Done Sticking!

It's finally done! After receiving the stickers for my second print run of Taktika on Tuesday I have been enlisting friends to help me stick stickers on little wooden discs. With each game taking about 12 to 15 minutes to stick, this came out to be about 13 hours of work to produce an initial 60 games. This is still so much easier than the way I had been doing things. The first 60 games that I produced I did all of the work by hand. Here are the steps I used for my first print run.

1) Print stickers onto glossy sticker paper using my Epson stylus photo printer.

2) Run the entire sticker sheet through a cold press laminator.

3) Cut out by hand the stickers. This would normally take about 45 minutes per game.

4) Then stick the freshly cut stickers onto the discs. 12-15 minutes per game.

This was a very tedious way of doing things. However, It was worth all the effort because of the reactions that the quality of the games would get from people. This was a very labor intensive process but it also proved to be fairly inexpensive. The problem is that I was just not able to make enough copies to go through a distributer. At some point I will probably post about how I self published Taktika and some pros and cons of self publishing.

And since I am talking about stickers I'm really impressed with the quality of the stickers that I ordered from Frontier Label. I have also been really pleased with the ease of their ordering process and their customer service. I think that stickers and wood are a very good combination for producing inexpensive game components that really look nice. Now days I'm starting to work production considerations into my game design now that I have a better idea of what it takes to produce a product. But that’s a subject for another post.

Upcoming Taktika Expansions

I apologize to all who have been patiently waiting for me to release an expansion for Taktika. I’ve had several set backs concerning my upcoming expansions. Originally I was going to produce entire new armies that would come in the same size box as the base game. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but I then realized that this would make getting a complete set of the game very expensive. Also, play testing these alternate armies proved to be serious issue. I’m now working on smaller expansions that will just add a couple of new units and a few included scenarios and can fit in a 4” x 6” zip lock bag. I’m currently planning out 3 such expansions.

The expansion I have been play testing recently will come with the Necromancer unit that can move and attack using dead units on the battlefield. This is a Commander unit and is meant to be used in special scenarios that will come with the expansion. I’m trying very hard to introduce new elements to the game without adding to many extra rules or exceptions. Because the rules for Taktika are so tight and every unit has an advantage over another unit these dynamics become easily unbalanced when new units are added. I had originally thought that it would be much easier than it has been to create expansions for the game. However, by introducing new units into the game through special scenarios I can better balance and control the way they interact with the base set.

For my second expansion I’ve been working on an idea for upgrade cards that can be added to existing units to increase their normal abilities. The Longbow upgrade card would be given to Archer units and allows them to use the edge of the card to measure the distance that they must be to the target when attacking. This makes attacking with archers just a little bit easier. So far I have 2 upgrade cards for each of the 3 unit types in the game. In addition to new unit types and upgrade cards I have also been play testing some one-shot power cards that add a little extra spice to the game.

I have most of the art for my first expansion completed, but I still have a few more things that I want to play test before releasing it. I will post more about this over the next couple of weeks.

Taktika at BGG.con

I have been trying very hard to get my second print run of Taktika finished in time to take some to BGG.con. However, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I will be shipping a box of games off to a distributer the week after BGG.con. I will have some copies available at the convention but not as many as I would have liked, perhaps 10 or 15 copies that I will have for sale at the flea market.

I’m uncertain whether or not I will have any expansions ready for the con. I’m still playtesting them and I’m not completely happy yet. I will talk more about Taktika expansions in my next post coming up soon.

First Post.

It’s been over a year since I started Sky Castle Games and I have finally decided to start an official blog about the games I’m working on. In the past I’ve posted on the Flywheel blog, which is the game design group that I’m a proud member of. However, I think having a place to post things that specifically pertain to my company will be good. I will still post from time to time on the Flywheel blog, but I will be posting information that directly concerns Sky Castle Games here. This will include upcoming games, expansions, print runs, progress reports, and anything else I want to discuss. So that’s it for the first post.