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So any news on that front?

I am not sure if a game feeling like Zombiecide is a bad thing its a tested product and can be marketed nicely to customers already familiar with it.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
So any news on that front?

I am not sure if a game feeling like Zombiecide is a bad thing its a tested product and can be marketed nicely to customers already familiar with it.

Yes and no on there being news. I have been actually working on a post because communication dropped off a bit and that is a bad thing.

I don't mind it feeling like Zombicide but it shouldn't feel like a reskin. There should be something unique other than setting that it brings to the table. Oddly some things I had planned were introduced into their Black Plague version but that is unfortunately bound to happen. Either way testing has been working well for it, I'm pushing to have a polished demo version for Origins Game Fair. Hopefully I can have alpha rules available to read through in a couple months. I'd like to get some the book layout done so it isn't a word doc though. Meanwhile we've been working on the miniatures skirmish game as well.

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It is a new year! Welcome back to a new year of hopefully great news for everyone, lots of gaming and painting for everyone.

The first of the year can be fairly busy for many reasons. Taxes need to be paid, finalizing budget for the new year (if it wasn't done at the end of 4th quarter), setting up and making plans for conventions for the year, making plans and touching base with everyone involved in various projects. There are many other things that make it busy and they vary for each person and company.

For me it has been double hectic and that means I unfortunately haven't had time to blog. Not having time can be both a positive and negative thing depending on where the time was reallocated too. It can be positive because that usually means everything is continually moving forward but it can also be negative since regular updates were interrupted.

That means today we're going to talk about losing track of time and communication.

Time and Communication

Time is a limited commodity and not an unlimited resource in the normal sense. Time will continue to move on and is ongoing but each day there is only a limited amount of things that can be accomplished before it must be pushed off to the next day. That means anything put off until tomorrow, interferes with what was originally meant to be accomplished which then can cause a chain reaction. It is very easy for this to happen, even when it is something small that could only take 5 minutes, that 5 minutes can potentially cause a cascading effect that ends up delaying things by days.

No News is Good News

There is a saying that "No news is good news", which usually means that if everything is running smoothly then there is nothing to report, because if there was bad news it would get reported immediately. The saying has been around for a long time but is more associated with military wartime. When a loved one stopped corresponding or wasn't reachable, it didn't mean something bad happened yet. It wasn't finalized as bad news until someone came knocking or a letter from the army was delivered and then it was almost always bad news.

That saying doesn't necessarily hold true in the game industry especially in terms of company communication with their customers and even more with crowd funding creators talking with backers. This typically means that the opposite has happened, "no news is bad news". When there is no communication it means something is off schedule or has come up. No news rarely ever means that everything is going smoothly, especially if someone made a commitment to make "regular updates". There is a hope that it whatever issues popped up can be fixed and the schedule can be brought back inline or that they can come up with a plan before reporting the bad news. It is the hopes that good news with the bad news lessons the blow. Even in my case where I was going to write regularly was interrupted for various reasons means, something happened.

Here is an example of how one deferred week can easily turn into three weeks and should be avoided.

Towards the end of December I had planned to have 3d sculpting completed for 2 fireteams for one of our games. The beginning of January the masters would have been 3d printed and I'd have masters and renders to show. There was a good possibility that the first production batch of casting would be done so I'd have a lot more to show. It sounds simple on paper but when you look at all the things and people that are working on it, there are many points of contact where this can break-down. Everything hinges on the sculpts being done, then the next step can happen. If there is a delay in sculpting, then everything else is delayed. It gets worse when there is a delay in sculpting, then a delay in 3d printing and then casting, now what was was 1 week behind schedule, became 2 weeks, then 3 weeks. In less than a week a project is now one month behind.

The above example is something that happens all the time on a regular basis for many people and companies. Most people don't realize or see these delays and no one would know I encountered delays unless I communicated them. I don't have a deadline. I didn't create a pre-order or do crowdfunding promising to deliver by a certain date. All deadlines are self imposed, so even though we are behind, it is more of a personal failure on my part. It doesn't change that these things happen regularly. We see it more prevalent in crowdfunding because there are commitments made during those campaigns from "regular updates" to delivering a product by a certain time. Delays that normally happen behind the scenes that would normally be unknown are now suddenly in the spotlight.

Artwork is dependent on the artist completing on time. 3D sculpting can't start until the concept art is completed and handed over to them. If designs because there were issues spotted during sculpting which could effect casting (ie: horns too thin, too long, bits too thin) that creates a delay in sculpting. 3D printing can't happen until sculpting is done, if there is a queue then that could also lead to a delay in masters being printed. Providing masters passed quality inspection, then casting can begin. However if an issue wasn't discovered during sculpting but is now identified with the master, that means going back and modifying the 3D sculpt. Then having to print a new master. If there is a queue in casting. There are many points that a timeline can be delayed.

These types of delays become easier to manage the bigger the company is. If you have artists and sculptors that are on staff vs relying on freelancing. It becomes easier to control when those items are done leaving the delays coming from manufacturing.

Communication

We know delays happen but what makes the biggest difference on how these delays impact your customers depends on communication.

When we first encountered delays, we should have not had it interfere with us making regular posts/updates. At first it is easy to make excuses. We'll wait until the next week when we have something to show. Since we made a delay, let's wait until we have 3d prints to show off as well so instead of small updates we'll make one big update. It can also be done if the decision was made to first identify how much the delay would effect scheduling, then we can have updated information with a resolution instead of "Oops". No mattter the reasoning or the plans to "make up" for it, the easiest way to not have to do that is to not have delays... in communication. Delays happen in testing, production, manufacturing but it should never impact communication. Even if the communication is simply a small paragraph explaining there was a delay, we're working on it and hope to have a full report next week.

