I’m writing this from a UK persepctive, so anybody reading this in the USA will probably have closer card printers.
There are three things you’ll need to get printed for your card game. The cards, a box and the rules. Some people combine 1 & 3 and print the rules on additional cards, which will save money at the expense of being able to have the rules on one sheet. If you get the cards printed through a company which does set numbers of cards and won’t change in single increments than this can be a money saver or impossible depending upon the card numbers.
When it comes to card numbers, one thing you need to consider is the size of the box required. In the UK if you need to post anything over 2.5cm the cost goes from a large letter to a small parcel. This includes the packing you need to include to make sure it gets to its destination in one piece. If you need over 60 cards and want to keep postage costs down you need to consider a double deck box, which will obviously increase the box price.
Once you know exactly how many cards you need you can start looking at the printing options. Obviously China is an option, but unlike larger games the savings on card games compared to EU printing aren’t that great, and outweighed by the need to have CE testing and shipping costs. Ivory Games Maker and Cartamundi are obvious UK printing options here, but unless you are printing a lot expect to pay significantly more for them. In the end I went with Ludocards. Their pricing is transparent, easy to see (instant quotes), all safety checks on the materials has been done and they were easy to communicate with. They were also a lot more competitive on price. The great thing about using them was when I was running the Kickstarter I could price in additional cards quickly for the stretch goals.
For the artwork it was just a matter of using the templates provided. Photoshop is the easiest for me, so it was just a case of making sure the bleed etc was correct, then saving the whole thing as a multi-page pdf.
There are a few things to consider when using Ludocards:
- The tuck boxes aren’t great. For my promo copies I didn’t get them laminated, which may have made a difference, but the box quality was what made me want to make my own. I’ll talk more about making my own next time, but definitely check out the tuck box quality before deciding upon using it to sell. I can’t talk about the other boxes as I never ordered them. One good thing about this was I knew that my boxes would be considered large letters instead of small parcels (the postage costs of which was untenable).
- You need to ask via email for things such as spray varnishing, which is free, but something I expected as standard. If you’re aware of this it’s no problem though.
- Additional leaflets are expensive for what they are. This is understandable as it does complicate the manufacturing process somewhat, but you can get them printed elsewhere for a fraction of the price. We’re talking 0.85 euro vs 0.10 euro per leaflet.
- If you are getting them printed cards only, it actually isn’t always cheaper to get them printed in sets. When I needed sets of 60 cards, it was actually cheaper to get them printed in sets of 120. This changed depending upon the total sets I wanted, with the cheapests varying between 60, 120, 180 and 240 depending upon the numbers. We’re talking a few pence per set, but if you’re on a budget that adds up, heres an example of a spreadsheet I made to work it out:
- Don’t forget to add the 22% tax, unless you’re VAT registered (which, unless you expect to sell a lot of your game, it doesn’t really make sense to be if you can avoid it (disclaimer- I am not an accountant))
- Brexit. God knows what’s going to happen here, but on the flip side if you manufacturer in the EU and the UK you won’t get hit with US China tarrifs.
I had my cards printed at Ludocards, made the boxes myself, and had the rules leaflets printed at an online printing company. I’ll go over making a box next post, as it’s quite detailed, but leaflets are suprisingly easy- any leaflet printing company will give you quotes instantly. Your rules leaflet should fold up to be the size of your cards and printed double sided. For costs I paid a little over £25 for 400 rules leaflets.