Season's Hellos, now the News.

Every week I get at least one letter asking how wargames, or games in general, are produced. Since we have finished our first full game and the "experience" is fresh in my mind I thought I would share with you the process, from beginning to end, so that those of you who long to be a big-time wargame company will sit down and take a few deep breaths until the moment passes.

The "game" which we will call Balkan Front for this article, takes shape in many differing and fascinating ways. Although this game is a reprint of a previous title, it bears no resemblance to that game. For all purposes it is a new game. This was a learned experience for me since I thought a spruced-up reprint was going to be, as Sir Robin said when faced with a riddle at the bridge of doom in Monty Python's Holy Grail, "easy" -- wrong. So we can set aside the argument that it was a reprint and figure it was a new creation.

Getting started on this odyssey was easy, since I had all the education from The Urals and now knew everything....

How Many do We Do?

This question is not necessarily the first question to ask, but since you have to get quotes from the printers, box companies, and other vendors, it is wise to estimate your print run. The standard Europa print run for a game is five thousand. We printed that many Urals (still have some left if anyone wants to make a mass offer for the lot???). John and I discussed this matter several times. Our decision was simple. If we can not sell five thousand games, the series is out of business and we should not bother to make any more Europa titles, cut our losses, and scale down. So, for company reasons, we decided to make five thousand games.

Vendors:

First you have to understand the differing vendors you must deal with and the role they have in the project:

• Printing -- 3 companies
• Die Cutting -- 2 companies
• Boxes -- 2 companies
• Shipping -- 4 companies
• Assembly -- 1 company
• Dice -- 1 company

Printing for the maps and counters is done by BOPI; printing of the gold foil stamp is done by another company in Peoria, IL; printing of the charts and rules(the most important part, in my opinion) is done by my shop.

Die cutting is done by a company in St. Louis, MO. The metal die is processed by another company in Illinois. After a run the die must be resharpened. Each time it is to be resharpened it has to be sent from the cutting company back to the manufacturer to be sharpened.

Boxes come in three forms from two companies. The game box is done by a company in Chicago. The boxes are made at the company there, then they get the box covers, glue them to the boxes and ship them to our warehouse in Newton, IA. The shipping boxes, both the mailers we send out from here and the large cartons we pack games in for our distributors, come from a company in Rock Island, IL.

Shipping is done by what is called "best service." That is determined by the vendor, such as the box company, and is coordinated by GRD and the respective companies (signed for, inspected, billed, and the like).

Assembly is done at our warehouse in Newton, IA. The job is performed by a company called Progress Industries. They are responsible for packing and wrapping the games, then putting them into cartons and storing them until they receive a shipping order from here. Once a shipping order to a distributor is received they complete the shipment.

The dice are bought as necessary from the best source at the time. In this case I purchased the dice from GDW since they were close and gave us a good price.

Going with the Flow:

That makes 13 different companies with which you have to co-ordinate the work flow. This flow starts with the various intra-company departments. They are: Rules, Graphics, Mapping, and Production.

So, as the game takes shape in these departments (which are in five different cities, in five different states) it is my job to pace the project so that the various deadlines that have been established are met. The elements of the game that have to be coordinated appear to be simple: game box, counters, charts and rules, and maps. The timing of the elements from initial production to arrival in the warehouse for final assembly, shrinkwrap, and packing is the key to a successful run. You must add in to this a very crucial part -- selling the game to members and wholesalers.

The key is to have the motion of the production complete about two to three weeks before your stated release date. Now that takes training. On-the-job training. Brutal, reality training. Any of you who are in manufacturing management know exactly what I am talking about, those of you who are not in such a position, well, I will not get into the micros, but it is an experience.

So we want the game to be packed and ready to ship two to three weeks before the release date has been given. The reason for the delay is very, very simple. Once you have all these companies produce your game, they want to get paid. If the game is produced in every element except one, which is delayed for several months, you have paid for the counters, maps, boxes, but you have not sold nearly enough games through preorder to pay the thousands of dollars it takes to make the game. Bad, bad, bad! And that happened this time. It will not happen again.

