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Author Topic: Hey guys, my name is Mathieu and i made a board game!  (Read 1910 times)

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crazycodr

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Hey guys, my name is Mathieu and i made a board game!
« on: May 07, 2014, 09:58:10 pm »
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Hey guys,

I've been working on a new board game for the past 3 months and it's done. It's a card based board game played with 1-4 players where you play the role of a disease and try to destroy the world to win.

I'd like to get some comments and reviews. Everything is currently posted on my kickstarter fundraising campain. Can you check it out and tell me what you think?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1851314632/infect-strategy-board-game

Thank you

Mathieu Dumoulin aka CrazyCodr
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eHalcyon

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Re: Hey guys, my name is Mathieu and i made a board game!
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2014, 10:51:23 pm »
+3

This should be moved to Advertisements.

3 months is an extremely short span of time for game development.  What kind of playtesting did this game get?

What is going on with the graphic in Basic Level Gameplay?  Looks like a screenshot from a Word doc using a non-English dictionary (given how it seems to have been develped in French, this is likely the case... you should fix that -- remove those red squigglies).

"There are no risks the project will fail."  This is never true.  Unless the game is all printed and ready to ship, there is risk.  You go on to describe some challenges though, which is helpful.

You should look into posting the full rules.

You really need to figure out an actual shipping solution.  Your current backer levels say that there is shipping "up to $10" and that you'll arrange things with people if it costs more.  International shipping is probably going to run a lot more than $10, and if your project takes off then it will take you far too long to interact with each person to work out their individual shipping situation.  Note how other KS campaigns tell backers what to add for shipping to their countries, or have region-specific backer levels.  Check out this article on shipping.  Maybe check out other articles by these guys; they've got KS figured out.

If your board game is going to take off, reviews by prominent reviewers will go a long way.  Rahdo, The Dice Tower and Undead Viking are three of the big names that do KS game previews.

But if you have not already contacted them and arranged something, it's pretty much too late at this point.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2014, 10:52:59 pm by eHalcyon »
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ashersky

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Re: Hey guys, my name is Mathieu and i made a board game!
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2014, 11:33:05 pm »
+2

This ends up looking a lot like a multi-player card version of Plague Inc..  Even the logo is almost exactly the same.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2014, 09:53:40 pm by ashersky »
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Kirian

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Re: Hey guys, my name is Mathieu and i made a board game!
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2014, 12:31:40 am »
+2

This should be moved to Advertisements.

3 months is an extremely short span of time for game development.  What kind of playtesting did this game get?

What is going on with the graphic in Basic Level Gameplay?  Looks like a screenshot from a Word doc using a non-English dictionary (given how it seems to have been develped in French, this is likely the case... you should fix that -- remove those red squigglies).

"There are no risks the project will fail."  This is never true.  Unless the game is all printed and ready to ship, there is risk.  You go on to describe some challenges though, which is helpful.

You should look into posting the full rules.

You really need to figure out an actual shipping solution.  Your current backer levels say that there is shipping "up to $10" and that you'll arrange things with people if it costs more.  International shipping is probably going to run a lot more than $10, and if your project takes off then it will take you far too long to interact with each person to work out their individual shipping situation.  Note how other KS campaigns tell backers what to add for shipping to their countries, or have region-specific backer levels.  Check out this article on shipping.  Maybe check out other articles by these guys; they've got KS figured out.

If your board game is going to take off, reviews by prominent reviewers will go a long way.  Rahdo, The Dice Tower and Undead Viking are three of the big names that do KS game previews.

But if you have not already contacted them and arranged something, it's pretty much too late at this point.

Basically everything eHalcyon has said here.  Three months is like an eye-blink in terms of playtesting.  They are definitely still risks.  Shipping CA to US may cost more than you think, especially at low volume.

I'm going to add three more things: (1) Developing in French is, obviously, fine.  But you're going to have to translate into English before you will get many sales.  The volume just isn't there.  (2) The art quality is... sub-par.  Some of it appears to be from GIS, and it's unclear whether you've secured copyright.  You should look into commissioning some artists; obviously, it'll cut into your margins.

(3)  From the KS page, when discussing pricing:

Quote
It's better than before at 55$ a piece when i ordered 50 of them at a time.

There are a few issues here.  First, telling people the real costs is probably a bad idea.  Though printing costs are probably around 50% of a game's price, there are multiple reasons that companies don't tell you the profit margins.  While the honesty is refreshing, it might not be the best idea.  Second, this line implies that you have some copies sitting around.  Why are there not pictures of the actual cards??  (I see now that the video has the real thing in it.  The cards look high-quality, but the playmats do not.)

--------

That said, despite the similarities to Plague Inc., you certainly have what appears, at first glance, to be at the least an interesting idea.

I'd strongly recommend canning this KS.  Take a year and thoroughly playtest it.  If you haven't logged a hundred games with different group sizes and dozens of players, you haven't playtested it enough--and I think 100 is a very low estimate.  (I get the feeling that Donald X, for instance, had several thousand games of Dominion under his belt before the original edition was published.  Obviously Dominion is quicker and easier, but you get the idea.)

Make playtesting your top priority.  Get some better art and an English translation.  Go to Stonemaier and read their stuff about running a successful KS campaign.  Then consider re-running the Kickstarter--though unless you're planning to create your own company for this, you might consider shopping it around to established companies first.

--------

At first glance, you have something interesting.  With polish, I think you have something marketable.  So I wish you good luck, and I hope to see this back in 2015 or so!
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