It feels really good to be on the back side of designing a game, putting it up on Kickstarter, navigating the madness of running the campaign, making it through production relatively unscathed, and getting games out to all my backers.  The questions I get most from people is about fulfillment. How did I get games to people all over the world and how did I plan for that?  

Self-publishing a board game is all about logistics and moving stuff around. Fulfillment is the last part of the Kickstarter portion of this process, and it's where project managers fall down the most often. So, I was nervous about how it was going to play out. 

When I was planning the project, I was tempted to fulfill the whole thing myself. There's something kind of "DIY romantic" when I think of inviting all my friends over, providing pizza and going about the merry work of packing boxes and slapping address labels on them. In the end, that seemed like WAY too much work, and I suspected it wasn't nearly as fun as I dreamed it to be. I ended up trying to find a partner that specializes in this. So, after getting a handful of quotes from companies I had heard of (and a little soul searching), I ended up going with Fulfillrite. Why?

Communication
These guys don't mess around.  When you email with a question, they respond very quickly and often follow up with a phone call, if it's a complex issue.

Rates
Fulfillrite has competitive rates including specific Kickstater fulfillment reduced rates.  They're also always looking for opportunities to reduce costs for their customers.  They are able to ship at lower rates with the USPS than I am able to (as a low volume shipper).  So, many times, it was cheaper to have them mail packages for me than for me to do it myself.  Also, in the time I've been using them, their payment fees have actually gone down.  Does that happen? 

Speed  
The team at Fulfillrite got the shipment of Bullfrogs from the port on a Monday.  By the end of Tuesday, all 800+ packages were out the door off to my backers.  It was amazing.  I had games on their way to me in Wisconsin on a separate truck to hand deliver to local backers.  I had backers as far away as the UK and Australia getting their games before I was able to hand a copy to the guy in the neighboring office at my work!

Backerkit Integration
I used Backerkit to manage my backers and pledges. Backerkit integrates directly into the order/shipping system at Fulfillrite. It was amazing simple to use. Group a bunch of backers in backerkit, press the "Send to Fulfillrite" button, and the orders just populate in the Fulfillrite system and the folks at Fulfillrite get to work sending them out the door. This saved me an AMAZING amount of time.

Ease of Use
Fulfillrite has an reaally great web portal that I log into.  I can see my inventory, and I can alert them of incoming shipments, add money for shipping, etc.. Most importantly, add orders on the fly, even after the Kickstarter has been fulfilled.  As I get orders for copies on Amazon.com or ebay, or on my website, I can just add the order on their web portal, and I don't have to worry about it anymore.  My partners over at Fulfillrite take care of it.  

This is especially nice for international orders.  I REALLY dislike filling out international shipping forms.  Bullfrogs had a lot of international backers (especially in France).  I'm so happy I didn't have to fill out all those forms!

If you're running a Kickstarter, figure out who you're going to use for fulfillment early.  Get lots of quotes from different companies with sample quotes going to a lot of different countries.  Shipping is tricky and expensive.  Don't dig yourself into a hole.  The easiest way to avoid falling down is finding good partners.

I'd love to hear about other KS projects completed their fulfillment.  Who did you use (if anyone)?  What was your experience?

Till Next Time

Keith

When establishing the art style of Bullfrogs, I told John I wanted something "colorful, but something that doesn't specifically read as a kid's game."  For the cover, I wanted to see "a strong central figure or 2 in the foreground. Make sure there are some lily pads being fought over."  Check out the various stages of development as the cover artwork for Bullfrogs evolved.

I really enjoyed the back and forth during this process.  It took about 2 weeks go get a finished piece.  John was sending me images daily to start with.  I was always excited to see the latest update.

Till next time.

- Keith

The cards in Bullfrogs are the central component of the game. Players hold them. They play them. They make up the board. They give players points to win. So, yeah. It was kind of important to get them looking good and functioning well. I'm going to step through the various stages of their existence and discuss the changes at each stage. Below is an example of the "2 action" card.

There are 3 important pieces of information on the card. 1) The number of actions. 2) The number of spaces and 3) The color of the card. So, card #1 is what I started with.

After some play testing, I found players didn't like counting up the number of spaces to determine how many points the card was worth at the end of the game. So with #2, I included that number on the bottom portion of the card. I also added a random symbol on the card to help color blind players and also help people see the differences a little easier. I'm up to 4 elements to read/understand on each card.

I playtested with #2's card design for a long time. It's actually the design I released as the print and play version. I still didn't have a theme yet. I was considering keeping it themeless and #3 here is my attempt at making something "cool" yet themeless with various clipart. This version got very little play.  I only have one copy of that version and by the time I went to playtest it, I had decided on the frog theme and had artwork coming in from John Ariosa.

I tested with #4 for quite a while as well. This used John's illustration, but I hadn't signed Luis up to do the graphic design yet.

