Re: Game Crafter - Publishing your own Board and Card Games

Posted by MortiS-the-Lost on Dec 18, 2011; 7:51pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Game-Crafter-Publishing-your-own-Board-and-Card-Games-tp7103267p7106454.html

Hmm this does look like a very useful tool …

Billiam Babble wrote

Okay, this is one of those sites that when you discover it you want to keep it it secret, in case someone uses telepathy on you, steals your idea and publishes it first.

Hehe. I know exactly how you feel

Right, before I get into this post I feel I must make the following statement for my long time readers, followers and/or members of my gaming group: this site will not allow me to publish MortiS Quest   - not in it's entirety - I could however use it to publish the Treasure Decks and Room Counters – possibly the rulebooks too (when they are finished) – this would be a long time in the future however as the current decks and counters 'borrow' all their art work from other sources and I'd need to come up with my own. Also there is the problem that the core rules of the combat system are based on HeroQuest which could cause copyright problems. Not to mention the main difficulty of publishing Quest which is the very expensive to produce Combat Dice.

Ok now that's out of the way …

     
I can see this site being very useful, it looks pretty strait forward to use and includes helpful (if slightly patronizing) videos which explain about how to avoid your designs going off the edge of cards and other such problems inherent in commercial printing processes. Like my good friend Mr Babble pointed out, it all being given to you like this will make people want to 'skip ahead' with the design process and get right onto manufacturing – this maybe why most of the games I've seen on the site are a little lack-luster. I think another factor is probably range of components, which while customisable lack the ability for you to invent entirely new components. If you will; think back to the most innovative games you've played and you'll find they for the most part will have some entirely unique components (for their time – other games since will have certainly copied them)

Billiam Babble wrote

Before I let  my dream-designs go to my head (not to mention half a dozen back-burner ideas of Mortis's - and all of those customised games), I had a look at the shop - and yup, there's quite a few dungeon crawler games (but not all that inspiring).  I'll be frank, I found it a bit depressing.  Lots of creative people already out there, and probably not that many buyers.

As alluded to in the text above I think TGC is deceptively less useful than it would first appear, it doesn’t quite have all the resources to make the kind of games we always talk about making – but that's not to say it doesn’t have potential to do at least some of the stuff we need.
I think a lot of the games I've seen are on there limited by their own components as much as a lack of imagination  


^ Epic Adventure Dungeon Crawl boast tiles hand drawn (apparently) by Gary Chalk, but all in all it's just a rather uninspiring Dungeon Quest clone  


 ^ Dunjonworx another Dungeon Quest clone with a poorly spelt name (Coz baad Spelin' is teh kewlz)

It's shame but most of the games I've seen on the site are to be honest rather generic and unlikely to catch anyone’s attention. There are only so many variants you can do on your basic Card or Dice and board game with the components given

Billiam Babble wrote

Of course, if someone could combine this sort of a resource with a cheap source of fantasy figures, then you might be on to some serious games manufacture.

Now there's an idea, I suppose we could produce a game prototype with everything apart from the miniatures and then look into getting the miniatures from elsewhere and should we end up with a big seller re-package it together ourselves

PS Any one else noticed that some of the Space Ship pieces appear to be Thunderbirds vehicles …