Boda Games Manufacturing

May 13, 2021 In Boda Games

Interview with Solarflare Games’ Dave Killingsworth

Solarflare Games is launching their latest project at the end of this month, QUESTS: Heroes of Sorcado. Dave Killingsworth, the creator and designer of the game, took some time out of his busy schedule to sit down with us. With over 10 successful projects under his belt, Dave shared with us his experiences developing games, running crowdfunding campaigns and of course some more details on Solarflare Games' exciting new project! Hi Dave, thank you for taking the time for us! Solarflare Games has a new project coming up called QUESTS: Heroes of Sorcado. Could you briefly introduce the game and the gameplay mechanics to us? Quests is designed to incorporate the elements of a campaign story (written by a best selling fantasy and sci-fi author) combined with light Fantasy RPG, choice driven adventure elements, d20 combat, cards, and dice. The game is designed to have to read the story campaign part and every so often the story will have to encounter an adventure zone. The adventure zones are random card draws that the heroes face and resolve. These can be monsters, traps, events, side quests, and more. When you encounter a monster it indicates how many heroes can work to defeat it....

April 15, 2021 In Uncategorized

Boda Games launches a Youtube Channel

Boda Games launched a Youtube channel! One of the main goals we set out to achieve at Boda Games was to be more than a board game manufacturer. Of course manufacturing your favourite card and board games is what we are known for. But we feel very passionate about the board game industry. And we want to do our best to help new and existing game developers and publishers create the best games. The latest step we have taken is to launch our very own Youtube channel. Resources for game developers We first started with our Board Game Resouces page as a source of information for aspiring board game developers and publishers. As we built up content, we started to look for other ways we could help provide more information. From our many discussions with developers and publishers we have learned that many things that are normal to a board game manufacturer. Can be difficult to understand for game developers and publishers. After bundling all the essential information for preparing your artwork files for printing in our Artwork Guidelines PDF. We went a step further and made a template generator. No longer will you have to email us asking for a template. Now...

March 2, 2021 In Boda Games

Preparing for a quotation

It’s taken a great deal of effort and energy. But after many months of writing ideas in a notebook. Printing out pages and pages to make sample versions of your board game idea. Asking all your family and friends to playtest your game. Adjusting game mechanisms, adding new elements. Getting artwork done for all the different components. The time has finally come: your game is ready. All the effort, all the nights have paid off and you have a great looking, fun game. After the design and develop stage of your board game is over, what's next? The production stage The next logical step is that you want your game to be printed. No more print and play versions, you want the real deal. Generally, there are two ways to proceed from here on out. You can start pitching your game to publishers. If you are successful and they like your game, they will take on the responsibility of getting it manufactured and published. But the other way is to publish it yourself, therefore becoming a publisher yourself! If you decide to go down the self-publishing path, what is the next logical step? To get a quotation for the manufacturing costs. So...

February 14, 2021 In Kickstarter

Interview with Silicon Saga publisher Rusted Gear Games

At Boda Games, we love seeing ambitious projects that we have been involved with from the start slowly coming together. One of these projects that we have been involved with is Silicon Saga: Wreck of the Andromeda. Silicon Saga is published by Rusted Gear Games. Matthew Houston from Rusted Gear Games took a moment to discuss with us their new game, what it was like preparing for the Kickstarter and how he learned to navigate the board game industry. Hi Matthew, thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. We know how busy it can get right before your Kickstarter! First things first, could you introduce Rusted Gear Games and tell us a bit about Silicon Saga: Wreck of the Andromeda. Rusted Gear Games is a new board game publisher located in the US. I founded Rusted Gear Games to help me spread the word about the new board game I designed called Silicon Saga: Wreck of the Andromeda. In early 2020, the world was beginning to shut down due to the COVID 19 pandemic. People couldn't go about their lives the same way as they had in previous years. In the midst of all that, I found that I couldn't...

January 31, 2021 In Uncategorized

Boda Games Chinese New Year Announcement

As we enter February, a very important Chinese national holiday is approaching: Chinese New Year. Thus, we enter the final days of the Year of the Rat and start preparing ourselves for the new year ahead, the Year of the Ox! The Chinese New Year or the Chinese Lunar Year begins at sunset on the day of the second New Moon following the winter solstice (21st December). Each year in the Chinese calendar is represented by one of twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac. 2021 will be the year of the Ox. The Chinese New Year will begin on the 12th of February. Office and factory schedule So, what does this mean for all of our customers who are not in China and not celebrating it? There will be some adjustments to the working days of the factory and the office. For Boda Games, our factory and our offices have the following closing and re-opening dates: Boda Games Factory: close February 5th, open February 27th Boda Games Office: close February 10th, open February 18th. Please note that the periods the factory and the office are closed may cause delays in our staff replying to your messages. We thank you for your understanding and will be 100% ready to support you after...