In my situation where the delays are self-imposed but I made a commitment to do posts, then there are other topics to talk about. I ended up getting stuck, getting tunnel vision, on a current project and being excited about having Alpha Rules along with some product shots. Although that is great, there are other things I could have written about and focused on. If I wanted to keep it on the project, we could have talked about rules, gameplay, lore or even going into what delays we encountered and what changes ended up as the result. Either way there is always something to report and talk about.

When delays in communication happens it starts to create two really bad perceptions within your audience. I say we but I'm not meaning "we" as in myself, but "we" as a collective general statement to whoever the company/designer is.

1) The audience/customers are not that important. We are too busy with other things to check in, give an update or chat. The only time that updates happen and communication starts to happen is when we need money.
2) Something has happened since what was supposed to be "regular updates" is no longer regular. That usually means delays at best or at the very worse someone has ran off with all the money.

When there is absolutely no news or updates then everyone imagines the worst things that could have happened. We've all seen and participated in the discussions that are purely nothing but conjecture. Everyone has their own opinion based on the last information provided and everyone is trying to explain the radio silence. Just like there are people that come up with negative reasons, there are man that also imagine positive things that could explain the delays. Yet as a whole the mob and mass of audience tends to focus more on the negative. There is a saying, "It takes 10 positive experiences to negate 1 negative experience" so the negative becomes prevalent discussions. With no communication there isn't anything to disprove or prove the theories.

Simply making a post or an update helps curve that conjecture. When there are delays, there should be updates or items queued up to focus discussions so it isn't completely focused on what the delay is. Often time when a delay happens there hasn't been a course of action to correct it yet, or all the information isn't available yet which causes a company to hold out until they have all the information. This tends to end up becoming negative so it should be avoided.


With that in mind, what other topics would you like to have talked about? I had intended to talk about "Crowdfunding - When is it and when it isn't a pre-order" because it does tie into delays and the difference between a game really ready for production (which is when a pre-order usually is) vs one that is on the final steps of going to production. However that is a much bigger topic and didn't want to make a "Over 9000 Damage, wall of text".

I'm still working on some game updates. It is my goal to not simply do game updates though, unless it is more in lines with a lesson or something we've learned. I don't want this be simply self promotion because I want the focus more on helping and building the community of gamers as a whole vs me. I can't really explain it beyond that, I'm not sure why that is important to me, but it is.

Small, regular updates are better than huge walls of text. Checking in monthly or biweekly is good to keep the ball rolling.

Don't copy Palladium Books or Dream Pod 9, whose updates always seem to have their hand out when they aren't radio silence because they're too busy with their heads up their butts. Pretty much the poster children for "No news is bad news that we were afraid to share".

Preorder vs Crowdfunding

This can be a hot topic as there are different opinions and views about what a preorder is and how it is different from crowdfunding. Before I give my own opinion, I think it is important to start with the definitions as defined by two different sources.

Source: Merriam Webster Dictionary

pre
1: earlier than : prior to : before : in advance
order
2: to give or place an order
crowdfunding
: the practice of soliciting financial contributions from a large number of people especially from the online community

Source: Wikipedia

Pre-Order: A pre-order is an order placed for an item which has not yet been released. The idea for pre-orders came when people found it hard to get popular items in stores due to their popularity. Companies then had the idea to allow customers to reserve their own personal copy, before the release, which has been a huge success. Pre-orders allow consumers to guarantee immediate shipment on release, manufacturers can gauge how much demand there will be and hence the size of initial production runs, and sellers can be assured of minimum sales.

Crowdfunding: Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, today often performed via internet-mediated registries, but the concept can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, and other methods. Crowdfunding is a form of alternative finance, which has emerged outside of the traditional financial system.

To break it down to basics, when we preorder, we place an advance order by giving money to a company. When we crowdfund, we give monetary contributions to a company.

At the heart there isn’t a lot of difference between the two things as everything in between comes down to semantics. Now there is a difference between what is considered the ideology behind the two concepts but not the actual definition. We might as well be comparing the term “Beta Testing” in reference to video games vs what is an actual “Beta Test”.

Make no mistake both methods are about paying for something that has yet to be created.

PreOrder

Money from a preorder goes straight to the company, even if you order through a different company. Instead of you placing an order directly, they are placing it for you in a bulk order with money paid to the manufacturing company before the item is created.

Buyers aren’t aware of the base amount necessary to create an item with a preorder. Buyers may not always get to see any preproduction work the company has done, other than some art and examples. These are the equivalent of renders, there is no production model at this point. If there was a production model, it would be in production and instead of a preorder it would have been an actual purchase. There is no guarantee the money from the preorder actually goes to manufacturing the product. The buyer however is protected if the Company fails to deliver the product promised or give a refund.

If a preorder doesn’t generate enough orders to warrant a profit or creation of an item, then it will not get created. Most companies however have vetted enough into marketing and research to know they can meet their minimum order they need. It however isn’t a guarantee nor does it always happen. There are quite a few times preorders get canceled and money ends up being refunded.

If a company needs to sell 10000 units and they only sell 5000, they most likely will not facilitate the order and pull the trigger on manufacturing. Preorders will let a company with reduce the risk of a unwanted item by allowing them to gauge the demand for the product.

Crowdfunding

Money from crowdfunding goes straight to the company, even if you crowdfund through a website like Kickstarter. Usually the buyer is placing an order by making a pledge of funds in exchange for something.

Unlike a preorder though, buyers would be aware of the “estimated” amount of money necessary to create an item. They will also get to see more preproduction work because the Company needs to assure the buyer they can achieve what they are trying too. Crowdfunding can happen a lot earlier in the process than when a preorder could happen, however that isn’t always true as there isn’t a hard set rule on that.

