We love it when our customers adapt our games and make them their own. Weโve seen bespoke invitations, badges, items, handouts and character booklets. In fact, I think that anything that could be customised has been customised.
Of course, weโre slightly embarrassed that our basic layout isnโt a bit better. But weโre the first to admit that design layout isnโt our strength (our strength is, we hope, writing and developing hugely entertaining murder mystery party games).
Despite appearances, we do think about layout quite a bit. For example, we know that our games are often played in dim lighting by people whose eyesight probably isnโt as good as it once was. So we try to make sure our game materials are clear and easy to read. (Black text on a white background might not be trendy, but itโs clear and easy to read.)
Our gamesโ layout has also changed (and improved, we think) over the years. So weโve combined the abilities, secrets and information into the main character files so reduce the number of different pieces of paper. (Unfortunately we still need to update the old games – thereโs just too much to do!)
Weโve dipped our toe into the murky waters of โprofessionally designedโ layouts with A Dead Manโs Chest. We have to be honest, weโre not completely convinced by the result. And sales are basically no different from before the change โ which is encouraging as it suggests that the quality of our games is more important than how they look. But it has meant that we havenโt rushed to getting all our games professionally laid out.
Plus if the look of our games were โbetterโ, it might take away our customersโ opportunity to be creative with the components.
In case youโre wondering how that works, we donโt use anything fancy for our layouts. Mo uses Microsoft Word and Steve uses Libreoffice and then we create pdfs from them. The big advantage of using a standard system is that we can provide the original files if one of our customers wants to customise their party. Thatโs not so easy if all we have is an Adobe InDesign file from a professional.
Weโre occasionally talk about exploring other layouts for our games – but to be honest weโre unlikely to change the formula without good reason.
I have had a problem before with older people who were not really able to read the character sheets.
It might be nice if there was a large print option.. But not completely necessary. As long as we can get the original files we can do that ourselves?
Yes, absolutely, Gavin. It would be awkward for us to have to maintain a separate large-print version of each of our games, but we’re very happy to let customers enlarge the print themselves from the original files as required.
I think your layout is fine, it definitely does allow for creativity! If you changed it I’d probably make it my own anyway :-). I’ve probably done 9 or 10 games and the layout has never been an issue. Don’t spend extra money if you don’t have to! ๐
Thank you, Doris, thatโs good to hear!