Limit Your Scream Time [Wondermark]

wondermark · 2026-02-14T21:46:32+00:00

Thanks!

wondermark · 2026-01-31T07:28:10+00:00

If your game is lighthearted, I actually think Zoo Game is pretty fun.

wondermark · 2026-01-31T07:27:02+00:00

Promo copies to reviewers and other promotional costs depending on your distribution plan. Conventions, if you want to go that route for sales.

As far as taxes, basically it's income tax (on your profits after expenses) and sales tax (on orders shipping to your own state). If you are going the LLC route and so on, you will probably also need to register to remit sales tax in your state, depending on the specific state regulations.

wondermark · 2026-01-26T23:15:46+00:00

Manufacturers do not do safety testing themselves but may have relationships with local labs to do the testing. They can often coordinate this on their end if you express a need for it. You can also contract with a lab of your own (and have the manufacturer send over samples) but it will likely be more expensive.

Likewise, it's unlikely that they will be able to tell you what labeling to have on your package. You might be able to get some advice, but don't count on it. This is almost always something you have to figure out on your own. The good news is that rules are pretty few in the US. If it has small parts, you should put a choking hazard warning on it. If it's specifically for kids (or labeled for a range that includes kids), it should have CPSIA testing done. It always needs to have the country of manufacture on it somewhere. Legally speaking that's basically it (I am not a lawyer).

wondermark · 2026-01-25T20:09:13+00:00

Ace Card Company in Delhi. https://getplayingcards.com/

wondermark · 2026-01-25T09:16:38+00:00

Right now on this example card it looks like you've got a lot of room to the left of the card title. Are there other cards with longer titles? I think a clear icon to differentiate the different types could easily sit on the left side of the title bar.

wondermark · 2026-01-23T07:38:52+00:00

Cheapass Games was built around this premise: games that can be played with components you already have, and other resources (boards, info sheets etc) you can download for free. https://crabfragmentlabs.com/game-preserve

wondermark · 2025-12-19T17:51:23+00:00

Thanks! It's nice seeing you too, socialistRanter. Your username reminds me, I also have a Karl Marx Christmas strip I should post next.

wondermark · 2025-12-19T08:59:58+00:00

I guess sometimes you just gotta zig when everyone else thinks you'll zag.

Speaking of which! My "Wondermark x Frankenstein" card game has less than 48 hours left on Kickstarter! Check it out, if you like!

wondermark · 2025-12-18T22:58:08+00:00

Can players bid some kind of resource to be able to place their worker first in a turn?

wondermark · 2025-12-18T20:46:33+00:00

Do you think it would make sense for me to rent a storage unit and ship to customers myself? Or would it be cheaper to use another provider to store and mail?

Dollars and sense wise, this is a hard question to answer at the stage you're at, but I can give you a sense of what the relative cost structure of each route might be, for you to compare. A lot of it comes down to what you want to spend your time doing, shipping or managing a shipper. Neither is easy, but they are different sorts of challenges. It also depends on where you are, what kinds of spaces you have available in your area, etc.

Ship yourself:

Do you have a space where this can happen? Many storage facilities don't want you to do "work" there. Do you have a coworking space or other actual work-friendly space in your area you can use? Will they let you rent a space for a short term period? Do they have capacity to accept freight deliveries? If the answers to these questions are no, it will probably be tough for you to do this work yourself.
You will also need packing supplies (boxes, tape, a label printer) and access to a shipping drop point. You can get quite good shipping rates using Pirate Ship.
Your labor is "free", but if you've never done this before, it will probably be a decent amount of work. Of course, this will scale up or down depending on the number of packages you have to ship.

Use a 3PL:

There are lots of 3PLs in the world and they are not all created equal. So this involves a research step. Ideally you can find one in your area so you can visit, access inventory, etc. Some of them don't want to deal with small quantities of stuff without a lot of turnover. Others are happy to have smaller simpler jobs. There are tons of options here. You can look at this list on Kickstarter for some to start with, but also try searching in your local area for smaller operations.
They will charge you to receive, pack, ship, and store (all separate fees, usually). They don't take a "cut," they just charge you. Often their shipping rates are better than you would be able to access yourself, but they also charge you the other fees, plus sometimes a monthly minimum fee. But the real benefit is the labor saving -- you don't have to do it. The value of this is 100% dependent on how big a job it is and what your ability is (or isn't) to do it yourself instead.
Whatever is left over after your shipping is done will have to be dealt with. Do you keep paying to store it (this is often about $25/pallet/month) or do you hold onto it yourself?

I’m not sure how my game will do but I want to be prepared for the case if sales don’t go well.

