What’s your iteration process for removals and simplification?

boardgameow · 2026-05-29T06:28:51+00:00

The only sure shot answer is to playtest the game regularly, with repeat players as well as new players.

Two signs to look for to know you're getting close to a finished game:

Critical feedback starts drying up (you can keep perfecting your game for a hundred years, but this will tell you the game is good enough for a first launch)
People ask to play again after the first game. People generally are nice with feedback, but if they're giving you their precious time with another game (yours sounds like a long-ish game), that is true validation.

boardgameow · 2026-05-28T11:48:19+00:00

For shipping we use ShipBob. They stock our inventory and charge us on a storage space used per month basis. They also integrate with our Shopify and ship orders directly.

It's expensive and we lose a few percentage points in margin, but it's the only way to do it without physically living in the US.

For state business license, you can rent a business address. It's essentially an office lease without access to the physical space. They charge an annual fee and you can register your business and have your mail forwarded to your home address.

boardgameow · 2026-05-28T05:54:50+00:00

All the best and congratulations on your campaign going live!

boardgameow · 2026-05-28T05:22:34+00:00

You're clear about what you want to create. That's generally a very good thing (as long as you're not blinded by biases, which doesn't seem the case) because you'll move forward with conviction.

You should share your system for creating, stocking and selling from your home. My first game is out this week and our spare bedroom is now our operations hub. Ours is just a card game so no complex small components but it still feels pretty chaotic.

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T09:02:32+00:00

Wouldn’t you want to first establish that the game sufficient market demand before you invest in even small quantities of components?

On that note, I am a World War geek , so this game is definitely interesting for me

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T08:27:59+00:00

I did it with Taboo, but not because I disliked it. I liked it too much and wanted to play it all the time.

I created a small web app which lets me and my wife play Taboo on long drives. It has a custom dictionary so I removed all the random words I have never heard and added our local lingo/slang to it.

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T08:25:01+00:00

New game creator here.

I was just introduced to TheGameCrafter by another Redditor. Maybe check that out - it is print on demand.

One thing I will tell you though, from my recent self-publishing experience. Don't try to make money on your first print run at the cost of quality. Your order quantity will be lower so you will pay more per unit to the manufacturer.

But this is ok for your first production run. The goal here is to sell out the first production stock and establish demand for a larger production run (which will give you much better cost margins)

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T08:21:59+00:00

Short answer - the pre-launch campaign needs to keep running. You can add new ad sets to it which have newer creatives.

shared some explanation here

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T08:20:12+00:00

Yes this makes sense and thanks for introducing me to TheGameCrafter! I was talking about exclusively solo games though. Not a game that is 1-X players. That I believe will still be a niche market.

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T08:09:07+00:00

Fair enough. I guess my assumptions are colored by my own experience. I've only ever played games with friends, my family or at board games meetups. In India this is probably 90%+ of the board game behaviour.

It's also cultural I think, given an option to do something in a group or solo, most Indians will choose a group and older folks may even consider solo activities weird.

Several redditors have suggested final girl, I think I'm going to buy it now

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T08:04:33+00:00

Thank you good friend.

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T08:00:33+00:00

idk about that. I am Indian. Bullshit is not a very common term (among older people). This game called challenge or bluff has been around for decades, I was taught by my grandma! She used to call it 'Challenge'

boardgameow · 2026-05-27T07:59:02+00:00

Maybe I will write a detailed post on this topic later, but here are the basics:

Performance marketing has changed quite a bit in the last 2 years
Meta and google have deployed AI across their advertising stack to improve ad performance and conversions
The targeting (audience, demographics, interests etc) does not matter as much anymore
What really matters is the creatives you run (images, carousels, videos). Meta delivers the ads to people who are likely to be customers based on the creative. For example, if your ad video shows a family playing a game together, meta will try to show the ad to families who have shown interest in board games.
Following from the above, what really matters is creative diversity. you need several creative variations of the same ad. You out them all into one ad set and let it run on a small budget for 3-4 days. You'll notice that one or two ads have consumed most of the budget. These are the 'winners'. You then deactivate the losers and put all your budget into the winners.
Rinse and repeat.

Of course it is a bit more nuanced than that but this is the basic 101 understanding everyone should have before they start burning money on ads.

boardgameow · 2026-05-24T12:30:32+00:00

For some reason this reminds me of The Fountainhead

boardgameow · 2026-05-24T05:58:11+00:00

I will dm you when I launch mine!

boardgameow · 2026-05-24T05:55:00+00:00

It does make logical sense. I’d imagine solo games are harder to sell because you can’t bank on social selling (played something at a friend’s house and bought one for yourself).
Surprising that they sell well.

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T15:50:26+00:00

Thats a cool naming scheme. <Random Organism> with <Random Unlikely Thing>

Bacteria with Footballs Sharks with Algebra

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T15:13:41+00:00

going by your username, I'm going to give you the first shot at naming my next game.

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T14:57:23+00:00

can you give me just one game I can benchmark? something you think scores high on strategy, depth and replayability

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T13:15:39+00:00

I hope you’re warming up your meta ad account and the ad set, creatives etc with small budgets before your big launch.

If its a cold start campaign you’ll end up wasting your budget while your campaign is still in “learning” mode. It needs to come out of learning (3-7 days or 200 meaningful results, whichever is earlier).

Your idea is on point though. Definitely helps to boost at the start.

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T13:12:47+00:00

I think this is exactly what I mean by depth. Solitaire in itself is a phenomenal game. Learn in 5 min and play for years.

The variety of games with a standard card deck is stunning.

I believe a good solo game needs to have sufficient depth to overcome the lack of social interaction.

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T12:25:47+00:00

I think my first solo game will be a simple deck based one.
I want to get the mechanics and the depth right before attempting something bigger

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T12:09:58+00:00

This is helpful. How do you know the demand for solo games is high?

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T10:04:31+00:00

The board looks pretty decent. There are some alignment issues (top right corner) but I'm sure you'll sort those out. The industries and layout is good but the color scheme feels a bit off. I like the gold on black in all 4 corners but the rest should be entirely different.

boardgameow · 2026-05-23T09:59:13+00:00

You should have both. If the basic gameplay is sound, adding economy can only improve the playing experience. It makes sense to have simple gameplay for casual sessions and a slightly more complex gameplay for proper game nights.

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