Unlike a preorder if the “estimated” amount of money isn’t reached, normally no money has actually exchanged hands. Normally a company seeking crowdfunding has not vetted marketing and research properly.


When you compare both processes there is actually few differences between the two. One has a longer marketing track record and history associated with it, which is why we tend to view it as less of a risk. Buyers feel safer in that they have more protected rights in relation to it. The other is still relatively new and many of the pitfalls are starting to become highlighted because of it.

When is crowdfunding not a preorder?

It all boils down to perception with accountability, presentation and networking.

Company A has a professional looking website. They are virtually an unknown company. It has a new game on it, with video of gameplay, renders and shots of what appear to be preproduction versions. There is an option to preorder directly from them, with a promised delivery in 1 year.

Company B has a professional looking website. They are a known company with some products that have been sold previously. It has a new game on it, with video of gameplay, renders and shots of what appear to be preproduction versions. There is an option to preorder directly from them, with a promised delivery in 1 year.

Company C has a professional looking website. They are a known company with some products that have been sold previously. They started a crowdfunding campaign, showing off video of gameplay, renders and shots of what appear to be preproduction versions. There is an option to pledge and back them, with a promised delivery in 1 year.

Company D has a professional looking website. They are virtually an unknown company. They started a crowdfunding campaign, showing off video of gameplay, renders and shots of what appear to be preproduction versions. There is an option to pledge and back them, with a promised delivery in 1 year.

If we were to rank the order of risk from most likely to deliver and less likely it would probably look something like: B & C would most likely succeed and be the least amount of risk and would be considered equal. Companies A & D have the same amount of risk of not succeeding.

If we were to look who has more experience just based on their current product lines and what they have delivered: B & C would are still roughly the same. Companies A & D again having not delivered anything before, being completely new, do not have a track record to show experience.

When we start to look at companies in that perspective we begin to see a true difference between a preorder and a crowdfunding, at least in terms of who benefits more from it and the potential risks. This is where the risk vs reward becomes a question that a backer should consider before ever crowdfunding. There are no real protections for a backer, at this time, and if you are not prepared to simply write off that money then crowdfunding isn't a route you should look at.

Some people could argue that since “Company C” is established it should not be going down the crowdfunding route but should instead be doing what “Company B” is doing. So then why would they choose to crowdfunding over creating a preorder for their products? The main answer come in the form of marketing, social networking and reach.

Company B even with advertising and sending out press kits is going to reach a limited pool of potential customers. Company C will be able to not only reach the same potential customers as Company B, but they will be able to reach a much larger audience who wouldn’t normally be looking at them directly. There is also a group/mob mentality that comes which also increases the reach of a product and company.
It doesn’t

The real difference though comes down in answering the question of “Does Company C” really not have enough capital to launch this on their own. Many people can speculate but honestly without seeing financial records, there is no real way to know this. We can attempt to make educated guesses on what we assume sales and profitability is, but there is a lot more that goes into a company than simply manufacturing vs sales. Even if we know a company had 10 million in sales, that doesn't necessarily translate into profitability.

The real question is, “Do established companies hurt crowdfunding and pull focus away from people/companies that really need crowdfunding?”

The above question is the main meat and focus behind the debate. The answer unfortunately isn’t clear cut.

It is easy to say that “Buyer A” has a limited amount he can spend. Crowdfunding aside this will always be a factor even if you compared two companies releasing pre-orders. It may seem like this can impact a Kickstarter campaign and campaign creators can use this as a “basis” for a failed campaign but that doesn’t mean it is true. No creator likes to think their idea wasn’t good enough to draw interest, but it happens unfortunately. It is easy to say that "Company C" pulled potential backers away because of their $300K campaign but that doesn't tend to be true if you look at the historical information, comparing it to other campaigns running parallel. Yes it can be a small factor but it is never the sole factor.

Crowdfunding is like a circus. Unlike a preorder where it normally is a hassle for someone to cancel and get a refund (some places charge a restocking fee). A backer can cancel their funding at any time while the campaign is running. In order to make sure that backer stays, the campaign creator has to keep their attention. That doesn't necessarily mean "give them free stuff" although the vocal minority can say that. It just means there has to be real interaction that is engaging with the backers. Even after a campaign completes, those backers are in communication directly with the creator until something is delivered. That means anytime they are unhappy, it will be heard in the comments. With a preorder, once the company has the money, there is no further interaction between buyer and seller traditionally speaking.

There does come a benefit from an established company using crowdfunding though. It will traditionally introduce new faces to crowdfunding. It puts them all in contact with one another and from there the social networking happens. It is for these reasons many people will jump onto a $1 backer to 'inject' interest in other Kickstarters in the comments. This often happens. Other users also connect on similar topics, which causes them to see what the other person has backed. Although this isn't a norm, one campaign I know of had over 8000 backers, with 40% of them having no experience with crowdfunding. That means 3200 people who have never been exposed and would never have considered it jumped onto the wagon. Unfortunately I got busy so could track stats beyond that, but I know at least six of them jumped onto 2 other game Kickstarters that I happened to also join.

Will this end the debate? Absolutely not. ^_^

Piercing the Shroud

Story Background

Have you seen something move just out of the corner of your eye, giving you the feeling that someone was watching you, but when you looked there was nothing. If you looked carefully into a mirror you might catch a barely noticeable flicker in the reflection and gone with a blink of the eye.

Makai has been called many things from spirit world, afterlife, underworld or hell. A world filled with magic, demons and death safely hidden on the other side of the reflection, masked by magical barriers known as the Shroud. It is kept slightly out of phase with Terra, allowing the two worlds to exist in the same place.

