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The Game Crafter- CafePress for Boardgames
- cesare 17y agoPretty cool idea. Even just to create a game for yourself for playing with friends. The website is a bit limited, though. The games pages should have at least a picture of the board and a description of the included parts.
- scapegraced 17y agoWell, it seems that it's only in beta, so hopefully we'll see more improvements later.
- replicatorblog 17y agoTotally agree, when you are selling pre-manufactured products it is even more important than usual to nail down the aesthetics and provide clear product previews. Amazon can skate with small, not so great product images because people trust the brands, but with this kind of Mass Customization visualization is key.
- limmeau 17y agoI'd also love to see a comment section and/or links to boardgamegeek so that I can quickly get the opinion of people who have played it.
- thorax 17y agoJust reading the title of this post made me swoon a little bit. My friends and I make all sorts of games like this and this is exactly the sort of site I need to kill all my productivity. Looks awesome, I'm going to look deeper now.
- froo 17y agoSame, I've always wanted to make a dungeon crawler/adventure style game similar to the old Warhammer Quest (for personal use that is) This might help push me closer to that goal, since my homemade cards don't have the polish as those printed on better quality stock.
- robotron 17y agoGame publishing on-demand. I like it. Music, books, what's next?
- slmbrhrt 17y agoThis is a fantastic idea. I've got a few board games in the works, and this would be a great way to get some decent prototypes made up for cheap. No more sharpies and white hankies for me!
- pchristensen 17y agoJust a plug for people interested in game design, I have a shared blog about making games: http://hackersandgamers.posterous.com/ http://hackersandgamers.posterous.com/ Email me if you'd like to contribute.
- nopassrecover 17y agoInteresting stuff here (even for applying to PC games). Thanks!
- GavinB 17y agoThe game pieces are fairly generic, so it looks like the best games for this would be heavily card or board based. You can control the art there, so it wouldn't look generic. The real key here is the ability to print custom card decks. Most of the rest of it could be replicated on your own without too much difficulty.
- replicatorblog 17y agoVery true, though if they up the ability to customize the pieces using custom manufacturing tech that will give them a strong point of differentiation. It is a great product category to start with.
- bprater 17y agoAmbitious!
- JoelSutherland 17y agoI'm not sure how I feel about their pricing: The profit is split between you and The Game Crafter equally (50% each). I would rather have this priced in to their production costs.
- catone 17y agoI was really excited when I saw this headline stream by on my HN RSS feed. That pricing gives me pause as well, but only slightly. What really matters to me is how the licensing is handled. I.e., as long as I own full rights and can pull my game out of their system whenever I want (i.e., if I find that my game is popular enough that I think I can self publish or if I find an established company that wants to buy it), then I don't really mind that they take such a large %. It's still a cheap way to prototype and sell to real game players to get feedback. :) Anyway, this sounds awesome, but now it means less sleep for the next couple of weeks while I pull all those random scraps of paper that make up my game ideas into something more formal. ;)
- cdr 17y agoNot hard to find: http://www.thegamecrafter.com/publish/rights http://www.thegamecrafter.com/publish/rights
- netsp 17y agoBasically the answer is yes (explicitly), you retain rights. Yes (explicitly), you can use the service for prototyping and yes, it is possible start with them and move some place cheaper once it makes financial sense.
- cesare 17y agoAgree. Keeping the rights, having full control on publishing/unpublishing your stuff, and non-exclusivity are the three most important requirements when using these kind of services. Any of these services (with the requirements stated above) is just another outlet - another opportunity to reach more people - and there's no reason not to join.
- 17y ago
- ja27 17y agoI'm trying to find something more meaningful to say than just "neat" or "awesome", which this is. So what other niches could somebody do this in? Where else are there frustrated amateur designers that would love to see their creations professionally produced (and sold)? We already have design-your-own shops for books, CDs, DVDs, tshirts, skateboard decks, Lego sets, circuit boards, bobbleheads, metal machining, ... What's left? Textiles? Clothing? Food? Wallpaper?
- replicatorblog 17y agoThere are actually companies doing customization in all the niches you mentioned: 1. Textiles: http://www.spoonflower.com http://www.spoonflower.com 2. Clothing: http://www.spreadshirt.com http://www.spreadshirt.com 3. Food: http://www.mixmygranola.com http://www.mixmygranola.com 4. Wallpaper: http://www.nakedandangry.com http://www.nakedandangry.com (not true customization, more crowdsourced) Still tons of room for innovation though.
