Learning to launch a game

I added the learning part because I am doing this for the first time. Even when the concept had only been in my head for 10 days I was thinking about this aspect because I am a big picture person. I spent a few days researching what I could about game design and how to begin a Kickstarter funded project. While looking at the money being spent on projects that are not yet produced leaves one dreaming of a big score, it is not by chance that those projects took off with lots of support. It is by work, diligence in learning all aspects of production, and by networking. The first 12 hours of these projects being posted on Kickstarter were probably not funded by the average person just looking through the site to see if anything was interesting. The backers already knew about the launch from other sources, received repeated updates promoting the launch, and were ready to pitch in when it began. Kickstarter takes their cut too so not feeling that this is way I will need to go.

Printing a prototype game

I read good things about people producing games and outsourcing several features. Anyone new to the design field may not be ready to spend a larger amount of money to get prototypes made. Artwork costs a lot, graphic design as well.
My efforts by the end of the second week were to find someone who makes cards. The local printer did not come through with acceptable, normal poker cards, so I searched for myself. I found a couple of companies that will make cards and game price structures. After finding one that could make a deck for under $20 I looked at how I could get graphics done to produce a set for testing. I downloaded a recommended free graphics program, and started trying to put something on the template. After working an hour or two each day through the weekend, I thought I had one I could try. When I tried to upload the completed template my pixel numbers were off by just 1 or 2 and I could not get it to load.
I gave up for two days but as I was driving home from work on Tuesday it hit me what I needed to look for in the graphics program. Once I found the command to no longer fix the ratio of width to height, I was able to adjust the 1 pixel and then loaded my files. I took the leap and ordered two decks to try out. On Friday I got the email showing me a picture that my cards were expanded and did not fit when they looked at it before printing.
I got up the nerve to look at my file again and it looked perfect to me. When I went to export, the numbers were different. I realized there were several tabs and I had used the wrong one to adjust my sizes. I started with the template again, copied my text onto it, hit the correct tab to export and boom it loaded. I knew this would correct to size issue. I took the weekend to learn more drawing techniques and produced better looking cards. By the end I had sent them an updated set of files.
Two things I want to mention here for you to consider: one is that I had several failures during that process. One of my problem solving techniques is to stop trying which gives the brain time to work on it more in the back of the brain. Then some time during the next day my brain will say, “Hmm I didn’t try that, or maybe I could look for this.” I really don’t see how we teach this technique in school. The second thing to mention is that I learned something new through persevering at it, and benefited from the results.
Currently I am on my sixth prototype after producing about 10 sets of cards. This has been fun to do and has averaged about $17 per deck. Any future games I will order two decks for each game. One reason is that I have given some decks away for play testing by friends. Another is that I continue to modify games from the input I get watching others play.

Additional play testing

After designing and printing my decks of cards, I was able to take my game with me on a trip about 2 months after first design inspiration. I had modified my rules so that I basically had two versions which I had tried by myself in lots of tests. One was the original rounds of play while the new rules allowed for continuous play to a score of 5. Both worked well. For the first attempts on my trip I had both of my 7yr old grandsons show me that they could perform the actions in Enemy 11 of making an 11 on an opponent and resolving 11 in their base. While they understood the rules and could execute them fine, the game did not hold their attention. I believe this was because it was just a set of numbers on a table which required some math skills type thinking.
One more play test took place on the trip home where I stopped to visit my cousin and his family. They were so generous to spend an hour playing my game with me. I got to see a larger number of people play along with a 9yr old who played most of the game. I learned several more things from this time. The change that I had made from the original version of rounds to continuous play did not help a group complete the game. One of my special cards I saw during play could use changing. The effect of that change allowed me one final change in the number of cards in a deck to 108, double a normal deck size. Until that time I had trouble getting printed the slightly under 108 cards number because there were extra cards being printed each time. The quantity lets 6 people play the game in rounds without having to shuffle the deck, an aspect for which I had designed special rules. And speaking of the rules, when I went back to my original rules, I was able to simplify the set to show 4 basic rules of game play. This was going to be a lot more appealing and hopefully easier to learn the game.
There are multiple other play tests that have taken place. Since I am getting close to ordering a production run, I will several other tests with groups of students. I am excited to see how that goes.