Heavy is the head that wears all the hats — What indie developing a board game looks like
I am tired.
For over a year I’ve been working endlessly at getting this game off the ground. And by endlessly, I mean working until 4–6am, weeks at a time. That’s what it means to start a publishing company, I guess. What do I do with all that time, you ask? Well . . . everything. But mostly art.
For our pixel-art deck-building game, F.O.T.O. Finish, I made a whopping 400 pieces of art. Let me break it down for you.
In the base game we have this many pieces of card art:
Starter Decks: 96
Ability Cards/Portraits/Icons: ~24
Advanced Cards/Stages: 46
Running total: 166
But wait! We decided to double the number of characters on release!
Running total: 344
And that’s just the cards! Add in all the stuff for the rulebook, play mats, and we’re way over 400.
Running total: ~400
But wait! That’s just the game itself. Throw in all the art needed for the website, social media, ads, convention materials, and a 300-frame trailer.
And we’re easily at over 1000 pieces.
Running total: >1000
So yes. I am tired. But that’s to be expected. Making a game is hard. Everybody will tell you that. It’s going to take all of your time and resources. More than it’s worth. On the low end at $100/piece, the game’s art cost would be close to $40,000. The true cost is probably close to double or triple that. It truly is a labour of love. This is the equivalent of spending tens of thousands of dollars for a single lottery ticket for the chance to make tens of thousands of dollars. And not to mention the time commitment. Thousands of hours (close to 5000) went into making this game and we’re just getting started. So it's more like a lottery ticket that you had to had to work thousands of hours in order to even get the chance of buying.
The natural question that follows is: why do it? I could have chosen to do almost anything else with my time and been compensated better for it (I could get 3x or 4x more working in publishing, which is already notoriously low paying). The answer (as corny as it is) is love. I love card games. Always have.
Growing up, I loved playing card games. I got pretty good at them too. But I was never the guy who played the best deck. I couldn’t afford to. I was young, in school, and POOR. There was no way I could afford to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for what were essentially game pieces. That’s why we’re making our flagship game an Expandable Card Game. Everything you need to play is in the box. And the box will retail for ~$40USD. We’re not paywalling gameplay behind expansions/add-ons. Full single-player and multiplayer support comes with the base game. We’ll be offering free ways to play online and free print & plays. The game (and the company as a whole) is a love letter to the people who play these games, regardless of how much money you can put into the hobby.
Making the game was just the beginning. There’s also the graphic design, the website, travelling to conventions, writing, research, and designing—all the things that come with running a business with a physical product. And now we’re in the thick of it. Even with a successful Kickstarter campaign, we will just scrape by enough to keep going another year. We won’t be making millions of dollars; but, with enough support, we’ll be able to sustain another year of making games.
I truly believe that people can tell when love and genuine human effort went into making something. There’s so much noise that it’s hard to see at times. But we still get genuinely excited when we encounter projects that care. If you read this far, thanks for being here. This is part of a series of posts I'm making about the creation of our flagship game (link in my profile). If you aren’t already following us, please show your support. It honestly means the world to us!
For now, we’ll keep making games.
