This is our first big production run, but given how fast The Climbers was selling in its first four months in our markets, some buyers from big accounts we’re meeting during Toy Preview in about six weeks, and the game on the cover of a catalog next month with a circulation of over 1.5 million, we tried to make sure we would have enough to get us into spring 2011.

Pricing has also been an issue, because the game is 4.5 pounds of hand-crafted and painted wood, which is unusually expensive production for a tabletop game, but necessary considering the game dynamics.  We found that our initial retail price of $49.95 was too scary for many American retailers and consumers, even though some die-hard game geeks had been paying that plus $35 in shipping costs to get the German edition for over a year.  At Toy Fair, we lowered the price to $34.95, and we sold out the remaining inventory in only seven weeks.  Now with production and shipping costs higher this year, we are raising the price a bit to $39.95, hoping that the small increase from February’s price will keep buyers from balking.

With fewer than 3,000 units in production, our unit costs would have been even higher, and we would have had to go over $40 on the retail price.

We also did more play tests of Star Hopper and Samsara that indicated that the rules are pretty solid, so they should be ready to go into production as soon as we have the funding.

Mark Salzwedel

When I started designing games, I had decided to try creating a lot of different styles of games.  4th Corner is an abstract strategy game, Samsara is a pure strategy game, Master Spy is a memory and strategy game, and I have a war game, a cooperative role-playing game, and a card game in development.  Coming from a family of educators, it seemed natural for me to try to come up with an educational game that was actually fun to play and didn’t make you feel like you were learning.

An early mock-up of the box cover

I met the challenge with Star Hopper, a race game for players age 6 and above with a little dice rolling, a little strategy, a space colonization theme, and a 48-page book.  You only need to read the first two or three pages of the book to learn how to play the game, but the rest of it is there in case you want to learn more about the stars and space travel.  It includes more details about all of the 107 real stars that are part of the card deck and game board, as well as articles on specific topics, including the relative sizes of stars and planets, how we can detect planets we can’t see, and what happens to stars when they die.

Each of the cards in the deck gives the name of a real star system in our galactic neighborhood, and they are numbered in order of their distance from us.  In addition, there is a small graphic on each card that attempts to show the features of each star system, such as the relative sizes and positions of the stars in a binary or trinary system, dust clouds and rings, and known sizes and positions of orbiting planets.  I am betting that using the cards in the game play will get players to check out the book and eventually explore on their own.

The board, colony chips, color dice, rocket pawns, and cards

I have been a bit hesitant to bring the Star Hopper prototype out with my adult gaming friends, because it is so simple it can be played by a 6-year-old, and the game is around half luck, half strategy.  But I am bringing it out more now, because when I have, I have been surprised how much even adults enjoy the game.  Some really enjoy the suspense of the die rolling and the race aspect, some really enjoy the space travel theme, and the board is colorful enough and the components interesting enough and the play time short enough (about 30 minutes) that it is a pleasant break from some of the heavier strategy games we play.

So we played a 5-player game of Star Hopper last night, and my friends were teasing me that I had won simply because I was the game designer.  I also managed to get another investment this week to pay off the catalog ad space, pay the German publisher royalties for The Climbers, pay the production and shipping costs for The Climbers, and pay for my hotel and airfare to Dallas for Toy Preview in October.  Still no solid release dates for any of the new games, but if The Climbers takes off enough this fall, we hope to get Samsara, Hedge, and Star Hopper out before Christmas.

Mark Salzwedel

We also received a payment from a distributor at the end of last week, which makes it possible for us to pay for the showroom rental at a trade show in October.

We heard back from one distributor who had been interested in The Climbers, but since he hadn’t gotten any requests for the game in the past few weeks, he assumed that it was no longer in demand and declined to order.  So I started to encourage customers and potential customers to go to their local game stores and request The Climbers and ask if they will request it from their distributors so we can get the sales moving again once the new shipment comes in next month.

We also heard from our freight forwarder that they had managed to book container space on a ship for our next shipment of The Climbers out of Shanghai, and we will probably be able to meet our announced release date of September 15, but as the media have predicted, the cost was much higher than I’d hoped — almost $900 for 167 thirty-pound cartons.

And I finally made some decisions about rules for Master Spy this week.  I have decided to do as with Samsara and have a basic/beginner’s set of rules as well as an advanced set of rules.  It seemed to make sense because there is the potential of interest from both the mass and hobby markets for both games.

