SQR is a puzzle and strategy game for one or two players. It can be played physically as a real board game and a free cell phone version is in the works. This instructable shows how we made a complete game set, including board and pieces (SQRs). http://www.ucgames.net/
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Signing UpStep 1: So, what's SQR?
SQR is a turn-based strategy game. It is played on a board made of square cells (though the board itself needn't be square). Each player uses a team of characters, the SQRs, to face an opponent. Each SQR is specialized: the warrior, for instance, can only attack SQRs placed next to it, while the sniper can attack SQRs several cells away.
If you take a look at the picture below, you'll see that the cells have different colours. Colour is crucial to SQR, since the SQRs need to be placed on a cell of their own colour to do anything other than move. There's a SQR, the painter, which turns cells to the player's colour(1). Black cells don't count: they could be removed from the board. As you see in the picture, each cell is a cube, a woodblock, with the faces painted in different colours. Therefore, changing the colour of a cell is simply done by lifting the cube, choosing the appropriate colour, and putting it back in place.
We - UCGames - are developing SQR as a free cell phone game, but some months ago we realized that it could also be played as a "physical" game. Since then we have developed two prototypes to try different board configurations and test gameplay -this is the second prototype. At present time it is one of a kind, so we'll show how we made it in case someone else wants to try building another :)
(1)for a full explanation of the rules, take a look here.
If you take a look at the picture below, you'll see that the cells have different colours. Colour is crucial to SQR, since the SQRs need to be placed on a cell of their own colour to do anything other than move. There's a SQR, the painter, which turns cells to the player's colour(1). Black cells don't count: they could be removed from the board. As you see in the picture, each cell is a cube, a woodblock, with the faces painted in different colours. Therefore, changing the colour of a cell is simply done by lifting the cube, choosing the appropriate colour, and putting it back in place.
We - UCGames - are developing SQR as a free cell phone game, but some months ago we realized that it could also be played as a "physical" game. Since then we have developed two prototypes to try different board configurations and test gameplay -this is the second prototype. At present time it is one of a kind, so we'll show how we made it in case someone else wants to try building another :)
(1)for a full explanation of the rules, take a look here.
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As for going commercial:
Start small; if there's a hobby-shop or game-store (card games, tabletop games, the one near me sells yo-yo's and the like) see if they'll sell it for you, or if you can sell it through them. It's a very limited market (people don't often go out of town for those sorts of things) but at that point you can truthfully claim that the game sells.
A little bigger: There are a lot of contests and craft shows for puzzles and board games like this. If you can get into one of those, it should bring in more notoriety. I constantly see "winner of the puzzle design blah blah blah" when looking at those sorts of things.
Investment: Maybe start with a little donation link on the website. You'd be surprised how much people will want to see this in toy stores.
Now these things will all get the ball rolling, but more importantly it will show, if and when you go for larger investors, that the game is popular and can make money.
One last thing, if you do sell at smaller toy stores, it may be necessary to tweak the manufacturing a little. I'd make molds for everything, the board, the blocks, the pieces, all of it. That way all you need to do is mix up some plaster, pour, and paint.
I probably went a little far with the suggestions, I understand that the cell-phone game came first, and it's probably higher on the list of things to do, but I would love to see this thing take off as a board game as well. When is the cell phone game due for launch by the way?
Now, I was thinking on ways to make the game more "available" to people. Resorting to shapeways would be useful for the pieces, but not for the board (it would be ridiculously expensive). I have the mold I used for the board, and I can make one for the pieces as well. The board above takes 64 blocks of approximately 1-1/4 inch. side; I just made a search and you can get them for $13 here. Well, perhaps it is feasible, after all! :)
From the pictures, it looks like there are four possible colours... red, blue, black, white. I gather red and blue represent each player's territory, white is neutral, and black is ... blocked? a wall?
I would recommend a much simpler way of constructing board/squares:
- Cut 64 squares into a big square piece of heavy card-stock, and glue it to an identical big square backing piece. (so there are shallow square indentations)
- Make 64 small square pieces of card/wood/plastic that are quite a bit thicker than the card-stock, painting one side red, one side blue.
- If you can do without walls, then just paint the board backing white - for each square, a red-side-up piece means red territory, blue-side-up means blue, and no piece means white.
- If you absolutely must have the walls, then have a red-blue set of pieces, and a black set of pieces.
The thing is, these 2-sided board piece are much simpler to make than a cube, and take up less space - even if you want more states. The fact that the board depressions are very shallow means that no-piece-in-the-hole can be a valid state, too.Having said that, it looks like a cool game - I'd love for it to end up in my local puzzle store.