I was originally planning on posting an article about Decision Space in game design but certain events have caused me to postpone that article. It’s still coming at some point and I think it’s a pretty good article, but today I can’t help but share about Scoville.

Scoville has Launched!

If you are interested in the game and seeing the art or watching me in a video, then head over to the campaign page. The first 24 hours of the campaign saw 498 backers pledge $20,876. I am truly amazed at the response so far for Scoville.

Also, if you are a backer or are on Twitter, feel free to use this image as your avatar! The more we can spread the word, the more likely we will be at hitting our funding goal and the stretch goals.

Designing vs. Publishing

On the Kickstarter page you’ll notice that two of the stretch goals are to add a 5th and 6th player. While some people might grumble that the Print and Play files have always had the capability for 6 players, why does the Kickstarter version only have 4 players out of the gates?

This is a great debate between designing games and actually producing games.

As a designer I could add whatever I wanted into my designs. It could have 2000 wooden bits, 500 cards, 100 modular boards, and so on.

A publisher would never sign a game like that.

So there comes a time when designers must start to think like publishers. In order for Scoville to be up to a 6 player game, it would require more Market Orders, more Recipes, more Player Screens, More Pawns, More Coins, and more Bonus Action Tiles. Each of those elements are things I could easily produce for the few prototype copies that I made. But their are actual cost considerations for a publisher to produce them.

So while it is easy for a designer to add whatever they want into a game, it ultimately takes real money to make it happen.

That’s the case with the 5th and 6th player stretch goals for Scoville. I hope you all understand.

Go Check It Out!

The artwork for Scoville was done by Josh Cappel, who is a pleasure to work with. I love his style and it is clear that he really brought the town of Scoville to light in the artwork for the game. Here’s a picture of the box:

Will you be the best pepper farmer and win the Scoville trophy?

I’ll be sharing more art with you here and on Twitter as the campaign moves forward. Thanks so much for checking out my game.