Focusing my Path

Every last working day of the current month I publish a report reflecting on the previous month. These reflections exist to demonstrate my progress, share my experiences and help transfer what I learn to others.

The Past Month

Looking for publishers, getting ready for US trip, restructuring Z’s Laboratories and making a GGJ game.

Against Sahara – Current Status

I’ve been researching board game publication options, and I am leaning towards self-publishing the game instead of signing up with a publisher.

Apparently, in the tabletop world the best royalty you could hope for is 6% (they go between 3% to 6%) on a game that’s likely to sell around 1000 copies for 10~20 U$ dollars, and it’s going to be taxed to boot…

I wouldn’t even recoup my living expenses with that kind of numbers, let alone hope to build a business around that!.

However, I still wish to sign up with a publisher if I can get one. I am seriously considering becoming a tabletop publisher myself for Bahraini game designers, as that will help speed up the rise of the local industry, and I’ll learn much faster by working with an established publisher on a game first.

Although, most publishers I found want casual party or family games, so I might design a simple one and pitch that instead while leaving Against Sahara to self-publish.

Preparing for Train Jam & GDC 2019

Got everything ready for the trip ahead, from bookings to flights to scheduling my GDC trip.

Re-imagining the Z’s Laboratories Website

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you might’ve noticed some stuff disappearing or moving.

I’ve been contemplating a lot on what I really want to do with Z’s Laboratories, and made the current changes to reflect on my decision to specialize into solo game dev.

This means that any article or advice I post will assume my reader is another solo dev, and any learning materials I create will be for someone who needs to learn it all from scratch, although I would be naturally more into the programming side of things as I’m first and foremost an engineer.

Global Game Jam 2019

I had originally planned to skip the GGJ this year, but I’m too much of a jammaholic and couldn’t help myself ?.

You can check out my GGJ19 game by clicking here.

What’s Next: Getting a Mentor

I’m looking to get an experienced game designer and a strong UE4 programmer as mentors. The hope is to learn much faster than I currently am, and they can help steer me in the right direction without me having to look for my way in the dark.

This ends this month’s report, hope you enjoyed and if you have any feedback please comment below 🙂 .