Millennia ago Terra and Makai used to be one world where magic flourished between both lands. Born from fear, selfishness and misunderstanding, war would eventually engulf both worlds causing death and strife in what was known as the 100 Year Demon War. It was clear that at the continued rate, if nothing changed, both worlds would be destroyed. With no way for them to live peacefully together, the only answer was to separate them. Tapping into the power of the ley lines, a set of magical barriers was constructed to separate them.

Time eventually eroded away any memories or mention of Makai and with it magic became forgotten. With the barriers left unmaintained they have begun to wane. Cracks have started to appear in areas surrounded by strong emotion or tragedy, the Shroud becoming weaker creating a Gate. These Gates serve as a temporary bridge between Terra and Makai, in which Fiends, known as demons, have been known to manifest or worse, pull something through to them. Throughout history these Fiends have become the basis for many myths and legends.

Remnant's hold the key within their blood, descendants of those that fought during the Demon War, they are able to pierce the Shroud and tap into magical energy. Section-Zero is a secret organization comprised of Remnant's, created to seal Gates and venture into Makai. It is up to them to travel to Makai, gather enough spirit energy to use and seal the Gates.

Will the barriers run out of power first, forcing both worlds to merge and causing the Demon War to reconvene, or will the Remnant’s succeed?

Game Summary

Piercing the Shroud is a cooperative board game in which players battle Fiends, evil spirits and demons which are controlled by the game. There are different types of Fiends, each with their own set of rules which prioritize how they roam as well as hunt.

Players will take on the role of a Remnant, arcane descendants of those that fought in the 100 Year Demon War, who were pulled through a Gate. They find themselves awakening in Makai, a near mirror copy of Terra, except darker and filled with demons. They will have to plan their actions carefully, depending on what action they take it determines the amount of Presence they generate which will alert and attract the Fiends.

Normal weapons would normally be unable to damage Fiends but a Remnant has the ability to harness and channel spirit energy, known as Ki, around them. They will have to search and scavenge for resources and equipment to defend themselves with. In order to escape, players need to gather enough Ki to stabilize one of the Gates and survive the Fiends so they can return home.

Players gather Ki by searching for Ki reservoirs or destroying fiends. They can utilize the spirit energy which allows them to power up and gain access to new skills and abilities. With more power comes greater danger as it will also increase the power of the Fiends they encounter. In times of emergency they can spend Ki to heal wounds or temporarily close a Gate but they have to be careful. If they expend too much Ki they could depower or worse not have enough Ki to stabilize the Gate to get back home.

Solo and Storyteller Mode

The game can be played solo with one player controlling the Remnant's and the game controlling the Fiends. Solo is also used to describe quick missions, a series of separate games that do not impact one another.

The game was also designed to excel by playing through a series of campaigns in Storyteller Mode. There is a limited team of Remnant's that they can use to go on missions to Makai to gather Ki or rescue victims. If they die players would lose access to that character throughout the campaign. When they survive they are able to convert excess Ki to experience to increase their base stats for future missions.

Notes

Zone and Squares: Movement consists of zone movement but within each zone is a set of squares. The squares determine how many Fiends and Remnants can occupy one zone. It also can effect line of sight in term of range weapons. If a Remnant is shooting to a Fiend but has a Remnant in between them, then there is a possibility of hitting the Remnant. There are some zones that are like alley or hallways which may be large enough for some characters but not all to travel through them.

Priority Targeting: Fiends actions are determined by a few factors and have a order of commands they follow. Presence that is built up by other player actions can attract them. Line of sight also effects them but some creatures have prey priorities. For example Baba will prioritize female Remnants, so if a male and female Remnant is in line of sight she will move/attack towards the female. Presence is similar to building threat level but there are some Fiends that prioritize someone with the lowest Presence.

Leveling/Exp: When Fiends are defeated and through some search cards players gather Ki. This is similar to experience which can be used to level up their character. It will unlock new abilities they can choose from as they level. Unlike the typical experience points, this Ki is a type of currency which can be used to heal and disrupt Gates but spending it causes them to lose it, so in essence a character could de-level and lose access to powers. For campaigns excess Ki when they survive can be converted to Exp which can be used to increase base stats for characters, increasing their dice pool for future adventures.

Search, Event, Fiend Decks: Fiends are grouped together based on Category 1, 2 and 3 threat levels. The decks are used to determine which Fiends will spawn but designed to be customized with future expansions or to customize games by being able to remove Fiends and add them in. The search deck handles equipment, some campaigns put in some 'captives' or other 'goals' that need to be found within the deck to succeed. Event cards can be triggered by certain Fiends defeat, searching objective points and some search cards trigger them. Events can have positive or negative effects on the environment and Gates.

Sounds like an interesting proposition.

It has been a lot of designing I can at least attest to that. ^_^

The original design was that the Fiend deck was only one deck that determined how many and what spawned. We changed them to individual Category decks mainly because we wanted to allow more of a RPG style of gameplay, where we could customize games based on campaigns (similar to how some Pathfinder encounter decks are made). For example, maybe your in a area that is based more on Fae mythology and creatures or maybe asian spirits.

Keeping it as one deck made this task daunting and difficult. It was much easier to just pull X monster card out of Category 1 and replace with Y monster.

Events have been a new feature we're testing out. We wanted more interaction a type of take a risk card. Since it is about exploring in a way. Something that wasn't tied to just the search deck but tied to certain triggers. So far that has been working out well.

Now we're just trying to settle on standees or miniatures or just acrylic standees. Ultimately we want to keep it priced at a board game, but also be able to serve as a intro into miniatures. The idea was the base game would be standee's, similar to Dead of Winter. Then a Deluxe version would have miniatures instead and/or we'd just sell miniature packs as a separate thing for those that wanted to swap out. Currently working on a prototype demo game play video utilizing numbered and colored acrylic general standees.

