“So You Wanna Be A Game Designer”: Ben Rosset (@BenRosset) on getting started as a board game designer and how to get published

cah:

Episode four features Rocket Wreckers, a 2-Player card game where competitors battle each other while riding on the back of a rocketship. The game is designed by Rob Couch.

Rob can be reached at Twitter at @poorly_designed, or you can visit his website at www.poorlydesigned.com

For more, check out his interview with Jared Rosen below where he discusses approaching design from a story standpoint, fighting for a spot on the shelf and that last bit of tuning.

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Rob Couch (@poorly_designed) discusses approaching design from a story standpoint, fighting for a spot on the shelf, and that last bit of tuning

Sources of background textures for prototypes:

http://www.mwgames.com/?p=2213

“When using feedback to iterate, focus on trends over a smattering of individual opinions and data points.”

— Grant Rodiek (@HerrohGrant)

“The more experienced you are, the more you take production costs into consideration while developing a game.”

— Uwe Rosenberg, via @boardgamegeek

“It’s possible to be a crazy perfectionist without going perfectly crazy, and it’s possible to find flaws in your best creations and still sleep well at night.”

— Kory Heath (@KoryHeath)

Lessons from board game design applied to user experience, from Matt Leacock (@mleacock)

All Us Geeks (@AllUsGeeks) discusses relaunching a Kickstarter, shooting a video, playtesting and blind testing with Doug Levandowski (@levzilla) of Meltdown Games (@meltdowngames):

http://www.allusgeeks.com/2014/04/the-game-of-crowd-funding-gothic-doctor-the-road-to-relaunch-part-3/

Game designers discuss community, Kickstarter, analysis paralysis and more on the Something From Nothing vidcast

The Ludology podcast discusses the “magic circle” and how designers can benefit from it, with Eric Zimmerman (@zimmermaneric):

http://ludology.libsyn.com/ludology-episode-79-the-magic-circle

This week’s #BoardGameHour was all about game design–lots of knowledge was shared:

http://nurph.com/BoardGameHour/chats/283

What makes a successful solo game–a Board Game Design Forum discussion:

http://www.bgdf.com/forum/game-creation/design-theory/theory-behind-solo-games

When to make ugly prototypes and when to make pretty prototypes:

http://hyperbolegames.com/2014/04/19/simple-clean-and-fast/

“A quirky theme is many times a let down. A quirky theme well-integrated into the mechanics, that never disappoints.”

— T.C. Petty III (@PuppyShogun)

Balance: myths and methods:

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2014/4/18/game-balance-and-yomi.html

How to design a worker placement game–doing your research and coming up with ideas:

http://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/how-to-design-a-worker-placement-game-part-1/

Daniel Solis (@DanielSolis), Kory Heath (@KoryHeath) and T.C. Petty III (@PuppyShogun) discuss the merits of different design processes

“Everyone says ‘keep on and never give up’, while I’m saying something more ‘unpopular’: game design is not only a passion. It’s a job. And as a job it requires skills, experience and preferably some talent.”

— Paolo Mori

“While a great mechanic can stand and live without a good theme, the opposite is not true.”

— Paolo Mori

Paolo Mori on problem solving, the scarcest resource for designers, being jealous with your ideas, giving up without regrets and more:

http://opinionatedgamers.com/2014/04/18/the-art-of-design-interviews-to-game-designers-25-paolo-mori/