Today ends a process that began at the end of July.  I thought it might be helpful to run through the process for any new game makers or old pros who need a few tips.  I would like to stress that having the right people makes the impossible possible and it’s the only way to take an abstract idea, like a card game, and bring that game to market.  For me it starts with my partner and editor, my wife Shana. She takes my crazy rough ideas and makes them shiny and presentable.  The face she makes when she “doesn’t get it,” is the gut punch that allows me to rethink an idea without getting too attached to anything that doesn’t work.  This helps me cut through the many ideas and allows me to focus on the core of project or game.  Here is the tale of Dookies’ Potty Mouth.

I am always coming up with game ideas.  At this time, I have several game ideas in the planning stage and one game that I have with pre-production samples.  I enjoy game creation. I have done this in connection with playing Dungeons and Dragons and my business, cannabis smoking games.  I had the good fortune of reconnecting with a colleague who I had worked with years ago.  So, I invited him and his wife to have dinner and they graciously accepted.  As I was preparing the house for guests, I came up with a play on words with my friend’s business name.  “Potty Mouth” for the man who has a dookie as a mascot.

I quickly sketched out what I thought the play card should look like, like a beautiful business card with a game on the other side.  During dinner I said that I had come up with a funny idea for their company, a card game that could act like a business card but better.  They loved the idea and immediately asked how much?  Using the numbers from my last game, I was able to give an estimate on 300 decks delivered from my Chinese printer.  I then estimated how much the artwork would cost and added on my fee for creating the game.  I figured that the games would be more valuable to me than the commission, so I took 10% of the games when delivered.  This also meant that I would have to promote and sell the game to make my money, but I was OK with that.

The next day I sent an official proposal in an email so that all the details could be agreed on.  We quickly agreed on a final price, and I gave an estimate on how long it would take.  I was told to expect the payment at the beginning of August, but I went to work immediately.  The hardest part of making a game real is going through the minutia and finding all the holes and things that can’t be done in the amount of space allowed.  For me, the idea of having three mini games per card became impossible.  The game used jokes and there is a finite number of funny jokes available, so I had to cut three games to two for both sanity and, more importantly, space and design.

We were paid on time and then the crazy part started. I had hired my son to do the art and I was not let down, but working with family members makes deadlines and directions sometimes a bit tense.  My wife is the household, business, and last line of grammar checking for all: she was the editor for this project.  The card design wasn’t dependent on me collecting dirty and naughty jokes.  I knew that I was short jokes, but had no idea how many, so I had them edited and put on the playing cards.  It turned out that I needed two dozen new jokes to complete the game, and it took a long time to find them.  We had completed everything by the end of August, just 4 weeks!

Off to my favorite printer, Annie from Customed Cards, and she never disappoints. Firstly, she proofs everything and always finds needed adjustments and changes. After two more days of work, everything was ready to go, and printing was ready! Well, not really! It turns out that the factory got a substandard batch of paper and had to send it back.  We had to wait for another delivery and that could take up to two weeks!  Fortunately, after a week, we were given a higher quality paper for free as an apology for making us wait.  Printing was a go!  It was done in less than five days and packed up and shipped to New York.  Easy!

Nope! The massive back up at the Port of Los Angeles had repercussions across the country.  The United States is suffering from a shortage of commercial drivers.  My freight was sent in three packages and all arrived at different times more than a week after the estimated delivery date.  After all that, the three packages are finally here and will be given to my customer. I hope he is as impressed with the art and quality of the card game as I am.

Questions?