“Players who don’t understand your game may be uncomfortable admitting that in a group setting. But these players can offer some of the most valuable feedback to help improve your game, so it is worth following up with people one-on-one.”

— David Chott (@3haresgames)

A way of looking at board games as the fusion of theme, players, rules and components:

http://www.big-game-theory.com/2014/07/towards-grand-unified-theory-of.html

Something From Nothing discusses working with publishers: timelines, development, graphic design and more

Stonemaier Games shares its top 10 lessons from the Treasure Chest Kickstarter campaign:

http://stonemaiergames.com/top-10-lessons-learned-and-data-points-from-the-treasure-chest-kickstarter/

Colby Dauch of Plaid Hat Games (@PlaidHatGames) joins the Happy Mitten Games podcast (@HappyMitten) to discuss managing playtesters, working with licensed intellectual property, balancing life and work at a small publishing company and more:

http://www.happymittengames.com/36/

The Ludology podcast discusses numerous aspects of playtesting with Gil Hova (@gilhova):

http://ludology.libsyn.com/ludology-episode-84-the-playtests-the-thing-0

Academy Games’ Uwe Eickert on the dopamine cycle in games, computer vs board games and more:

http://grogheads.com/?p=5401

“You need to make sure that you have built in “days off” from the [Kickstarter] project. If you work for 23 days straight, you’ll go insane.”

— Doug Levandowski (@meltdowngames)

“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