New Art and Production News

Quick update!  First, the die cutting equipment arrived!  I'm in the middle of moving cross country, however, so I'm not going to unpack it until we get settled in, unless I get really antsy.  Even if I provided templates now, it's starting to look like it may not be until September-October before we're able to take orders.  I don't want people to put in the effort with the launch date being so flexible right now. I'm also fighting with the printer over legal teams on the equipment, so there is a chance things could go backward on that front.  But I'm sure we'll get it worked out.

Meanwhile, development on the website continues, along with other super secret stuff that is going to hopefully melt faces at BGG.con 2011.  Will have a lot more to show about this super-secret project in a few more weeks.

In the meantime, here is more awesome new art from Ahren Paulson.  I love me some goblins!

GWG's Mission and POD Update

Hello all,

Just a quick update from Goblin Central.  We've officially ordered our cutting equipment so we'll have all of the cutting formats previously mentioned, with two exceptions:

• In order to get 9 cards per page, we had to shrink the 2.5" x 3.5" cards by 5%.  We are still going to take 2.75"x3.75" images, but the final cards will be a bit smaller than expected.  Unless your game uses precise measurements, however, the adjustment will not be very noticeable.  Once we upgrade equipment later, we'll print normal-sized 2.5" x 3.5" cards using your same artwork.
  
• The 4"x4" and 4"x10" tiles had to be reduced by 3%.  All other components match the previously listed sizes.

If it helps at all, however, we have some interesting and awesome shapes on the way.  Check it out:

Once they arrive I'll do some measuring and provide the final templates!

GWG's Mission

I've been spending some time away from development to really lock down what GWG will do and what our mission is.  While on-demand print is a part of what we do, it is not our core mission.  GWG aims to be the premier site for designing board game prototypes.  Think of it as the DeviantArt.com of board game design.  We're going to have online game design tools, support for collaborative feedback and collaborate design, knowledge bank resources, online playtesting tools, marketing tools, and other mechanisms to help support a game designer of any skill level through the process.  

Once a designer's game is done, the designer will be able to run through a peer-review certification process and then submit it directly to publishers that will be pre-registered with the site.  Publishers can review your game and also use our print on-demand services to have a physical copy shipped to them for evaluation.  Likewise, customers interested in trying a prototype can download your files and print them as a Print-and-Play game, or order a copy through our POD services.  We also intend to have a kickstarter.com-style fundraising engine built-in to the platform so that certified concepts can raise funds with the backing of a publisher.  Financially backed games are far more likely to get published, and if the designer can be sponsored by a publisher in advance, the public will be far more likely to back the game.  It works out great for everyone. 

So to recap, we are not just another online POD storefront like other services out there.  We are a game design community focused on turning raw concepts into polished, credible, published games.  POD is just a little something we do to support that goal, and until POD quality can rival manufactured games, there is no substitute for the quality of a full-run game publisher-backed distribution.

In the next blog post, I'll break down what is on the roadmap for Phase 1 of the GWG website.  Until then, happy designing!

- Anthony

New Art: Goblin Artist

Just a quick update - the goblin artist is now complete.  I love Ahren's work.  :)  It's very unique and interesting to look at.  Will have another update in regard to printing and die cutting this weekend.

Print On-Demand APIs and Rule-Based Images

Hello all,

As always, we're plugging away on the website.  No huge news, though I am purchasing all of the cutting dies and print equipment next week.  The nice thing about not being operational is that I can focus on development.  I'd like to have most of the heavy lifting done before we open for beta, and from there just add features over time.

Coding the entire site to run on APIs is going very well.  Right now I'm working on the ability for a remote system to give us their files (either via FTP or HTTP POST), register the files, and associate the registered files with a game.  This is certainly the most complicated area of the system, but once we get it right it should allow for some new concepts in the game industry to emerge.   That's the part I'm most excited about.  A game designer teamed up with a programmer could create 100% personalized board and card game experiences.  The only trick is, how to make this easy for designers to leverage.  But we have that covered!

