I visited an “entrepreneur” friend not too long ago. I was explaining the concept of the Düdle game to him when he asked me, “Do you have a UPC code?”

“You mean like a barcode? No... Should I?”

“Yeah! How can I sell your product if its doesn’t have a Universal Product Code?”

“How do I get one?”

“Same place we get everything, online.”

So the rest of the visit UPS and barcodes were all I could think about. When I finally got home I spent the whole afternoon researching the history of the UPC and the barcode. It’s pretty interesting. They first appeared in the US in grocery stores in the 40’s to make it easier to stock products and check out customers. If you really want to learn about the history of barcodes and UPCs, I recommend this article.

www.barcoding.com/information/barcode_history.shtml

So after researching how to get a UPC today, I found that I had two options.

One was to become a member of the GS1, the global organization in charge of international business standards like barcodes and UPCs. Or two, buy a pre-existing UPC from a third party company for a discontinued product. While it’s way cheaper to go with a third-party UPC provider, I wouldn’t have any control over it and major retailers wouldn’t carry my product. So I decided the best bet was to dish out the $250 to become a member of the GS1 and develop my own UPC. The nice thing about the $250 membership is that it includes up to 10 different UPCs! That way when I make the Düdle expansion pack I’ll have a new UPC ready and waiting!

Find out more at:
https://www.gs1us.org/
Or watch this delightful propaganda piece

All that’s left now is to update the package design to include the newly acquired UPC barcode! Man, it’s feeling like a real product now!

Last week I wrote a blog post about the different companies that I researched and prototyped with in a search for a printer. I was really impressed when Monday morning I got a notification about a pending comment. Here's what I found:

It was great to get this kind of feedback from a company after finding their name mentioned in a blog post! I did email him back and certainly will keep them bookmarked for future projects. Perhaps I'll have these guys in charge of a certain perk I have planned for the Kickstarter... but that's for another blog post!

With all the words picked and all the cards designed, its time to get some cards printed!!! After lots of online research we’ve realized that there are TONS of places that advertise “custom playing cards,” but only a few that could actually do what we want.

For instance, apparently there must be a much higher demand for normal playing cards with custom backs (getting your own picture printed on the other side of the king of hearts and the 4 of clubs.) rather than fully customized cards.

Then there is quantity. Some of the sites would not print custom cards unless you ordered 10,000 decks or more. Which would mean we would need to get 40,000 decks (one for each of the parts of speech). While we would love Düdle to be a smash hit and sell 10,000 copies, we are realistic!

So with those factors in place we were able to narrow it down to a handful of possible companies.
1. The Printer’s Studio (www.printerstudio.com)
2. Make Playing Cards (www.makeplayingcards.com)
3. Superior POD (www.superiorpod.com)
4. The Game Crafter (www.thegamecrafter.com)
5. Ad Magic (www.admagic.com)

The Printer’s Studio and Make Playing Cards were very similar sites. Their card editing interface was so similar in fact that we suspect they may be owned by the same company, or at least hired the same company to create their websites. Their prices were very similar (with Printer’s Studio being slightly cheaper) and turn around was very quick (with Printer’s Studio being a bit faster). The finished cards were almost the exact same quality, which was very good! The big draw back though was that both of these printers were based out of China and the customer service was a little hit or miss. They always answered our emails, but didn’t always answer our questions. They also didn’t really have any options for boxes.

Superior POD wasn’t really designed for what we were looking for. The info that was on their website led us to believe that while they did have options for custom boxes, they didn’t offer bulk printing discounts. Their prices were also much steeper than the first two companies (almost 7 times more expensive for a prototype). So they were out of the running pretty quick.

The Game Crafter is an awesome website and community of independent game designers. While they had all the options we needed (smaller runs at affordable prices and options for custom boxes) they are also game hosting site. If we wanted to use them it would be in our best interest to sell the game through their site’s shop. If that were the case they would take a cut. At 70% to us and 30% to the Game Crafter for every game sold we weren’t sure that was the way we wanted to go.

Ad Magic is a custom printing company based out of Netcong, NJ. What caught our attention was how prominently they featured print work they had done for Kickstarter projects on their website. After several emails back and forth with their reps we think they will be the best company for the job. They had competitive card printing prices, plus affordable options for a custom sized and printed box. The cost to prototype is a little steep (about $150), but it looks like the over all project will be totally affordable (around $15-$25 per game depended on the size of the run).

Now that most of the research is done, time to get prototyping! Once we’ve got a finished prototype we can start putting together photos and videos to use in a Kickstarter campaign! Whoo hoo! Things are getting serious now!

Also, feel free to leave us any advice or insights you may have on printing custom cards in the comments!

I know I missed last week, but it’s ok because it was for a good reason! I’ve been working on Düdle marketing and getting the word out. I try to make regular Facebook posts and tweet about the game’s progress. I post düdles that people have drawn to Instagram as well as cute pictures of the clay Dudley sculpture I made. But how could I tell if these things were working?

To find out I sent in a question to the marketing podcast Not a Real Job. Chris Van Patten and Joel Kelly answer questions about online marketing and I thought they would be able to help. Well boy was I in for a surprise! Not only could they help (with great advice about marketing and using Kickstarter) but also gave a great Düdle shout-out in the beginning of episode 28:

Last Wednesday they held a Not a Real Job fan meet-up in NYC. So after such a rave review from two strangers that had never even played the game I figured it would be worth the train ticket to the city and share the game with them in person. So instead of writing and posting a blog post last Wednesday, Benn and I took the train into NYC to meet people from the Internet. (I can see my rational self cringing)

It was an awesome time! Joel and Chris are super cool guys. The other fan that showed up, Josh was also great. The bar, Mother’s Ruin, had these great butcher-block tables so it was the perfect place to play Düdle. We played two rounds and it was incredible; five strangers huddled and drawing in silent concentration in the middle of a busy, rowdy SoHo bar... incredible! We had an awesome time drawing and guessing, check out our drawings below.

Today, the newest episode of Not a Real Job came out and not only did they mention playing the game, they gushed over it!

Very, very exciting times at the Düdlesphere! Make sure you listen to Chris and Joel and sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t already!