There’s a bit of a joke among game designers: when you’re 90% done with your game, that’s when you realize you still have 90% left to go! I’ve experienced this several times over the past six months, and I’m feeling it again right now! I work hard on the game, but progress feels slow. The good news is, I still enjoy it a lot, and as long as I’m moving forward, I’m happy!

In about a month, it will be one year since I started creating Sky Empire. Before this project, I used to laugh when people talked about designing a single game for years. How hard could it be? It’s just a bunch of components and different cards, right? Luckily, I read a lot and listened to podcasts about game creation before starting, so I knew there was more to it. This preparation was very helpful and kept me from quitting.

I’ve loosely tracked my time, and I’m about to hit around 1,600 hours of work. I estimate it’ll take at least 2,000 hours before the final product is ready for Gamefound. So now I understand how designing a board game can take several years, especially if you can’t dedicate as much focused time as I have!

So, what’s new?

This week, I submitted a quote request to two manufacturers in China: Panda Games Manufacturing and Eastar Game Manufacturing. Initially, I planned to submit only to Panda, but after meeting with Eric Fu, Eastar’s sales manager, I decided to get a quote from them as well to compare prices.

I think a common mistake indie game designers make during crowdfunding is setting the price of their game too high from the start. My goal is to keep the price as low as possible, not aiming for profit, but just to break even and build a following for the company!

Anyway, enough about that—let’s see some pictures instead of what I am doing!

The character board, remade to fit developments and initiative tokens

Leviathan blueprints and miniatures! (10 cm long)

Putting game copies together for previewers

One of the big highlights since last time was my wife and I’s first visit to Essen Spiel.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect, but we had an absolute blast! There were more than 200,000 visitors and 923 exhibitors from 52 different countries at Spiel this year.

We met a lot of different people—designers, publishers, and manufacturers—all of whom were kind and helpful! I learned a lot and made many new connections.

Two interesting people I got to know were Ike Brunicardi, designer of Bantam West (a great western-themed sandbox game), and Chris Sifonios, designer of Ion Core (a 4X sci-fi game coming to Gamefound in November). I learned a lot from their experiences with game design and self-publishing!

I also brought home some cool games! Unfortunately, a few of the ones we were searching for sold out quickly, but that’s just how it goes.

Most importantly, I got tons of inspiration for my booth in 2025, and plans are already being made!

Games from Essen

On that note, let’s have a look at how the airship build are coming along!

That was the 5th newsletter from Greymarsh Games!

The next newsletter will cover playtests, battle reports, and Episode 3 of “I’m Going to Essen Spiel 2025!”

Peace out!

/Preben, Greymarsh Games