The back of the envelope, part 1

For fun, I've been putting together estimates of what it would cost to print decent copies of 18IA.

I am getting a quote for a board from a couple of companies, just to see how it'll shake out.

Clearly, the answer is pre-selling some magic number of units first, at a significant discount, to pay for printing and so on. GMT's P500 system has been doing this for years, with great success.

This estimate also includes no provision for storage, and that's pretty unrealistic. Chances are, I could get APE Games to take up the sales end, so I wouldn't need to do all that from scratch.

Provided I set my Fund-The-Game-Preorder numbers correctly, I'd have enough starting capital to buy any equipment (like a die-cutter and custom dies if I so choose), print everything, assemble the pre-orders, ship the pre-orders, and then be able to sit back and assemble games at a reasonable-to-leisurely pace, as orders flowed in.

Next playtest at Kevin's birthday

Kevin Nunn's got a birthday party coming up, gaming from 1 pm to whenever, so I'll be using my finest whining voice to get my draft of 18IA to the table.

To consider: is there a corn bonus? A pig bonus? A cow bonus? I'm not satisfied because it feels like I may need to make my map a little bigger to be happy.

I also need to work out how the off-board map areas will pay out. After more thought, I need to increase them, and possibly increase route bonuses in some way.