[Twilight] New pack concept - "Modular"!

[daMoose_Neo]

My biggest concern with Twilight has been "With this being a customizable/collectable card game, will I be able to recoup enough costs fast enough to produce the boosters to fuel the interest?"
The game is engaging, the player response has been great, but I put a lot of money into this initial run. Return has been slow and I'm worried that without support what momentum I *HAVE* gained will be lost.

BUT- I think I have something new, something different :D "Booster" packs for card games are randomly assorted packs, around 9-15 cards, to enhance play decks. They're also the...standard?...for the CCG industry- EVERYONE produces Booster packs.
Also, Twilight focuses on specific characters- if you don't have or play a specific character, the card is worthless. Thus, a pack of 15 cards and a 75 card set, your pack will contain around 6 cards you can use (3 for your Character, 3 Universal), which, while trading is always good, kinda sucks.

I found a printer who will produce 1000 of 1 card for $70, $.07 per card. Not too bad. They're in California, even better considering the initial printers were in India. Going to check them out, use them at least for a promo card I'm offering for a Halloween event.

What the plan is: "Modular" Packs, not Booster packs :D
Mod Packs will contain 12-16 cards, a "playset" (4) of each of the cards included, with a specific focus:
Want to play a spell-slinging Mark deck and move away from the direct combat? Mod Pack would contain 3 or 4 different spells you could just swap into the main deck.
Want a Faust deck with lots of characters? Faust's Mod Pack would contain several such "Corrupt" characters from the story (Arthur McKenzie, the assassin, Brian Kinkaid, the crime boss etc)

Especially for the first mod packs I'd include an offer, such as an access code via the web, for special versions of the Major Character better suited to the deck concept. A Mark that has more money than life and a Bonus to Law characters, a Faust that has more life with the ability to 'ping' opponants. And I would continue to offer free Location cards from the website.

Cost wise this isn't entirely the most efficiant. The printers in India cost half as much. However, I can produce these fairly quickly without a huge initial investment, I have NO hassle with customs (Just ship'em FedEx!). Plus, its given birth to an idea for the expansions that suits Twilight, not just following the crowd. For future 'decks', I can go through PrintMasters again, but for these Booster/Mod packs its quicker and easier to go through the Cali printer.

As a concept, was wondering what Forge-ites would think. Can something such as pre-built "Mod" packs work in a CCG-style product? How would such a product compare to normal Booster packs (course not in sales)? From more of a player standpoint is it a "wise" decision to produce what would normally be a 130+ set of cards in smaller lots of 16 at a time or would it be better to produce them all at once?

Just some questions for thought. My own mind is fairly well made up and if the quality stands (ordering sample pack today)I do believe I'm going for it, but A) I'm excited I might be able to expand the game without $1000's of initial investment and B) It is a little food for publishing thought, and since Ron had suggested in a previous thread some discussion on CCG Publishing might be warrented this might be a good kick off ^_^

[Valamir]

I certainly like the idea, for what that's worth.

On a question about your printer.  How hard is it when choosing card printers to assure that with each print run the card backs will match closely enough that they can't be distinguished during play?

[daMoose_Neo]

To be honest, thats what I'm about to find out! Thus far I've only used PrintMasters, so I've got some more homework to do.
I've already got some questions in to other printers and sample requests (one so nicely sends out samples based on an uploaded graphic!), I'm using the same back file as I sent to PM, and I have some information about their processes so hopefully I can get a very similar match.
Interesting thing about my PM cards however- there was quite a bit of variance in the quality of the printing, least on the face side of the cards. Some cards ended up quite a bit lighter than others while others were way too dark (those I found too late for a return, so kept them out of circulation). Another printer might have a more consistant result~

[Chris Passeno]

Color is a very difficut thing.  Most printers do "pleasing color" instead of "accurate color."  Especially the low cost ones.

A common practice for low cost printers is to "gang run" the product.  This means that they are running several jobs at the same time, usually on the same sheet.  They then do an overall color tweak on the press to even out the color and then run.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't hold your breath on getting the cards to match in color quality.  It's very difficult to do.  Depending on the humidity, paper, ink, alcohol, water situation, color could fluxuate on a minute to minute basis.

The best thing in your case would be to ship the printer a sample of the previous order of cards and see if they can try and match it.  That way they can atleast come closer.