prototype printing

[Walt Collins]

I'm sure others who have created "print and play" games will have wisdom that I don't.  I'm starting this thread to mention some of the things I've learned in creating a playable copy of 18PA this week, and hopefully gain some insights from folks who can point out ways to help me make my process better.

1. Printing a game can be pretty expensive (both time and money), although there are some corners you can cut.  In all, I spent about $60 making copies, and heavy-duty (10mil) laminating on everything (except the track tiles).  I had those done at a local UPS Store that does copy services.  I also have spent something like 6 hours of my time, mostly on cutting certificates with my paper slicer.  Obviously, printing and/or laminating at home would be more cost-effective.  Inkjet printers are abundant and getting cheaper to use these days, so that's not a big problem.  As far as lamination goes, there seem to be a lot of home laminating solutions that are pretty cheap, but I don't know which are good and which are bad, or even whether "hot" or "cold" lamination is best for this kind of work.  Any recommendations?

2. The mapboard should NOT be scaled to fit the page, but should be printed borderless and at the original resolution.  My first copy of the mapboard was printed at the store, and they couldn't figure out how to do borderless printing, so we used "fit to page" and I trimmed the white borders along the edges.  The result was that the game tiles were all a little bit too large for the map hexes, making for a clumsy board during play.  Yesterday I printed it out on my home inkjet printer (using glossy photo paper) and not only did I get it to print without a border (so it was the right size), but the printing looked nicer too.  So doing it at home worked best for me.  We played last night using a piece of plexiglass over the 4-panel board that I taped together underneath. I really would prefer to use those 2-panel folding foamboards.  Does anyone have a link to a good one that I could stick my printouts to?

3. Double-sided certificates are tricky to line up properly when printing.  We used a lot of trial and error, and manual adjustments.  Is there a better way?

4. 10mil lamination is overkill.  The UPS Store gave me choices of 3mil, 5mil, or 10mil, along with their heaviest cardstock of 80 lb. weight.  The 80lb paper seemed flimsy so I went with the heaviest lamination.  Now that I see the results I'm thinking plain white paper (as long as there's no bleed through) and 5mil lamination would be plenty sturdy enough.  That's what I'll try next time.

5. The UPS Store only offered "hot" lamination, but I'm wondering if "cold" lamination might be better because of all the cuts.  I don't want the edges to peel, and I'm guessing that "cold" lamination uses more glue, so it'll be stickier.  Does anyone know if this is true or not?

6. Small tokens are surprisingly difficult to find at reasonable prices.  I found some natural wood (unpainted) cubes, discs/cylinders and hole-less buttons that were pretty cheap in bulk (about 3 cents each in lots of 250 pieces) at Casey's Wood Products (caseyswood.com).  I'm expecting to receive those in the next day or so, so we'll see how they look when they arrive.  My plan is to try a couple of different ways of coloring them.  I went to the local WalMart and bought three cans of their cheapest spray paint, in black, blue and green colors, which cost me about $1 per (large-ish) spray can.  I also did some research and found that fabric dyes can also work, and furthermore, that apparently Kool-Aid is an effective dye that is obviously quite cheap to buy.  So I bought four different colors (flavors) of Kool-Aid (lemonade yellow, tropical punch red, grape purple, and orange) at 20 cents per packet.  We'll see how those go.  Should be fun. :)

7. Stickers are easy enough to print on an inkjet, but cutting them to size is the problem.  For 1/2" diameter tokens I've not been able to find a round sticker template.  So I have ordered a Round Hole Arch Punch, 7/16" Hole Diameter.  My plan is to print onto a full-sheet self-adhesive white sticker page, then use the punch to cut uniform circles around each token graphic.  We'll see how it goes.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the physical aspects of prototype production?

[John A. Tamplin]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Walt Collins <walt...@waltcollins.com> wrote:

I'm sure others who have created "print and play" games will have wisdom that I don't.  I'm starting this thread to mention some of the things I've learned in creating a playable copy of 18PA this week, and hopefully gain some insights from folks who can point out ways to help me make my process better.

