As you may know, folks at Caravel Games have been working hard on "
Time Fenix"
, a solo full-blown tabletop game with a Metroidvania-like meta progression and mazelike puzzle areas that play like DROD RPG. There's a story campaign with some deck management and *-and-write elements. It's essentially a spiritual successor to "
Twisty Little Passages"
and a significant evolution on the formula.
It has a lot of crunchy gaming content. My wife and I have been doing research and development for a few years and we've invested a significant amount of time and money into the project by this point. Others have done a lot of playtesting to help us polish the experience. I personally think what we have created is really good.
The plan we've been working toward has been to get the game into players' hands by the holidays. The game is essentially complete, and I'm getting some prototype copies made, mostly on schedule. I'm starting to engage with previewers and early reviewers and we're preparing to kick off a crowdfunding campaign in June or so.
Except...now there's this emerging tariff situation. While I'm no expert, I think it's safe to say that most game companies have their board games manufactured in China. We're partnering with an excellent tabletop game manufacturing partner,
Boda Games, who manufacture
many games with great production values like Everdell (as one popular example). They work with factories in China. Another great game manufacturer is Panda Games. They're based in Canada and they work with game publishers to get their games made in China.
At present, the US has a mind-boggling 145% import tax on goods (including tabletop games) from China. So, after paying for production and shipping, we'd have to pay on the order of $10K+ (a conservative value -- it ultimately depends on our volume) on top of that just to get the games through customs into the US. This would likely eat into most of our profits and there's a lot of uncertainty how we'd come out the other side.
I've read a lot of discussion by gamers and gaming studios about the impact of the tariff. Well-known publishers like Stonemaier Games, who make hits like "
Wingspan"
, and
Bitewing Games have shared detailed messaging about how this will impact them and the industry. Jamey Stegmaier notes (see his blog, e.g.,
The Darkest Timeline) while it would be nice to produce board games right here in the US, where most of their market is, the US infrastructure just isn't in place at this time to create what game studios want to create. Chinese manufacturers are well experienced at this and can create just about anything you can think of making at the excellent level of production quality gamers have come to expect. (I've researched and read numbers that US manufacturing costs would be anywhere from 3-6x what production in China costs, and the quality would be noticeably lower.) With the introduction of tariffs and given the uncertainty about the future, the situation is pretty bad for a lot of folks who do this for their full-time job.
Some game development studios are already closing their doors because they can't make the numbers work from a supply-and-demand standpoint.
It's not hopeless everywhere. Though still far from ideal, producing games that go directly to customers is actually the best model in this circumstance, and that's what we -- as an indie development and publishing studio -- are doing with our campaign. Also, we're planning to ship from China to fulfillment hubs that service various geo locations, like the EU, Australia, and hopefully Canada if there's sufficient volume to warrant it. Shipping games directly to these locations wouldn't be impacted by US tariffs.
So, what do I do for
Time Fenix? Or rather, as a prospective backer, what would you want us as the game publisher to do? I have my own thoughts on how to move forward, and I'm not interested in any political ranting here -- just curious what you as a gamer would want us to do in this circumstance to get you our amazing game.
Vote and share your thoughts!
Edit: If you vote for "
Door #3"
, share what approach you have in mind.
[Last edited by mrimer at 04-21-2025 12:04 AM]