Is it here yet...?

So we got the basic idea: fun and interesting come together when the elements that form the functions of the game, are so well-designed that they synthesise a seamless experience from their interactions. It wasn't explicitly said in the previous posts, but it was implied to some extent. In other words, in the end it took 3 articles to get to a full and proper explanation of the Science of what makes something interesting and fun. And the point was only gotten at the end of it, at least defined so succinctly and concise. You would agree this to be a more direct and astute condensation of what essentially makes up the intellectual draw of what makes a game interesting and fun. So there we have it. Makes one think what I was writing about over the last two articles, eh?

Somehow though, it feels apt to begin for real now. Maybe because we have taken so long. I do realise something though, my imagination back then when we played Risk, didn't allow for the sophistication of board games at the level of what I consider my very first genuine high-quality ownership of one: StarCraft the Board Game. I never knew a board game could be that fun, and so sophisticatedly designed. On this note, we really should start with it. Let it begin, the countdown to one of my best board game creations, possibly ever, and the first to be launched under the name of my company.

Ok, let's take a conservative guess, that 0.01% of the population is interested in playing board games. It has to be more though, because board games are so fun, so we are just being conservative here. That means there is roughly 6,000,000,000 divided by 10,000, equalling 600,000 potential buyers for board games. If your print-run is only in the thousands, you are not making as much money as you can. I mean seriously, you design a bomb of a board game, and you are only making 1600 of it? The world is like a million times that amount in quantity, you can't possibly consider a game that is published and advertised across the world, to be successful with a print-run at that level.

I have to say I have such confidence in the strength of my design for this board game, especially on the aspects of how it is both fun and interesting, a science of my own investigation and practise, which has backed the design process to achieve these two characteristics, that c'mon, the world's population of board game buyers can't just be 1600! Where are all the other several thousands at least of people with the good taste to play board games? I am saying 1600 because I am reading off a website that provides information and guides on the design process, and especially on educating the technical knowledge required for the success of a Kickstarter campaign. And one of their examples for a successful Kickstarter campaign for a board game is a game that only sold "nearly 1600 copies", in those exact words. Either someone doesn't understand the meaning of what success really means, or he has such low ambitions that they are not called ambitions at all, more like wishful or wistful thinking.

Then again, he might mean on the first day of the launch, but from reading it, it doesn't seem so at all. Doesn't this mean that with my expectations, and the quality of the design of the game, on the grounds of it being both interesting and fun, I am looking at a prospect of billions!? Guys, start spreading the word for me, if you want to be stormed in a cascade of many different game creations over the next few years, and especially after I establish my game company. At this point, I am open to the recruiting of any who believe themselves talented, with a portfolio to backup that claim, in the areas of drawing, graphic design, music composition, story idea conception, writing ability, game design, programming, and associated works, which include all aspects of the design process of bringing both digital and analogue games to realisation. I do very well know I can't do it all alone, and frankly, with an ambition that even considers the taking over of large companies like Blizzard, Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games...well, let's just say I am the opposite of Mr. Kickstarter there. No aim too high, no dream too impossible...

And are we here yet? Is it anywhere close to the revelations that matter, that this design blog was started for? Which is if you haven't realised yet, the promotion of my first to be published board game, that will set and define the standards of the company to come. And have we come a long way in artful words, yet in over 8 posts, I have managed to delay the description of the board game, in the detail that gets our readers knowing what we are dealing with, especially on those design notions and standards, "how and why is it so fun and interesting", and is it really so?

Somehow, I find it quite untidy to start the details here, given this has been a lengthy post on its own merit, which it has several besides the obvious of delaying the real and crucial details of a game I have hyped so much. All I can say is that it is inevitable; and we will begin it all on the next post, so see ya, it is here for real this time! Promise!

P.S. Remember, it will only be possible with your support of my company and me! I am talking about those prospects of success in the millions, when I sell to those potential ten-thousands of patrons of the Human population that play board games. Looking at that 0.01%, I mean c'mon, board games are off-the-hook when it comes to how fun they are. You mean the total population of board game players don't even reach to 0.01%? Even 0.001% is a fair sum of around 60,000. I can't have it considered a sales success by selling only 1600 copies, and by gosh am I going to prove to you the great intricacy of the Science of Fun and Interesting that went into the ingenuity of the design of this bomb of a board game, if that's what it takes to sell in the numbers that really appear as true success, in my eyes. Thinking about it, which really is more ludicrous, my ambition or the supposed reality? Let's keep on dreaming, and let the comments rain in!