[Nanolite6] From Ronnie to reality� in 5 years� or so�

This weekend I got a table at UBCon 22: Eternal Struggle 2011 and sold 40 (HOLY SHIT!!?!?!?!) copies of my game engine Nonolite6. With the 10 copies I comp-ed to various people that means that 50 copies of my game are on people�s hands. Better yet, every person who has tried it says it works like I meant it to work!

It has been on my bucket list since high school to be a game publisher so I am over the moon but I owe my success to a little contest called the Ronnie�s and the hard, fair criticism I got from the people around here.

This is a little long but I want to tell how I got from a game that was �not the worst� to something that is ready to take the next step and go bigger.

This started with my submission of �Space Ranger� to the Ronnies October 25, 2005.

I thought I did great� the feedback made me have to back up and look at what I did.
I couldn�t make it work the way I wanted so I shelved it and eventually revisited it in 2008. I went another round with it and STILL couldn�t make it work so it got shelved, lost in a computer crash, recovered from online, and I went another round with it before going to GenCon 2010 where I met Ron in person and he gave me 4 pages of notes.

Turns out it was not a problem with the mechanics, per se, (although they had issues) but a problem with the questions I was asking and what I was trying to accomplish.

In short I had the wrong goals� and had them wrong all along. So I started back AT� THE� BEGINNING.

What came out of that was a set of mechanics that fits on a Pocketmod and allows you to play a table top game, of any genre (a changed design goal), at the speed of a video game so you can go from character creation to endgame in 2 hours and play a game that will knock your socks off. It has been play-tested every other weekend for nearly 6 months, by kids, so I KNOW it is fast, light and exciting because kids won�t stand for anything less. It is also simple enough a 5 year old can RUN THE GAME (my son and his friend from kindergarten have both done so) so I think I finally created the engine for a game that can become a gateway RPG but it also has some real depth of play possible.

At the Con I ran a demo where, a 10 year old kid, wanted to be the GM (first time for him after playing two fast scenarios from the player side) and got to play a Space Ranger breaking into a space station to stop aliens from ending a world. I failed (because I didn�t take the hint given by the GM that he was about to KICK MY ASS)� and it ROCKED!

I also had two GMs come by later and say they sat down and played a couple of games while they were between games and it worked perfectly! I could not have asked for a better outcome.

So� publishing costs:
Table at the Con: $10 (cheaper to be a vendor than a participant� How cool is that?)
Printed 100 copies: $6 ($0.06/copy, one sheet B/W at a local printer)
Folded 70 copies: $35 (about 3 minutes per copy to fold = 3.5 hours. I figure $10/hour because I would cheerfully have paid that to not have to do it.)
Made: $80 (Sold for $2 a piece)
Netted: $29 (which paid for my food for the weekend)
Published and sold a game I have sweated over, on and off for more than 5 years: Priceless.

Things I�ve learned:
Know what you want your game to do.
Know how you want it to play.
Keep the design goals in mind.
Less is MUCH harder than more.
Less can be better than more.
Playtest.
Now playtest some more.
Now get new people and playtest some more.
If you think you�ve playtested it enough� you haven�t� playtest some more.
Take criticism.
Be willing to give up the things that don�t work no matter how cool YOU think they are.
If it doesn�t work, it doesn�t work. Shelve it and revisit it. Eventually you will get it right.
The game is the thing.
Don�t give up.

Now it is time to take the next step.

Neil Striker