Monday, November 28, 2022

Titanomachina: Possible Production Plan

While I produce (design, develop, run demos, etc) Titanomachina as a hobby, part of that hobby is making sure I can pivot to production. Currently that production would need to be boutique, priced-at-cost, and preferably from the same people I've sourced parts of the prototypes because they've earned my repeat business with their professional behaviour and patience with me (BoardGamesMaker.com). So far I can source from the following: 

Two-Player starter box:
  • 48 board tiles (25 road-roundabout tiles, 12 bend-junction tiles, 11 foundation tiles. 
  • 50 coloured dice (25 per player)
  • 2 plastic standees with stickers
  • 55 cards including two complete Titan decks (reaper-configurations) including 12 weapons, 2 personalities, and double-sided dashboard cards. 
  • 30 Bingo Tokens (10 per player with 5 spare each)
  • White Board Marker (Dry-erase marker)
  • Rules booklet (24 pages A5-size)
  • Box (9.5"x9.5"x2") 

The box may need to be slightly different proportions, likewise the rules booklet. It's unclear whether the players will need covers for their dashboard cards, although perhaps not with plastic cards? But, I need something for the Titan figurines. One part of me wants to license out the production of miniatures to one of the 3D Printing houses out there producing 3D printed products. First though, I need something to put in the box, and probably something that is perfectly good for the task but improvable. I'm considering finding some 2" meeples. I already got some a while ago, but I haven't been confident of pulling them out to play with people when I have these lovely miniatures to whom I am emotionally attached. I think they would need stickers to help players remember which side is the front and where are the weapons. That would be five stickers per Titan as well as each meeple which I've sourced at $4.25USD at retail, but not at my preferred vendor (although I suppose I could ask). Making those stickers may require paying an artist...

On the other hand, I do believe that all that can be done for under $100CAD per box. That's a pretty expensive proposition for many people, I think, especially when you think of the amount of components. However, the set would have several features that would make their value additive, so that buying extra sets would be good: It's within the budget to produce two boxes, one with each set of Titans, essentially costing the same to produce at a box with just one set. Players can add like with like boxes together for 2-on-2 games, and with antagonist boxes for the full free-for-all four. Which means I could produce a third box, with the expanded cards for regent and raptor configurations, system cards and dashboards, two more personalities, and perhaps utility buildings, finials, and extra tiles? But the value in being able to expand the experience with players as you expand the number of boxes involve means you can scale up to 6 players. 

Certainly I've love to cough up for extra personality cards beyond 6, and maybe buy some new art (at around 200 euros per to match the art...), but in the meantime this is something I could produce so that people could try the game. Because that is what people want to do, they buy games. You could play a game all day, but at the end of the day people want to own a game as well as play it. That's kind of why Titanomachina exists because I wanted to create a game that I really enjoyed and that also was mine to collect, expand, and describe in fan-fiction. If other people treat it like a palimpsest and imagine their own stories for it, all the better. But I do want to share this with other people, because I think there are people that would really like it. 

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