What we plan to do is create a rule engine that game designers can leverage.  Questions can be collected from the customer and submitted along with the order.  Those questions would then be used by the rule processor to generate different composite images.  For example, let's say we have a Fantasy CCG that allows the player to customize their main hero.  We could ask the customer the following questions:

1.  Upload your hero's photo
2.  What should the name of your hero be?
3.  Choose a magical element: (Fire, Water, Earth or Air)

When those questions are submitted along with the order, the system would execute all rules associated with the game.  Some conceptual sample rules are below:

=== Hero Card Creation Rules  ===
Rule 1.  Create a new 2.5" x 3.5" canvas

Rule 2.  If Question #3 is set to "Fire", add "fire_template.png" to the canvas

Rule 3.  If Question #3 is set to "Water", add "water_template.png" to the canvas
...
Rule 6.  Add Question #2 image to the canvas at coordinates (10,30) and constrain to (200,200)
Rule 7.  Write the text from Question #1 centered in the coordinates (10,10,200,30)
Rule 8.  Render the canvas over Card ID "Hero Card"

The rules above could be built using an MS Outlook style rule-builder, where each rule has one or more conditions, exceptions, and actions.  Sample conditions and exceptions could be:

"If Question #2 has value [comparison] ..."
"If Question #3 is not set or not valid ..."

Once the conditions have been met and none of the exceptions are triggered, the rule's actions would execute.  These could be:

"Create [Width, Height] Canvas"
"Add [file] as Layer [Layer Name]"
"Write Text From Question #2 using [center|left|right] alignment between ([X,Y, Width, Height]) as Layer [Layer Name]"

Once the rules are set up, the designer will be able to collect input from the user, have our system render customized content, and have us print/ship it on-demand.

I'm excited to know what crazy ideas people could think of if customer-specific print on-demand was available to them.  If anything comes to mind, I'd love to hear from you at anthony@goblinworkshopgames.com.  The more feedback I get, the more I can ensure the engine that we're building will cover what you have in mind!

I'll close this post with a little bit of eye candy - the My Accounts page, in development.

Happy designing,
- Anthony

Full color skinned boxes, art, pricing, and more!

Hello all,

Happy Father's Day to those game designer daddy's out there!  Since it's your special day, I think you get to break out any game you like and demand the family play it.  (Twilight Imperium, anyone?)

New Art


We have all sorts of news on the GWG front.  First, fantastic new art from Ahren Paulson is trickling in.  I'm especially fond of our new "Goblin Gamer":

Other pieces are finished as well, but we'll leak them over time.  We also locked down the format of our Certified Fun seal:

GWG will have a process designers can go through to earn the Certified Fun seal on their game.  Along with the seal comes increased consumer confident, better placement in our storefront, and inclusion within our marketing.  More info to come on this soon!

Development Continues

While we are getting all of our print equipment and parts, development on our website continues.  We're taking it kind of slow because we want to do each page right.  (I've worked in software architecture long enough to know how expensive bugs are.)  Our latest pretty page is below:

We're also building the entire site powered by RESTful APIs.  The goal here is actually pretty mind-blowing: What we aim to do is allow game designers to program their own storefronts and use us as the back-end.  A remote website will be able to feed us the artwork, print instructions, etc, and we will fulfill it from there.  Basically our services can power whatever you imagine.  Here's an example: Imagine you have a family game where parents can upload pictures of their children to have their kids as part of the game.  You can have your website post all of the finished artwork to our site via API, along with print instructions, and we will fulfill it for you.  Create an infomercial for that around the holidays and you're swimming in a vault of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.

So now let's get crazier.  What if you make a Facebook App that lets a customer take all of their friend's photos and put them into a deck of CCG-style cards.  Super Friend Fighter II, let's call it.  Your Facebook App generates the images, we print them, and the customer gets a 100% personalized game.

Starting to see what we're getting at and what our mission is?  :)  And we haven't even pulled out the big guns yet.. 

Full Color Box News

In regard to production, we have some news you may like.  First, we will be offering full color skinned boxes!  You can always save cost by having your game packed within the postal shipper, but you'll also have two extra options:

Rigid Semi-Gloss 8.5x11" Setup Box  (Top is 0.32 thick.  The bottom is around .12)

Rigid Semi-Gloss 3.5x7" Setup Box (Top is 0.32 thick.  The bottom is around .12)

The box tops are very sturdy and are comparable to mass production board game boxes.  The bottoms are more similar to clothing boxes.  Later down the line we may order some custom boxes with rigid tops and bottoms, but these work great for now.

