Sure, it takes five minutes longer to do that -- but it makes your arguments credible, at least prima facie.
As a side note, using uncivilized words like "shit" and "fucking" are often a sign that the issuer doesn't really have an argument -- the same type of person will usually simply try to "shout down" their opponent when they run out of ideas. You may have a very solid point, but it's impossible for the rest of us to know because of the way you've presented it.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when life gives you crap, please don't make a beverage out of it.
I have a mod point left, but there's no rating for "Amateurish Bad Advice." I often hear this paranoia about IP theft from unpublished writers, but in my 19 years as a professional game designer in paper and computer games, I've never seen any IP theft of any kind. It's a combination of (a) small stakes (at least in the paper game business); (b) wide reliance on work-for-hire contracts that let a publisher buy all rights anyway, legally; (c) a tight, clubby industry in which a bad rep would get around instantly; (d) generally small publishers who can as little afford a legal battle as you or I. Etc. If you think a printer has time or bandwidth to pirate game ideas, think again.
As for "use places like WOTC, etc. as distribution channels" -- maybe you're confusing publishers (Wizards of the Coast et al) with distributors (Alliance, Diamond, et al), or maybe you're thinking of the Wizards retail stores. But in any case, this is misstated advice. A small publisher makes distribution agreements with regional distributors or, for very marginal operations, publishes in .PDF form for download from online sites such as the highly regarded RPGNow.
A prospective publisher would do well to attend one of the big gaming conventions, like Origins, Gen Con, Toy Fair, or the GAMA trade show in the US, or the Essen fair in Germany -- the world's largest game show. Ask around, get the basics. It's not hard, and the advice will be a lot better quality than you'll get on Slashdot.
(I hope this doesn't come across as a gigantic free textad on Slashdot. :-)
:-)
:-)
Hi there, I'm Scott Starkey, designer of the card game "The Mother Lode of Sticky Gulch." My game was honored by the GAMES 100 this past year, a lifelong dream I accidentally hurdled. I would be happy to dispense a little bit of advice.
If you're just starting out, probably the "home-publishing" method could probably work for you. There's a few companies out there that are doing print runs at Kinko's and lovingly hand-cutting their product and selling it. Advantage: Very small cash outlay at the start. Disadvantage: Product might seem a little "cheap." (Cheaper than Cheapass?) Also takes a lot of energy to do each deck.
Secondly, there's the method that I tried. If you're insane, and you've got a few thousand dollars that you'd just like to say goodbye to, you can have your cards professionally printed. There are a few printers around that will do small print runs of 1000 units or so. I went with Delano Service, because of them being geographically close to me, and they seemed to have excellent customer service. My good pal Jim Doherty of Eight Foot Llama seems to get good service in Canada at Quebecor. Fact is, there are several places you could get a game printed at, and there's no obligation to get a quote if you know what you need. In fact, it's rather fun to get quotes.
I don't want to discourage you too much, but creating a game is somewhat of a pain in the ass. You've got to compile a metric buttload of art, design each of the cards, lay it out in a way that's pleasing to the eye, design an attractive package, write clear and consise rules. Most games are designed by a team. Me, I was lucky, because I was already an artist, but it was still an uphill battle. Then once you compile all of the artwork, you might find out that the printer needs all of your art to be 300 dpi CMYK instead of 60 dpi RGB, and have to do it all over again, like I did.
Of course, I didn't realize, after getting the game printed... printing the game is the easy part. Yeah, I'm designing games as a hobby. But now I have to become a marketer, promoter, and salesman. Fact is, I'm a horrible salesman, and I don't like pushing my game in people's faces. Also, if you're running a business, you've got to keep voluminous records of travel, expenses, taxes. It's all mind-numblingly boring, for something that was supposed to be fun!
You might go to a convention and expect to sell a bundle of games. Don't kid yourself. I dropped $500 on half of a GenCon booth last year and sold a scant few decks. Chatting with some of the other boothites, it seems that most companies that go to a convention do not make back their investment at the convention. However, it does serve as good advertising. Having a presence at a convention puts a product in the public eye, which is good. But it doesn't really add up in many direct sales, unless you're Wizards of the Coast in 1992.
I might never make back what I invested. Sales haven't been spectacular, despite having been honored by GAMES. It doesn't really matter, though. It's a wild ride. I am now a game designer with a mote of prestige. I've fulfilled a lifelong dream. It's my biggest gambit of all: I wagered a few thousand dollars that there are 1000 people out there that would buy my game. I get the feeling that very few people make a profit at this game. However, if I justify it as a "very expensive hobby," it takes the sting out somewhat.
You might check out the Board Game Designer Forum, where a bunch of folks of a similar mindset to you and me hang out and talk about the process of creating games. We critique each other's works, and have weekly chat sessions about various topics about the craft of game desi
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
Are you doing this for the "fun" or do you think it would be something that you would eventually market?
If you think you will eventually market/sell it you need to becareful how you go about it. I know someone who came up with some original stuff and started to take it to "agents". (No No, not that Smith guy!) These are gaming agents who review your stuff. If they like it, they connect you with "industry". Anyway, he got totally shot down. To add insult to injury, some time later, he sees his stuff on the shelf in a store.
I think he might be heading to court, but I'm not sure. He tells me that if he does go to court, he will lose any chance of getting published. Taking one of the big boys to court gets you flagged. No one will touch you again.
