Game Market West
I am building 20 copies of Pōpoki to take to an independent game market in San Jose, CA.
“Game Market West” is a showcase of work by tabletop game designers who have taken the leap themselves to also become game developers. It’s hosted by Johnny Chin twice a year since 2025, and you’ll find none of these games on the shelves of neighborhood game stores.
I’ve tried to attend as a vendor for a couple of years, but life has managed to derail my production timelines. Last spring I attended as a visitor, and I managed to be included in the Board Game Casual review video where I was able to promote the SpielMas festival.
Greg made the highlight reel for the Spring 2026 edition of Game Market West.
Cats or Soccer?
I really went back and forth with what to bring this Fall.
Soccer 54 is out as a free print-and-play, but my work on Foosball 74 stalled when I had a fantastic playtest that revealed a major design flaw I need to address.
But that affected my production timeline; I wouldn’t have been able to make the iterative changes, playtest, and print in time.
So I’m heading in a “new” direction with one of the first games I worked on in 2022 called Pōpoki. The components aren’t too difficult to find, and I’ve been able to playtest it a lot in 2026 with the Game Designers of Santa Cruz and the Golden Gate Gamemakers.
Production
I am producing most of my components through Launch Tabletop and trying to get my landed cost below $20 for each copy. For the most part it’s working, but I am not building to scale at all to lower that cost. That’s ok; I’m independent, and I have no idea if dice rolling, hand management, and solo are really the most popular mechanics with the Game Market West crowd.
Fortunately, they might be: Boardgamewire had an article about academic research going back to 1930 where they reviewed the most prevalent mechanics used in published tabletop games.
Within the 2020’s, they are:
Dice rolling
Hand management
Solo/solitaire game
Cooperative game
Set collection.
Come September I’ll find out if any of those are also the most popular.
Published July 29, 2026