1. Printing a game can be pretty expensive (both time and money), although there are some corners you can cut.  In all, I spent about $60 making copies, and heavy-duty (10mil) laminating on everything (except the track tiles).  I had those done at a local UPS Store that does copy services.  I also have spent something like 6 hours of my time, mostly on cutting certificates with my paper slicer.  Obviously, printing and/or laminating at home would be more cost-effective.  Inkjet printers are abundant and getting cheaper to use these days, so that's not a big problem.  As far as lamination goes, there seem to be a lot of home laminating solutions that are pretty cheap, but I don't know which are good and which are bad, or even whether "hot" or "cold" lamination is best for this kind of work.  Any recommendations?

I wouldn't bother with laminating playtest materials if you have to pay anyone for it.  They are likely to get changed anyway.

 

2. The mapboard should NOT be scaled to fit the page, but should be printed borderless and at the original resolution.  My first copy of the mapboard was printed at the store, and they couldn't figure out how to do borderless printing, so we used "fit to page" and I trimmed the white borders along the edges.  The result was that the game tiles were all a little bit too large for the map hexes, making for a clumsy board during play.  Yesterday I printed it out on my home inkjet printer (using glossy photo paper) and not only did I get it to print without a border (so it was the right size), but the printing looked nicer too.  So doing it at home worked best for me.  We played last night using a piece of plexiglass over the 4-panel board that I taped together underneath. I really would prefer to use those 2-panel folding foamboards.  Does anyone have a link to a good one that I could stick my printouts to?

3. Double-sided certificates are tricky to line up properly when printing.  We used a lot of trial and error, and manual adjustments.  Is there a better way?

No, it took trial and error to get it lined up for my printers (and I had to change it when I switched printers) and it is going to vary based on how the printer feeds.

 

4. 10mil lamination is overkill.  The UPS Store gave me choices of 3mil, 5mil, or 10mil, along with their heaviest cardstock of 80 lb. weight.  The 80lb paper seemed flimsy so I went with the heaviest lamination.  Now that I see the results I'm thinking plain white paper (as long as there's no bleed through) and 5mil lamination would be plenty sturdy enough.  That's what I'll try next time.

You should be able to get 110# paper and most printers should be able to print it on the straight-through pass.  We use 5mil for everything these days and the combination is plenty sturdy, but again I wouldn't worry so much about the quality of components for a prototype.

 

5. The UPS Store only offered "hot" lamination, but I'm wondering if "cold" lamination might be better because of all the cuts.  I don't want the edges to peel, and I'm guessing that "cold" lamination uses more glue, so it'll be stickier.  Does anyone know if this is true or not?

No, hot works better.  In either case you have shear forces from the cut, but in the hot case you can run them back through the laminator to reseal the edges.

 

Anyone else have any thoughts on the physical aspects of prototype production?

The difficulty of doing this without the proper tools is exactly why I started producing the games to begin with.

--
John A. Tamplin

[Walt Collins]

Thanks for your obviously informed replies John.  Mostly this was a production experiment for me.  I did the laminating because I wanted to see how "heavy duty" felt, and also because I was afraid that playing with simple flimsy cardstock would make the game feel less fun for some players.  I want to encourage people to play more.  It's not always easy to find people who are willing to play 18xx at all, let alone testing a prototype game.

I do want to add that I absolutely hate this kind of production work, personally.  I'd much rather stick to game playing (and design when I can find time).

I look forward to having you print many more games for me at DTG, however I know you're overbooked right now and I'm trying to resist ordering even more games. ;)

Walt

[cro...@rochester.rr.com]

---- Walt Collins <walt...@waltcollins.com> wrote:
> I'm sure others who have created "print and play" games will have wisdom
> that I don't. I'm starting this thread to mention some of the things I've
> learned in creating a playable copy of 18PA this week, and hopefully gain
> some insights from folks who can point out ways to help me make my process
> better.
>
> 1. Printing a game can be pretty expensive (both time and money), although
> there are some corners you can cut. In all, I spent about $60 making
> copies, and heavy-duty (10mil) laminating on everything (except the track
> tiles). I had those done at a local UPS Store that does copy services. I
> also have spent something like 6 hours of my time, mostly on cutting
> certificates with my paper slicer. Obviously, printing and/or laminating
> at home would be more cost-effective. Inkjet printers are abundant and
> getting cheaper to use these days, so that's not a big problem. As far as
> lamination goes, there seem to be a lot of home laminating solutions that
> are pretty cheap, but I don't know which are good and which are bad, or
> even whether "hot" or "cold" lamination is best for this kind of work. Any
> recommendations?

