The Making of OH NO! There Goes Tokyo! (Part Four)

 This is the final installment about how I created the board game Oh No! There Goes Tokyo!

 Game Update #25: I received three boxes of boxes from Panda Manufacturing. Inside were 30 boxes, tuck boxes and token sheets. There's nothing like seeing the final box in person!!!

The box and its contents didn't just magically appear. It was the result of correspondence between myself and Panda Manufacturing. I worked with Tyler and once he had the files and knew what I wanted, he sent me images of the components for me to review. I've never shown these publicly, because I wanted them (like the Thank You and the squashed Scott image) to be a surprise!

Game Update #26: Rulebook!

 

I posted the in-progress rule book on my Facebook page and was immediately swamped with suggestions, corrections and feedback. Thanks to everyone's feedback, the rule book was corrected, updated and sent to the printer. Once it has been printed, then all the components will be complete and the game will be ready for shipping! Exciting!!

 

The final rule book will be posted on the BGG site.

 

Game Update #27: The Home Stretch!

 

Firstly, a HUGE stack of boxes appeared on my doorstep last week, and inside those boxes were more beautiful boxes... and token coins! Each box was individually wrapped for safety, but as they were missing most of the game components inside, so I had to open each one up in other to assemble them!

The assembly process! First came the components - the custom building cubes and meeples were all sorted and bagged. There should be 80 cubes and 12 meeples in each box That times 30 is... well, math was never my best subject. Let's just say there were a lot of them! (I should know, I double counted each one!) 

I also discovered a mistake when I received the cards from Printerstudio.com. A purple insurance card was labeled "blue". I printed up replacement cards and considered just including it with instructions on which card to replace... but you know what? It was too much effort to do. And besides, it was cathartic to tear up the offending error card and replace it with the correct one! 

 

All of those cards, including the brand-new Big Al Big Ten Point card (the card to give you something to spend your cash on late in the game) were packed up into a ziploc baggie.

 

Now for the star of the game! Each windup Kaiju was hand-tested to make sure they worked (there were a few that didn't make the cut!) and packed away in its special crate. Its foam-packing should keep them extra-safe during transport!

 

 

This week, the last component arrived from my friends at Print & Play Admagic - the rule book! It turned out great and fit right inside the box!

 

All the components were assembled into the box (you can also use the below image as a guide to help you repack your game!) and were ready for shipping!

 

 

Game update #28: Shipping day! 

 

Packing up thirty board game for shipping is a time consuming process. I spent most of the day first boxing them all and then taking them to my local post office.

 

When I arrived at the post office, I realized that the cost of shipping had gone up. I originally priced it at $17.70 for a pre-paid mailer and when I got to the post office, I saw that it had gone up to $19.50! Ugh. Now I know why everyone always says that shipping is the most troublesome part of doing one of these projects.

Because of the price difference, I reached out to all of the customers who lived in Los Angeles to see if it was OK for me to delivery the game in person. Fortunately, most of them agreed!
 

Game update #29: First delivery!! 

 

Congrats to Colleen for being my first local pickup and for supporting my crazy game efforts!! Soon I was delivering games all over town. The First To Play LA playtesting event allowed me to deliver several customers at once.

Soon, photos were coming in from other customers online! It's a great feeling seeing so many people so excited about receiving the game!

Thanks again for everyone who backed the game! I couldn't have done it without you!

Post-Mortum: There were several lessons that I learned over the course of this project that will help me make better game productions in the future:

1. Start with plenty of options. While "Make a game with a windup monster" give me a direction, it wasn't until I explored all the options for game play. While I ended up going with my first idea, it was good to explore and get those other ones out of my system. Also, testing all of the different components (blocks vs. dice) helped steer me in the right direction on what to use for the game.

2. Don't be so hasty. Having to redo the map was a big hit to the budget, as was having to re-print or print new cards. For the map, I should have explored and understood all of the options the printer had first. As for the cards, I was in a hurry to finish them and as a result, missed the "blue/purple" typo.

3. Don't rely on the internet for information. My research online had indicated that the colors I picked were all color-blind friendly. However, real-world testing proved otherwise and one of the colors (Teal) couldn't be distinguished by a color blind player. From now on, I test these things in the real world first before committing to them.

4. Don't hand-do everything. I originally was going to hand-write the rule book, which would have been an extremely time consuming process. In fact, I was daunted by the prospect that it slowed me down for a week or two. It was when I found a similar font that I was re-energized to finish the rule book.

 

5. When in doubt, crowdsource. One of the better decisions was to put the rule book in front of my social network. They jumped right to it, pointing out errors and providing invaluable feedback.

6. Be mindful of oversea interactions. A big slow down was dealing with an overseas printer. One day is really two (or three) when it comes to communication. And even though I tried to avoid it, I was hit by the "National Day" week slow down that China experiences in October right when I was in the heat of talking with the printer.