I hope to have some 3d master prints to soon show for our miniatures skirmish game. The initial batch of casting is happening soon(tm). If not this week, I'll at least show the renders and cuts we've done to them with some info on that game as well.

Kickstarter has shaped boardgame expectations, miniatures are the way to go, for good or evil, standees don't cut it, I feel making the whole thing cubes or disks will be better than standees acrylic or cardboard.

I'm not sure if we'll be doing Kickstarter, at least for the board game. It really depends on if a publisher wants to pick it up and what other agreements can be made. There are still a lot of viable means that do quite well and aren't Kickstarter but I do understand what you mean.

Ideally I would like someone to pick it up but let me retain the rights to design, sell miniatures based on the artwork for that game. They could go standee, cubes, whatever as long as their is an option to do miniatures for the miniatures gamer.

If that doesn't happen, there are still some other options we can do but Kickstarter would probably be the last option. Unless the publisher wants to pick it up, but run it as a Kickstarter (which has been happening more or rather publishers have been picking up successful Kickstarters afterwards).

What I mean, sorry if I am not clear in my initial post, is that because of kickstarter, boardgamers have increased their expectations on what a boardgame should include as components as is evident by reviews of recently released boardgames like the one from Wyrd or the failures in KS from well known designers who went in the "standees rout" and had to relance with a new business plan that included miniatures in their boardgame.

I think you were clear in your post. However I think I classify board gamers in two different categories instead of one. Miniatures Board Gamers have increased their expectations a lot in what they expect to see in board games to represent characters, miniatures, etc. However board gamers don't necessarily care about those things to that degree. Wyrd technically would have miniatures board gamers looking at it first, because of their existing product line and genre, than normal board game players. There is a very large board game market though that could add or be focused on miniatures but aren't, they are specifically targeted towards the board gamer, families and children who don't paint, assemble or do anything with miniatures. For example Asmodee, IELLO, Renegade, Upper Deck, Zman, Rio Grande, Mayfair Games for board gamers vs CMoN, Fantasy Flight, Soda Pop, Ninja Division for miniatures board gamers.

Since I consider myself more a of miniatures board gamer, my wife is a board gamer, I'm trying to find a middle ground or method that serves as a gateway game for that. Ideally doing something like CMoN style of plastic miniatures would definitely be best. I'm not sure I'm ready for that route yet or want to personally manage dealing with overseas manufacturing for plastic. Now if a publisher wants to go that route then that is a possibility, although I'd still want to do collectible resin miniatures on top of that for it as well. If not going to plastic, then by having resin miniatures I change the target market and price point of the game greatly which isn't necessarily a bad thing but not the end goal.

In my opinion, that was the case a few years ago, now this has changed a lot, if the game looks like a miniatures boardgame then buyers expect miniatures in it, standees are frowned upon, better use meeples and cubes.

Look at Argo for a recent example, kickstarter with Bruno Faiduti's name behind it (and Serge Laget), they went for the standees rout and failed miserably, now that they relaunched with miniatures they will probably fund.

The same goes for many other boardgames and I am expecting it to see wider spread among publishers.

That fits within my Kickstarter realm, if the game was going to be sold or created through Kickstarter then yes these type of games have the expectations of having miniatures. If you make a board game on Kickstarter then that is definitly expected but that is only a portion of the market. That route is valid though as method to show "interest" in a game, making it easier to get a publisher to pick it up though. It isn't the only method.

I didn't look or consider backing it mainly because of presentation. They had prototypes but instead of pictures of that, they put really bad "obviously photoshop" pictures. I think the tiles are way too small given the size of some of the 'pieces' they showed in the gameplay video. The initial campaign asked for $50K with standee's but now they can add miniatures and have a fund goal of $10K. The bad photoshop plastic renders don't help at all either. At that point I haven't even looked at how it plays because I don't have confidence in delivery or that it will look good.

I'm sure those critiques will bite me in the rear in the future too. As I don't have a photoshop staff so they might seem just as amateurish, but I'd spend a bit on making the presentation a bit clearer. I'd show actual products in that case. They should have had 3d printed some prototypes for display at the very least.

The issue with adding miniatures to a game that may or may not need it effects many factors. It changes the base price point, changes the size of the box and effects how it is received in local game stores. Miniatures means instead of a game in $50 or below price point, it is now $75-99. LGS will upon an initial release order 2-4 boxes but then only keep one on the shelves as it sells out. Higher ticket boxes over $50, unless it is a known game tend to not be kept in stock because it is did inventory. It takes up space and has a high price point. Games like 7 Wonders and Dead of Winter since it is below $50, they will order a case and stock them. They can clearance them out when they need too easier since their markup isn't as close compared to something like Zombicide or Super Dungeon Explorer.

It is also why some game publishers have made a shift to smaller, quick games, with a lower price point and manufacturing cost (especially card games). They can stock and price 10 small games for the space that 1 game takes up and sell all the little things instead of focusing on 1 main seller.

But that is the US market I'm looking at comparing things too. I unfortunately am not sure what the market looks like overseas.


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I do however think the best method would be a core game targeted for board game, lower price point for those that don't care about miniatures. Then a deluxe version would be with actual miniatures. What I don't know is how well resin miniatures for a board game would go for this type of game. I know plastic would be received well but I"m not sure I'm ready for that process and I definitely would rather deliver high quality resin, then poor quality plastic (even if it meant a smaller market).

I am looking for a few volunteers if someone wants to help me with some feedback on some miniatures designs.

I have acquired rights to some designs that are already sculpted but I need to do some changes. Partially to put their scale more in line with what we have but also to add our own flare to them. I've hit a creative door so if someone is interested, let me know.

Thank you.

I'll help out, if you're looking for opinion/advice/etc. and not actual ability to sculpt!

