Getting The Prototypes Ready

Now that the antibiotics are kicking in and I can put weight on my ankle again, I'm pressing on with making the Sumeria prototypes to send out to the lucky winners of the competition I held a couple of weeks ago.

The prototypes are going to be fairly rough and ready, but they'll give an idea of the components and are perfectly playable. I've made tray and lid boxes using the same techniques as I did for Border Reivers and the limited edition of It's Alive! I've not bothered covering them though - I'll just add a label to the top and that's it. The wooden pieces are almost the final pieces, a little shorter for the traders, and the pawns will probably be similar - but not exactly the same.

Today, I'll get out my colour printer (currently in its box under a stack of other boxes) and print the boards, city-state tiles and influence counters. These have some rough prototype art that I've knocked up on, so they are the things that will change the most between prototype and real versions. These will then be glued onto thick card and cut out. I'm still trying to work out how to do a quad-folded board - the only other one I've made was a single fold - much easier!

The last thing to do is to update the rules. They are currently in a text file with no diagrams. This is fine for my personal testing purposes, but if I want to get good feedback about the clarity of the rules these need to be as finished as I can make them - so I'll include diagrams featuring the prototype art.

I'm hoping to get the prototypes in the post by Wednesday, we'll have to see how successful I am at that, and how much the snow affects things!