Exciting Times Ahead for Quaeleon: November in Review

November has been a month heavy on research and playtesting.

Manufacturing Quotes

In essence, Quealeon’s Quest is 108 cards and an instruction leaflet.

However, there are so many decisions to make:

• Card stock (thin, thick, textured, flat, matt, gloss, etc).
• Print type (digital vs offset).
• Box type (tuck box, telescoping rigid box, large enough for card sleeves etc).
• Quantity.
• Box size (large enough for sleeves? Expansions?)

And each of these decisions affects the cost significantly.

Our main aims for the game are to:

• Keep the price low (£20 or less).
• Make it highly portable.
• Have everything you need in the box.

Some of those requirements are conflicting, so it will be a balancing act to keep these things in check.

The quotes we’ve had so far, for 1,000 units of the game, range from £3.04 per deck for 108 cards in a tuck box to £6.44 per deck for 108 cards in a rigid telescoping box.

Do you have any opinions on Tuck Box vs Rigid? Let us know in the comments!

Pricing of course goes down significantly with larger quantities, but with a target of 1,000 units to start, the tuck box is probably going to be the way to go.

Kickstarter and Launchboom

We learned one important thing about Kickstarter this month:

The success of your campaign depends largely on your mailing list before launch, and the size of your mailing list depends on your marketing.

Launchboom is a company that specialises in bolstering the pre-campaign support and providing a measure of the prospective success of the campaign before even launching.

We had a few meetings with representatives there, and even if we do not use their services, we will learn from their techniques and almost certainly use them if we go down the Kickstarter route.

Dice and Destiny Tabletop Event at Quex Park

We attended the Dice & Destiny: Powell Cotton Tabletop Convention at Quex Park, an extremely unique venue with a lot of taxidermy.

We played Nice Buns, a cute little game of assembling a meal of bao buns and purchased Qwirkle from the game library where we had to shop in the dark.

Online Playtesting

We’ve done some playtesting of Quaeleon’s Quest (and other exciting games!) on the Virtual Playtesting discord group.

Videos

Marketing Fundamentals for New Developers

In this 2016 GDC session, Crows Crows Crows marketing director Michael Cox reveals how even primitive tools and fundamentals can help indies stand out in a community.

Michael Cox is a serial Kickstarter with many successes under his belt, and he shares his tricks on how to have a successful crowdfunding campaign.

Pro-top – it is surprisingly similar to the Launchboom method!

Empathizing with Steam: How People Shop for Your Game

In this 2020 GDC Virtual Talk, Chris Zukowski explains why he spent months watching people browse Steam shares the results of his research with you.

It is fascinating to see videos of real people buying games, what is important and what is not.

Granted, this applies to video games, however, I’m sure many of the same principles apply to board games.