I'll admit I don't bother with lamination anymore, especially for prototypes.
In general I use a spray-on matte sealant instead. Since my usual production method involves multiple layers of paper anyways (originally three layers of cardstock, now one of regular paper and a comic-book backing board) I don't need the additional weight that lamination adds.

>
> 2. The mapboard should NOT be scaled to fit the page, but should be printed
> borderless and at the original resolution. My first copy of the mapboard
> was printed at the store, and they couldn't figure out how to do borderless
> printing, so we used "fit to page" and I trimmed the white borders along
> the edges. The result was that the game tiles were all a little bit too
> large for the map hexes, making for a clumsy board during play. Yesterday
> I printed it out on my home inkjet printer (using glossy photo paper) and
> not only did I get it to print without a border (so it was the right size),
> but the printing looked nicer too. So doing it at home worked best for me.
> We played last night using a piece of plexiglass over the 4-panel board
> that I taped together underneath. I really would prefer to use those
> 2-panel folding foamboards. Does anyone have a link to a good one that I
> could stick my printouts to?

Agree with you on this, assembling maps is a pain. For stuff I expect to keep long-term I use Zazzle and print it all in one piece, but it -is- a hassle doing multipart mapboards like this.

Folding foamboards... no idea. Take a piece, cut it to size, cut it in half, and reconnect the pieces with bookbinder's tape?

>
> 3. Double-sided certificates are tricky to line up properly when printing.
> We used a lot of trial and error, and manual adjustments. Is there a
> better way?

Print to two sheets, cut apart, glue them together manually.

>
> 4. 10mil lamination is overkill. The UPS Store gave me choices of 3mil,
> 5mil, or 10mil, along with their heaviest cardstock of 80 lb. weight. The
> 80lb paper seemed flimsy so I went with the heaviest lamination. Now that
> I see the results I'm thinking plain white paper (as long as there's no
> bleed through) and 5mil lamination would be plenty sturdy enough. That's
> what I'll try next time.

I bought a cheap home laminating kit. The results were disappointing when used for tiles because it peels, as mentioned. As I said above I no longer bother with lamination at all. I print on regular paper (or textured cardstock for a kit I intend to keep permanently) and glue it down to comic backing board, cut, then spray with a sealant.

>
> 5. The UPS Store only offered "hot" lamination, but I'm wondering if "cold"
> lamination might be better because of all the cuts. I don't want the edges
> to peel, and I'm guessing that "cold" lamination uses more glue, so it'll
> be stickier. Does anyone know if this is true or not?

Hot lam is better than cold, if you're going to go with it, but you need a decent level of quality with it to bother if you're going to use it for tiles and such or you need to leave enough of a rim around each laminated piece that the lamination plastic sticks to itself.

>
> 6. Small tokens are surprisingly difficult to find at reasonable prices. I
> found some natural wood (unpainted) cubes, discs/cylinders and hole-less
> buttons that were pretty cheap in bulk (about 3 cents each in lots of 250
> pieces) at Casey's Wood Products (caseyswood.com). I'm expecting to
> receive those in the next day or so, so we'll see how they look when they
> arrive. My plan is to try a couple of different ways of coloring them. I
> went to the local WalMart and bought three cans of their cheapest spray
> paint, in black, blue and green colors, which cost me about $1 per
> (large-ish) spray can. I also did some research and found that fabric dyes
> can also work, and furthermore, that apparently Kool-Aid is an effective
> dye that is obviously quite cheap to buy. So I bought four different
> colors (flavors) of Kool-Aid (lemonade yellow, tropical punch red, grape
> purple, and orange) at 20 cents per packet. We'll see how those go.
> Should be fun. :)

Hardwood furniture plugs are the best solution here, I get them from Hobby Lobby for about $1.50 for a bag of 20. I also use 5/8" prepainted discs from The Game Crafter, they're about twice that price but very nice.

