Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 January 21

= January 21 =

Does this creature in the anime drawing look like any creature from mythology or from any swamp monster movies about 1950's?
Does this creature in the anime drawing look like any creature from mythology or from any swamp monster movies about 1950's? http://sailormoon.wikia.com/wiki/Thetis?file=CS012-383.jpg Here a better pictures of the creature: http://stardusting.nekomaki.com/?page_id=664 http://sailormoon.wikia.com/wiki/Thetis?file=CS012-383.jpg Venustar84 (talk) 19:24, 21 January 2013 ]


 * Your second link doesn't work. The first image looks like a Eurasiatic shaman in a fertility dress, see the priestesses of The Mists of Avalon which were based on research by Marion Zimmer Bradley. μηδείς (talk) 07:51, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Never mind this response, I thought she was wearing deer antlers, but apparently she isn't. μηδείς (talk) 22:29, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Doesn't have anything to do with her appearance, but the first one's name is "from mythology". Deor (talk) 13:20, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Here a better pictures of the creature: http://stardusting.nekomaki.com/?page_id=664 http://sailormoon.wikia.com/wiki/Thetis?file=CS012-383.jpg Venustar84 (talk) 19:27, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Challenger Train
Do you know where there is a Challenger Train on display for the public. I thought it was in Sacramento. I loved your article about the Challenger, but couldn't find reference for where I could actually see one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.24.138.53 (talk) 14:12, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * There seems to be one in Pomona and another at the Cody Park Railroad Museum. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 17:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Black Magic
What is the significance of finding chicken bones in the trunk of a car?

What is the significance of finding a rat skull and tail in the trunk of a car?

Are these incidents related to Black Magic? If so, how are they related and what do they mean? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.155.138.31 (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds to me like you have a rat infestation in your car (this is quite a common thing). Rats might bring chicken bones into the car.  If a rat died in your car in the distant past - then that would explain the rat bones.  Black Magic should be almost the last possibility one would consider. SteveBaker (talk) 15:09, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, rats and mice sometimes set up home in cars, particularly in cold weather. And they do indeed bring their food in there, including chicken. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:13, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually the only bones were chicken leg bones, and the skull only of the rat! Where would the rest of the body be? And there was the rat tail as well.... and the skull was in plain view in the trunk which is used and cleaned regularly! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.91.81.56 (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a rat scavenged the bones from rubbish to me, or they fell out a rubbish bag in your trunk. Are you quite sure it was a rat skull and tail? --TammyMoet (talk) 19:04, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * We know nothing of you or your life circumstances, so we are in no position to know the significance of these events. As for Black Magic, what leads you to even have this on the list of possibilities?  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  19:06, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * As for religions which involve chicken bones, skulls, etc., two that come to mind are Voodoo and Santería. StuRat (talk) 05:34, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Detroit jacket
Why is the Carhartt jacket called a "Detroit" jacket ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.158.118 (talk) 17:35, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It appears to simply be the name they selected for the product. You may be more likely to get a good answer if contact the company directly.  Mingmingla (talk) 20:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Some speculation: the Carhartt line was basically developed for tradesmen. Detroit is often portrayed as a "working man's" or blue collar city. Why is a line of trucks called silverado? I think they are just pandering a bit. (I happen to be wearing a Carhartt jacket as I type. They are pretty nice!) SemanticMantis (talk) 00:45, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Carhartt is headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan - a Detroit suburb. They also make a Dearborn jacket. Rmhermen (talk) 20:15, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Could the term not also refer to a straight jacket, given "d'etroit" means "of the strait", and the city is b@t$h!t insane? μηδείς (talk) 05:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)


 * As a Detroiter, I must say, I resemble that remark. But, personally, I've always thought "Detroit" came from "debt" + "riot". :-) StuRat (talk) 07:30, 24 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The play on words is even better if you spell strait jacket correctly. (And détroit is one word.) —Tamfang (talk) 08:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

What would be better to create
I´m a game designer and i´m in a dilemma! I need to know which would be cheaper and faster to produce and market: a dice-tile board game or a trading collectible card game? and which do you think would sell better? thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.166.108.122 (talk) 22:30, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * As this is a reference desk, we can't give really good, reliable responses to requests for opinions. But from my own experience in the gaming field as a hobbyist and volunteer demonstrator over more than a decade, I would strongly advise against the CCG model; the market is saturated, and has been dominated by a tiny handful of giants for years. The tile-laying model is well-tested but less completely saturated, and lacks the off-putting 'money sink' element that CCGs have become notorious for. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I will follow your advice — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.166.108.122 (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * May I suggest a bit more market research than the opinion of a single ref desker before starting off down a likely costly and lengthy process of trying to make it in the board game market. And presumably (I have never tried to make a game before) you actually have an idea of a game rather than just a genre?! I would personally suggest thinking of ideas for games rather than just a genre, and then base your choice on market research of those products. Maybe have some friends or ever better a group of strangers try them out and give you their opinion... Then, based on that research, you can consider taking it to market... gaz hiley  09:00, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * There are a lot of people selling both kinds of thing making $$$ over on www.kickstarter.com - there is a special section for tabletop/board/card games so it's really easy to surf through those to find games similar to the kind of thing you have in mind - and they mostly give information about the relative costs, risks, etc. You can also compare the number of backers for each successful project to get an idea of the relative market sizes and the prices that those customers are prepared to pay.