Creationism and Evolution

The game is both of these processes. The credits in the game and on the box gives you the names of who is doing what in the general sense. What this information does not tell you is how intercontinental this company is. We span the country and reach across borders to get these games done. I will be giving a more detailed description of that in future issues of the magazine.

There are two parts to each game: intellectual and mechanical. The intellectual part starts first, but as soon as possible, the mechanical part must start. The first thing we do for the game is select the box. This part of the project is very important. We are assured of a quality product inside from both the intellectual and mechanical forms. Getting the non-believers or those who do not know about our system to look at our games, try our games, and become part of the community, is my mission. That makes the box very important as a first contact point.

John and I have chosen the covers for most of the games that we will be doing. I created the black and gold foil look for the box, John and I decided to use poster art from WWII as the visual theme for each campaign. The covers have been reviewed by a good cross section of distributors, retailers and gamers. A very positive reaction was registered.

After the box is created in a basic and general way it begins to evolve and continues this process until John, myself, and some others like what we see. I begin the final form draft at that point while the other bits of the game are moving ahead. Box art was final at the beginning of March. Once it reached this stage it sat on the shelf because the production stream had not been fully completed. I did submit the cover to BOPI and get the necessary drafts in final form, but we held up the printing until we were ready for the other elements: counters, maps, rules, and charts.

The Elements -- Earth, Wind, Fire, and Error

Boxes out of the way; that was easy, now the counters.

The counters are created using the font we invented for the symbols, laid out on a grid in the computer. It took me about a year of puttering with the program, part-time, to get to the point where we could produce good quality art for the printer to shoot.

The number elements of the counters are not a simple series of key strokes. In some cases the numbers are laid into the grid individually, or created as separate elements, grouped, copied onto a master sheet and put into the clipboard on the computer. The collection of these numbers is quite large at this point, running from 1-4 through 12-10 with the three number lots thrown in as well.

The sideways printing for the names and numbers of the individual units requires close scrutiny with several changes, depending on size of type and number of letters or numbers. Very labor intensive the first time, but by the end of the project I was doing well. The ships, aircraft, river flotillas, and speciality markers are all different from the ground forces and required more work. I am very proud of the air counters. The type is easy to read, the counter is balanced, and we added "inop" and the model on the back of the counter. My other favorite is the "fort under construction counter." Simple solution to a problem.

After all the hoo-haw, test print, and magic on the computer is done I fax the proof sheets to John Astell, he reads them and faxes back the changes. I make the changes and fax them back. He does one more review and we are into layout. This portion of the project is most important. You must line up the fronts with the backs. We have some "blue line" sheets that help keep the counters lined up, but when you deal with strips of counters you have to make sure the seven counters you lay down on one countersheet match the seven you lay out on the backside. It appears simple, but try to do it once without learning all the shortcuts and secret rules of layout and I am here to tell you that you will make at least one mistake. Darla was in charge of correcting the counter layout and caught several problems, thank god.

After the counters are laid out on the blue lines you lay a tissue sheet over the top and "case" the counters. This is the process whereby the instructions for the printer are written over the top of the blocks describing the colors, reverses, or other special features that must be noted. In some cases you tell the printer that a color is screened, what percentage the screen is and exactly where it goes. Each color, each screen, each reverse, and all other instructions have to be written on the layout sheets and rewritten on a proof instruction sheet that goes with the front and back counter sheets. In the case of Balkan Front that would mean eight layout sheets and eight proof sheets.

After all this has been completed you have to review each sheet again to insure the layout and proof sheets match. Now the countersheets are done and ready to be sent off to BOPI. This does not mean that these countersheets are to be printed, but since each countersheet has to go through four processes -- printing, gluing, laminating, and die cutting -- they must be put into the production stream at just the right moment so they will come out the other end and arrive at the warehouse at the proper time, as described above.

