Man, that Your Game thread is fascinating. It's interesting to compare:

a. What stage of development people say they're at (e.g. "Nearly finished the rules") with
b. What percentage they give for how far through development they are

I particularly like Iain's, which says:

'Reel Adventures', my game about film action storytelling and confronting your nemesis, both personal and plot, is ready for its second playtest. It needs some work to get momentum and impact to work well, but this is just a number balancing issue. If you want to help out you can download the game from my website under the games section.

I would say it is about 35-40% done.

This is great. The game's nearly ready for its second playtest but it's only 40% done. What I love is the fact that the rules are written but 60% of the work is still to do. That sounds about right. We could argue about the percentages, of course, but I like the idea that most of the work is still to do.

The games that worry me are the ones which are still being written but which are scheduled for a release soon. Perhaps I'm wrong, and perhaps these guys know something I don't, but I'm not totally convinced these games will be polished and finished.

Graham

Scheduled? For release? ;o)

Anarchy is nearing the point where I want to take it for a run on the playtest circuit, which will probably mean me DMing it for 2 other people; not as useful as I'd like but it'll have to do for now. After that 1st playtest and refinements have been done I might call it 10-20% done but it's still a LONG way off just yet!

As to when it will be ready? I dunno, I guess when I feel that it's been playtested and polished enough and has passed proof-reading and editing without being torn apart...

I've been inspired recently by Paul Czege's talks elsewhere here about how more folks should consider the "ashcan release", the free (or $2.00) copy of their game that they think is "finished and done" as they see it... yet release it as ashcan anyway. Because there's always more work to do. And after a few months, the holes will show, the threads will fray, and you'll find yourself patching it to make it better, more playable, and more fun.

-Andy

I also considered it, but only as a last-ditched effort.

Also, how do you do it when you already have your beta version be that ashcan and freely available, take it off the web, add a cover and a price-tag? Heh.

Andy, Matt, Guy, Joe,

This is where I think you want to be in an ashcan:

The game rules have been playtested and are 90% solid in the your opinion. You're doing an ashcan not because you can't manage a playtest of your own, but because the game isn't quite delivering on your design goals and so you don't consider it fully baked yet.

The text is written not with the aim of a fully baked game, to communicate the architecture of play to the customer, and to inspire play with the fullness of its vision, but with the goal of provoking playtesting and feedback toward the as-yet-unrealized design goals. As such, the text includes overt language about the game's design goals, and directly calls out mechanics that need validation and/or refinement.

The text invites the purchaser into conversation with you the designer.

The book as an object has a hand assembled or copy shop aesthetic and is clearly not "store ready".

But neither should it be cheap looking. If you can manage it, you want to put some love into the crafting of the books, like the indie comics guys do with their little photocopied comics, because that's how you subliminalize a message to prospective buyers that you love the game and won't be flaking out if they choose to enter into your design process.

Price: ~$10.00. Your design work won't be furthered by an over lubrication of the price. You want a price that triggers self identification of an engaged feedback community.

Yes, unless you have illicit access to printing or photocopying at your workplace it's going to cost you more per unit in time and materials to make ashcans than it would to use a POD printer to print books. But this isn't the profit taking stage of indie publishing. This is the development stage.

Paul

Interesting. Joe, I was thinking about the different price points for the ashcans, and I realized that I'd gladly pay $10 for an ashcan, if it got me $5 off the finished book, but I'd be leery of picking up a $5 ashcan that gave me no discount later on. That's pretty weird when you think about it, because the latter is clearly a better "deal." But then, I guess it's not really about getting a deal, it's about feeling like you are part of the process. If the thing was $5, with a $5 discount on the finished product, I probably wouldn't even have to think about it.

Paul, all I've got to say is it's very interesting.

I have my own experience, but I'm not sure it's really relevant to everyone, but I think it may be helpful anyway.

My game is Cranium Rats, I went to a convention with dunno, 4-6 printed copies(photocopied at work, whee!) of beta version 1.1 and handed these copies to friends and/or people partial to Indie gaming(not so common in the Israeli scene), I got some feedback, mostly minimal one-two liners, but I've also received a lengthy review by Dotan which sparked a discussion on my LJ.

That was free, no one paid for these copies, but their amount was also limited, but these yielded feedback that was enough to push to version beta 1.2, which I'd consider a success.

I'm not sure I'm even going anywhere with this, but I wanted this out.

As for the rules of the game(currently beta version 3.0), I think they are good and stand up, there is one bit that wasn't tested yet, but all the others had been tested, and to me work well, but may require pace-tweaking. For me the rules are 90% done, the game-text is about 75% done, the whole process? Who knows.

This also ties in with the whole "Half-baked" games people release, and who treat the game's release as playtesting round 2, which can be evidenced by an inordinate amount of errata and holes.

In talking about percentages finished, I think keeping apart the design process and the writing process is absolutely necessary. I have written three different documents for BARBAREN! but I recon the actual writing of the book is still mostly ahead of me.

It's hard to design a good game for sure, but it's also not an easy task to make a good game into an equally good book. Dogs in the Vineyard comes to mind as an example of an extremely well written book, whereas other books kind of drop short of the mark. I am planning a good three months for writing and another three months for review and editing. And the stuff I wrote up for the playtest versions is of no use in this process.

So, Graham, if the game is "written but not yet playtested", I suggest it is not at all written.