 Alpharius wrote:
I'll help out, if you're looking for opinion/advice/etc. and not actual ability to sculpt!

Yes I'm looking for opinions and advice, not a sculptor. ^_^ We acquired some 3d work that was done for a previous game that fell through, along with artwork to expand our line. Before I send it off to let the artists and sculptors do changes to put it more in line with our games, I need some opinions on likes, dislikes, suggestions, etc. I'll send you a PM with the information later then.

sounds interesting, that is actually a benefit of 3D sculpting.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
sounds interesting, that is actually a benefit of 3D sculpting.

Their Kickstarter didn't go well for various reasons so they closed shop. They already had a lot of sculpted so I thought it was a waste to not do anything with them. I reached out and was able to secure rights to their assets. A good portion of their stuff can fit into the look and feel we were going for. Instead of starting from scratch, we are able to do edits and changes for a fraction of the cost while expanding our initial line. If things work out it'll be a win win for everyone. ^_^

I really wish I could have worked something out with Rocketgames for their Last Saga line, because I also like their line and it fits with ours. But I didn't know he was having as much issues and by the time I knew they had already done something with Zenit Miniatures. Pig Iron Productions who I did also talk to (because I like their vehicles) decided to stick strictly within the UK for ease of transition. I can understand and respect that. I wish them all the best.

That does bring up an interesting question. Other than manufacturing being cheaper, why are there not a lot of "bits" places within the US? I notice the majority of them are overseas, despite what looks like a good strong US following.

It is indeed beneficial to both and something the digital nature helps a lot to do.

Pig iron illustrates the problems the classic medium has.

 Dark Severance wrote:
The issue with adding miniatures to a game that may or may not need it effects many factors. It changes the base price point, changes the size of the box and effects how it is received in local game stores.

Miniatures means instead of a game in $50 or below price point, it is now $75-99. LGS will upon an initial release order 2-4 boxes but then only keep one on the shelves as it sells out. Higher ticket boxes over $50, unless it is a known game tend to not be kept in stock because it is did inventory. It takes up space and has a high price point. Games like 7 Wonders and Dead of Winter since it is below $50, they will order a case and stock them. They can clearance them out when they need too easier since their markup isn't as close compared to something like Zombicide or Super Dungeon Explorer.

I do however think the best method would be a core game targeted for board game, lower price point for those that don't care about miniatures. Then a deluxe version would be with actual miniatures. What I don't know is how well resin miniatures for a board game would go for this type of game. I know plastic would be received well but I"m not sure I'm ready for that process and I definitely would rather deliver high quality resin, then poor quality plastic (even if it meant a smaller market).

IMO, miniatures board games kind of need to be Kickstarted due to the higher fixed initial development and tooling cost, against an unknown production run / sales volume. Much moreso than any print and play type game, or game with abstract components like chits or meeples.

I suspect that it is possible to have a game with a (literal) handful of minis at (or below) the $50 price point, but I believe that the game needs to be designed this way from the outset, with relatively few components, of which only a handful are minis, and the vast bulk are inexpensive print. Consider a Monopoly set as the archetype of this sort of thing - primarily dirt cheap paper print, a largish board, a handful of sculpted player tokens, and a couple handsful of sculpted buildings. If one's game has this sort of natural structure, then a minis-enhanced game is a viable possibility at a mass market price point.

At the $75+ price point, yeah, things like Zombicide and SDE have dozens of sculpts and dozens of minis, and the price naturally reflects this. If this is the game concept, then yes, this is the natural price point, which makes the game more niche in addition to being more expensive. Though I gotta say, Zc3 is pretty amazing for what you get for the $99 MSRP (or KS buy-in).

I'm not sure that a "deluxe" version works economically, outside of Kickstarter. If the game is fundamentally Euro, based on tokens and counters, and you're upgrading some of those counters and tokens to minis and such, then you're basically taking necessary volume away from the minis production run, vastly increasing the cost of the deluxe version relative to the game itself. And if the core game is designed around the concept of having minis, then their removal makes the game cheaper and worse. I think it's a lose-lose strategy, compared to a pure printed game or a game with some number of minis designed into it. At least, up to the point that the minis count is in the dozens and you're now bumped up to a $75 or $99 MSRP. Or, if you're doing a "super-deluxe" with hand-cast resin, I think you look at a $100+ game vs a <$40 game - a 3x price increase to have resins. Very niche for a new, non-established game. Really, I think these kind of things only work on Kickstarter where one can control pricing and assess volume and limit sales vs committing to the public.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
It is indeed beneficial to both and something the digital nature helps a lot to do.

Pig iron illustrates the problems the classic medium has.

There are definitely quite a few benefits to digital sculpting. It makes it easier when you need to update or improve on 'dated' sculpts. It also lets you utilize pieces and save some time in sculpting. Although we might have to scrap some of the digital sculpts we acquired, all of the concept art itself is really good. Strictly speaking if the only use we get out of it is the artwork, then it still ends up being worth it to us.

With PI we were more interested in the vehicles and the designs, since they weren't tied to a particular IP but generic enough to improve on. Had we secured those, we would have eventually used their designs but transitioned them to digital and update the sculpts. We also would have probably switched from metal to resin casting for the majority of the line. The design updates and changes would however had taken a lot more dollars than if they were digital to begin with.



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 JohnHwangDD wrote:
IMO, miniatures board games kind of need to be Kickstarted due to the higher fixed initial development and tooling cost, against an unknown production run / sales volume. Much moreso than any print and play type game, or game with abstract components like chits or meeples. ....<snip>

I definitely agree and you'll start to see and notice a shift in gaming companies. There are previously two routes to publication (if you don't consider self-publication) Kickstarter and having a publisher pick you up. Even if the publisher picks you up, there is a risk for them if the game ends up not doing well. They do have the experience to market and predict that fairly well, but they still make mistakes. Now someone who successfully ran a Kickstarter campaign, has a customer base and it is easy to see the popularity of a game. It is for this reason many publishers have started to pick up people to publish from the list of successful Kickstarters. For example Renegade Games picked up Lanterns: The Harvest Festival after a successful Kickstarter campaign and they can't keep it on the shelves. I think they are in their 5th reprint of the game.

