1) Yup, we're looking at publishing the JCD piecepack - it's a good
match for our equipment. We'll be making some pieces and I'll post
them here or on www.bluepantherllc.com shortly.
As others have said, this is exciting news.
2) With a laser, we can engrave birch, hardwood, plywood, plastic
and a variety of materials. Most likely, the piecepack would be
birch with a polyurethane surface coat. Plastic can be done -
transparent, transluscent or solid (like engraver's plastic), but it
is significantly more expensive raw material, so the final price of
a piecepack would probably not get alot of takers... It might be
the kind of thing we would make for a contest, though.
I think the birch will work fine, especially for a first go. With
high-quality wood, I don't think the grain patterns will be so obvious
as to make them extremely easy to "read" from the back, and I think
your point about cost is well taken. It's good to know that you could
produce a plastic version at some point for those who really want one
and would be willing to pay for it.
4) A little bit of market research. If you've visited our site, you
would see that our games come in wood boxes. The question I would
ask of this group is whether you would prefer the pieces in small
wood boxes (say 6"x2.5"x"2.5") or in drawstring bags? A wood box is
slightly more expensive, but not by much.
I think the boxes are nice. I think the bag would be useful, as there
are several piecepack games that involve drawing tiles or other items
out of a bag or setting them up randomly, so that a draw bag would be
functional in terms of the game. Not as easy to store, though.
5) We have a game of our own called Cubed, which is rock paper
scissors in 3D with dice. There are 24 dice in 4 colors, along with
a wooden 5x5 board and the rules to 3 different, but related games.
Right now it is a BP product, but it might be the kind of to release
into the public domain, similar to Piecepack - what do you think of
Cubed looks like a really interesting system, in itself and in
potential for combining with other systems to create new games.
Putting it into the public domain would be way cool. :->
I don't know how often you attend conventions and so on for marketing
purposes, but if you do that kind of thing, have you considered trying
to have this ready for Penguicon in April? (http://www.penguicon.org/)
I know at least Ron and some other members of this list are planning
to attend and would be happy to talk up the piecepack, and it's a
natural fit for the event.
Marty
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Marty Hale-Evans marty@... Seattle WA, USA
Keywords: puppies, grammar, Discworld, fat-lib, Populuxe, origami,
AgeOfRenaissance, fish&chips, elephants, etiquette, technoculture,
Colbert, MontyPython, beads, TexasHold'Em, TheWho, titanium spork.
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