In regard to skinning, we will be offering templates that can be used to skin the entire box.  On the 8.5"x11" box, the top can be skinned using three sheets of 8.5"x11" full color adhesive prints.  One print is cut in half and covers the short sides.  One print is cut in half and covers the long sides.  The last print goes on the top.  

Using three sheets won't be the only skinning option.  You can use two sheets to label the top and the sides, or just one sheet to label the top.  Likewise on the bottoms, you can use a single sheet (which will leave some white showing), or use an extra sheet cut into 4 strips to cover the white.  

On all of these options, you can choose to have us do the mounting, or we can just include the sheets in the boxes.  As soon as I finish a sample I'll take a picture.

Pricing News

I spent the night calculating our pricing.  I don't want to release all of the actual numbers until we have the final materials in hand, but I think it's pretty safe to say that we will be a bit cheaper across the board than our competitors.  Using a 60 card game with 4 pages of rules as an example, I calculate the cost to be $11.00.  This includes a rigid 3.5x7" box fully skinned by us.  Without the box/skin, the game would be $7.00.

The biggest thing we are offering is flexibility.  Out of the gate we plan to offer a wide variety of cuts and finishing options:

Sheet of 9 Standard Cards (2.5x3.5)

Sheet of 15 Standard Cards (2.5x1.75)

Sheet of 80 1" Squares (Single Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of 80 1" Squares (Double Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of four 4" Squares (Single Sided, Cover Stock)

Sheet of four 4" Squares (Single Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of four 4" Squares (Double Sided, Cover Stock)

Sheet of four 4" Squares (Double Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of 40 7/8" Circles (Single Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of 40 7/8" Circles (Double Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

One 8x10" Rectangle (Single Sided, Cover Stock)

One 8x10" Rectangle (Single Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

One 8x10" Rectangle (Double Sided, Cover Stock)

One 8x10" Rectangle (Double Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Two 4x10" Rectangles (Single Sided, Cover Stock)

Two 4x10" Rectangles (Single Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Two 4x10" Rectangles (Double Sided, Cover Stock)

Two 4x10" Rectangles (Double Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of twelve 63mm Hexagons (Single Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of twelve 63mm Hexagons (Double Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of nine 90mm Hexagons (Single Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

Sheet of nine 90mm Hexagons (Double Sided, Mounted to Chipboard)

As a general rule, our double sided mounted stuff is currently estimated at $1.50, and our double sided prints (cards, etc) are around $0.70 per sheet.

We also plan to offer some "premium" finishing options that you probably wouldn't want to do for your normal games for cost reasons, but you may want to do if you are sending a copy to a publisher.  Other services will include mounting hinges to 8x10" chipboard prints so you can have folding boards.  We of course cannot match the quality that a mass production run will have, but we are trying to offer as many hand-crafted services as possible to support our designers!  The whole goal is to get you beyond the prototype phase and into a full print run.  We plan to offer you a clear path to get there, and while you're in the print on-demand world, we want your game to feel as close to a manufactured game as possible.

 That's all the news for now!  If you have any questions or feedback, just shoot me a quick e-mail at anthony@goblinworkshopgames.com. 

P.S. We're looking for additional programmers!  Check out our jobs page if you're skilled with PHP or mobile development.

Happy Designing!

- Anthony

Feeding goblins just makes them lazy...

Hello all,

It's been another fine week here at Goblin Workshop and we're hard at work building the site so we can open our doors for you.  I've heard from some of you lately in regard to your prototypes, but Id' love to hear from more of you!  We are placing our order for print equipment and parts soon, so knowing what you need will help ensure that we have it in stock.  We are maybe one to two weeks away from ordering our printing and die cutting equipment.  Out of the box we are going to offer:

- 3.5" x 2.5" cards  (Standard cards)
- 1.67" x 2.5" cards  (Mini cards)
- Nickle-sized chipboard tokens
- 1" chipboard squares

- 2" chipboard hex tiles

- 3" chipboard hex tiles
- 8"x10" chipboard board segments
- 4"x10" chipboard board segments
- 4"x4" chipboard board segments

If anyone else has any requests, let us know and we'll certainly take a look!

