The holiday season begins! Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.
It's been quiet lately for Manaforge. The only news since my last update is more quotes. I've contacted a total of eleven companies for quotes for the production of Manaforge. Out of those, I've gotten quote numbers from nine of them.
My original goal for Manaforge was to get the production cost per game to less than $10. That way, using the 'times five' rule for board games, I can reasonably ask for the retail price to be $50. For my first Kickstarter launch, the per-unit game price worked out to $10.86, for a batch of 1000 games. Looking at some of the quote numbers I'm getting back, while I don't think I'll get to below $10, I think I can get pretty close. It looks like I'll be able to get a per-unit price of roughly $10.20, give or take a few pennies, which means I'll be saving about 60 cents per game, or about $600 off of the funding goal for my relaunch.
It's interesting to see the range of numbers coming back from the production companies. Most of the prices have been larger, some significantly so. (A couple of those have included prices for freight shipping, which I'd prefer to handle separately, or at least have separated out so I can select the best price.) A couple of the price quotes have been smaller than the one from the company I'm considering using. However, those are coming from lesser-known companies, where I don't have good examples of their component quality. (Caveat Emptor and all that.) In all, the current leader has a reasonable price and well-known quality. I'm still getting a couple more quotes back, so I haven't chosen for sure, but there is definitely a clear current winner.
Not much else going on at the moment. I still have a promising company to do fulfillment and some possibilities for freight shipping. The artwork is still ongoing, but running slowly due to lack of funds. (Hopefully that will be fixed soon.)
I'm currently accumulating a list of various board game reviewers, bloggers, and streamers. My intent is to start sending emails out when I get closer to launch, see who would be interested in posting some information about Manaforge and help get attention for it. I will be printing up another batch of prototype copies to send out for review, though I expect that I won't be able to make as many as I will need. I'm hoping some of the reviewers will be able to get a favorable impression of the game from playing it online. If anyone has a favorite reviewer or list of reviewers, send me an email! I need to get as many names as possible.
Speaking of online, I've updated the version of Manaforge on Tabletopia with some new artwork and some minor rules tweaks. If you haven't played it already, please check it out:
https://beta.tabletopia.com/play/manaforge-yfi2pw
And one more piece of news: There is currently an unofficial contest warming up on the BoardGameGeek website. The contest is to select the "Most Anticipated Game of 2017". Manaforge is on the list, but needs a lot more votes. As of this writing, the content is in the 'nomination' phase, basically the first selection round. Only the 50 games with the most nomination votes will be considered for the final selection. So, I need help getting Manaforge past the first round. If you are a member of BoardGameGeek, please click through the following link, and give Manaforge a thumbs-up. Each click on the green button counts as one nomination vote. Help get us into the running! (Even if Manaforge doesn't win, just surviving the nomination round will help to get us noticed.)
It's been quiet lately for Manaforge. The only news since my last update is more quotes. I've contacted a total of eleven companies for quotes for the production of Manaforge. Out of those, I've gotten quote numbers from nine of them.
My original goal for Manaforge was to get the production cost per game to less than $10. That way, using the 'times five' rule for board games, I can reasonably ask for the retail price to be $50. For my first Kickstarter launch, the per-unit game price worked out to $10.86, for a batch of 1000 games. Looking at some of the quote numbers I'm getting back, while I don't think I'll get to below $10, I think I can get pretty close. It looks like I'll be able to get a per-unit price of roughly $10.20, give or take a few pennies, which means I'll be saving about 60 cents per game, or about $600 off of the funding goal for my relaunch.
It's interesting to see the range of numbers coming back from the production companies. Most of the prices have been larger, some significantly so. (A couple of those have included prices for freight shipping, which I'd prefer to handle separately, or at least have separated out so I can select the best price.) A couple of the price quotes have been smaller than the one from the company I'm considering using. However, those are coming from lesser-known companies, where I don't have good examples of their component quality. (Caveat Emptor and all that.) In all, the current leader has a reasonable price and well-known quality. I'm still getting a couple more quotes back, so I haven't chosen for sure, but there is definitely a clear current winner.
Not much else going on at the moment. I still have a promising company to do fulfillment and some possibilities for freight shipping. The artwork is still ongoing, but running slowly due to lack of funds. (Hopefully that will be fixed soon.)
I'm currently accumulating a list of various board game reviewers, bloggers, and streamers. My intent is to start sending emails out when I get closer to launch, see who would be interested in posting some information about Manaforge and help get attention for it. I will be printing up another batch of prototype copies to send out for review, though I expect that I won't be able to make as many as I will need. I'm hoping some of the reviewers will be able to get a favorable impression of the game from playing it online. If anyone has a favorite reviewer or list of reviewers, send me an email! I need to get as many names as possible.
Speaking of online, I've updated the version of Manaforge on Tabletopia with some new artwork and some minor rules tweaks. If you haven't played it already, please check it out:
https://beta.tabletopia.com/play/manaforge-yfi2pw
And one more piece of news: There is currently an unofficial contest warming up on the BoardGameGeek website. The contest is to select the "Most Anticipated Game of 2017". Manaforge is on the list, but needs a lot more votes. As of this writing, the content is in the 'nomination' phase, basically the first selection round. Only the 50 games with the most nomination votes will be considered for the final selection. So, I need help getting Manaforge past the first round. If you are a member of BoardGameGeek, please click through the following link, and give Manaforge a thumbs-up. Each click on the green button counts as one nomination vote. Help get us into the running! (Even if Manaforge doesn't win, just surviving the nomination round will help to get us noticed.)
Thanks everyone!
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