An Experiment...

In the limbo created by waiting for Black Tie and figuring out our next big project I’ve been prototyping a simple game that I’m pretty happy with. I wasn’t going to talk about it yet, but I’ve made it part of my mission to always be open about what’s in development at Studio Ardia. Anyway, I’ve decided to do a little experiment with this game to see what other possibilities might be viable as part of my business. So I’m going to try print-on-demand through a company called The Game Crafter.

In my initial planning I didn’t see print on demand as financially viable. It also felt kind of unprofessional. The accessibility of the platform, while amazing, also lends itself to many home crafted games of dubious quality and the association felt like it might cheapen any product we may have added to the catalog. But seeing as we’re just starting out and probably can’t be that picky, we've decided to try it. It does have advantages including easy proofing, relatively fast turn around, flexible pricing, and the ability to update and manage a game over time. And the pricing, while completely unviable from a resale standpoint, actually would provide as much or more of a margin than a designer might receive from a big box publisher. (Of course a designer doesn't have to cover marketing and development costs) It's another way to get a game on the market, and it will give me experience with actually marketing and selling games. The game isn’t done yet, but the turn around will be much faster than a normally manufactured game. So onto the game itself.

I’ve made a game called Escape From Atalix. Players will take on the role of astronauts that have crash landed on an inhospitable planet, named Atalix. Using their technology and their wits they’ll have to adapt to the environment and prepare for a long dangerous trek to meet up with a rescue shuttle. It's loosely based on a video game concept where the player starts with a very limited play window and must continually gather resources to procure upgrades in order to accomplish more during the game. Players will have to problem solve, work together, and take calculated risks in order to reach rescue before a deadly solar storm hits.

Here is a picture of the board in its current state:

The spaces on the left are there to list resource requirements for certain upgrades, these figures haven’t been finalized in playtesting yet. We also have an artist working on some imagery for the game.