#5 is the final layout. I worked with Luis Francisco for many weeks to settle on this. The design goals included minimizing the components, maximizing the clarity, and highlighting the illustration as much as possible. Each army's faction symbol, color and the spaces were all combined together into the spaces. The action number is differentiated into a symbol instead of a number, so it wouldn't be confused with the victory point number.  

I think it hits all the goals we set out to accomplish, and Luis did a great job. It's surprising to me that the core design of the cards from day 1 didn't change much by the time we finalized them.

Till next time.

- Keith

So, when I finally decided on a theme for the upcoming Bullfrogs game, I started thinking about art. Should it be more cartoony/stylized?  Should it be more realistic?  Who should the artwork appeal to?  

I collected ideas on the web and found an image that I thought was perfect (left).  Fun and whimsical, but not too "kiddy".  I tried to contact the artist who created it on deviantart.com with no success.

After a few days of thinking, it hit me.  JOHN ARISOSA!  He did some AWESOME work depicting warrior mice and rats for a game (that I highly recommend) called Mice & Mystics.  He did some really cool animals doing battle stuff for Tooth & Nail for Small Box Games.  Look at this stuff!  I would love to work with him!

It seemed like a pipe dream, but what the heck.  I found him on the internet, fired off an email and thought nothing more of it.  I assumed that would be the end of the story.  But, a few days later, I get an enthusiastic response from him.  After lots of back and forth over the next couple weeks, we had a cover for Bullfrogs (below).  I absolutely love it.  I hope you do too. 

Till next time.

Keith

The theme is the "story" of the game.  Theme helps players remember mechanics and helps engage the players in the game experience.

When designing a game, sometimes the designer has a clear theme in mind which helps guide design decisions.  This was not the case for Bullfrogs.  I designed this game entirely without a theme.  

After I got it to a good spot design-wise and was happy with the mechanics, I quickly started trying to figure out what the theme should be.  After each playtest, I asked testers what they “felt” like when they were playing it.  Testers used words like "pop" and "jump" and "attack" when referring to cards and cubes moving around on a table.   I listened closely and started brainstorming.

My requirements: Family friendly, something fairly unique, nothing that screams "kid's game", and something that meshes well with the mechanics of the game.

So, I started tracked all the ideas that I had come up with and testers had provided.  I also solicited the opinions of the design community over at BGG here.  

I got some great suggestions.  From hipsters changing fashions to pirate traffic jams.  In the end, my wife's idea of frogs fighting over lily pads on a pond was the obvious choice.  I think it's a fun theme and I hope players find it entertaining as well.

Try out the Print and Play version of Bullfrogs under the "Games" tab, and imagine one of the other themes on the tracking list linked above.  What would you have picked?

Till next time.

Keith

Hey readers.  So, I decided to start a blog.  I wanted an opportunity to have place to share my thoughts on this new game publishing venture.  Thanks for finding me and thanks for reading.

This all started with a game.  I had been working on a few game designs and had been play testing them over a year or so.  I hoped to publish some day or maybe self-publish, but hadn't really committed to any of it.

I had just gotten home from my usual Tuesday night gaming.  Near the end of the night, I had played a game of Reiner Knizia's Battle line that night with a good friend.   I hadn't played it in a long time and was reminded how cool and simple the gameplay was, while still having interesting decisions.  I has this classic "Play a Card then Draw a Card" mechanic.  It's an older game that I still find really interesting after many many plays.

So, there was a design convention coming up in a few days called protospiel.  It's a great convention for designers to get together and give feedback to each other.  I had purchased tickets for the Milwaukee event and it was a few days till the event, but I hadn't given the convention much thought.

Anyway, playing Battle Line had me thinking about the protospiel event.   I decided I wanted to bring a new design instead of bringing the one I brought last time.  I grabbed a deck of cards and some bits.  Could I come up with something interesting using just cards, a few bits and a simple "play a card / draw a card" mechanic?  I wanted something multiplayer, whereas Battle Line is 2 players only.  I scribbled on some cards and pushed bits things around and in about 30 minutes I had a playable game.  I played it against myself 2-3 times.  It was a game, true.  It didn't seem broken.  Was it fun?  Probably not yet. :)  

I launched straight into play testing mode.  I got a few playtests in the next day, reworked a couple of the main mechanics and then I was off to Protospiel.

I got to protospiel early and it was the first game played that day!

I got lots of great feedback that day from various designers.  I ended up getting it play tested another two more times that day.  I'd recommend protospiel to any designers out there.  It's a great opportunity to get honest feedback from really design-minded folks as well as a cool way to meet other game designers.  

Overall, the feedback was positive.  It wasn't perfect.  There was lots of refining that needed to be done, but the basic idea was there.  People liked it.  For this, I was stoked.

Again, thanks for reading.  Till next time.

Keith