Mark Salzwedel

Then even after the email and web site were working again, I tried to call up the blog, and I got a huge “database error” message.  Evidently, when migrating to a new server, my version of cPanel had been updated, and it truncated my database user names so that the Word Press software wouldn’t recognize them any more.

Now everything seems to be working again, and we proofed our catalog page in the big catalog going out in September, we reviewed production samples of The Climbers, and we ran another couple of play tests for Master Spy.  At the meeting yesterday of the New York City Board Game Designers Play Test Group, we had a great turnout, and the 8 play testers all gave some great feedback on the rules draft and on how to make the player movement more versatile for the heavy strategists, and on building the components to make it easier for players who aren’t as good at memorizing positions, as Master Spy rewards.

I also got to see the next revision of the artwork for 4th Corner: Hedge.  I will post it here when it’s done, but I can tell you the tiles will be much more colorful and interesting to see.

Mark Salzwedel

Where will it be assembled?

Can I or the factory source components instead of making them from scratch?

The first question for us has a couple of considerations.  We can assemble up to 1,000 games at a time here in New York, so if the run is bigger, we can’t do it here.  Otherwise, the assembly happens closest to where the majority of components are manufactured and closest to the cheapest labor (where distance is also a factor, because finished games still cost money to be shipped to our warehouse).

Regarding the second question, when I started getting quotes from a couple of factories in China for Star Hopper, the prices were pretty good, but after a bit more investigation, it was not clear whether they were expecting to make or source some of the molded plastic components.  Once we got that clear, it was easier to compare that part of the price to the cost of sourcing.  There is a factory in Minnesota that has the pawns and chips we need for the game already made, and a factory in the UK that has the dice.  It may be cheaper to ship the components from the USA or UK to China, because the cost of shipping may be less than the engineering, tooling, and die making for the molds plus the raw materials and the labor for making it from scratch in China.

It also then becomes an issue of looking at the remaining components (the box, the board, the card deck, and the spiral-bound book) and figuring out whether there is any reason to make those components in China.  The main savings in China is in labor costs, which can also affect the prices of some raw materials.

I end up running a bunch of scenarios to see which is most efficient and cheapest.  For example, one I ran this morning was ordering the dice from the UK factory, shipping them to Minnesota so that they can be bagged with the pawns and chips in game-size quantities. and then shipped to Shanghai for assembly with the boxes, books, cards, and boards there, and shipped to New York for warehousing and order processing.

There will probably be another dozen or so variations before we end up with a plan that seems best.

Mark Salzwedel

We got an order for a couple of cartons of 4th Corner from one of our retailers in Boston.  We sent a replacement component for a customer in Virginia.  We deposited funds to cover production of The Climbers.  Play testing for Master Spy continued.  We finalized production quotes for Star Hopper.  We paid sales commissions and repaid a loan.  We sent catalogs and samples to a new sales rep in Arkansas and to our Dallas rep.  We reviewed copy for a catalog coming out in September in which The Climbers will be prominently featured.  And we updated the web site’s internal links and release dates.

I am a bit mixed about how easy it is for me to get work emails and phone calls when I’m on vacation, but it was a pleasant trip any way.
Mark Salzwedel

Elizabeth Carpenter of Mazeology dropped in with a dazzling new prototype for a 3D strategy game.  It was also really challenging to try to keep all the game variables in mind with so many dimensions to keep track of when I played it, and I felt the tipping rule (players can intentionally cause parts of the structure to topple) was a little too chaotic on top of the strategic challenges otherwise, but it looks like it will be a great game eventually.

I also got to play test a couple of my designs.  I got Robot Racing out first, a tile-laying game inspired by Robo Rally, and players liked the look and the general mechanics the first time through, but play was moving too slowly, so one of the players suggested a way to progressively speed up the movement in a way that helped to balance runaway leader risk, a la Power Grid.  Changing all turn tiles to rotate any direction tiles and adding MOVE 3 tiles seems to be honing in on a good mix of tiles.

I also brought out 4th Corner Hedge near the end, just to get some ideas from the other designers how to make the tunneling expansion work so that players didn’t wait to dig their tunnels until the exit appeared.  I’m going to try a few of the ideas in the next few play tests, including limiting how long the tunnel can be, how long it takes to dig it, and whether it needs to be started before the exit appears.

