Little Blocks of Loveliness

Just look at this....

 Do you know what this is???

One hundred little wooden blocks that's what it is! Isn't that a thing of loveliness?

Here's the thing, To stop Marooned (insert alternative title here) from becoming just a bunch of odd wooden blocks in the back of the cupboard of what might have been I need to do something about it. A game is not a game unless people are playing it yep?

But apparently it's not as easy as ringing up Mr Monopoly and saying, 'Hey mate, I want you to publish my game for me and give me oodles of money for the privilege.' Games companies want things called demo versions and the right to say no! How very rude.

They also prefer it if you have some kind of interest in your game from the games community before you even approach them! I mean really! They'll be asking if the games any good next! Cheek!

So like you do i had a little look around on the interweb to see how people go about getting their game noticed... the answer seems to be, 'With a lot of hard work', but there are a few things that nearly every indie board game inventor has done to get his/herself noticed but the powers that be... one of the best ones is, self publish and be damned! If you are a poet or first time novelist that is now quite simple to do but because a board game is such a mix of disparate parts some of which might have to be hand crafted in the first instance this can be a bit of a big hill to start climbing let me give you an example as to why...

They say that you should produce 500-1000 copies of your game to begin with, some to send out free to reviewers and 'Alpha' gamers, the rest to haul around trade shows and sell and/or sell from a website. this should start getting enough buzz going about your game (assuming it's any good) to get you a better foot in the door with any games companies you may approach after that.

Each Player in Marooned (sic) has at his/her disposal ten blocks (8 movement blocks, an 'In' Block and an 'Out' Block) so in a two player set that makes 20 blocks (can you see where this is going?). To produce just a basic 2 player version as a demo I have to source up to 20,000 little wooden cubes! That's the first picture times 200 to my limited maths... that's a lot of bloody blocks!

And they aren't really off the peg items... have a look around the web... see what you can price these buggers up for... I looked on CraftShapes.co.uk and found a set of five 1 1/2 inch blocks at £3.53! that's an outlay of £70,600 to make the demo set... GULP!

Ok so I didn't get my cubes from there... I'm not so daft.

I got them from a local timber merchant who will cut to size any bit of wood and liked the challenge of doing the cubes for me 100 cost £7.00 (Much better) but to get to the 1000 demo sets would still take £1,400 just for the blocks alone so I think this will have to be done piecemeal. A little at a time and perhaps (certainly for a web order) Produce on demand.

Did that scare you a bit? It did me... here have a picture of the lovely blocks again to calm you down.

...look they've got a little old style one on top... how cute!

Old style? Oh yes! the new Marooned will look differenter to the old one my hearties... more of that later!


IH OUT