>
> 7. Stickers are easy enough to print on an inkjet, but cutting them to size
> is the problem. For 1/2" diameter tokens I've not been able to find a
> round sticker template. So I have ordered a Round Hole Arch Punch, 7/16"
> Hole Diameter. My plan is to print onto a full-sheet self-adhesive white
> sticker page, then use the punch to cut uniform circles around each token
> graphic. We'll see how it goes.

http://www.amazon.com/EK-Success-Shapers-Punch-1-2-Inch/dp/B000XAKWPK/ref=sr_1_6?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1350660927&sr=1-6&keywords=hole+punch+1%2F2

>
> Anyone else have any thoughts on the physical aspects of prototype
> production?
>

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[Chris Shaffer]

I use the Paper Shapers Large Circle Punch (PSP02C), which costs about $5.  I also buy tapered furniture plugs at craft / hobby stores, which are much more affordable but have the disadvantage that you can only put the sticker on the wider side.

Mike Monical prints all his playtest games at 50% size, which reduces cost and makes them more portable.

--
Chris

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.

--

[Tom McThorn]

Well here's my .02 from having done some 18xx games, and a few other PnP games.

Laminate: don't bother.  get a can of clear matte spray from Wal-Mart.  Lightly spray, when dry dust off with soft cloth.

Printing: I have access to color laser printer at work...so it's "free" other than the 100# card stock I use tor certificates and company charters.  If you want to get fancier on the charters you can buy sheets of picture matting from places like Aaron Brothers and spray glue them on. 3M #77 (brownish can.)  You can also find thinner card stock type sheets at Costco in-between stuff on the cases.  They don't care if you take it. 

Map: Depending on the size: Costco.

Did I say Costco?  You can get a poster size print for $10.  The quality is incredible and for play just roll out and put a thin sheet of plexiglas over it.

I've done mail order for the station markers and other tokens and use furniture plugs.  If you're going to do a LOT of prototypes or finished kits you might as well buy in bulk.  Some people will dye/paint them as well.  When gluing the cut out circles on I use Elmer's glue.  Works great.

Cutting: I have a rotary cutter and a cutting mat.  Works very nice; it's basically a pizza cutter...that's a razor.  I also use a very sharp utility knife.

I have a few of the craft punches for doing the circle cut outs.  They work fairly well but the edges can get ragged sometimes.  I've read on Boardgamegeek about using an arch punch; haven't tried one but they do seem to give nice clean cuts. Finding a 1/2" punch was a nightmare...and not cheap when I did find one.  For some reason the person selling on Amazon thought 3/8 = 1/2.

Tom

[Dave Berry]

I've used these preprinted sheets when making my own labels.   I've mounted them on 15m wooden discs which you can buy from various game suppliers.  They might fit furniture plugs as well but you'd need to check.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Label-Self-Adhesive-Circular-Stickers-Printable/dp/B004KNJOXW/ref=sr_1_16

I found these much easier to use than hole punches, although it took a couple of test runs to line up the printer and I had to leave some space around the design to allow for slight variations in the printing.  This was using a cheap home inkjet, not a professional printer.

However, when using someone else's print-n-play design you're at the mercy of how they lay things out on the page, so if they've designed their circle cut outs for different pages you'll be out of luck.

Dave.

[Jeff Heuer]

I used to make my own prototypes before I started fulfilling DTG orders, so here's my experiences:

- Cutting tiles out is a PAIN.  Reuse what you possibly can from other games/prototypes and only cut what you need.

- 110# cardstock is pretty easy to find at most paper supply stores and will feed through all laser printers and probably most inkjet printers (check the specs).  BE SURE you set the paper type to cardstock though in the options for the printer for a laser printer (maybe for inkjet too?).  If you don't for a laser printer then it may not pull all the toner over because the thick paper needs a higher voltage and/or slower feeding.  Otherwise you get ghosted images up the page (and the next page or two that you print too).  Most home laser printers will probably need to feed the cardstock from the manual feed tray, but most of them can do it.  The enemy of cardstock is a tight turn in the paper path.  The straighter the path, the better.

