Byron Collins: Publisher Perspective
Board Game Design & Publishing Notes from Designer / Publisher Byron Collins, owner of Collins Epic Wargames.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The best thing about publishing games... is all the great people you meet.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Collins Epic Wargames at Origins Game Fair
I'm really looking forward to seeing gamers enjoy the production version of Spearpoint 1943 at Origins and I'll be sure to post some pictures from the show.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Collins Epic Wargames Releases Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943
Please join me at Origins Game Fair 2010 to demo the game and take home a copy of your own! I’ll have plenty on hand next week at the show in Columbus, OH.
If you are one of the many new owners of Spearpoint 1943 in the coming weeks, you’ll want to download all 8 initial Situations from the Spearpoint 1943 downloads section of www.frontlinegeneral.com or the files section of the game's Boardgamegeek page. I recommend playing a few Standard Games before trying the Situations in order to become familiar with the game. If you have any questions on anything, please let me know directly.
As you play, I encourage you to develop and submit your own Situations to CEW. The first 8 are exciting and challenging and I hope they spark some design ideas of your own! With your permission, I’d love to share selected Situations of yours with others through our website or newsletter. More Situations are also on the way.
For those of you who preordered Spearpoint 1943, I thank you very much for your support in advance of production. Without your preorders, production of this game would not have been possible. Your preorder should ship by this coming Tuesday. Also, I want to thank Uwe Eickert (Academy Games) and Mark H. Walker (Lock N’ Load Publishing) for their design insights early in the development of Spearpoint 1943.
The battle for the Frontline begins!
Friday, June 4, 2010
Great Spearpoint 1943 Review Posted on Mataka.org
"I’m a typical grognard. I like my maps, cardboard counters and CRT’s. So imagine my surprise and enormous delight when I was asked to take a look at “Spearpoint 1943”, a historical based card game that I immediately enjoyed. This is a game steeped in historical accuracy, research, playability and months and months of playtesting. What’s great to see is that all of this work has truly paid off to provide the gamer with a unique and extremely enjoyable experience with tremendous replay value."
"You can learn this game in 30 minutes or less but mastering it will take a considerable longer time as the tactics are subtle and there are many fine nuances in the game that makes each game different and keeps you coming back for more"
"I feel that the impact of Spearpoint 1943 will be to historical card gaming what Magic the Gathering was to fantasy gaming. I feel it will breath new life into historical card gaming by introducing neophytes into a new world with a historical background based on sound historical research that is challenging yet most important of all, fun to play. Sometimes simple is better! Get Spearpoint 1943, I highly recommend it."
-Richard Mataka, Mataka.orgI'm really glad Richard enjoys the game and it's great to see such a positive review posted online just before the game's release (ETA Mid-June 2010)!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Does your FLGS carry our line of games?
Please let me know their location, website, and the owner's name in a comment to this post and I'll do the rest!
Thanks!
Friday, April 9, 2010
It's just cool to order 8800 dice...
Most people probably don't put much thought into dice, but they're as important as the artwork, game mechanics, and box. The cost of the dice can really vary among suppliers based on what is available, what is popular, and other factors. I went with "good" dice for Spearpoint- a bit of a polished touch for the game- by "good" I mean a 'non-opaque' color, a standard size, and something that matches the card colors in the game.
In the game, the German cards are a (surprise) textured German gray color, and the US cards are a textured blue color. So for selecting dice, I wanted two D10 gray dice for the German player and two D10 blue dice for the US player. Talk about choices- there are hundreds of D10 dice out there in all styles and colors and a few different sizes.
I chose dice supplied by Chessex for this game (http://www.chessex.com/), one of the industry suppliers. Quite simply I got a better price from Chessex than other suppliers, and as a publisher, I have to shop around for good prices on components or I'm not doing my job. The savings get passed on in the form of a lower MSRP for customers.
I don't personally like opaque dice. Maybe I'm picky, but I wanted something a bit more stylish for the game. Opaques are certainly functional and would have done the job - maybe for a few pennies less - but I went with speckled dice instead. For the gray dice, I chose Chessex's Ninja style. The blue dice are also in the speckled line and are called Stealth. Both are pictured below:
Dice, like any component, are cheaper in quantity. To support the planned initial print run of the game, I had to order 8800 total dice - 4400 of each color. This supports the print run as well as potential overages.
They arrived at the printer the other day and I couldn't help but think, "It's just cool to order 8800 dice..."
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Distribution in Germany + a second US distributor
Collins Epic Wargames is pleased to announce that Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943, Frontline General: San Pietro Infine, and other future games will now be distributed in Germany through UGG (http://www.ugg.de/).
In addition, our games were picked up by another US distributor, ACD Distribution ( http://www.acdd.com/) after discussions at the recent GAMA Trade Show 2010 in Las Vegas, NV. This is in addition to our current US distributor (Alliance Games) and our current Spanish distributor.
We're very excited to have our games carried by more retail stores across the globe and we greatly appreciate your demand for Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 at your FLGS which is partially driving these accomplishments as a publisher. We hope that you look forward to seeing Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 on the shelf in your FLGS and also hope that you will consider picking it up if you haven't already preordered! Release date is planned for sometime in May 2010!