Hey there, Card Folk! Rhydon “Speedrobo” Vassay here. Today I wanted to share a little bit about how we do product design at our company.
To get started, what is “Product Design”? Product design is the part of the game making process where you figure out how you’re going to sell your product. What kind of box does it come in? What’s in the box? If you’re making a TCG, this is typically where rarities will be chosen as well.
When it comes to Speedrobo Games, we typically do product design in two phases. The first phase is many times right at the start of making a game. That’s where we will pick the business model! Sometimes this phase will come late in development, but typically that’s if we are deciding on what sub-genera we are going for. TCG or ECG for example. We tend to pick the business model right at the start of development as your business model will have profound impact on all aspects of your game while you’re making it. For example, if you’re making a tabletop role playing game, you need to worry less about artwork. If you’re making a heavy board game, you need to consider how you’re going to manufacture and deliver on a wide variety of components from the word “go.”
The second phase of product design usually happens right at the end. This is where we decide on packaging type, number of SKUs, and what will be base game content vs expansion material down the road. We tend to find that these sorts of choices are best left until the end; as making them too early can cause problems if rules, components, or manufacturing scope needs to be adjusted.
I hope you found this brief tour of how we handle product design interesting!
Rhydon Vassay
CEO of Speedrobo Games