Manufacturing secrets

They may not be actual secrets, but it's very rare that someone is actually willing to show what happens before a game reaches the stores and after it gets funded on Kickstarter.

Let's discover the story of Exodus: Proxima Centauri and Exodus: Edge of Extinction and their route from Kickstarter success to delivery all over the world.

After the files are delivered to the printer, it's waiting time. Before anything is produced, we have to approve the preliminary printouts to be sure, that the final product is up to our and your expectations. From the rulebook and the box, to cards and punchboards, everything needs proper scrutiny and approval before it goes into production.

Punchboards setup

Right before checking out the punchboards - and don't worry, we're using a slightly thicker cardboard with the actual games.

While the litograph is not an essential part of the game, we want it to be the best it can be. And that means we need to color proof it as well.

Signing off the color proof for a lithograph

And here's another look at punchboards for approval - and with them, also player player boards. To put it shortly, everything needs to be carefully looked at.

Color proofs of player aids, punch board, player boards etc stacked over die cut samples

But cardboard is not everything. To assemble new copies of both Exodus: Proxima Centauri and the Exodus: Edge of Extinction expansion, we also need a whole bunch of plastic stuff.

Here's where the ships are made by a machine.

This is the machine responsible for creating the mighty fleets you will command in the vast space of the Exodus universe.

And here they are sorted by a man.

However, to finish the process a human touch is necessary. Separating ships from stray pieces of plastic, and getting rid of those unfortunate few that made it out damaged or incomplete is yet another step that brings the game closer to your door.

Almost a rainbow of dice as they arrive at our doorstep.

To make the games complete, we also need to add the dice. Once again they will go through and inspection to weed out the ones that are not up to par, before they are put into boxes.

Ships ready to form your fleets.

Finally, there is the matter of ships that arrived just like the dice, and are now ready to be added to each game. A long time of waiting (and some frantic work to proceed to next stages as fast as possible) we are now closer and closer to the moment the games are ready to be shipped to you.

Questions? Comments? Ask and see them answered!
 
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Pros and cons of standardizing in board games (II) - Cards

We were talking last week about standardizing components in board games, covering the box, the rules and the game board. There's yet another type of components which come in various sizes, thicknesses and sometimes even shapes and while we all think we know all about them, they still hold many secrets.

I am talking about playing cards, of course.

Image source: ebay.com

Size

At one point in our lives we've all touched or, at least, seen playing cards. We're mostly used to the standard poker size or bridge size cards, but we are aware that there are more common types of sizes out there. Us gamers would probably have no problem with any size of cards if we didn't care so much about our game pieces that we want to sleeve them.

The most common types of cards used to be:
- standard poker size: 3,5 x 2.5 in / 88 x 63 mm
- standard bridge size: 3.5 x 2.25 in / 88 x 57 mm
- tarot size: 4.75 x 2.75 in / 120 x 70 mm

But with the rise of the board gaming phenomenon, we are now accustomed to:
- "7 Wonders" cards  - roughly 100 x 65 mm
- "Corey" cards - roughly 62 x 41 mm 
- square cards - 70 x 70 mm
and many more.

Luckily, sleeve manufacturers have upped their game and they're now offering a lot more sizes. To have an idea what are your options, have a look here. But having access to all these sleeves should grant game designers and publishers infinite freedom to make their own special cards?

We have discovered that any non-standard (bridge / poker size) cards come with an extra cost, other that the material. This cost covers custom die-cuts and it can be as high as a few thousand dollars. Overall, 5 decks of cards in a game printed in 5000 copies will cost roughly 50% more if they are a non-standard size compared to when they are a standard size.

I prefer standard poker size cards, they're easy to sleeve without passing by a hobby store with old sleeves from Magic: The Gathering, they usually come with better quality material than "special" cards and... I got used to them.

What are your preferred sizes of cards? Does this aspect of a game make a difference when you decide to buy a board game?

Material

This is when things get really technical, at least when you talk to a manufacturer ready to impress. Do you know the difference between Blue Core, Grey Core, Chinese Ivory Core, French Ivory Core, Casino Black Core, French Black Core and so on? I don't and I've been dealing with these terms for the past 5 years. I have a booklet somewhere where I wrote down all the specs for each of them and when I have to make an informed decision I check it out.

