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!!
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!
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!
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!
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'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.
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