Today, we received a 7 kg package with a prototype series of 20 games!
It’s been much-anticipated and we were counting down the days since the manufacturer notified us they’re shipping it. My first thought when I saw it was that it is small. I never did any calculations about what size it should be, but I was expecting something bigger. I really hoped they’d sent everything, not just the cards!
I had half a thought that I should maybe wait for the others so we’d open it together, but the curiosity was too great — I had to open it to check if everything was okay. I can send the others photos and they can all unbox their own copy of a game, we have 20 of them in any case, and a few copies will stay with us!
But I didn’t rush the process, I took the time to take a photo of the box at the doorstep — as much as it’s against my instincts to do that, we need to post on social media. I also took the time to find a spot that was lit appropriately for the photoshoot and took a few photos of each step of the unboxing. As soon as I lifted the final layer of the bubble wrap, I knew they’d sent everything — the boxes were nicely stacked together, and not a cubic centimetre of the space was wasted.
I took out one copy and slid my fingers over the matte surface of the box. Here it is. I can hold the physical copy of something that has occupied my thoughts for almost a year in my hands for the first time.
I took a brief moment to feel proud about it, and then opened the box and inspected the cards. Everything looked great. I needed to share the news right away, so I took some photos and shared them with the rest of the team. Before they could reply, I took the game and ran upstairs to my parents’ apartment — they have both been working from home today and I needed to share it with someone in person.
Some time and a lot of reviewing of the components later, I am sitting on the couch by myself. I’m excited about this important step we’ve just taken. Excited and proud. I’ve found a few minor things that we’ll need to improve before we go to larger-scale production — some colours came out a bit differently than on the screen and in the photos of the test print, the layout of the cards can be improved a bit more, some symbols that we were afraid would be too small are maybe a bit too big, the backsides of the cards are upside down and some other minor stuff. I’m sure we’ll find more such details when we go over it with the whole team, and that’s okay. This was the first time we were preparing something for printing professionally, let alone printing a game — cards and boxes, and we were doing it ourselves, so there were bound to be mistakes. But we’ll learn from them and eliminate them before the game goes to mass production. So overall, I’m really happy with how the games turned out.
And I’m realising how far we’ve come from the ideating phase last winter. How much we’ve learned and how we’ve grown in the process. I’ve known all that on some level before. I’ve sensed it when I was trying to write about some things — like how we chose a name, how we invested the first money, how we decided to open a company, and things like that — and those things felt like they happened to a different me. But it’s the milestones like this that allow me to truly appreciate the progress, that give me something tangible to compare. And the feelings I’m having when we reach them ultimately tell me, that we’re going in the right direction. These milestones are adding another piece to the project machinery that increases the project’s momentum. And they give me motivation and energy to continue moving forward.