But I was intrigued by the price difference and the multitude of options, so I asked for samples and compared them from a gamer's perspective: I bent them, look "through" them using powerful light sources, shuffled them about 250 times to check wear and tear and I am probably missing some other tests. The truth is that I am still not able to distinguish between Blue and Ivory Core if the weight of is the same. In my opinion, putting casino quality core (light doesn't pass through, therefore it is impossible to cheat by seeing through the cards) into board game cards is a waste of money which is supported in the end by gamers - the final customers.

The industry standard for producing cards is a 290 gsm (grams per square meter) Grey Core. I have noticed that upgrading the cards to 320 gsm requires an increase in price of 30%, which of course, reflects in the MSRP. Upgrading to a 345 gsm cardboard is even up to 60% more expensive!

I was temped to think that thicker cards would deal a lot better with wear and tear and their life span would be a few years longer (without sleeves). I was wrong. The biggest difference is the finishing and the core only affects marginally the durability of the cards.

Did you notice differences in core quality of the cards between various games? Do you have and tips?

The part which does make a difference, both visually and when we look at the resistance of the cards in time is made by the finishing. I personally love the FFG linen finish, it gives a great feeling but I like even more the matte varnish on borderless cards.

I must admit that I am no expert when it comes to the type of finishing and I don't even have a strong preference between matte and linen paper. Most manufacturers I've talking to have failed to explain to me what is the advantage of a certain type of finishing. For example, we asked what is the best type of finishing for cards which require shuffling all the time - this has happened with Mistfall (our next release). The answers were:
- linen finishing (3 out of 9)
- matte AQ varnish (3)
- upgrading from Blue core to Casino Ivory core (1)
- upgrading from 295 gms to 320 gms (1)
- our quality is the best (seriously!) (1)

So, it looks like there is no consensus among the manufacturers on the best possible way to make more durable cards for an acceptable price.

What was your experience? Do you have a favorite finishing type? Or perhaps a publisher whose quality you admire?

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Praetor in the making

Praetor is getting ready to hit the shelves of the hobby stores and to give you a hint of how is this happening, we got some images from the factory where everything is taking place. In all honesty, most manufacturers won't allow taking pictures of they most well kept secrets, but this is what we can share...

Massive amounts of soon to be punchboards

... in 7 languages,

printed, cut and glued.

With the final cut they become City Tiles, all on nice linen paper and thick cardboard.

The preorders for Praetor are open until 21st of April and there are still around 100 copies left out of the total of 200.

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Praetor production or how 0.4 mm can make a difference!

We haven't talked about Praetor for a while and today is a good time to continue the "conversation" for several reasons. 

The first and most important is that Praetor is in production. For the past several months we've been preparing files for the box, the punch-boards, the rules and so on. We have had at least a dozen of sleepless nights and tight deadlines, the kind of work which is furthest possible from my beloved game design, but just as important. 

Once the files were completed and approved by our partners - you do remember that Praetor will be published in 7 languages, don't you? - we sent them to the printing house and they sent feedback and the process went on and on until finally all the color proofs and the die-cuts impositions were all ready.

If you're wondering how a board game looks like in its earliest production stages, long before the final product is a box nicely shrink wrapped and ready to find its way to your gaming table, here are some examples:

Punch boards on a 70 x 100 cm printing paper with the die cuts in red

Box insert color proof

If you'r wandering if there were mistakes, the answer is "of course". In a business where even one millimeter counts, we had to re-make all the boxes because the knives were 0.4 mm (that's 0.015 in) too close to the border of the relevant graphics. It may seem ridiculous, but it's part of a publisher's job to avoid all the possible mistakes and produce a game as close as possible to perfection.

In the picture below you can easily notice the yellow (almost) circles showing this almost zero distance from where the die line is and where it should be. These 0.4 mm created a 12 hours continuous work load for one of my colleagues. Thankfully, this time it wasn't me :).

Die line for the from of the box

Well, this is all behind us now. We have just approved all the files, the color proofs and there's nothing left than to wait another few weeks until we see the final product.

And since we've been less busy with production issues, we had the time to update our website. And this is the second round of good news about Praetor. If you visit the NSKN Games website, you'll notice that Praetor has migrated from "Upcoming" to "Games". This means that the last drop of shadow is gone and Praetor is an ongoing reality. Hurray! So, take a look on the new web page of Praetor and you might even discover a few surprises. We'll talk about them soon, really soon!

