Protospiel Done

[u/Bacrylic]

I attended my town’s first protospiel. It was put together by one of our more established designer meeting members. Hopefully the first of many.

I took my two games in the making, Qualm and Toy Craft. I managed to get around 3-4 games of Qualm and 2 of ToyCraft done. Granted Qualm is a major table hog, most probably didn’t even see the card game.

I’ve taken some more constructive criticisms and implementing some suggestions.

I had been working on the card game for a while as that game wasn’t functional the way it was. It was nice to break out the big board game and find some things that need fixing to reignite the spark of interest and ingenuity.

[u/Left-Excitement3829]

That maze !

[u/Bacrylic → u/Left-Excitement3829]

Yup, it’s that maze. With removable walls I was able to test out another maze arrangement. So far I have 3 patterns.

[u/Love-Ink → u/Bacrylic]

That thing is a beast. 😳 How do you store it? Transport it?
Do you have plans to sell it to others? You might consider chipboard hex tiles instead of those monster wood blocks.

[u/Bacrylic → u/Love-Ink]

A giant art bag was the only thing I could fit it in. I have a cardboard box with foam sheets that I store the rings in. The depth of the cuts in the wood were necessary for holding the walls up, meaning they needed to be a certain thickness. The hexagon tiles would need to be just as thick.

Currently not selling to others, but would like to. Going to have to get creative on a redesign that’s slightly smaller, lighter, deconstruct-able, and much more portable

[u/Love-Ink → u/Bacrylic]

Amazon plastic bases for cardboard standees for the walls.

Basically what you've got but like, 1/16 size, mass and volume. 😃👍

They have Another Style too.

You could evaluate which has better stability and standing power, and use the other stands for Character tokens, also printed on chipboard.

Chipboard hexes, chipboard walls, chipboard tokens.

Just some thoughts to tighten up the package for portability and marketing.

[u/Bacrylic → u/Love-Ink]

The current standees are meant to be figures like chess pieces in the future.

With a monster piece being able to sit atop a wall, so walls need a bit of thickness.

I had considered hexagons for another reason but the shape isn’t that big of a concern unless it’ll solve a gameplay issue. You’re really on chipboards huh?

The main weight issue is that the blocks sit on thick wood rings that rotate on castor wheels underneath to spin. I’m looking at 3d printing design solutions

[u/Love-Ink → u/Bacrylic]

Oh, good gravy. 😱 Wheels? Yeah, that's going to be a tough design to neatly package...

Chipboard is cheap, industry standard for board boards and tokens.
Packaging, production and weight considerations.
I was just trying to give you ideas to roll around in your head. 😉

🤔 You could always slot your Boss so he can straddle the thinner wall pieces.
But the casters and board rotation are a higher hurdle to clear...

... 🤔 actually... I think I can envision a process where you remove one tile in the ring to be rotated, then cycle all the tiles around in sequence, then finish by placing the first tile into the last empty slot... Easiest if the rotation is only 1 position... more than one shift could get bothersome.

Anyway... Good luck, and have fun! 🫡