There are lots of web accessible fabrication services that you can just send your design into and they will mail you the real thing.

If you are very budget conscious, find a 3 printer you can have the use of. That should be sufficient.

Anyway, production is by far the easiest part. Do you actually have an original and playable game completely designed? If not, you are putting that old cart before ye olde horse.

Many ages go, I designed two different board games - including extensive playtesting, with a view to producing and selling it: the biggest hurdle for such was and probably is the selling. What target price (P) how many copies (C) potentially sold; the shop/route to market will take say 50%; so P*C/2 = the maximum your design (D), manufacturing (M), and other costs (O) can cost before you make a loss. Our equation gets to (P*C/2)-(D+M+O) = R, where R is what remains, either profit or loss ASSUMING YOU SELL EVERY COPY! As fiedler says, you can use a 3 printer, but beware not looking at the MTBF of the printer! I ended up for 2K copies of having to sell it at £42 each, in 1980!

Don't use a 3 printer. You'll bankrupt yourself. 3 printers are not for production

@fiedler: Like I said, working on it. For instance, if a particular design of units or an amount of different pieces will cost a lot of money, that's something I'd like to know now.

It's also the best excuse I had to bump the thread, so I could get more useful advice.

Also I spoiled the beans in another thread so I might as well post it here as well:

I dubbed the project "The Agony of Chance".

The actual game could be named something else entirely but maybe something like "Dicey Choices" to stay in the theme. Will see, just the best and most fitting titleI can come up with.

Title*

At abge: Thanks! Maybe for the prototype then?

Also @Chumbles:

Could you perhaps give me the numbers on what costed how much in your case? Just to give me an idea, if you know.

How about "Jump to Conclusions" for a title?

The print industry has changed a bit since 1980. Suspect chumblers numblers not terribly relevant.

True.

Just to clarify: in what way am I jumping to conclusions right now?

You're not. It's a joke from Office Space.

Aha.

@steephie

Yes, 3 printers are quite good for prototyping.

But seriously, just tell us your game. There are people here with decades of boardgame experience. They can give good advice. No one is going to steal your idea.

I was already writing the post since this was not a case of secrecy, but I think it may be an issue with school since I obviously can't copy stuff from the internet so if they find the stuff I wrote in my report on the internet because I posted it there, that may lead to trouble. So just to be safe I'll discuss with my teacher first.

As far as playing goes, I also have almost a decade of boardgame experience :-)

Through e-mail I can tell people what they want to know, but putting it out on the internet has a chance of causing complications so like I said, I'll check first.

The best solution might be to host every revelation on my personal website.

What's your personal website Steephie?!

www.GeoCities.com/steephieXoXo

Huh, apparently Geocities closed in 2009.

You need to use Wayback Machine to look at it as an archive.

@fiedler:
stephandijkhof.eu

It's a constant work-in-progress, mostly because other projects have priority. Like designing a board game and getting a driver's lisence.

No information on this project there yet, I'd like a reaction from my teacher first and he's on holiday right now.
So feel free to suggest improvements, but maybe I just didn't get to it yet.

Well I am genuinely impressed you have some sort of web hosting / design business going, or at least the buds of one at age 17 that's pretty good.

I hope you are not putting a lot of pressure on yourself to get this boardgame built. You should be out there getting some of that young stuff. *wink* *wink*, if you catch my drift.

I will scrupulously check the website on a four-hourly basis for any sign or trace of board game news. Thanks.

Thank *you*!

I would advise you to drop me your email instead, so I can tell you if there's an update. For instance, my teacher won't be back from his holiday until the 17th or so and as long as I get no reply from him, I'm playing it safe.
I dropped the name already but that's it for now.

If updates get more regular, I won't spam you; too much work for me anyway. I'll just tell you to stay tuned by then, or a monthly update if you prefer :-)

That said, if you prefer to scrupulously check the website on a four-hourly basis, be my guest. Probably saves me several minutes per month anyway :-)

Also don't worry, I do enough other things.
The only reason I'm designing a board game is to score chicks, anyway.

I have permission to post stuff on my personal website, so stay tuned!

I'm quivering with antici...

Hold on, I may have to redesign the menu first because it's starting to look crowded :-)

Thoughts on how best to upload files so copying/changing isn't too easy and people are reminded of the copyright?
Or should I dumb text on my site, no need to download anything?

Choices, choices..

Probably best to encrypt your ideas with Winzip. Look, copyright only matters if you can enforce it. Do you have a team of lawyers on retainer? If not then you have no copyright.

Just publish your idea, and make sure the document contains your name, and a date. If you publish a new version, also keep the first version available.
If anybody would "steal" your idea, which seems highly improbable, you can easily prove it's yours. The oldest claim counts.
A pdf is probably better than just text, or any zipped archive; encryption seems unnecessary.

@fiedler: I know, but at least I can clearly state my wishes and remind them of the rights I have but won't enforce, so no one accidentally uses it.

@Nescio: Yeah, that was my thought as well. I do wonder one thing though: surely a date in a document doesn't prove the document dates from then? Makes sense? I can write at the bottom that I wrote at 70BC, but that doesn't make it true. Why is it different if I write down a date in 2015?