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Exodus: Proxima Centauri revised edition

Wow, it's been more than one month since our last post... time passed so quickly. We have not been on holidays. on the contrary, we spent almost 100% of our time on the re-print of Exodus: Proxima Centauri. 

The first edition sold out on our level and with most of the distributors sometime in March and since then we turned down several orders of a several hundred copies. We thought that it would be impossible or, at least, financially suicidal to print this game again, without any quality issues. But, in everyone's life comes a time when you decide to think outside the box. And that is exactly what happened to us when we decided to make a revised edition. We kept the major concepts in place, but we went on and made changes in the graphic design and the ergonomics of the game, based on gamers' feedback and our own sessions of play-testing. We started with a clear goal in mind: a revised edition with better game play, less fiddliness and more sci-fi look and with top quality components.

The front of the box

To make sure that the quality is what we expected it to be, we requested offers only from manufacturing companies with a proven record of delivering the best and we made it part of the plan to check the quality throughout the entire production process. 

With all that in mind, we started a long process of analyzing and rethinking every component in the game. As we progressed, every component which we considered final underwent a graphic design upgrade and found its place on one of the 15 punchboards in the game.

New planet hex

At the same time, we chose the manufacturing company. We chose to produce the game in Poland, so that we can stick to our promise - controlling the quality every step of the way. Together with them we looked for and found solutions to every problem we encountered on the way.

For example, inspired by other recent games, we decided to replace the thick paper player boards with 2mm cardboard. This would allow better marking of the technologies and reduce the risk of ruining the game in the middle. With the old player boards, one little lack of attention could cause big trouble, with one swift movement a player could swipe all the technology cubes from his player board and then take a long time trying to figure out what had he previously researched. With the new boards, the wooden cubes go in the player board, reducing the risk of such an event.

Upgraded player board

This was just a simple example of our work, thinking about players first and the costs later. On the NSKN website, you can see a full list of changes in the revised edition of Exodus.

As I write this blog post, the production is ongoing and we are confident that we will be able to bring the new Exodus to Spiel '13 Essen.

In a few days, we'll bring more news, a status update and a surprise for those who own the original edition of Exodus.

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NSKN @ 2 years

A bit more than two years ago I was registering the name NSKN Legendary Games, embarking, together with some of my friends, on an unexpected and amazing journey. I had big plans and little knowledge, but it seemed that designing and publishing board games is the right thing to do. Two years later I can confirm that I made the right decision and, even if this proves to be a much tougher journey that I could have ever expected, it is worth every moment.

Anniversaries are not only moments of joy and celebration, but also good opportunities to remember, because "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (G. Santayana).

But the history of NSKN did not start only 2 years ago. It goes back another year or so into the past, when the idea of making board games sparked in my head.  That is the true beginning...

Jun 2010 - Warriors & Traders prototype, second version. Looking back at this it feels like ancient history, like it happened 500 years ago. Looking at the prototypes we are making today, it feels childish, but deep inside I know that had it not been for this one game, NSKN would not be what it is today.

It took another 14 versions if I remember correctly and one year of play-testing before Warriors & Traders was ready for printing, but hard work and good friends to exploit were the key to making it happen (there are so many people that I want to thank for their help and for believing in this project, but that is beyond the purpose of this post).

Apr 2011 - The last play-test of Warriors & Traders. Soon after we established NSKN, while our graphic designers were doing their magic, preparing the final version, ready to print.

The summer of 2011 was one full of planning and hoping, we were about to go to our first Spiel Essen, we had no idea how the distribution was working and until the very last moment we were afraid that the games might be late (it had happened to the biggest names in the industry) and we will simply be eight people in an empty booth showing people a big... smile.

Oct 2011 - Spiel Essen - In the end, everything was fine, NSKN came to Essen with Warriors & Traders, a game well received by both the public and the distribution companies.

Spiel '11 was an event I will never forget. I still get goosebumps when I go think about the amount of people we talked to, that we ran out of games several time and we had to drive back and forth from Germany to Belgium to bring more. It was indeed a magical time, one to remember every time something went so wrong that I wanted to quit and never look back.

By the end of 2011 we had already sold a significant quantity of Warriors & Traders, covering most of Europe and North America and reaching game stores as far as Thailand and Japan. What we were still missing was the direct connection with the gamin community, but we were about to take care of that aspect too.

