This panel discussion featuring game designers and developers covers the difference between design and development, how they incorporate narrative into games, and where they draw inspirations from (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FaAwCn2eDM

Our 2026 reports on publishing contracts are out! Industry standards to know before signing:

💵 Part 1: advances, credit, creative control

🎲 Part 2: royalties, designer copies, promotion

🌏 Part 3: co-publishing, extra royalties, rights reversion

https://cardboardedison.com/reports

A strategy for building an audience for your games, beyond just asking them to sign up to your newsletter for product updates:

https://boardgamedesigncourse.com/build-an-audience-have-something-to-say/

How to grade board game publisher licensing contracts and the terms contained within them (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky1RyAbgCcc

This site aggregates more than 500,000 public-domain images from museums around the world:

https://fineartfree.com/

How some modern trick-taking games play with the genre’s mechanisms while keeping the characteristics that have made such games so long-lasting:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/08/25/magic-tricks-what-makes-trick-taking-games-great-topic-discussion/

Two videos on some common ways designers measure success—and the shortcomings of judging yourself by them:

money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akFAULsLKOs

acclaim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNXrIjCTGec

What to do to prepare for the final week of a crowdfunding campaign:

https://boardgamedesigncourse.com/the-last-week-of-your-kickstarter-campaign/

Lessons learned co-designing games with around 30 other designers:

https://www.wericmartin.com/co-designing-lessons-for-tabletop-games/

Board game design basics: defining your goals, restrictions, the iterative design process, qualities of good games, taking feedback, and more (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAiCR1XVe68

A short thread with one big piece of feedback for game designers making pitch videos for contests or publishers:

https://bsky.app/profile/leafydragongames.bsky.social/post/3mt4yjn2htc2x

How do you define “interesting choices” and design a game with them? A Reddit board game design forum discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoardgameDesign/comments/1vovj61/how_do_you_design_an_interesting_choice/

TTGDA has released a scoring rubric to help designers assess publishers’ licensing contracts:

https://irp.cdn-website.com/2b6905d0/files/uploaded/2026-08-11+TTGDA+Licensing+Scoring+Rubric.pdf

This website lists various board game playtesting and pitching events across Europe:

https://prototyping.games/

Keeping players’ attention: how to design for pacing, meaningful choices, tension, and rewards (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_0QN4Wmehk

Game flow: how to ensure players feel engrossed while playing, what contributes to a good game flow, and what you can do as a designer to improve it (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqspauIq0ls

How to sell board games on Amazon and turn a successful crowdfunding campaign into ongoing revenue (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwIpGO1ZdXg

This framework for thinking about the different stages of playtesting also helps you know what kinds of questions you should be asking testers each step of the way (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwxxlG8VGqk

This set of game icons is free to use for both personal and commercial projects:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoardgameDesign/comments/1velkhv/i_made_a_new_free_set_of_game_icons_for_tabletop/

Published board game designers offer their top advice to a new designer in this Reddit board game design forum discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoardgameDesign/comments/1vezq19/im_sure_this_has_been_asked_a_lot_im_looking_for/