I do love Zombicide 3. So far it has been one my families favorite. Although I haven't had a chance to really dig into Black Plague yet.

Our board game isn't a Euro game, it is more in the line with SDE, Zombicide style of game. I don't think it has or needs a high miniature count like Zombicide, because it isn't a horde of zombies. Spawning isn't done the same way so you don't have groups that keep spawning at the end of the turn, so it isn't a horde.

Kickstarter is definitely a good place to testing those markets in a controlled environment. It lets you know how much you have to create and order while getting a sample for the demand. It may be that in the long run the smaller version doesn't have as big of a market. I do think there is room for both. Often there many people I have played and demo'd Zc3/SDE whom they love it, we have a great time. They would like to own it, but they would never drop the amount to buy it. The reason I often hear was, "if there was a version without miniatures or less that was cheaper". They aren't painting the miniatures, they don't care about the miniatures, they could have been cheap pieces of armymen for all they care. Meanwhile a good portion of us miniature gamers love them because of that reason. Even if that market is only 20%, I'd gladly take 200 backers and customers on top of the other 1000 who want the miniatures. I don't see why there isn't room to meet both sides without making it worse or a lose-lose situation. Keep in mind Zc3 and SDE although designed around miniatures, not having miniatures doesn't impact the gameplay. They still function normally gameplay wise. However for us miniature gamers they would be worse, but only because the miniatures are what draws us to them in the first place. It is what initially gets our interest, then the rules help keep us there.

Yeah, it's interesting (and good!) seeing Ninja Division publishing successful KS games. As a competitive counterpoint to CMoN, if nothing else.

I get that your game isn't Euro. As I see it, you're in the $50-75 range, where you want a couple handsfuls of minis, but not dozens in the box. That's an interesting price point, as I'd kinda want to slim it to a $50 starter, with extra mini expansion packs.

I'm a little surprised about people not buying Zc3, as you can get that pretty cheap on eBay. I agree that those games are technically playable without the minis, and one could simply buy the tiles and print the rulebook, along with the dashboards. But it wouldn't look or feel the same with standees or meeples.

Also, from the other thread:

 Dark Severance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's not a question of "quick and easier", it's a question of playable vs unnecessarily reinventing the wheel. That's what the overwhelming majority of rulesets do. Except they then decide to "improve" the wheel by mounting it off-center. Or adding bumps. Or changing the shape from a circle to a square. And then there's this ridiculous push for exotic d10s, just to be different. Newsflash: if the game engine is actually good, it works just fine with d6s and doesn't need d10s.

That isn't to say that your game is going to be bad. But a lot of these games are bad due to the addition of "features" to make their game more "special".

That is true, often times what one person may think is streamline adds other complications. I use D10s mainly because it is easier to adjust stat lines, at least for me. Although Personally I'd rather use D20 but they become bulky if you are going to roll more than 4 at a time.

IMO, if your game design is really supposed to be d20s, then go d20! Yes, the die is larger, but it rolls smoother, and gives finer-grained variation in results. And do you really need to roll 5 or more at once? How often does that come up in regular play?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an interesting price point, as I'd kinda want to slim it to a $50 starter, with extra mini expansion packs.

The bad thing though to get there I would probably have to do plastic which we aren't doing at this time. I would like to aim for something like that. The other issue is we're focusing on resin miniatures, which means assembly and that is where I lose board gamers as well. They would want something that is one piece. I do have a couple meetings while at Origins Game Fair set up so I might still be able to work something out... but I tend to think and plan conservatively.

Keep in mind though a lot of the people I'm talking about don't order from eBay or online. They buy, shop and play in the local game stores. The store has board game Sundays and on some saturdays I'm doing demos, trying to get bring more board gamers into a miniatures verse. It is starting to become easier to at least hook RPG players who are starting to paint and get miniatures for their RPG campagins though.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
But it wouldn't look or feel the same with standees or meeples.

I agree definitely. But I think that is because we're miniatures people. There is a group of people who wouldn't care either way. And if I can meet both sides and bring them together, then that would be great. However the focus will be on great miniatures, I won't dumb down the game or make them play a certain way so I can cut costs. If it became a choice, I would choose the miniatures but at this time I think I can meet the two markets.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
IMO, if your game design is really supposed to be d20s, then go d20! Yes, the die is larger, but it rolls smoother, and gives finer-grained variation in results. And do you really need to roll 5 or more at once? How often does that come up in regular play?

It wasn't designed technically with d20s in mind, it just makes percentages easier to tweak when dealing with 5% vs 10%. I think long term d20 can provide more variety to troops and styles but we're still testing. It doesn't come up too often but we've been playing with just basic weapons: shotgun, assault rifle, heavy machine gun, grenade launcher, rockets, pistols, blades. We've started to roll in Psionics which can boost dice pools or subtract, essentially buff and debuff.

The business of crossing boardgamers with miniatures wargamers to capture both markets is very challenging. I think CMoN has the right of it by making everything 1-piece models with no assembly required.

I wish you a lot of success, as there really aren't a lot of non-GW success stories in that intersection of build-and-play.

Oh, if it's not integral, then nevermind. The nice thing about d6 is that you make clear decisions and bucketize very quickly.

I think CMON sculpts are pre-assembled at factory, true they have one piece sculpts in zombieside and many in their bloodrage and I think the others are, but both of these games have a lot of multi part pieces, arcadia is mostly multi part pre-assembled (if not all).

