3 ms·

This is neat. I'm curious, how does printing work after the prototyping stage? Would you usually find a publisher, who handles it for you? Are there other tools

This is neat. I'm curious, how does printing work after the prototyping stage? Would you usually find a publisher, who handles it for you? Are there other tools like Squib for making homespun tabletops?

iamdave 9y ago
https://www.denexa.com/ https://www.denexa.com/ Not my company, but one ran by a friend I used to game with in the early 2000's, they print some very high quality cards at a good rate.
joemi 9y ago
How printing goes after prototyping all depends... Some people shop their prototypes to publishers, some get the game to a more advanced state before shopping it to publishers, others self publish, and still others release it as print&play. There are various companies that'll print small runs/single runs of nicer cards (sometimes indistinguishable from "pro" cards), and some of those companies will even manufacture other components too, like boards and gamepieces. I've printed a few print&play games on sites like printerstudio.com and received some really nice cards. It's a bit pricier than you'd want if you were going to get it manufactured for sale, but for a nice copy or two of something you're never really going to get published, it can be worth it. There are other tools for making homespun tabletop games (some of which have been mentioned in other comments here), but Squib is pretty much the best if you want functionality/customizability and can handle doing stuff in Ruby. If I didn't already know it pretty well, I'd probably use the OP's site, though. The main thing you want when prototyping is to iterate a lot, so the easier one of these programs is to use, the better. OP's site, being web-based, is definitely easy... no need to install, works wherever a web browser does (lots of game design programs are Windows only).

3 ms·

This is neat. I'm curious, how does printing work after the prototyping stage? Would you usually find a publisher, who handles it for you? Are there other tools

by michaericalribo 9y ago

iamdave 9y ago
https://www.denexa.com/ https://www.denexa.com/ Not my company, but one ran by a friend I used to game with in the early 2000's, they print some very high quality cards at a good rate.
joemi 9y ago
How printing goes after prototyping all depends... Some people shop their prototypes to publishers, some get the game to a more advanced state before shopping it to publishers, others self publish, and still others release it as print&play. There are various companies that'll print small runs/single runs of nicer cards (sometimes indistinguishable from "pro" cards), and some of those companies will even manufacture other components too, like boards and gamepieces. I've printed a few print&play games on sites like printerstudio.com and received some really nice cards. It's a bit pricier than you'd want if you were going to get it manufactured for sale, but for a nice copy or two of something you're never really going to get published, it can be worth it. There are other tools for making homespun tabletop games (some of which have been mentioned in other comments here), but Squib is pretty much the best if you want functionality/customizability and can handle doing stuff in Ruby. If I didn't already know it pretty well, I'd probably use the OP's site, though. The main thing you want when prototyping is to iterate a lot, so the easier one of these programs is to use, the better. OP's site, being web-based, is definitely easy... no need to install, works wherever a web browser does (lots of game design programs are Windows only).