In regard to development, our roadmap currently looks like thus:

Milestone #1: Account Creation
We're all done with this one!  It supports creating traditional username/password accounts, as well as single-sign in via Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and other major OpenID providers.  It's also pretty.



Milestone #2: "My Account" Page
This interface will have a tab for each role you've enabled.  (Game Designer, Artist, etc).  Each tab will collect bio information relevant to the role. (i.e. "About My Artwork", "Games I've Designed", etc)  You'll also be able to configuration notification preferences and enable/disable different roles.

Milestone #3: "My Dashboard" Page
This interface will show a tab for each of the roles you've enabled, and each tab will show information relevant to that role.  For example, if you're an artist, it will show you game designers looking for artists.  If you a game designer, it will show you the games you're working on and allow you to manage them.

Milestone #4: Game Management
Once we have the Dashboard up and running, we can allow the designer to register a game, provide general information about the game, and create 'versions' inside of the game.

Milestone #5: Game Art Uploading
Once a designer can make a game and a version, they'll need to be able to upload their artwork into the game.  Our system will then weave the art together into PDF files that can be downloaded as proofs or that can be sent to print.

Milestone #6: Checkout!
After art files are uploaded and PDFs are generated, the designer should be able to submit orders to us for fulfillment.  From there we'll assemble your game and ship it wherever you like!

We're expecting each milestone to take a week or two so, but we certainly aren't going to stop after #6.  That's really just the beginning!  But at that point we'll be able to open for beta testing.

There's always more to share, but I'll save more for next week.  I should also have some new goodies to show.  Until then, happy designing!

- Anthony

P.S.  All of the code we are developing will be accessible via RESTful APIs, so you will be able to tie custom code directly into our services if you like.  Wait until you hear our plans for customer driven variable print.  ;)

Native Vassal & Gimp Support Pending

Hello Designers!

Though it may look quiet from the outside, we're hard at work building Goblin Workshop Games and making it your one-stop shop for getting from concept to store shelf.  We're extremely excited by the tools and the community we're going to be able to bring you.

Right now we're working out the details of our print on-demand functionality and should have pricing very soon.  We're also commissioning our first couple of die cut templates: 2.5"x3.5" cards, 2.5x1.67" cards, and .75" circle tokens.  (Yes, that's right - die cut chipboard tokens)  We plan to have dozens of dies by the time we officially launch, but right now we've being selective.  In another month or so we may open for a limited beta to select designers who have card games that are ready for printing.

In addition to POD services, we aim to offer direct integration with Vassal (www.vassalengine.org) and GIMP (www.gimp.org)!

Vassal is an open-source board game engine that allows a designer to create their game and play it online with others.  Building a Vassal module can be a little daunting at first, but we're working on robust and easy-to-follow tutorials, as well as the ability for our website to read Vassal modules and even create them so you aren't starting from scratch.  Once you master Vassal, you'll find it's a fantastic way to try out your prototype before sending it to print.  Plus you can play it online with others, reducing your testing cycles dramatically.

Next up is GIMP integration.  GIMP is an open-source image editing program and the biggest rival to Photoshop.  In addition to offering GIMP template and tutorials, we are working to offer data driven support for GIMP templates.  What this means is you'll design your GIMP template, our website will read the layer information, and you'll wire up a spreadsheet of data to that template.  Our website will then generate one image per row in your spreadsheet!  So if you have a 300 card deck, you'll simply have to create a single GIMP template, point our site to a Google Spreadsheet with your info, tell our system what to do with your data, and bam! - your cards are generated.  From there, making adjustments to your cards is as simple as updating your spreadsheet.

Right now we are using Epic Tower Defense as our guinea pig for Goblin Workshop Games.  Once ETD makes it all the way through the GWG certification process, we'll open the site up to the entire community.  More information about our "Certified Fun" process will be coming up in future threads.

That's all we've got for now!  Stay tuned for the latest news and let us know what you think, and/or what your needs are as a designer.  The more we understand about what ails you, the more refined our cure will be!

Keep on designing,
- Anthony