Card games: how do you get the damn things printed?

[Walt Freitag]

What does everyone think? Would the non standard packaging kill this game's retail sales? Or do you think with a suitable packaging design, could it still work?

I can only speak of my own reactions, but I don't see a big problem. Two points of comparison: first, many of the games I bought in the 80s and early 90s published by West End, Games Workshop, and Mayfair included cards printed on thin glossy cardstock that had to be punched apart from perforated sheets (no rounded corners). They are harder to shuffle and deal than regular playing cards, but much easier than index cards. Though all of these games that I recall had boards as well as cards, some (such as Talisman) were primarily cards -- that is, there were many cards representing most of the game content.

A few box games using business-card-like cards were rather successful during that same period. Wiz-War (the original 1985 edition) comes to mind.

More recently, Cheapass Games has been selling games in thin 5x7 packages (paper envelopes and thin enveleope-like cardboard boxes). Some of these games are pure card games, and many of those have used business-card-like cards. If you were to print your cards as glossly perf sheets, then fold the sheets in half (at one of the perfs, of course) to fit into a 5x7 package, you'd be providing better production quality than Cheapass using a type of card that at least some old gamers will be familiar with.

Of course, you won't compare well with German games, most CCGs, or mass-market board games in production quality, but if your price reflects that you should have few complaints on that score. Thanks in part to Cheapass, I know many current gamers who appear willing to make a price-productionn-quality tradeoff, as long as the game itself is good.

- Walt