Re: Publishing a piecepack, feedback needed

["Clark D. Rodeffer" <cdrodeffer@...>]

Stuart,

First off, these are just my suggestions, so feel free to ignore them
completely if you like. The piecepack is a public domain system, and
you should feel free to make yours any way you choose. But since you
asked....

On the whole, I think the sample graphics look pretty good. It's hard
to tell from your digital photos, but the arms suit icons and the ace
coin swirls could probably use a little thickening to make them more
visually compatible with the icons for the other suits. The lower
tails on the arms tile look a bit washed out, but that could just be
the JPG imaging. On the other hand, the moons icon looks somewhat
oversized.

Also, the font chosen for your numbered tiles (AmerType?) doesn't
quite fit the mood suggested by your color choices and the shapes of
your suit icons. Something bolder, simpler and less swoopy would be
better (perhaps Arial/Helvetica Rounded Bold, Cooper Black or Goudy
Heavyface?). The dice and pawns look fine, but I can't comment on the
numbered coins since there aren't any in the two photos you posted. Do
you have a high-resolution photo or a PDF of the graphics available
for review?

> Would you buy this piecepack?
> How much would you pay?

These two go pretty much hand-in-hand and depend upon the materials
used. If the tiles are just stickers on heavy cardstock, I would
probably not buy a set right now, since I already have a very nice
wooden piecepack. But assuming I didn't already have that, I might pay
up to $5 for a good quality cardboard set like this. If you used
printed playing cards for the tiles instead, you might be able to save
money on volume printing *and* be able to charge slightly more. I
might pay up to $7 if the tiles were printed on nice playing cards. If
you want to go a bit more upscale and use solid wooden or plastic
tiles, I, like others would probably be willing to pay prices
competitive with existing piecepacks for sale by other vendors. If
you've read the archives, you also know that reliable service is a
huge consideration in the piecepack community.

But any way you decide to go with the tiles, you should use coins that
have some substance to them, something more than little cardboard
chits. White plastic stacking chips with stickers would be acceptable,
and they're very cheap in bulk. Not to put words in their mouths, but
at this point Ron and/or Tim might point out that prefectly-sized
copper-colored metal disks are only a penny apiece.

> Do you want the stickers already
> on the dice and coins, or would
> you want to put them on yourself?

Applying die-cut stickers would be OK (many games use them), as long
as there are a few extras in case some of the stickers get messed up
or fall off. It would certainly save you on labor costs to include
die-cut stickers rather than apply them beforehand, but that is a
savings that should be passed on to the customer.

> Would you put the stickers on
> yourself if it meant a significant
> decrease in price?

An emphatic YES on this one.

> What should this be packaged in?
> plastic zipbag? chipboard box?
> other?

Even though they're great for keeping parts together inside game
boxes, I definitely would not use a zip bag (or even a drawstring bag)
as your only packaging because they aren't easily stackable on a shelf
with other games. Go with a box of some sort.

> Should I include a drawstring bag?
> (like a dice bag, to carry the
> piecepack in)

An emphatic YES on this one, too. I haven't taken a formal survey of
the published rulesets, but one of the most often required extras is
an opaque bag. Ideally, it would have a piecepack logo (using your own
icons) either silkscreened or embroidered on the outside. This, all by
itself would be a good selling point. But again, the bag should be an
accessory, not the only packaging.

> What (if any) rules should be
> included? CD with all rules? small
> booklet with a "top ten"?

Personally, I think this is more up in the air than any of your other
questions. I believe all of the existing commercial piecepacks come
with a "then current" comprehensive rules CD-ROM, but that doesn't
mean you have to include one to be competitive. New rulesets are being
developed all the time, so CD-ROMs go out of date quickly. A more
useful (and cheaper) possibility would be to offer an up to date
version of whatever rulebook you compile as a downloadable PDF file.

Clark