7. I still have to learn how to stay on budget. I was doing pretty good with my budget until I realized I had to redo the maps. Then I got temped to "plus up" the box, tuck box and tokens. And finally, the unexpected change in shipping costs caused this project to end up in the red by about $400 overall. Next time, I will do more comparison shopping between printers to help bring costs down.

 

Despite some of these mistakes, I'm very proud of Oh No! There Goes Tokyo! I am planning on pitching it to publishers at the upcoming GAMA trade show. Whatever the commercial version ends up being, I will make sure that this bespoke version will be different enough to keep the original run unique. 

Be sure to stay in touch for when I announce the next game project around February of 2025!

 

The making of OH NO! There goes Tokyo! (part three)

 Continuing with the updates:

Game Update 17: I would have liked to have had made custom wind-up monsters for the game, but manufacturing plastic toys "from scratch" is extremely expensive. It runs in the thousands of dollars not counting paying someone to model and engineer a custom figure. Maybe for the big commercial release.

In the meantime, I find that it's far better to modify an existing toy. 

 

 

I've grown fond of the sleepy-eyed Kaiju on my card drawings; he makes me laugh. He seems like he's bored with all of the devastation he's causing. I wanted to capture that vibe on the little windup guy.

To do that, I had to erase the existing eyes with nail polish remover, draw lots of eyes onto stickers, cut them out and stick them onto the monsters, then color them to match the different kaijus.

 

 

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention there are three different colors of Kaiju, one of which you will get randomly; so please don't make requests for a specific color.

 

Overall I like how the monsters turned out, I hope you like them too!

 

Game Update 18: Cubes!!

 

 Just like with Escape from Rotter Mansion, I wanted to have a factory-made component for Oh No! There Goes Tokyo! The game will actually have more than one special component, but more on that later. 

 

 

When I first came up with the idea of the cube buildings as the main mechanism of the game, I wanted them to be a little more special than just "standard" plastic or wooden cubes, but I didn't want them to be a unique shape that might interfere with the tricky balance of making the buildings. The image on the left is a PhotoShopped image that I sent to the printer for reference.

 

I created an illustrator file of a little window and reached out to my friends at Panda Game Manufacturing to see if they could print on something as small as a 10mm cube. 

 

To my delight, they could!

 

 

Today, I received a mysterious box which was filled to the brim with thousands of tiny little building cubes - all awaiting separation and inclusion in each individual final copy of the game! 

 

The final version of the game will come with 80 wooden building cubes with itty-bitty little windows printed on them for our Kaiju to knock over!

I'm so excited to have another component complete!

 

Game Update #19: Maps!

 

I have been play testing the cloth maps for awhile and was quite happy with them. They were easily folded in the box, and they could be ironed out easily to become flat again, but I was always disappointed in the frayed hem of the map. I thought it looked sloppy. And once, the loose threads actually interfered with game play during a play test! 

I tried using a liquid hem treatment on the edges, but I didn't like how it looked. However, as I had already bought all of the maps for the game, I thought that ship had sailed.

 

Then, after I had adjusted the prices of the rent costs, a play tester suggested that I put those amounts on the map, to make the rent calculations easier for the players. It was a really good idea. I considered hand drawing the numbers on the map, but I was worried that the ink would bleed.

 

It was enough of a reason to reprint the maps at Contrado.com (Don't worry, It won't add any additional cost to the game.) with the rent numbers on them, but it also gave me an opportunity to have the edges of the map hemmed! 

The maps now have a tidy edge which also helps weigh down and steady the map a little more. The maps also have the rent numbers. While the overall map is a little smaller than the original, I am quite pleased with how they turned out.

Game Update #20: Speaking of Cards and Cubes...

This happy fellow is Big Al. He runs Tokyo's #1 insurance and discount sushi business. He is happy to sell you sushi at a low price and insurance at a high price!

Designer's note: I wanted a character to represent the market but I didn't want to perpetuate a stereotype or be disrespectful. So I cast my favorite "that guy" actor - Al Leong - in the part of Big Al.

You might recognize Al from such films like Big Trouble in Little China, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure or Die Hard. I actually interview him once in the 90's for a book that I never finished writing.

Al is actually a Chinese-American, but in our game, his character has immigrated to Japan and runs a very successful business. You could say he's cornered the market!

Speaking of the market, an ongoing issue was that the market sometimes got jammed with undesirable cards. I received lots of feedback that players wanted a way to "clear" the market to refresh the available cards. This was especially important for players who were color property and sushi set collectors.

I considered many different options - players could pay to clear it (I wanted them to use the money toward building and buying instead), they could clear it if all the other players agreed (a little too friendly for a competitive game and it could be easily abused), or players could recycle a property or insurance card (put it back into the deck) to clear out the market. I didn't really like any of those ideas.

