“If you don’t like making your work more marketable, you’re not a designer, you’re an artist.”

— Rob Daviau (@robdaviaugamer)

2014 Dice Game Design Contest

Deadline: Sept. 30, 2014

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1200168/2014-dice-game-design-contest

The role of playtesting in determining players’ expectations, balance, thematic fit and more:

http://www.gamesprecipice.com/role-of-playtesting/

What are the most important elements of a Kickstarter page? Survey says:

http://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/how-visitors-view-your-kickstarter-page/

Why you should send your Kickstarter backers an update message in the final days of the campaign:

http://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-108-the-final-60-hours/

How to find playtesters?

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1200104/how-find-playtesters

Tips for negotiating a licensing contract:

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/28255022?page=106

How to get to 100 playtests:

http://mvpboardgames.blogspot.com/2014/07/dtow-10-play-testing.html

An introduction to game iconography:

http://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/whats-that-symbol-mean-again-building-clear-iconography-into-your-game/

An alternative way of saying no to a Kickstarter backer:

http://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-107-how-to-say-no/

“When a game is broken, improving it is easy - you swap out bits that don’t work and stick in other mechanics, and see if it gets better. But when a game works, finding what you can adjust to make it better is nowhere near as simple.”

— Sebastian Bleasdale

“If lots of players do something wrong in a game, like consistently misinterpreting how a particular mechanic works, then you either have to spend a lot of effort making it really obvious what they should be doing (by producing reminder cards or lots of rules examples), or you can change the game so that what they were doing is correct. The latter course of action is usually better - fighting human nature is not easy.”

— Sebastian Bleasdale

“The key to a fun game is interesting meaningful decisions. If you’re making the same decision all the time, you work out the best answer, so to keep things interesting, you generally want a constantly changing situation. And the best way to do that is through interaction with other players.”

— Sebastian Bleasdale

Five beginning steps to prepare for a Kickstarter campaign:

http://www.game-o-gami.com/2014/07/02/kickstarter-and-self-publishing-where-do-i-start/

Designing a game the quick way: how to go about modifying an existing game to create a new one

Board Game Design Forum’s July 2014 Game Design Showdown

Restriction: design a game that uses stacking as a main mechanism

Deadline: July 8, 2014

http://www.bgdf.com/forum/game-design/game-design-showdown/gds-july-2014-game-stacked

The theme for the July 2014 24-Hour Contest is “soccer”:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1195990/24-hour-contest-july-2014

Curious exactly how much work goes into running a Kickstarter campaign? Doug Levandowski of Meltdown Games (@meltdowngames) is logging the hours day-by-day:

http://meltdowngames.wordpress.com/

Learning from Zombicide’s success:

http://stonemaiergames.com/learning-from-zombicides-success/

A view of games beyond theme and mechanics: How context is created for players:

http://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/theme-vs-mechanics-the-false-dichotomy/