- Inkjet-printed items will start to rub off with time and sweaty fingers.  Laminating or spray-coating will prevent that.  I gave up on inkjet printers long ago because I just couldn't stand them any more and I'm 100% laser printer these days.

- 5 mil laminate is the best but I did prototypes with thinner stuff too.  Glossy is the most common, but too shiny for me.  We use satin but I also like matte a lot.

- If you want thicker components then print them onto the cardstock and then spray-glue them onto another piece of either #110 or #140lb cardstock before cutting them out.  Let them dry overnight first or else you'll gum up your cutter.

- Casey's wood supply has good 1/2" by 3/16" wood discs and I ordered from them many times to fulfill DTG orders--but their supplier gets them from multiple sources and some are better than others.  Some of them had bumps on one side and a light sanding was necessary to flatten them out.  Other times they were great.  I got those same tokens with the same bumps from three different suppliers that I tried, so they were obviously buying from the same manufacturer.  I've not found anything that I like better than those 1/2" by 3/16" tokens though.  The larger colored ones from Germany are nice too, but expensive to get in small quantities.  We finally found a really good supplier for the wood tokens, but we had to order 100,000 of them.  I wouldn't recommend that quantity for most hobbyists.  :-)

-  I found a 1/2 inch hole punch at a crafts store (Michaels or whatever you have in the local area). Or Roberts or another online supplier.  I have used it to punch out labels.  1844, for example, came with the labels printed on an adhesive sheet, but no cut-outs.  I had to punch them all individually.  I didn't mind it for that game since it's one of my very favorites and it was a labor of love--but too much of that kind of love would be a bad thing.  You can find 1/2" round adhesive labels on many sites.  That's what we use for DTG games.  John had custom ones made that are 13 across by 16 rows (I think) and slightly smaller than 1/2" so that they fit nicely on 1/2 inch tokens.

- Adobe Reader (the version 10 one) can tile a file to print on several sheets and that's the best way to print a large map on a small printer.  Trim and/or tape to fit if you're going to just lay it on the table or put it under plexiglass.  I used to pick up some lightweight mounting board and spray-glue the maps onto it, then trim to fit.  Or you can use foam core board, but I didn't like that as well because cheap ones don't trim well (jagged edges and tearing of the inside foam along the edge).  Or pick a non-train-game off your shelf that you don't like too much any more and repurpose it's board by attaching your map to it.  :-)  As mentioned earlier, if you want it hinged then just cut in half and reattach with tape.  Fabric tape works, but surprisingly so does a nice thick clear packing tape--and that's easier to find.  We hinge our foam boards by making a straight cut not quite all the way through and then a 45 degree cut to meet it, pulling the strip out to make the hinge point.  But the boards we use have a thick shell on the outsides so this works.  Cheaper foam core wont' do that.  And you'd have to have a good cutter where you can control the depth.  Not worth the trouble for a prototype.

- Double-sided certificates print back to back a lot better if you manually feed the paper both times, or else pull it from the paper tray both times (if your printer can do that--mine can).  If you print once from the tray and then on the back from the manual feed I guarantee they won't line up well.  Even twice from the manual feeder still doesn't do as well as the tray, but it's closer.  For exact fit print them on separate sheets, cut them individually, and then glue them together--but what a pain.  Spray-glue won't be good for that because it's too hard to deal with small pieces.  I've found that a nice acid-free gluestick (Elmers or others) works perfectly well for small items like this.

- I'm still looking for a way to color/dye large quantities of tokens so that the 1817 loan markers can be distinguished more easily from the company tokens.  My daughter does a lot of tie-dying and we tried that--but it will run off on sweaty fingers.  Kool-aid?  I'll have to try that.  Easter egg coloring might also be interesting to experiment with.  I think though that a diluted stain wash where you can dip large quantities (in a cheesecloth type bag or something) and then lift out and drain might work.  I do NOT like the idea of lining hundres of tokens up and trying to spray-paint them.  Ugh.

Now, back to using my 11x17 laser printer, quad-fold map boards, large roll laminator, die cutter, and nice wood tokens to make some more games.  I wouldn't recommend $4000 of equipment like that for a hobbyist though.

Jeff Heuer