Two-edged sword.
Spraymount Is not good for long term solutions. Spraymount breaks down (Oxidation?) over time. I have used it in a lot of applications and over time, especially with paper products, it will become brittle and as the two layers of materials expand and contract at different rates, you will get ripples, warps, and peeled up edges. This is the exact problem you will run into with images printed on papers spraymounted you cardboard based applications. You can get things drymounted, but that is more expensive.
Kinko's is notorious for screwing things up. They have poorly maintained equiptment because they run the equiptment on the ragged edge to keep margins up. Try a real printer. There are a lot of them out that that specialize in this type of work and can probably get you better rates on bulk. Besides a real printer would probably know the best way to mount the images to a material in a durable application.
I work doing Cad/Cam design, cutting molds, and casting processes. I would recommend white metal castings in a rubber centrifugal rig as being the most cost effective with very little startup cost.
In the beginning, the metal pieces will be far, far cheaper than plastic.
If you are not going to be going into full production immediately (200,000 + units), plastic pieces are actually quite a bit more expensive than metal.
Plastic injection molding dies are referred to as "tools", and even a simple one is US$ 30,000 +.
Many are in the six figure range. Each plastic unit manufactured from the tool may only cost a few cents, but you have to amortize out the initial cost of the tool.
Per-unit cost for metal pieces is higher, but the initial setup costs are only a few hundred dollars, sometimes less.
I can do CAD/CAM master/mold cutting and get you in touch with a casting facility in your area if you are in need of one.
Yes, definitely play the game first before laying down cash. I found the best way to do this is to play the game virtually. I use www.ccgworkshop.com to playtest all my original games. Certainly, I need to program the cards and get it running on their engine, but that is just a bit more development time that goes into making the game great.
Without the playtesting on ccgworkshop, a few of my games would never be printed. So far, I have only printed a select sub-set of my card game, Sandwich Shop, but with more successes, I will outsource to Yaquinto or other overseas printing. Kinko's is out, they are too expensive... and printing and then steel-rule die cutting was really expensive... I printed up 600 cards as promos for Origins and the cost was more than $0.50 per card...
This is actually an area in which I have a reasonable amount of experience.
For card games:
You have two options for getting a good looking deck made cheaply. You can buy a pack of 250 sheets of cardstock ($7.00 - $10.00 depending on where you go) and have that precision cut someplace like Kinko's or CopyMax (in OfficeMax). Standard playing cards are usually 2.5" x 3.5", although some are 2" x 3". At any rate, you should be able to get at least 10 cards from each sheet, possibly more, giving you about 2500+ cards.
Alternatively, you can go to your local print shop and have them precision cut some 12-point semi-glossy stock for you. It will look a lot nicer, and shuffle better, but it will cost you much more (I paid $20.00 for 300 cards).
Before you print, you should make sure your card graphics are going to print at the right size. I did things the hard way in Paintbrush, which generally prints at 96dpi, so each card had to be 240 x 336 (for 2.5 x 3.5). More powerful paint programs are capable of resolution scaling and size specification. YMMV.
Now you're ready to print. Arrange your card graphics in page layouts. I generally use 8 cards per page so that there's room between them. Print out a page on regular paper. This is going to be your carrier page.
Get some semi-adhesive sticky notes. Cut the sticky part off and tape it, sticky side up, in the middle of each card graphic on the carrier page. Stick a card on each sticky note so that it completely covers the previously printed area. Print the page again, making sure to have it oriented such that it prints the right way on the cards. Peel the cards off, stick blank ones on, print the next page of cards. Repeat.
You'll probably want to get a corner-rounder punch from your local crafts/scrapbooking store. Do not get the one offered at Wal-Mart for $3.00. It will wear out after about 200 punches. Expect to have a sore thumb by the end of all this.
Pawns: Bearwood sells pre-painted pawns in a wide variety of colors, as well as a wide assortment of cubes, disks, and other potentially game-related items, all at a reasonable price. Note: Only the pawns come pre-painted.
Boards: I was lucky enough to find 8.5" x 11" thick cardboard sheets at the worst job I've ever had. They were being used in a shipping warehouse as padding material for heavy books. I absconded with several dozen, but I haven't seen them elsewhere.
If, however, you are wanting to make your board out of modular pieces, such as hexagonal or square tiles, your best bet is to find a game which already uses the same size and shape tile, and then print out, cut, and spray-mount your own graphics onto those tiles.
For hexagonal tiles, a copy of The Settlers of Catan gives you 38 3-inch diameter tiles for about $20.00 - $38.00 (depends where you buy it). Some places have been liquidating an old Fantasy Flight game called Thunder's Edge for $10.00, and it contains 30-50 Catan-sized tiles(I don't recall the exact count). Lastly, Fantasy Flight sells a game called Maelstrom for $20.00. It contains 150 hexes, but they are smaller than those previously mentioned. Check this pdf to see just how big they are.
For square tiles, a copy of Carcassonne has 84 1.75-inch tiles if it contains the River Expansion (72 if it doesn't), at a cost of about $20.00. Larger tiles may be available in other games, but I lack knowledge of them.
For circular tiles in a variety of sizes, nothing beats a good big set of Diskwars or Range Wars, going cheap at most of the places that sold it. Check
I still think that there wou
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