December 13, 2020 In Uncategorized

“What Board Game” Blog interviews Boda Games director

When we're not busy manufacturing board games, on of our other favourite pastimes are talking about board games! So when Jim Cohen from What Board Game asked if we would be interested in doing an interview with him, we immediately said yes. Boda Games' director, Jeff, talks with Jim about the history of Boda Games. Some of the past projects we have had the honor of working on. The finer details of board game manufacturing and much more. We had a great time trying to come up with the clever questions we received from him, and hope that you guys will enjoy reading it and learning more about Boda Games and board games manufacturing in general. Click here to read the full interview on the What Board Game website. What Board Game? What's that? Jim runs the "What Board Game" website. He is a massive fan of board games who wanted to share his hobby with the world. Or, in his own words: "I am commited to only featuring the greatest of games, especially ones that have not had as much press elsewhere. Get in touch if you would like to be a part. Or head on over to the forum to start right now! I would like...

November 30, 2020 In Boda Games, Design

Color mode: CMYK or Pantone?

If you’re a board game designer or publisher, you will definitely have heard one or more of these terms thrown around as you prepare all your artwork files for printing. You might even have a vague idea of what the terms stand for. But what is a color mode exactly? What is the difference between CMYK and Pantone? And when should you use which one. These are all questions we commonly get from customers. In this article, we will explain what the differences are between these color modes. When you should use which one. And what to watch out for when working with a specific color. Different board game components have different requirements for the color mode, so make sure you always check before you get started. We specify the color mode for each component in our Artwork Guidelines. So we always recommend starting from there when you start working on your files. CMYK (4C): The term CMYK is an abbreviation of the words Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key. In case these colors don’t ring a bell, you can think of them as blue, red, yellow and black respectively. CMYK is also referred to as four color printing (4C) sometimes. With CMYK...

October 27, 2020 In Boda Games

A great game deserves a great game box #1

A great game deserves a great game box. How to decide the best box for your game? It might seem that the type of box is the least of your concerns when designing a game. But that is where you are wrong! Although the game play is of course one of the most essential things, followed by the artwork, today we want to talk about choosing a box. How do you know what kind of box is right for your game? We previously discussed the many types of boxes, but today we want to delve into it further. What often happens is that designers have experiences with certain games that inspire them to create their own game. If the game that served as their inspiration came in a certain type of box, then they will likely envision their game as coming in that box as well. Other times people simply deduct the box type from a “will all the components fit” type of thinking. But here at Boda Games, we have seen the difference a box can make for a game. For you see, an undeniable part of this experience is the impression it makes on you. For example, if you...

September 2, 2020 In Boda Games, Pre Production

The multiple sides of dice

The multiple sides of dice. Dice are to this day the obvious choice when you need to generate a random number. Although over the past few years board games have developed a lot and with it a vast variety of other mechanisms to create randomized elements in games, few can beat the ease of use along with the reliability of a dice. As such, the majority of board games will have them being used in some shape or form. And they can be customized in many ways. Whether you change the amount of die faces, the colors or the size, you can make it as unique as well as exactly how you want. And let’s not forget: how much fun is it to roll a dice? The excitement of rolling and hoping for that one lucky 6 you need to win! For a component this important to many games, we of course also had to include it in our sample box. But as said before, there are many different ways to customize a dice. So instead of settling for only one type of custom dice. We designed 3 different ones! In this article, we will explain the different production methods and...

July 28, 2020 In Boda Games, Design

Boda Games Temple – how to design a punchboard building

..When we started work on our previous sample box, we set a goal that the components would not only be indicative of the Boda Games quality, but also had to be great to look at and fun to put together. Thus when we were brainstorming what to do with the punchboard, we decided on a punchboard building. Our punchboard building is made to look like a traditional Chinese temple, including details such as circular windows, slanted roofs and paintings of Chinese door guards. Prototyping When you are creating a complex punchboard such as our temple, the first thing is to sketch the overall structure. From there on, you can start thinking how the different pieces can fit together to eventually form the shape you have in mind. If you are unsure how to start, have a look at some board games (or one of our sample boxes) that you have on hand and carefully study each individual piece and how it comes together to create an overall structure. We also highly recommend first working on the shape before you get started on the artwork. That way, you can print blank versions and check whether all the pieces fit together and adjust sizing...