Juggling it all and having fun
Life gets in the way!
Whether it’s family life, personal challenges, work, friends, commitments, or personal endeavors – there’s always a balance that should be struck.
“Balance” is a nice euphemism for an idyllic, albeit mostly elusive, set of circumstances in our lives that both compete for our time and energy and recharge us.
I have 5 kid’s books in various stages of completion. Some are with the editor, one is with the illustrator, the InDesign templates are done, and all are in line to be published in November and that date seems reasonable.
I’m also working on two Kickstarter projects for 3 games – one of which I’d like to launch in 3 weeks and another in September.
The first one has been fun to create and a great learning experience so far. It’s a simple and silly game mentioned in a past post and uses shot glasses and custom dice.
Keep an eye out for Monsters vs. Humans – A Shooter Game. =D
The second one’s getting down to the wire and causing some angst in the “life balance” department!
Final play testing occurs tomorrow night at a local Meetup and then it’s full steam ahead for game reviewer prototypes. This second project is a pair of mint tin games.
All of the game components are in good shape – I have the mint tins which are the game boxes, loads of mini meeples, and the dice.
But . . . what’s missing is the final artwork for the labels and the mini cards! =(
I’m doing the art myself and have some of it done but sometimes I get stressed out (that and an intense week long training course I’m attending for work next week! bah!). =p
Well, I just have to smile and keep in mind that stuff like this, making games and writing books, isn’t a bad burden at all! =)
Printer Studio mini cards
Printer Studio has a good reputation in the game community and certainly has good pricing. For Mint Tin Pirates and Mint Tin Villagers, mini cards will be used. These are half the size of a poker card and fit well in the mint tins.
However, I’ve never seen the cards first hand and needed to before finalizing the Kickstarter page. I needed business cards and typically use mini Moo cards but figured I’d get a 54 card deck of mini cards instead. A bonus is that these cards are much less than the mini Moos and come out to about a nickel a piece.
What better to spark a conversation about upcoming Kickstarter projects than to have a quirky business card.
When researching game components, I came across two posts about Printer Studio cards that helped me decide to use them. And I’m happy with what I received. To add to the online info about Printer Studio cards for game designers, I’ve snapped some pics and added captions to them. You can see a bigger version of each pic by clicking it. =)
These are the 310 gram per square metre cards with a linen finish. Even though these are printed in California, the paper comes from France and has a great feel, springiness, and snap. The linen finish creates a cushion of air for effortless shuffling.
