Production costs...

I have been doing some research into production costs for Preposterous! The information I have collected is both encouraging and a little disconcerting at the same time.

Basically what I have discovered is that, although there are many different printing services for board and card games in america and china for the purposes of printing, there are not many financially feasible options for an indie developer.  What I have discovered is Print on demand (POD) manufacture exists, and is very reasonable for the purposes of small scale production of preposterous.

The information below is my current plan for creation for Preposterous. The plan is to use an american print on demand (POD) service provided by a company The game crafter, who offer print on demand manufacture and even distribution services for as little as 30% of the profit. Which when compared to the standard split (30% owner, 40% retail, 30% manufacture), is actually a very reasonable amount, leaving the creator with a grand total of 70% of the profits.

So: To break it down:
Costs taken from conversions of website listed prices on 28/06/2013
Production costs per item:
 - £0.79 for a rule booklet
 - £3.28 for a printed game box
 - £8.18 for 128 printed poker sized playing cards
Meaning a total production cost per item of £12.26

Shipping for an individual item from the office appears to be £11.58 to bring a single copy to England. Not a feasible option, since it would bump the price far to high.

So if we were to create 100 copies of the game for £1226, then have the products shipped to England using a different company (or the same company if they are willing to compete):
We would be shipping a 30kg box, which measures 88 x 35 x 25 cm
(100 boxes .3.3 x 15.2 x 10.16, then allocating for bubble wrap).
The most competitive price I got was by Parcel hero, who quoted me at £111 however I imagine the game crafter would get a similar price on 100 copies.

This means an initial cost for a print run of 100 to be £1338 (I will round up to £1400, for a margin of error)
This means each copy of the game costs £14 to create!
If I sell each copy for around £20 I will make a profit of £6 on each copy, netting a profit of £600 IF I sell all 100 games.

The overall costs would be:
     -£1400 Production costs
     -£1000 Artist costs
     -£1000 Marketing costs (conventions, reviews, advertisements etc.this is a very low budget...)

Meaning I will be spending £3,400 and getting back £2000 (provided I happen to sell 100)
Either way I do this I will be making an initial loss, however if I happen to be successful and sell 500 copies I will have broken even and even made £3000 profit! (a long shot perhaps, but not impossible)
with my current employment I should be able to generate this much start up capital by the time I am ready to begin. I will also attempt to fund the games initial printing using Kickstarter, a crowd sourcing system which will validate the production of the game. Finally the game shall also be on sale in america for $25, netting me a profit of £4.50 per copy sold, hopefully (if the game succeeds) I will be able to fund the game using this money also.

Preposterous! Card designs and examples (Artwork done by Rebecca Michalak)

A selection of first draft proof cards to display layouts.

Backs and fronts of proof cards, story cards and character cards.

Previous layout, not used.

Preposterous! Development

Well its been quite a while since my last update, with that in mind I have made a considerable amount of progress with the game itself.

Preposterous! Is now a card storytelling game built around the player's ability to make up a good story. They do this by:

• First choosing a character card and drawing up to the hand limit of 5 proof cards.
• At the start of a players turn, they draw 3 cards (up to a maximum 5 card hand limit)
• Every player on their turn shall turn over a story card, the draw a number of proof cards equal to the number on the story card.
• The player then has 30 seconds to make a believable story using the proof cards, his character card and the story type.
• If a story fails to mention every one of these elements, or attempts to bundle two of the cards together into one singular point it has failed. This is decided ultimately by consensus. 
• The other players are all allowed to ask a single question during the story creation as an interjection (no calling back to stuff already said!), if the player is not able to answer the question or, in attempting to do so tries to change what he already established that player fails.
• Once the story is told, the players can offer up their own Proof cards to try and disprove that story, by calling into question one of the proof cards used to tell the story. Such as playing 'The word of mr.baker' to call into question the proposed chastity of the players 'honest grandmother' "Mr. Baker sez your grans a slag!" -The Crook, Opening of town florist party.
• Once proof is offered to dispute the story the player must use one of their own proof cards from their hand to dispute the claim. This must be a way of disputing the evidence offered to disprove the story.
• This process can be repeated by the other players, no player can ask two questions in a row, beyond this the only limit to disputes of a story are one per proof card used in a story.
• If the defending player had no more cards with which to defend their story they loose to any proof offered up.
• The player who either successfully tells a tale or disproves a tale keeps the story card, the number of points they gain is tallied by the number of proof cards used to tell the story.
• Every player other then the current player draws a card, the next turn starts.
• The game ends when all stories are told, or when the players call the story over. The winner is determined by counting up the story card values the player has accumulated and determining who has gained more points.

This is the first draft of the rules of the game and will no doubt change as the game is further playtested, so far the game has been playtested a grand total of 6 hours by 3 different groups.
I will be following with some samples of cards, with card artwork done by the talented Becky Michalak.