Over the next month or so I'm going to be working on a project revolving around the creation of a customized wood-bordered silhouette stone/plaster board. I'll be updating this thread with semi-regularity with updates, pictures, and other information should anyone wish to follow the progress of this project and/or emulate the final results.

Placeholder GO!

-nihil

As someone who designs games as a hobby, I'm always curious to know about the production methods that go into a game. In looking at Mage Wars, I'm simply flabbergasted at the seemingly endless nuances of production that have gone into making this game so exceptional "out of the box."


[ul]
  [li]Cards[/li]
  [li]Punch-Boards[/li]
  [li]Dice[/li]
  [li]Wooden Tokens[/li]
  [li]Binders[/li]
  [li]Foldout Board[/li]
[/ul]

In doing my own production analysis, I was unable to find a production house that could incorporate all of these different elements into a single box. Not talking prices, here, just...unable to find a house that could do it all.

I'm curious how difficult it was to get this game produced.

1) Was a production house found that "did it all?"
2) If not, how many separate production houses manufactured how many different components?
3) If following 2, how were the separate components brought together? Was this done in-house, or was there a primary producer who coordinated the various elements into one box, then shrinkwrapped it?
4) (touchy subject) -> Price point? Obviously I could reverse engineer a projection on how much it costs this company to produce a single copy of Mage Wars...that's not my question. How, erm, compromising did this company have to be in regard to getting everything done at a reasonable price per unit? I'll explain: Typically, with any sort of mass production, PPU goes down at rough margins per 1k units (somewhere in the neighborhood of a 10% reduction per unit per 1k units produced, to a cap). Without knowing anything about the funding potentials for Mage Wars, this is an impossible guessing game for an outsider. When looking at all the fundamental elements, how much did this company have to "work with" the primary production house to get the overall pricetag down in relation to PPU?
5) (open-ended) -> How would things have been done differently assuming there were no limitations on options or funding? That is to say; would MW look significantly different if money had been no issue, and there was a magical production house out there that could literally do "anything" you wanted done?

Thanks for the insight!  

-nihil

My friend and I have played something like 10 or 11 games, now, and NOT ONE of them has gone less than 1.5 hours.

Common misconceptions debunked:

1) In but two of our games we were both very familiar with our decks
2) We don't spend 10% of our time looking for a specific token (they are laid out very meticulously prior to gameplay)
3) We don't spend 10% of our time looking through the glossary/index/rulebook

I'm talking about two grown, reasonably intelligent people sitting down and playing the game, to our best ability, with as little down-time between actions as still allows us to think about our moves.

How is it that others can play a game in < 1 hour? HOW?!?!?

-nihil

I just recently added Chain Lightning to my Priestess deck on a lark, and it was HUGELY instrumental in helping me defeat the Beastmaster in a game last night. Elemental Wand + Chain Lightning = exceptional re-usable crowd-control.

Now, I'm not talking about theorycrafting, or the metagame, really, just principle. It is exactly the kind of spell that can swing the tide of battle in your favor, and, as a meta card, I think it really could warrant inclusion in just about every spellbook.

Thoughts? Opinions?

-nihil

Hello. :-D

I split the cost of buying this game at Gencon with a friend, and we LOVE it. I'm happy to be a part of the forum community. :-P

Right now I am really enjoying the Priestess. I'm several games up on my friend, now, using her, and she fits my playstyle pretty perfectly. I will say, though, that I wish she had more/better options for her quickcast spells than all that healing. I find that I very very rarely use healing spells in a game, relying more, instead, on my enchantments and angels.

Um, yeah, rambling, sorry.

-nihil