The theme for January’s 24-hour game design contest is “tourism”:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1095782/24-hour-contest-january-2014

Tropes and conventions in game design: When to follow them and when to defy them:

http://www.mostdangerousgamedesign.com/2014/01/defying-conventions.html

Using flowcharts in Excel to map out decision trees:

http://clocksmithgames.com/flowchart-mechanic-design-using-excel/

Cardboard Edison's Favorite Tips & Resources of 2013

A tremendous number of board game design articles, podcasts, videos and websites were released over the past year, and we’ve pulled together the ones that stood out the most to us.

We also started a series of interviews called Meaningful Decisions this year, and ran our first guest post. We hope you find something useful and inspiring here. Either way, check out our archive of more than 1,300 posts for lots more.

Thanks for following us, and have a happy new year!

– Chris & Suzanne Zinsli, Cardboard Edison

#featured:

• Meaningful Decisions: Jamey Stegmaier on Board Game Design Choices
• Meaningful Decisions: Dirk Knemeyer on Board Game Design Choices
• Meaningful Decisions: Corey Young on Board Game Design Choices
• Meaningful Decisions: Jesse Catron on Board Game Design Choices
• Games as Kids—Why Designers Need to Listen to Others

#industry:

• A Brief Crash Course on Game Design: Issues, Processes, and Resources for New Designers
• Choice quotes from designers and publishers at Unpub 3
• A wide-ranging, hour-long panel with lots of advice for aspiring designers
• 10 big lessons about designing board games
• “If you’re a game designer, give away your game to people you think will like it, no strings attached. You never know what will happen.”–Dave Chalker

#theory:

• Cognitive Biases in Players and How to Leverage Them
• Richard Garfield discusses skill vs. luck in games
• Why a working knowledge of probability is important to game designers
• The Ludology podcast discusses objectives, and what types of objectives work well
• Rob Daviau presentation on “legacy” games and game balance

#process:

• Board Game Idea Generator
• Advice for being creative even when life happens
• “Have fun! If you’re not enjoying it, then what the hell is the point?”–Alan Gerding
• “If you are a game designer – then surround yourself with other game designers!! You learn so much – even if you just playtest their games all the time.”–Jay Cormier
• “Good designers sometimes make bad designs. Only bad designers give up.”–Jay Treat

#prototyping:

• Forget the debate over “pretty” prototypes, here are some tips and resources to make them functional
• The Building the Game podcast offers various prototyping tips

#playtesting:

• “By now you know that you need to playtest, playtest, playtest, but it is worth mentioning again because it is that important.”–Danny Devine
• Michael Keller joins the On Board Games podcast to discuss best practices for playtesting
• Tips for attending playtesting events

#licensing:

• Down-to-earth advice for setting up meetings with publishers

#publishing:

• A detailed breakdown of all the costs of producing a Kickstarted board game
• A detailed timeline for how long it takes to design, test and produce a board game
• JT Smith joins the Happy Mitten Podcast to discuss The Game Crafter, the importance of cutting your game, and more
• The right way and the wrong way to ask people to promote your Kickstarter project
• Tips for coming up with, setting and revealing stretch goals for a Kickstarter campaign
• Five things to consider before sending your game to a reviewer

Global Game Jam 2014→

tgcnews:

Have you ever heard of a game jam? There are many kinds and many different types of game jams all over the world. The biggest one is called Global Game Jam and it happens all over the world at the same time, hosted in many different cities.

A game jam is an event where you show up and they give…

“Obviously, the goal in the end is a game that’s both fun and fair. But fun is the hard part. You can figure fair out in playtesting.”

— Gil Hova (@ingredientx)

Cognitive Biases in Players and How to Leverage Them, via Michael Keller (@vhgames)

What makes some games “easy”–simplicity in choices, execution and evaluation:

http://oakleafgames.wordpress.com/2013/12/29/game-theory-making-an-easy-game/

10 big lessons about designing board games:

http://www.stonemaiergames.com/the-top-10-things-i-learned-about-game-design-in-2013/

“A simple design is a good design.
A simple design is a good design.
A simple design is a good design.
A simple design is a good design.”

— Ben Rosset (@BenRosset)

Thoughts on what makes secret information interesting in games:

http://drwictzboardgames.blogspot.com/2013/12/classics-lecture-series-secrete.html

Tom Lehmann discusses designing and co-designing, economics, victory points, iconography and more on the Game Design Round Table podcast:

http://thegamedesignroundtable.com/2013/12/23/episode-59-race-for-the-galaxy-with-tom-lehmann/

Rob Daviau (@robdaviaugamer) presentation on “legacy” games and game balance

Byron Collins (@CEWargames) offers advice for creating a Kickstarter project:

http://www.slimgamer.com/16388/two-out-of-three-kickstarters-succesful-and-running-spearpoint-1943-eastern-front/

How marketing works in the board game industry

Jason Tagmire (@jtagmire) compares using Kickstarter as a self-publisher versus through a publishing company:

http://www.allusgeeks.com/2013/12/aug-the-game-of-crowd-funding-jason-tagmire-interview-12-18-2013/

Tips for how to go about designing scenarios for your game:

http://hyperbolegames.com/2013/12/23/the-mission-editor/

Lessons from the What the Food?! Kickstarter:

http://www.stonemaiergames.com/3-wrongs-2-rights-and-1-who-knows-lessons-from-the-what-the-food-kickstarter/

Advice for making game boards and setup rules intuitive and smooth:

http://thefarsightlens.com/board-game-component-design/

Some changes that a publisher might want to make to your game:

http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/25850/changes-publishers-might-make-to-your-game