New Format, New Games Coming From Small Box Games in 2010!
Small Box Games
2009 has been another great year for us at Small Box Games, thanks to
all of you! It’s been sort of quiet since GenCon 2009, which proved
to be a great experience, being our first GenCon having a booth.
Things went as we expected them to. We mentioned in our interview
with guys from The Spiel that we would be starting a line of pure card
games (no worries if you missed the interview, we’ll explain it all in
this update!), and we’re about to get that new format kick started
with the New Year.
Beginning in 2010, we will be introducing and switching to a new game
format: Small Box Games’ Pure Card Line. There are several reasons
behind the switch to a pure card format, and from where we stand, all
of them are for the best. The bulk of our titles up to this point
have basically been card games with extra components. The Pure Card
Line also streamlines our preordering process and increases game
availability. Here’s a little run down of how our Pure Card Line
system will work:
There will be a handful of initial titles, including a few reformatted
and rethemed out of print Small Box Games: Muziris, Agoniste,
Irondale, Sweet Teeth, Elemental Rift, A Society of Strings, and Wax
(a retheme/rework of Rank). These games will go on sale for
preordering on Monday, January 5, 2010, and will close Sunday, January
18. The next day, the printer will be given the go ahead, and orders
will (barring any setbacks on the printer’s end) be shipped out before
the end of January. The process will continue, with preorders opening
on the first Monday of the month and closing on the second Sunday
after that of each month, with new Pure Card Games being added
monthly.
All Pure Card Line games will be the same price, and shipping will be
a flat rate regardless of the number of games you purchase. The games
will all come in a full color printed tuck box (being able to offer
Small Box Games in actual boxes is something that we’re finally able
to do!)
One thing I want to stress is that these games will not be card games
in the traditional sense. The games designed for the line thus far
are more in line with our older games; the wooden components have just
been replaced with cards. Elemental Rift is a good example of this.
The Pure Card line version of Elemental Rift will be identical to the
old version, with the exception that the wooden tiles have been
replaced with double sided cards representing the elements in the
Rift. In Irondale, a new city building card game, the backs of the
cards are used to keep track of points earned (with each card having
different values on different sides, and the cards are rotated as you
earn points). In Muziris, an economic game set in the ancient Indian
port city of the same name, each player has market cards that are
rotated to dictate which goods they currently have for sale. I hope
these examples reflect what I mean by saying these games aren’t card
games in the traditional sense.
Aside from being able to offer our games at a much lower price, we’re
also making it easier to purchase our games. I got a complaint from
several customers last time preorders were open that I hadn’t
considered before. Because our games were made in limited numbers or
with limited availability, some customers felt there was too much
pressure in deciding what to order and what not to order, since they
enjoyed our other games and didn’t want to miss out. With this
format, the pressure is taken off, and customers can order what they
want, when they want it. I get a bunch of emails from people you
share your games with, asking if I have copies of this or that
available, and I always have to respond with a no, because of our old
production model. We realize that the loss of urgency may cost us a
few sales, but that’s quite alright. We never intended to create a
sense of urgency with our old sales/preordering formats, it was just
the only method of getting games out that made any sense on the scale
at which we operate.
Since we started making games in 2007, we’ve always had a different
way of looking at how games were made and sold. Some ideas and
designs worked well, others, not so much. Some games we made were
better than others, and attempts to make a few games that were less
gamey and more main stream or too light ended up not working the way
we had intended. Luckily, we’ve scored more hits than outs. We’re
just happy to have such a great customer base that has stuck with us
through the ups and downs, and we feel that this new format of game
production is the culmination of everything we’ve learned about game
making in the past few years. We’re truly excited about getting this
new format up and running, and we think you will be very pleased with
the end result.
Additionally, we will be updating our internet presence, taking
advantage of Twitter and Facebook as additional means of getting word
out about our games. With that being said, we are working on doing a
giveaway. No purchase will be necessary, and we’ll release official
rules and what not next week, but in a nut shell the contest will work
like this: three runner-up winners will be picked at random, one from
the Google Group, one from Facebook, and one from Twitter. Each of
these three winners will receive one game of their choice from the new
games. One grand prize winner will be chosen at random from all three
pools, combined, and that winner will receive one copy of each of the
new games.
And as a final game-related note, I’d like to do something that I’ve
never done before, and can’t imagine that I’ll be doing ever again,
because it’s sort of a special situation. I’d like to bring your
attention to a non-Small Box Games’ game, although, by this point,
you’ve probably already at least heard of the game. The game is
Summoner Wars by Plaid Hat Games. I was lucky enough to be one of the
initial playtesters for this really good game. If you haven’t heard
about Summoner Wars before, you can check it out here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/58281/summoner-wars to see if
you think it would be a game you and your group would enjoy. Again,
this isn’t something I would normally do, recommend games that we
didn’t design or publish, but this is a fellow small publisher doing
things right, and I figured I’d do my part to at least make you all
aware of the game if you hadn’t already heard about it before (and, of
course, I don’t receive anything for telling you about it, I just
figured I’d do what I could to spread the word about the game).
I’m sure that like us, most of you are busy getting ready for
Christmas next week, and New Years the following, and I would like to
wish all of you the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of New
Years!
Thank you again for making 2009 another great year for Small Box Games
(and for sticking around until the end of this rather lengthy update)!
John Clowdus
Small Box Games
smallboxgames.com
Oh, one last thing! I've talked to some people regarding the Google
Group. Sometimes, you may receive two updates at a time. It isn't a
mistake, it's just the way things work. I send out an update via the
actual Google Group page and also send an email out to everyone within
the Group directly from my Gmail account. Most people's spam filters
grab one or the other, so on the safe side, to make sure you get the
update, it is sent two ways. I hope that explains why you often get
two messages!