So instead, players will have a new one-time use card called "Earthquake!" Earthquake! clears the insurance/sushi market or the property market, then five new cards are dealt and the old cards are reshuffled back into the deck. I think it will resolve the problem nicely and I like that it gives the player one more choice during the game.

As you can see, I've been working hard on the fronts and backs of the cards. I hope you like my art style 'cause that's what you're getting! Making cards is a laborious process. Scanning, clean-up, color correcting, resizing, sometimes slicing the art up into new pieces or creating layers so art can be reused. But in the end, all of that effort will be worth it. It's good to have clean and organized files to send to the printer.

Speaking of printers, as I reported last time, the cubes are in! I spent most of the day separating the cubes out into individual packages to be included into the game. There were so many left-over plastic bags!! Every game will have 20 cubes per player - 80 cubes in a game! They will come their own larger plastic bag.

GAME UPDATE 21: Not Final.

 

GAME UPDATE 22:

Production on the box and related products are slow going. Not due to anyone's fault other than my own. Getting materials to the printer (Panda, who have been nothing short of awesome), the lag of communication time between China and the US... But trust me, I think the end result will be worth the effort. I've included a few images that will give you some clues to what I'm creating for you.

I've play tested the game many times at different player counts (at Geeky Teas & Games) and everyone has been really enjoying playing. I love sharing videos of players yelling at the Kaiju for not doing what they want it too. (It is a "he" or a "she" or a "they"?) 

 

 

And because I am crazy, I want to write the rules out "long hand" to match the cards. I'm trying to figure out what is the best way to do this. I might have to create a font out of my own handwriting. 

 

 
This is turning out to be more complicated that I first thought it would be!

 

I also playtested “Oh No! There goes Tokyo!” with my family. 

 

 

They helped me solve a late-game issue that I was puzzling over!

 

 

Game Update 23: Slow downs and mistakes

 

 The second-to-last set of game components—boxes and yen tokens—are finally ready to be printed by Panda Manufacturing. There were some delays as we went back and forth on the box size and completed the usual process of approving the artwork for printing. I had to re-scale the art a few times to ensure everything fit properly.

 
Then, the printer realized one of the components wouldn’t fit in the box, so I had to resize the box again to accommodate it. On top of that, the Golden Week holiday in China caused further delays. Otherwise, everything would have been printed and shipped by now.

 

I went to the bank to send the wire transfer payment to the printer. It was the largest amount I've ever sent to anyone (not counting buying my house or a car) It made me feel like a real publisher!

 

 I'm currently working on the rules now that they are finalized. I'm going slowly on writing the rule book because I don't want to make a mistake!

This has definitely been a learning experience. One big lesson: printing in China takes much longer than expected. I had hoped everything would be finished and shipped by now, but delays happen.

Another common challenge in publishing is cost overruns. Unfortunately for me, I’ll be selling this game at a loss. I’m not asking for additional funding—this was my mistake, and you’ll still get the game for what you paid.

One of my mistakes was printing the map without an edged finish. While the game will include a hemmed-edge map, I now have 30 un-hemmed cloth Tokyo maps that I won’t be using.

 

GAME UPDATE 24: Apologies for the delay in updates. Things have been moving slowly but in a positive direction. Panda sent me the test-shots of the boxes that have been made and production has started. I can't wait for you to see these in person!

 

In another thread, people responded positively to images of a prototype that I'm working on, so I thought I'd share the progression of an element from Oh No! There Goes Tokyo! - The Map.

 

0. First I drew out the map and playtested the game on it, making sure all the information was important to the game and that the size worked and the monster could walk on it without getting caught on folds. I eventually went with cloth because it was a nicer quality than a paper map (which also is harder to iron to flatten back out)

 

1. A traced map of the suburbs of Tokyo called wards. It's not quite to scale, but still accurate in it's simplified way. This is scanned into the computer.

 

2. The wards are digitally painted in color-blind friendly colors.* The wards are labeled with their names and the rampage spots, which were determined after hundred tests of the windup monster, are placed onto the map. 

 

3. The third is a digital version of the above map. Text is cleaned up and the rampage spots are recreated. You'll notice tape on all of these paper maps - rather than be limited by the size of the page, I extended it to accommodate players placing their building on the map and the movement of the monster.

 

 

4. You can't tell in this photo, but the version of the map is mounted on a stiff cardboard to keep it from folding or wrinkling. However, it wouldn't fit into the size box I wanted, so I had to find another solution.

5. The first cloth map. I've already detailed about how I decided to redo them because I didn't like the threading and the solutions I tried didn't work out.

 

 

6. The final cloth map. Stitched edges, rent prices on the wards. Chef's Kiss. I hope you like them as much as I do.

 

Hopefully soon, more pictures from the printer!

 

* I've had one player not be able to distinguish teal from blue on the map. I apologize to my color-blind players, but that ship has sailed.