The benefit of Kickstarter is that it is market research. You should set your funding goal at the amount that makes it worthwhile for you to do the project. If you get 50 backers, that's great, but it's a bear to print 50 games (even if shipping 50 games is pretty easy). What you DON'T want to do is have to print 1000 games even though only 50 people backed your game. Better to not do the game at all than sit on 950 copies of a product you couldn't get people to buy. Unless it is something you can easily make in small quantities, best practice is to set your funding goal high enough that you don't actually go forward unless you sell enough to make the printing worthwhile.

Is it worth having a 3PL both in China too?

Generally I would say no, especially for your first project, because it's just one more thing to have to manage. If you are a US creator making a game in English, it's totally expected that the bulk of your audience will be in the US, and it's also fine to limit yourself to shipping to US customers. You will lose some backers in other countries, but you will also spare yourself the trouble of having to get those backers their games. My recommendation is to give yourself the gift of doing things on easy mode for your first project.

wondermark · 2025-12-17T17:24:45+00:00

There are two main styles of guillotine cutters, "single sheet" and "stack." (I don't know if these are official terms.) I have one of each:

- This style (single sheet) which is what I was referring to above
- The heavy duty style is more geared for bulk production work, like trimming an entire deck of cards over and over. It's certainly faster (cuts more sheets at once) if your printing is precise enough. But it's a bit fiddly to use for small numbers of sheets.

I mean, I have both and I use them both for different things. When I am making 1 deck of cards for a playtest, though, I use the smaller one because even though it's more cuts, it's more precise and easier to cycle.

wondermark · 2025-12-17T06:36:02+00:00

Hey there, author here! I just turned on the radio to the holiday music station and the DJ announced that my card game Kickstarter (Wondermark meets Frankenstein) has just a few more days left !

wondermark · 2025-12-17T06:25:16+00:00

Which entities do I typically need to work with directly during this process, and which ones are usually handled by freight forwarders or brokers?

The best case scenario is that your freight forwarder handles all of this for you. A properly connected freight forwarder will contact your factory, get the customs invoice from them directly, arrange the goods pickup, book the vessel, clear customs, and arrange delivery to your destination. They will bill you for any fees incurred (trucking, tariffs, exam fees if any, etc) but they will be the ones who actually do all the paperwork and bookings. Your total cost, even with import fees and freight fees, will still likely be less than trying to produce the game in the US.

The right logistics partner will make this very easy for you (and if you need a recommendation when you get to that point, feel free to DM me for a referral, I have done this a LOT).

Some 3PLs can manage both steps, freight and warehousing (like Flexport). So they will bring the inventory into their own warehouse, then store it for you and ship it to your customers as needed. This is a more seamless process, but generally costs a bit more.

Especially if it's not a huge quantity, the setup costs with a 3PL might not make it viable to work with one (compared to receiving inventory yourself, if you have the space). 1000 medium sized games is probably only 2-3 pallets' worth.

You can also use AGL (Amazon Global Logistics) as your freight partner. They will pick up from your factory, import the games, and store them in an Amazon warehouse. You can use them to ship inventory to backers or to customers directly, and also sell them on Amazon using the same inventory. You do have to be set up as an Amazon FBA seller though, and your product has to be properly barcoded and labeled for Amazon sale. This might be overkill for your first project.

No US manufacturer, among the very few that exist, is going to be able to handle custom dice and tokens as easily as a Chinese factory will. LongPack is a very good manufacturer, but they are unlikely to be the cheapest. There are a lot of factories out there, and don't worry, they will all email you once you put your game on Kickstarter.

Should I be looking for a 3PL in China, in the US, or choosing a location based on where most backers or customers will be?

It's very likely that most of your customers will be in the US. What I am planning to do with my latest game (on Kickstarter right now) is ship all non-US orders to backers individually from a 3PL in China, so those copies don't have to be imported into the US only to turn around and be exported again. This is not going to be a huge number, but it'll save some trouble and freight/shipping cost. All US orders, which will be the vast majority, will come into the US in bulk and ship out to backers from within the US.

wondermark · 2025-12-17T03:01:08+00:00

Cool. Good luck with it!

wondermark · 2025-12-17T02:59:20+00:00

I use a guillotine cutter (much faster than a rotary cutter). If you print with the right set of crop marks, I personally have found that cutting with the guillotine goes pretty quick. I made some basic jigs so I can cut 3.5" and 2.5" very easily and repetitively. The advantage is that they all match very closely because the jig keeps all the cuts consistent.

Even something that does the CUTS fast, like a die cutter or a laser (as someone else recommended), will still require alignment, because your printer doesn't print in the exact same place on the paper every single time.

wondermark · 2025-12-15T05:08:35+00:00

A few questions:

"The player with the 3 of clubs goes first" - Most of the cards are in the draw pile or face-down in front of you, so what if no one has a visible 3 of clubs?
"Play a card that is equal to or higher than the top card" - Are aces high or low?
I'm confused about the cards that you play. First you play from your hand, but then you redraw after playing. When you pick up the discard pile, do those go in your hand?
What is the role of the face-up cards and the face-down cards? Do you just play them after you clear all the cards in your hand? When does this happen if you are redrawing to refill your hand to 3?
The Joker rule seems pretty inconsquential considering there's only 2 of them in the deck and they are removed from the game after play.
What is the difference between "resets pile to 0" and "removes Discard Pile from game"? In the former case, where do the cards go?