But! Before any of that occurs we get a "blue line" and "color key" back from the printer that must be reviewed and corrected, then returned to the printer and corrected blue lines and color keys resent and reviewed again. The back and forth of this project ends up being quite costly in-and-of-itself.

Putting countersheets through the stream means having to call the three vendors that are doing the work and getting from them the time it will take in each step of the process. The printer finishes the run and sends the countersheets to the die cutter. By the time the sheets arrive, the die should have been processed by the die maker; sharpened and extra blades sent to the die cutter so the run does not have to be stopped to have the die resharpened (sent back to the die maker and returned); and the timing of the cutting run also has to be considered.

This is compared to the maps and box covers flow. The maps are printed, folded, then shipped to the warehouse. The box covers are printed, foil stamped, sent to the box company where the boxes are produced, glued to the boxes, wrapped and sent to the warehouse. Since the maps and countersheets are printed by the same printer it is important to get the order they are printed in nailed down. Takes longer for box covers than countersheets, but it takes longer to finish countersheets than it does the boxes. Makes my head hurt.

Everything takes more time than you are told it will take (rule of the cosmos), so it is unlikely these elements will work correctly. Early on I established a flow chart to track and plan the movement of the components of the game. With one exception I was able to get things working pretty well. But back to the trenches....

If it's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium

While the counters are taking shape the maps are being done. To get the maps into production requires several steps. First the drafts are created by A.E. Goodwin and sent off to John Astell for review. After final drafts are completed (these maps are drawn and colored by hand) we send them to Barbie Pratt in Washington state. Barbie has been doing the maps for some time. When she was leaving GDW to move to Washington I asked her to continue to do these maps and she graciously accepted. Keeping Barbie on as the art department map person was important to all of us. She has the experience and know-how to insure the quality of production that is a key element to Europa.

With the new maps we have added many new elements and the close attention to detail that has always been required (virtually each hex has to be examined) has intensified. We have added the names of the rivers, seas, important locations, ports, many additional cities, and other map features. The list for Balkan Front was substantial. The terrain features must be done hex by hex with proper screens applied to the proper colors. Although there are only four colors we work with, each color has to be reviewed since rough is a screen of mountain, woods are a screen of forest, and so on. Additionally, each change of terrain, from rough to mountain, or each overlay of terrain, woods on rough, must be reviewed. The rivers must be laid out so that they conform to the hexsides and, where rivers flow into lakes, oceans, and seas, the mouth of the river has to be cut into that hex. Names have to be put down on the maps as well.

So, as each color takes shape we have four maps for each final map produced: One for blues, including all the screens; that covers the rivers, swamps, weather lines, lakes, oceans, and seas; one for the greens that show the woods and forests; one for the browns that covers the rough and mountains; one for the black, giving all the roads, railroads, cities of all types, ports, names of everything, international borders, internal boundaries, and so on. You end up with a black and white map, with three clear overlays, one for each color. All these overlays must match the basic hex grid. All the features have to line up.

The instructions to the printer are very exacting and you rely on the printer to check each one of these instructions and print the maps accordingly. Most of the time they do. I believe the error rate is less than one percent.

In this game, the Alps have some unusually colored features, caused by printer error. We may keep them in for future games if we decide we like them.

So, Barbie gets the handmade drafts and produces the four color map drafts, sends them to Arthur Goodwin, John, and me for review. Corrections are noted and returned to Barbie. She makes them on the drafts, makes a copy, and sends the final draft to me as camera ready. I contact BOPI to set up the initial production of the blue lines and color key. After the maps have been processed by BOPI and the blue line and color key have been returned to me, I forward them to Barbie. She checks them against the final draft copy she made, notes the corrections on the blue line and color key, then ships them back to BOPI.

Again, realize that time and space play a real factor here. When Barbie was working on these maps in the past, she was in Bloomington, IL, which is the same town as the printer, BOPI. Now they are transcontinental. Additionally, we sent the maps by the postal service, once. Now we ship them by UPS. Even with their careful handling, they become damaged. A small thing that could have dire consequences.