While still busy and focused on selling Warriors & Traders, I was secretly working on another big game, Exodus: Proxima Centauri, though back then it carried a completely different name.

Jan 2012 - GobCon - This was our first contact with gamers in a local convention and it was a blast and not only because it was in Italy - the country of amazing food and wine - but because of the people I met and the friends I've made. This was also the starting point of the first expansion in the history of NSKN, Warriors & Traders: Italia, developed especially for the organizers of GobCon.

Feb 2012 - The prototype of Exodus: Proxima Centauri was ready. I had worked on it for half a year, I had learned physics and read books in the process, but all my effort was rewarded with good feedback after the first session.

And how many designers out there can honestly say that for their first test of a sci-fi game they had good feedback from an all-girl team? :)

Apr 2012 - NSKN was celebrating 1 year. We had cake, and Champagne, we recalled the good moments of the year that had passed and we made plans for the future.

By then, Exodus: Proxima Centauri and Wild Fun West were both tested, working quite well and it was just a matter of time and fixing the details before NSKN was ready to publish two new games.

And that is the first part of our little saga... The second part is coming soon.

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About production quality in Exodus

There's an elephant in the room... people noticed that there are some quality issues with Exodus and we feel it is our responsibility not to remain silent and to explain what is NSKN doing to address this issue.

Production

I will have to start by bringing some light on the less know part of game publishing, the negotiation and selection of the manufacturing company for the mass production. 

Since Exodus is part of our second generation of games, we looked everywhere in the world for manufacturing companies with experience in board games. There are only a few countries which have tradition in this industry, so we got offers from Germany, Poland, China and US. After a first screening we kept contact with 5 of these companies and we negotiated separately with each of them. We did our best to keep the production in Europe, where we would have had more control over the whole process, including the quality, but due to the enormous amount of components in Exodus (9 punch-boards, 300+ wooden tokens, 48 space ships, 7 play-mats, etc) we could not find any offer that would allow us to keep the retail price below 80 USD (65 EUR).

After careful consideration which included calling references from Europe and US, we chose a manufacturing company in China which produced all the parts (except the plastic space ships, bought from a third party) and assembled them in the boxes.

Quality check and reported problems

Before the mass production started, we received one sample of digital print with all the graphics of the game and we were very happy because everything was looking awesome. After the mass printing and before overseas shipping and paying the second half of the production cost, we received another sample, this time "straight from the assembly line" (the quote is from their sales representative). This very copy is the one that we played early in October, we took it to Spiel Essen and played it roughly 15 times during the four days of the fair, them we played some more back in Romania and a lot more during Lucca Comics & Games and the game is still in good shape. So, in my opinion, it passed almost all the quality checks.

We had an Indiegogo funding project which was successful (thanks again, guys!) and most of the game boxes we sent to the backers have already arrived. The first reaction of most people was about the rather poor quality of the laminated components and there have been very specific comments saying exactly what is wrong with the games. We opened some random games ourselves just to check and see that some of the games share the same problems that people reported mostly on BoardGameGeek.

First, we addressed the problem and offered replacements to those who found damaged components in their boxes. Having a list of the problems and complaints at hand, we contacted the manufacturing company and asked for a joint solution for the quality issues. That happened already a week ago. Yesterday we sent a similar complaint letter, documented this time with pictures, to the management of the same company, hoping for a positive answer.

The answer or the lack of it and what's next

Sadly, at the time when I am pressing "Publish" there is still no relevant answer to any of the emails concerning the printing quality from the responsible party. There won't be any replacements from them, no financial support, not even the acknowledgement of their fault .

The reality is that we're alone in this and it will be only up to us to make it up to those who bought game boxes which are not in the best shape. We don't have any means of putting pressure on a company which is 5000 miles away and the most we can do is stop working with them.

Right now, the only thing we can do is to focus on customer service and try to solve the issues on a case by case basis. We can also hope that the game play will be good enough to compensate for the 'holes' in the quality and judging by the little feedback we've got this is happening. We're not looking for excuses, we're merely attempting an explanation for this situation which could very easily damage our reputation and put us in a hall of (what's the opposite of fame?).

I am still optimistic and I believe that NSKN will find understanding in this amazing community which will help us move past these issues and keep climbing the ladder. We  have a lot of new, innovative ideas and we want to continue to put fun, interesting games on your gaming tables.

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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

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