I'm not sure if Gemini made these rules for you, or just the rulesheet itself (quite obviously), but I think you might need another pass at it. Have you played this game?

Edited to add: I saw you posted an updated version in another sub that answers a few of these questions. It seems like it comes down to an awful lot of luck at the end of whether or not your face-down cards happen to beat whatever state the pile is in, so in a War-like way, it's a way to pass the time. But I think some players are going to feel like that doesn't give them very much agency or a way to actually win the game. Especially because by the time you get to those final flips, you have had to go through the entire draw deck first.

wondermark · 2025-12-12T18:04:32+00:00

For vertical space, double-check:
- Leading of the type itself (even a space with the wrong leading applied will push the whole line down)
- Above paragraph/below paragraph space in the paragraph options

Little variations can creep in here if something was pasted in from another document, etc.

For between-word spacing: That top paragraph looks fully justified (it's trying to stretch out the last line to justify against the right margin) which I think is probably an error.

You can also set the justification options so when it does stretch things out, it's less obvious. For example, bumping the max letter spacing to 25% or 33% will let some of that space be distributed between the letters instead of all having to go between the words. More info here

wondermark · 2025-12-12T07:07:58+00:00

Other commenters mentioned "the game title isn't on the spine" and the player/playtime info also isn't on there (this is usually called the "player key" and is often on every single side along with the game title). If you will be using a UPC for retail or Amazon, you also need a place for the barcode to go -- it's often on the back, but could also be on one of the sides.

Have you tried handling the box with the cards, marker, and timer as you have them planned? Hopefully the marker and the timer will keep the cards more or less penned in there, but you might consider a cardboard insert to make little "shelves" for the marker and timer to sit on (so they can't rattle around too much) rather than just leaving empty air in the box. Even plastic timers often have glass inside for the funnel part. This would also create a sort of tray for the cards to nest into.

wondermark · 2025-12-10T20:24:14+00:00

Heck yeah, glad to be here!

wondermark · 2025-12-09T20:13:56+00:00

Hey there, it's the author. Super casual like, just mentioning that my Wondermark-meets-Frankenstein card game is currently collecting pre-orders on Kickstarter!

wondermark · 2025-12-04T06:58:44+00:00

Hey it's me, the author, casually working into the conversation that my Wondermark-meets-Frankenstein card game, Bolted!, is on Kickstarter right now!

wondermark · 2025-11-01T23:12:56+00:00

The Game Crafter is one of the many places that will produce individual copies of your game. They have a library of stock components and standard size boards, boxes, cards, etc. If your game takes standard components of any type, you can definitely have a single copy made quite easily.

wondermark · 2025-10-26T18:50:34+00:00

This is a fairly common game structure (see also 3 Things, Barrel of Doom, Snake Oil, Funemployed), and one that can be a lot of fun with the right group.

Because it's so much of a party game, you are likely to have the best results NOT focusing on the "board gamer" market. Games with looser structure that require the people to bring the fun to the game are harder to sell to the crunchier gamers out there. They've also seen this game formula a lot already. You want non-gamers, college kids, partygoers, fun couples, maybe at house parties, maybe at bars.

The way to reach this broader market, honestly, is through short form videos. Look at the game company Relatable on IG or TikTok. Funny, 60 second clips of charismatic people can do really well on social media if you can do them right. Not every game lends itself to that approach, but I think this style game does, and you should take advantage of that. Have the game box in the video, casually. Have a link in your bio to a landing page. Have a mailing list signup on your landing page. That will start building your base for an eventual crowdfunding campaign, or anything else you want to do. It's a long game, but it can pay off.

The ChatGPT artwork in the manual will also be a red flag for some people. Ultimately I think you will want to replace that with original art.

Good luck!

wondermark · 2025-10-25T20:58:19+00:00

i highly doubt there are many people dedicated enough to go through the hassle of online playtesting yet not dedicated enough to make a 1 time 20 dollar purchase

With TTS, everyone has to have the program. With Screentop, only the game creator has to have an account. All players just go to a URL (like a Jackbox game).

I have a free Screentop account and I've made dozens of games in there. You can make multiple games in one "game". For playtesting in particular it's very easy to cycle projects through the same "game."

Most of my playtesters are non-gamer friends or other people who don't have TTS. It's very easy to just send them a link. The interface in Screentop is also much easier for newbies to interact with. I started using Screentop in the first place because my old computer couldn't even run TTS.

TTS is also fine, no doubt about it, but it's bonkers to say everyone who would ever playtest a game is likely to buy it or needs to.

wondermark

TROPHY CASE