 * (Kickstarter is an extremely vibrant market for this kind of thing by the way...the barriers to breaking into that market have dropped spectacularly in the last year or two. It's particularly good because you don't have to take risks...if you know that you have to sell (say) 200 copies to break even, you can set up your Kickstarter project so that you only get the money if at least 250 people buy a copy - if you fail, you lose nothing (except for your effort in presenting it) - if you succeed then you get all the money you need at the get-go, so you know how many to make - and you have the up-front funding to get the work done.  You can also discuss the project directly with your customers and that helps you to tune your design to their likes and dislikes.  It's *perfect* for this kind of project.)


 * We need more information though: "Cheaper and faster" depends on what your starting point is. Can do your own digital artwork?  In 2D or 3D?  What quality do you have in mind?  What quantity do you want to make?  How important are up-front costs versus per-part costs?


 * For example - if your board game can use standard kinds of wooden counter, plastic disks and dice that you can buy in bulk from all sorts of online companies in China - then all you need is a board. A laser-cut plywood board can be made by plenty of companies that will make them for you for about $1 per minute of laser cutter time - maybe just a few bucks each with zero up-front costs.  Full color printing on heavy board might be cheaper - but the setup cost may be much higher.  On the other hand, if you need fancy objects in your game (like the shoe, car, locomotive, etc from "Monopoly") then if you have 3D art skills, you could get small quantities made using 3D printing technology quite easily.  But there is another trade-off.  3D printing has low startup costs - but expensive per-object costs (maybe $1 per small object).  But if you pay tens of thousands of dollars up-front to have injection molds made - then the cost per-object tumbles to a penny or two.


 * If you compared the cost of making a chess game versus a checkers game (for example) - chess needs 8 different designs of "counter" in two colors...but checkers needs only one design in two colors. In small quantities, it's much cheaper to make checkers than chess.  However, in large quantities, it probably makes no difference.


 * You could probably make a basic game (think "checkers") for $10. On the other hand, my son came up with a really great "board game" that couldn't be manufactured for under $60 - and is therefore uneconomic - which is a huge shame because it's really good fun to play!  Card games are also pretty cheap to make if you go "low-quality".  If you can design the artwork yourself - then you can get a deck of 52 cards printed on thin card for a few dollars a sheet.  If you need very few designs, you could print them yourself on glossy card right out of your computer...providing you trust yourself to guillotine them into individual cards.  But when the quantities go up, and if you need fancier printing - then you might want die-cut cards with fancy glossy printing.


 * There is just too much 'depth' to your question to come up with a clear answer.
 * 20:36, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Definitely the dice-tile game. I have no expertise whatsoever in the field of games production, but your ability to succeed is going to depend on how you balance your costs and revenue. Assuming revenue depends on how good the game is, how well you market it, and how lucky you are, without more information from you, there's not much to choose between the two options. On costs, I'd guess your major hits will come from manufacturing and transportation. If you can make the dice game small, there'll not be much difference in transportation costs, so that leaves manufacturing. Creating something that involves collectibles means you'll need to produce a large range of different items. The dice tile game will be the same every time, so if you're producing a decent quantity of items, you'll have economies of scale. Assuming you don't need fussy specially-produced ones, you could also probably buy the dice (and maybe even blank tiles) from someone who specialises in producing gazillions of the things, saving money because of their enormous economies of scale. So, dice tile wins, unless you can see a variable elsewhere that swings it (like you have a much better idea for a collectible, or you know that collectibles are more 'in' among your target audience, etc). --Dweller (talk) 11:28, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I have the idea already, and well i know basic graphic design, nothing too complex. And i have seen the a few game cards dominate the market such as Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh
 * Then you DEFINITELY need to check out the gamer projects on Kickstarter - they are doing exactly what you want to do, there were about 4,000 game projects last year and about a third of them were successful(!). A few of them were spectacularly successful (one game raised two million dollars, three others came close to raising a million dollars and over thirty games got over $100,000)!  The 1300 successful projects collectively earned close to seventy million dollars.


 * My g/f recently earned $42,000 for her game project (with a 50% profit margin) and despite very little initial outlay (under $500!), she now has a thriving, debt-free business and now does this as her full-time job. With expansion packs and other online sales, she can reasonably expect to earn $150,000 in 2013.  There are numerous forums where you can discuss your ideas with gamers and other creators - and gamers and creators alike are efflusive with their desire to help each other make it through the process.  http://TheWellOiledScabbard.com is one that she sponsors. SteveBaker (talk) 15:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Was your gf´s game a tccg or another genre?


 * If you have more followups, we should probably take this to either your or my Talk: page - or you can email me from my user page...it's getting off-topic for the Ref Desk...however...


 * Actually, neither - it was for production of model buildings for Dungeons & Dragons players. (See ). The amount of money she raised was comparable to a typical board or card game - but she had a higher-cost product and fewer backers than most - so in that regard, her project wasn't so typical.  She's doing all of the manufacturing herself using an $8,000 laser cutter purchased with cash from the Kickstarter.  You pay 5% of your 'earnings' to Kickstarter and roughly 5% more to Amazon credit services for credit card transactions - and the remaining 90% is yours to do what you need to start your business and to manufacture & ship the rewards for your backers.  Her cost breaks down to about a quarter of the money raised was for the laser cutter, a quarter goes on shipping and the rest is basically payment for her work (aka "profit") at about $50/hour - materials costs are negligable for this kind of project - and the only advertising she did was to launch a "social media" competition to win $400 worth of our product (which in truth were the prototype models we made using time on a local hackerspace laser cutter that cost us about $0).  The time to design the product and make prototypes should probably be factored in - but it was fun and nobody needed payment to do it - so we conveniently ignore that in our analysis! SteveBaker (talk) 15:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)