Play testing a game takes time. We are play testing our games many times, to make the game play smooth.
“It’s not a typical card game,” our lead play tester acknowledged. “It’s like an adventure.” In fact, it is difficult to name the Jabber Worthy game (name pending) as a card OR board game, because it a unique experience: both old and new elements, historical and fantasy-filled theme. Lacy will be working on the style of art that will be placed on the different sizes of cards. Lots of characters planned!
Last week, we were re-evaluating our rules for the Jabber Worthy game that we’re making, and this week we’ve got our full-time play-testers (that’s us!) busy testing our new simplified rules.
The changes that we made won’t take out any of the great swashbuckling aspects that we’ve promised, but it makes the game more streamline and easier to play. (That’s a good thing.)
The game may even be able to be compared to the popular card games: Gin Rummy, Crazy Eight, Ninety-Nine, and Go Fish.
It’s got some positively pirate features too, including collecting doubloons, making bribes, battling cannonballs, collecting maps to find buried treasure, and fighting notorious pirates, most of which are historical from the Golden Age of Piracy.
Right now, we’re still currently working on trying to fit the game into a good length of time. Please do me a favor, take the poll down below and tell us how long you think a good game-time would be.
“I have an idea for a music game board. Can you help me make it?” The request came from an award-winning songwriter, and we were aspiring video game creators. “We’ll split the profit 50/50.” We agreed. We would turn his idea into a working game. In turn he would sell the game to schools and libraries- he had a network of educators and songwriters worth a million.
6 years later, unfortunate events sent us into separate ways, leaving us to create our own networks, sell our own games, and make our own way. But we were ok, because we were confident that we had found a good deal with The Game Crafter.
Now, 4 years beyond our parting, we finally admit to ourselves: a game with a $40 retail value being sold for $70 dollars is not a good deal. $30 overpriced: some may overlook $10, or maybe even $15 over if the game is impressive enough. But $30 is too much to ask anyone for. A game with a price tag above $50 needs to have bells and whistles to be worth all the money: ornate and involved, original pieces and amazing little details that The Game Crafter doesn’t offer.
We thought about selling the game at Amazon. We could make use of their warehouses, buy in bulk, and save the high retail price by selling the game directly to keep the prices low. But for all the work that we put into the game, selling the game at $40 just to get $3.67 doesn’t feel like a very good deal. Once split between us, that’s just about $1.80 per game that’s sold. That won’t support Autumn Angel Art as individuals, much less Bookworm Games as a business. And that doesn’t even count the cost -no matter how low- of using Amazon’s facilities to store our products in their warehouses and take advantage of their “Amazon fulfilled” marketplace sales.
We thought about using Kickstarter, but ultimately we’re story writers and game creators. We produce entertainment for people to enjoy. Kickstarter needs more than just a product, it needs exposure and extra attention to draw potential customers to it and it needs incentive that will hook the viewers and make them want to spend their money. We need financing for advertising and we need other products for the incentives.
We also thought about downsizing to another project to produce on The Game Crafter, to sell it and make some money so that we can invest in another manufacturer. But after a lot of work, the truth dawned: our downscaled product would face the same challenges as the larger product. (It also discouraged us to find that our ‘downsized’ product would cost more than our original project would have; we had worked VERY hard on making the first game as cheap as we could possibly get it.)
The truth is, if we want to make an impressive game that’s worth it’s cost, we cannot produce it with The Game Crafter. There is no “shortcut” to selling a good card game. It seems we’ll have to take the long road: do our research, choose the best game manufacturer, and save the money we need to publish any game that we make.
Hello again. I told you before that I would be comparing the original Kaleido Blast! game to the new one. Well, I’ve gotten a chance to see the new game, and I must say chap, it’s an improvement to the last one. Here’s a video that shows off just a few of the changes.
I was watching a friend of mine play the game, and it’s a quite different game than it was before. It’s got safe zones where you can’t get hit; danger zones in which you must defeat the enemies before they defeat you; the shields are different, and the meteors are new. The rules have been placed into a 3 page booklet, instead of the 8 pages that it had before. I do believe the game has stepped up its… game. I’ve added a few pictures to help you see the differences.
Kaleido Blast! 2.0
Old pawn vs. new pawn. What do you think of the new look?
The many pawns vs. the one. It’s not so cluttered, now.
The red and blue opposers vs. the rub-arx and blu-arx. Very intriguing.
New: The int-arx, the dom-arx, and the tri-arx.
The old board vs. the new board.
Can you see the difference?
The font in the rulebook has changed.
And the rules have been written a little differently, too.
Pawn and meteors vs. the arx army.
Here’s a picture of the game all set up.
And here’s the contents of the game. It looks fun, doesn’t it?
The game is not only different, it’s difficult too. My friend played it many times in one afternoon, battling the arx and trying to win the game. Her score… I’m sure you’re curious. She won 1 out of 5 times. So as you can imagine, the game is very hard!
After losing for so many times, she decided to give the Kaleido Ray a try. The rules boast that the game will be easier if you initiate the Kaleido Ray at the beginning of the game. But my friend, bless her heart, she only won 1 out of 5 times again! Either luck is not her ally or the odds of winning the game don’t change much, from one difficulty level to the next.
The final game she played, she had one Blu-arx left in row I. It was a final showdown, a dual to the end. She could either roll a color blast and vanquish the arx, or she could roll a black and white blast and be sent back to hyperspace herself. It was such a close game, so exciting! She rolled a red, a green, a yellow and a purple or two before she rolled a blue; unfortunately the hit was against her own pawn. She lost the game!
Hello now. How may I address you? Friend? Colleague? Chap? Ah yes, that will do nicely, I say.
Hello, my dear chap. I am Professor Kat I. Marble. I do enjoy a good game now and again, even when it’s a game of solitaire: Bullseye Mahjong and TriPeaks, Solitaire Scrabble, crosswords and word searches, Spider and Diplomat and Royal Rendezvous.
I always like a game that works my mind and makes me think. Perhaps that’s why my friend the fox brought me this game: Kaleido Blast!It’s a solitaire dice game, like Phase 10, D-Day Dice, and Escape: The Curse of the Temple. It’s not LIKE them, per se, but it is fairly similar. I’ve included a few shots of me, enjoying the game, below. Watch the slideshow to see how it played out.
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But the thing is, chap, Kaleido Blast! has changed from the version that I played. From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, there have been a number of changes made to the game. Here’s a breakdown of the alterations:
The enemy shapes are different, and the pieces are now plastic.
The shields are now asteroids to enhance the space experience.
The pawn has changed shapes, and is now plastic as well.
Life chips have been added to replace extra pawns.
The board- upgraded! Now better quality than it was.
The rules have been tweaked.
The box has been modified.
The storefront has been updated.
Website to Bookworm Games, coming soon.
The price has risen, but the game is better quality too!
Kaleido Blast! 2.0 will be available very soon. Keep in touch and stay tuned, my friend.
Art and Learn: The Heart of Scholars 