The boardgame crowd seems to change perspective in the last decade and starts to demand miniatures, Argo is an interesting test on that two good names making an interesting game that on the first implementation, cheap with standees, hit the wall of "why not plastic minis?".

I feel the demand for miniatures (plastic and pre-assembled) will become more and more prominent for boardgames in the future, an interesting experiment will be HINT that tests how much a boardgame with unassembled metal miniatures can stand on its legs, initial reaction from Essen was not that promising Megacons mercs vs myth will also be important to see how does a boardgame with assembled miniatures vs a game with unassembled miniatures stands (initial data from 1st edition SDE indicates not that great).

Ultimately, you've got to balance staying true to your design, hopefully bring something new to the market, make it fun, etc., all the while being sure to not give in to the temptation (however great or small) to listen too much to 'vocal minority' types either.

CMoN & ND learned very clearly from SDE 1.0 that boardgamers do not build minis. The feedback from that was loud and clear, and not a single SDE set has required assembly since then, with King Starfire being the only exception.

While I understand the interest in catching both markets, I think it is a strategic mistake for anybody targeting the boardgame crowd to require boardgamers to build any minis that are more complex than a GW 2-part "push gun into chest" model.

With 4 years of Zombicide, etc. raising the bar for components, the expectation of "no assembly required" minis is not unreasonable from the boardgame crowd, although I wonder how far it will go.

Alphy has it right that the designer should stay true to the concept, and incorporate minis (or not) as per the design.

I am still on a holding pattern. 3d masters are printing and being cleaned up. They will be doing test fittings, which means I'm still waiting on pictures. Once that is complete they go into resin casting for an initial test run. That means I'm still waiting on final numbers to determine budgeting, estimations for a full production and for expansion of additional miniatures beyond the initial set of 10 we've done. I'm also waiting for edits and updates to documentation from an editor.

We did acquire access to various 2d artwork and 3d models assets from another companies unsuccessful launch. There was a lot of artwork to sort through, including many 3d models already developed. They were about 60% away from having full production on a fairly robust miniatures set. his allows us to expand our own product line quicker without any huge upfront development costs for character design, artwork and 3d sculpting. The downside is we do end up paying a % of sales of products created from those assets but considering someone else paid for the initial development, that is a fair trade.

There will have to be some changes in our existing lines to make room. We will still also need to invest an amount to finalize, adjust and change the sculpting on most of those acquired assets. This will mainly ensure that we properly integrate the designs so they don't seem out of place, adjust the scale to put it more in line with our choices and add our own changes to them to make them more our own. However for what we obtained, the cost of that is significantly smaller than what would be needed to create it all from scratch.

It is hard to do a lineup when all the art is in various stances and angles. This will serve as a rough chart, I will modify and make a better looking one later. I only had access to GIMP instead of Photoshop at my current location and some things are missing from the picture as I only had them in .PSD format at this time.


From left to right: Current Gen Power Armor (United Republic), 1st Gen Power Armor (Outer Rim Pact), Medium Armored Soldier (Federated Commonwealth), Light Armor Soldier (Federated Commonwealth), Cyberoid (Shingen Empire), Light Armor Scout (Anazi Dynasty), Light Armored Soldier (Europa Confederation), Psion (Europa Confederation), Light Armored Scout (Anazi Dynasty).
Multiple miniatures companies and lines have slowly been having a size creep, heroic 28mm has slowly been becoming 32mm. I have noticed less outcry when new lines have been 35mm, then a couple years ago when there was a much more vocal complaint. The acceptance for 35mm miniatures is probably due to the fact that they have been comparing fairly well against 28/30mm miniatures of newer lines.

Our miniatures will measure 32mm from the bottom of their feet to the eyes, if it was standing straight up and not posed. That is one advantage with digital sculpting is to help ensure better control for sizes across the lines, creating less discrepancies. For us we translate that an average human male is 5'10" and although we're measuring from the base to eyes, 32mm essentially translates into 5'10" to the top of their head. In our design phase while the sculpts are in T-Poses, we can ensure that sizes translate properly.

This is a rough estimate just from the top of my head, so it isn't fully accurate just like the rough size chart above. The idea is so you can see slightly changes between males, females and armor types. A human male would be 32mm, but a human female would be 30mm from base of foot to eyes as they are 5'6". That doesn't mean all females would be that way, but a good portion tend to be shorter on average unless they were genetically engineered humans. Ideally the power armor should match the correct scale and be around 35mm-38mm from base to eyes. I still need to play with the 3d files more to verify that, we want to ensure that size-wise the miniature would fit within the power armor not simply exaggerate to make it bulky.

35mm "natural" is fine, matching Kingdom Death; I like the look of KD:M 35mm natural far better than GW / WMH 28-30mm "heroic".

The cyberoid is too short - should be 50mm to the "eyes" to look in scale with the rest (volume should be comparable to the Medium Armored Soldier).

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The cyberoid is too short - should be 50mm to the "eyes" to look in scale with the rest (volume should be comparable to the Medium Armored Soldier).

Yeah there are a few things that are off. I'm not that good at using GIMP and for some reason grid, ruler and snap to ruler guide weren't matching up properly. When I get home I'll work on a better version in Photoshop and then update/swap out the image. I just wanted to try to figure out how I wanted to lay it out.

What I would like to do is on the left side I'd put a ruler with actual unit height probably in 1ft increments. Then on the right side do a height measurement ruler from base of foot to eyes, marking off 28, 30, 32 and then a larger part. Maybe just 28mm, 32mm and larger height. Then keep the main 32mm line in the background like it is across the whole chart. Then swap out concept art for the 3d render image, since it would be a lot more accurate.