Tips & Resources for Board Game Designers
Table Top Studio, a new program for boardgame creators, is in private beta. You can design components and integrate with The Game Crafter:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/793161/table-top-studio-a-new-application-for-game-desi http://tabletopgamestudio.com/
“The most important skill to designing games is understanding why games are fun. In designing a game, you are trying to entertain a player (this can of course be serious thinky fun, wacky fun, banana fun, depending on the player). When you can identify that bit, you’re well on the way. To do this, you must play many games, with many people. A terrible fate.”
“Is your game an instrument? Or a song that the player must play note by authored note?”
“If you want to be creative, don’t follow the trodden path, make a new one. Think of new mechanisms, new materials, new technologies, new …”
“It seems this would be obvious, but throughout dev, many things change. What felt good once isn’t optimum later on.”
Benny Sperling (@benny275):
At what point is a game perfect? (Meaning no more playtesting) What would you consider a “perfect” game and why?
Samuel A. Liberty (@SA_Liberty):
When you’ve chiseled away all the bits that aren’t fun.
Grant Rodiek (@HerrohGrant):
I think Herr Liberty makes a good point. … I sincerely believe it’s one of the few pieces of philosophical nonsense that adds value.
Bryan Fischer (@bryanfischer):
It’s not about developing a perfect game, it’s about tweaking a game until its rules cannot be broken. Could still be a bad game.
Michael Fox (@idlemichael):
Surely there’s no such thing as a perfect game? You just need to know when to step back and say you’re done. But that’s HARD.
“Failure and rejection inciting you to quit? The only difference between you and the masters of your craft is that they never gave up.”
Designing children’s games: Grant Rodiek (@HerrohGrant) discusses his takeaways from a small survey of parents that he ran:
http://hyperbolegames.com/2012/04/16/the-joys-of-youth-part-1/
What due diligence do Kickstarter backers do before pledging? Get inside their head before launching your project.
A.J. Porfirio (@VanRyderGames) outlines his methods:
http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/9649/backing-kickstarters-due-diligence-and-red-flags
“Life, Management, Design… If you are a leader, lead; if you are a follower, follow; if you just want to stand around, get out of the way.”
“When doing a Kickstarter video, please get to the point and sell me your pitch. Then you’ll have time to be funny after I’m hooked.”
“Step 1: buy bathroom tile (square or hex). Step 2: soak until the backing comes off. Scrub. Step 3: use as tiles for physical prototypes.”
“Note to Designers: Taking a genre and swapping out components is not an innovation.”
“For future Kickstarter surveys, I recommend adding a multiple choice question: “Would you like to receive emails from us?””
“Innovation comes from seeing what everybody else has seen before, but thinking what nobody else has thought before.”
“People, accepting the USPS flat rate box price is usually not the cheapest option for a single game! Use their box, but ship by size/weight.”
“Theme is a context to make mechanics intuitive. Theme feedback [from playtesters] can be a flag that the mechanics aren’t “making sense”.”
“An elegant, efficient design should be the goal of every game—and every game designer. After all, most of us don’t really want to feel like we’re doing time on a stationary bicycle when we get together for a game night. We want the mental exercise, but we also want to go somewhere, and an efficient, elegant design makes the ride smoother and every aspect of the experience easier to enjoy.”
Antoine Bauza (7 Wonders) on being driven by theme, having the design “virus” and more:
Printing a board for a prototype: some ideas from the BoardGameGeek designers forum:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/789815/printing-a-board-for-a-prototype