I’m waiting to hear from one bank about a line of credit, and I need to do the last few pages of the application for another bank.  Still waiting to hear from a potential private investor and hoping that one or more of these sources allows production of Samsara and Star Hopper to go forward.

Mark Salzwedel

We also submitted one application for a line of credit and began working on the 18-page application for the same from another bank.  We are hoping to get enough financing to release Samsara and Star Hopper.

With that in mind, I have been going back through my notes and getting fresh production quotes for both games.  I’ve also been looking over the rule books to see if I can make them any more clear and/or accurate.  The book for Star Hopper is over 40 pages, so that will take a little time.  It’s not that the rules for the game are that complex — they only take up the first 3 pages.

We confirmed that we are still slated to see The Climbers on the big catalog cover.  It will be exciting to see how it affects sales starting in September.  We notified all the accounts with back orders of the later release date for The Climbers.  And we confirmed the last of the production details with the new factory this week.

We had to let one sales rep go this week.  And it reminded me to put in a word here:  We are looking to hire more sales reps!  Sales experience is a plus, but not required.  Travel is substantial but not necessarily frequent because much can be done by phone and Internet.  If interested, and you live in the northeast, southeast, Rockies, California, or northwest of the U.S., send me an email with your background.

We also started to make arrangements to exhibit at Toy Preview in Dallas in October, and we hope to announce a booth number and the games we will be premiering very soon.  We are gearing up for a very big fall selling season.

Mark Salzwedel

I tried to pick my jaw up off the floor, while they explained that they would have to rethink their cover if the game wouldn’t be available by the date they ship catalogs, September 15.

I went into high gear contacting every bank, broker, and investor who had ever registered interest in Strategic Space, and on the basis of this news about the catalog cover, I was able to get immediate funding of the new production run for The Climbers, confirm that the factory could get them to us by September 1, and receive invitations from two banks to apply for $50,000 lines of credit that could make it possible for us to finally release Samsara and Star Hopper, and maybe even the expansion of 4th Corner, Hedge.

In the meantime, though I don’t know when we’ll have funds to produce it, I’ve been doing a lot more playtesting of Master Spy.  Ostensibly, I was just testing out the terrain maps that slide under the pegboards, but I ended up getting a better sense of the mechanics and the need to add a third option to each spy’s movement announcements:  MOVING INTO, MOVING OUT OF, and STAYING AT.  One of the most analytical minds I’ve ever met happens to be a member of the New York City Board Game Designers Play Test Group, and he pointed out that without the option to stay in place, it was possible that a spy could be prevented from capturing a certain percentage of the enemy spies.  Thanks, Michael.

Mark Salzwedel

My sales staff has to keep making excuses for the art inside the boxes, and it appears to be holding back our sales, so we are planning to upgrade the components on those three games soon.  We are making the tiles in 4th Corner more colorful and offering a larger box, for example.  It will weigh about the same as the original game in the smaller box, but the larger box is less likely to be stolen and has a perception of greater value.  (Dominion and Race for the Galaxy are just decks of cards, but the boxes are huge.)  The pawns, card decks, rule books, and boards for the other two games are getting new, more colorful art.

I have a friend who also publishes games, but she is an illustrator and designer, so the look of her packaging and components is top notch.  I had one of her games out playing at a game meetup last month, and a player at another table asked what the name of the game was because she loved how colorful the board and the pieces were and wanted to know where she could buy it — knowing nothing of how the game played!

We all know, however, kids who get drawn to the new and flashy are often disinterested in it when the newer and flashier appear for sale.  But the uniqueness of even my minimalist games has enough appeal to keep customers pulling them out to play for years now.  My nieces, for example, have had my games since they came out almost three years ago, and they keep playing Deer Hunter 2050 and 4th Corner.  One 12-year-old girl I played 4th Corner with last year at a game convention got a signed copy of it for her birthday, and in the months since then, she has introduced it to her friends, and she now manages to win even against adults who play lots of games!

If you’re curious of other examples of games with more flash and more fun, check out for flash appeal Last Night on Earth and Dominion, and simple games for enduring fun The A-maze-ing Labyrinth and Taluva.

I am sold on the need for eye-catching art and solid, unique game mechanics.  Our forthcoming game, Star Hopper got a lot of attention on boardgamegeek.com when we posted the colorful game board there, and adults and kids who have played the prototype have declared it one of the funnest games they’ve ever played.

Mark Salzwedel