3 things I’ve learned when I published my first card game
This is not the story of a successful card game but more of the things I learned along the journey.
Because for every successful story, there are many failures… and still they went through lessons learned and things to remember.
Let your passion fuel you
I love board games even as an adult and loved the idea of creating something of my own, a game for kids maybe, some simple puzzle of a game that would interest families.
Even a simple project like this involved the following:
Iterate the rules of the game, prototype and test.
Create the artwork.
Manage the crowdfunding campaign.
Organize the printrun of the game with a printing company.
Organize the shipment of the games.
Contact publishers and pitch the game at conventions.
When I started the project I was only moved by the idea of putting my game in the hands of fellow players.
I’d love to have a teaching moment here, where I write to plan better and think of all the activities that will be involved with a high level of granularity.
But the truth is that 99% of passion projects would die before starting if all the consequences of the initial idea are taken into account already at the beginning.
If it’s your passion and you feel strongly about it, just consider roughly the budget but then just start creating and follow the energy that the first results will give you to face the coming challenges.
But there’s no need of doing it alone!
Don’t do it alone
Luckily for each of the above items, there was someone that was there to help.
My family and friends helped out with at least a basic testing of the rules.
A couple of awesome friends helped me out with the artwork.
The community helped for little to no money with setting up the crowdfunding campaign (thanks Iraklis of Ludicreations).
And last but not the least a big help from my brother, sister and wife who were there with me at the board game convention in Essen (Germany) to give visibility to the game in a booth.
The journey is full of challenges and having someone with more experience or simply with some time at your disposal makes all the difference in not going crazy.
At the end of it, sit down and think
The game wasn’t a success. So was it worth it or did I waste my time?
Looking back, it was indeed worth it, but not for the reasons I expected at the beginning.
It was a complex experience.
It was some real pain seeing the game being refused by all publishers.
I still hold the most positive note from Schmidt and it simply states “it is ok, but not enough engaging to warrant a next step”.
But there were so many good memories that risk getting buried by the failure.
I don’t want to forget the joy of inventing the game, the laughs shared at the game fair with my closest people, the intensity of seeing people I don’t know, pledge a little money on a crowdfunding platform to see the game published.
And most of all sitting with young and adults at the booth in Essen, to explain the game and play with them something that I had created.
Here’s the link to the game page on boardgamegeek.
And if you’re interested in getting a copy, ping me on Twitter and I’ll try to ship it to you at no cost.