- alex_c 17y agoCars? At least the body design, even if they're built on common platforms.
- replicatorblog 17y agoCars too, a start up called Local Motors (http://www.local-motors.com http://www.local-motors.com) is trying to do a custom/crowdsourced car company. I think it is more conceptual at this point though. The capital requirements are crazy and I think we'll see more innovation in this area from companies like Toyota.
- vaksel 17y agopretty damn cool, all this guys need is a single home run, that would get talked about in the press and this thing will take off like a rocket ship.
- replicatorblog 17y agoI agree, the whole "Web meets world" concept is simmering and ready to boil. There are a lot of technologies (Laser cutters, CNC mills, 3D Printers, and POD) when combined with cool, web based design tools will enable people to make objects as easily as blogs. Services like Shapeways and Ponoko are starting to do this, but I think it is going to be companies focused on specific product categories who drive it to the mainstream.
- dave_au 17y agoI just checked http://www.boardgamegeek.com http://www.boardgamegeek.com to see if it was mentioned there. It was, and it was compared to http://www.superiorpod.com/ http://www.superiorpod.com/ and http://www.guildofblades.com/ http://www.guildofblades.com/, in case anyone was looking to compare alternatives. Discussion was here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/424272 http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/424272 and here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/424309 http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/424309 Also, for those that don't know, boardgamegeek is an awesome resource for board game information.
- froo 17y ago"Also, for those that don't know, boardgamegeek is an awesome resource for board game information." Just wanted to highlight that for anyone who didn't see it. BGG got me playing games like Descent (despite it's horrendous pricing when you factor in the price of all of the expansions... 4!) and Catan and I've never looked back, thoroughly enjoyed the social aspect of it.
- replicatorblog 17y agoIt is pretty neat. This is actually an area where 3D printing could be fairly useful. You could design custom or choose components or choose pre-designed ones from a catalog and have them printed in plastic or metal. They would still be fairly expensive, but if you are going for a family heirloom it might be worth the cost. You could also do quite a bit with higher end boards, laser cutting woods and plastics.
- Zaak 17y ago3D printed game bits was the first thing I thought of when I started looking at their site. I would love to see them offer that in the future.
- replicatorblog 17y agoThis post generated a lot of points pretty quickly. Is anyone interested in working on a startup in this area? If so, feel free to get in touch via the info on my profile. My blog: http://www.replicatorinc.com http://www.replicatorinc.com focuses on this kind of mass customization / personal fabrication. I also have a ton of ideas/prototypes for companies utilizing these technologies that I'd love to share. Also from: http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html 27. Hardware/software hybrids. Most hackers find hardware projects alarming. You have to deal with messy, expensive physical stuff. But Meraki shows what you can do if you're willing to venture even a little way into hardware. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in hardware; you can often do dramatically new things by making comparatively small tweaks to existing stuff.
- pg 17y agoIf you do decide to start a startup we'd be happy to hear from you (http://news.ycombinator.com/apply http://news.ycombinator.com/apply).
- froo 17y ago"you can often do dramatically new things by making comparatively small tweaks to existing stuff." Interesting now that you've mentioned that with respect to boardgames. That kind of thinking really worked for Fantasy Flight Games who took a simple gaming mechanic they developed for one game and replicated it for many subsequent products and all of these games are always entertaining. They now do lots of licensing deals to make boardgames out of some very hot brands, some of which are quite entertaining.
- GavinB 17y agoI think I'll make a board game version of twitter. You compete to get the most followers, to get replied to by major bloggers, to get retweeted, and mentioned in the news. The ultimate winner is the first to get a million followers. Who's in?
- vyrotek 17y agoI think Ill make a similar game except the idea will be to create a bunch of fake accounts, get a lot of followers and spam marketing links everywhere.
- jkincaid 17y agoJust wrote about this on TC, I think it's a great idea. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/16/awesome-the-game-crafter-lets-you-build-and-sell-your-own-custom-board-games/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/16/awesome-the-game-crafte... To give credit where credit is due, I found it here. Would link to this thread but there's the whole HN secrecy thing (is that still enforced?). Feel free to bash TC below :)
- mattmaroon 17y agoOne step closer to being able to produce my game, Settlers of Canton.
- TrevorJ 17y agoThis seems really great, however, the TINY resolution requirement for the box art makes me wonder how good the quality will be printed out.