After BOPI gets the corrected blue line and color key maps we set a printing schedule and shipping time. These dates are flexible, but BOPI is pretty good about getting the job done.

The Schedule

So, BOPI has the box cover, the countersheets, and the maps. I have to balance how the printing time is done so that (hopefully) they arrive within a week of each other so the assembly process can be done. Since the boxes have to go through BOPI, then the foil stamper, then the box company, then ship to the warehouse, we do them first. Boxes go through three steps, then ship to the final assembly point.

The countersheets go from BOPI to the die cutter, then to the warehouse. Counters go through two steps, then ship to the final assembly point. We do countersheets second.

Maps are printed by BOPI, then shipped to final assembly. They are done last. An interesting aside: maps cost more if you do not fold them. Folded maps fit into BOPI's boxes for shipping and require less human handling. Flat maps have to be placed in special boxes and require much more human labor, so the cost goes up for each map.

Rules and charts are all in house so I have complete control over what happens with the production as far as timing within the production stream. The game was final in every respect except these rules and charts because the game was a complete remake. John had to invent Balkan Front from square one. The game contains eight scenarios. The orders of battle have been completely refreshed. Due to these facts the rules took longer than expected. So there I stood, rules manuscript on the press operations table, plates shot of the text and paper in the machine, ready to go. I stood back and felt a wave of relief, sort of a feeling of taking a two-ton dump.

At last, it was over. Wrong. About one day into production the ink applicator mechanism on the press broke. This was a Friday, no parts in Iowa for it, no parts before Monday. I looked at that press, a cold and murderous look, and asked the printer how we could get it to work. He looked at me (with disbelief) and said, "Well, you could turn the crank by hand and feed the ink into the ink well, but, jeeze, you would have to do it all the time the press was running." I got my walkman, put on Tangerine Dream, and turned that crank for 16 hours.

The Wrap

Now you can start a game company and do all the wonderful things that I did. For a small fee I will be happy to help you along the way. In the final days of the game before it became a reality I received a great deal of help from Rick Gayler that made the difference between getting it done, and getting it done right. Deen Wood also lent a hand and helped GRD get through this last, long period of time.

I know that I have said it before, but I am still thankful to all the members who preordered that game in May and June of this year and who, almost without exception, had the patience and goodwill to give us the slack we needed to get the job done. I am proud of the project's final results. I believe that this "next generation" of games will offer players and students of Europa a revitalized and refreshed game system. Many hands pull the oars in these projects and we can not reward them enough for what they do. At the top of my list is Rick Gayler.

Mea Culpa

The final step was the killer, but was completed. All the other elements of the game were waiting in the warehouse. The job was done, the game was shipped, the rest is history.

The things that went wrong with the project are few. The Axis countersheet is too light. We will correct that. What happened is quite simple. The color was mixed by the printer using the Italian base color and screened down from that, so the Germans are what the Italians color code calls for and the Italians are a 60% screen of that color. All I can say is I handed the printer the color key using the German color from Scorched Earth and said, "You can do this color, right?" "No problem," they said (no problem...?). When confronted with the countersheet, done, ready to die cut, with the project behind schedule, with the rest of the art backed up, with everything being everything, I made the decision to proceed and get that section of the project done and put away. The countersheet was not perfect, but not so bad, either, so there.

The other delays and problems are what they are and I will have to refigure the production schedule accordingly.

In the future I will be able to pace the project and we will not announce a game until we have final drafts of each of these elements in my hands. Then the project flow should work, you should be happy since you will receive your games within thirty days of your orders, the distributors will get their games in a timely fashion, and the retailers will get their games to sell to the eager masses lined up outside their shops. The End.

Reproduction >{?Note: You may reproduce any icons and charts that appear in the Europa magazine, if done for your own personal use.

Coming in Early 1991

Come "Inside Europa" with John Astell; replay the German first turn in Kasserine Crisis with Jean-Guy Rathe; take a look at Army Groups Center and South with Roy Lane; sneak a peek into Task Force Johnson with Graham Stephens; and revel in our other special features, as well as our regular columns.