“When in doubt, avoid adding complexity to your game. While it’s important to ensure that your game has enough depth and replay value, too much complexity can easily doom a game.”

— Darwin Kastle of White Wizard Games

Ludology talks with Emerson Matsuuchi of Nazca Games (@NazcaGames) about hidden movement and programmed movement:

http://ludology.libsyn.com/ludology-episode-106-hide-and-seek

2015 Game Chef design competition

Theme: A Different Audience

Deadline: June 21, 2015

http://game-chef.com/game-chef-2015/

Kim Brebach of Secret Base Games (@SecretBaseGames) discusses international shipping and fulfillment on Kickstarter with Chaos Publishing (@ChaosPublishing):

http://www.chaospublishing.com/2015/06/11/ep-3-pitching-to-the-world-w-kim-brebach/

“Play as many games as possible. Gaming is a vocabulary with a breadth of history. Knowing how to speak games and what’s already been done and not done, well and not so well will have a big impact on your design and its success.”

— Justin Schaffer of Terra Nova Games (@TerraNovaGames)

Meeple Syrup (@MeepleSyrup) offers con tips: networking, pitching and just plain surviving an industry show

The cast of Flip the Table (@tableflipsyou) joins The Cubist (@CubistPodcast) to discuss what makes games good–and bad:

http://www.thecubistpodcast.com/podcast/2015/6/10/episode-4-signs-of-greatness

Three ways humor can be expressed in a board game:

http://gamesbymanuel.com/2015/06/10/humor-in-boardgames/

Tips for publishers working with artists:

http://theforbiddenlimb.com/2015/05/17/working-with-an-artist/

The Gaming Careers podcast on how to tackle a large project by dividing it into smaller pieces:

http://www.thecompanybard.com/tgc-040-david-sanheuza-breaking-apart-the-vision/

The Game Design Round Table (@TGDRT) discusses collaborating on game designs:

http://thegamedesignroundtable.com/2015/06/03/episode-126-collaboration/

10 cost-saving tips for tabletop publishers:

http://meeplemechanic.com/specials/top-10-cost-saving-tips-for-tabletop-publishers/

Thoughts on the importance of theme in cooperative games:

http://paulowengames.blogspot.com/2015/06/importance-of-theme-in-cooperative-game.html

“Immerse yourself in the community! The gaming community is very welcoming, and in my experience designers are always eager to help other designers.”

— Suzanne Zinsli (@KabrtZinsli)

“It’s important to do bad work. You can iterate on bad work and make it good. You can’t iterate on something you haven’t started.”

— Jay Treat (@jtreat3)

Tips for playing your own game–during development and when promoting it:

http://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/playing-with-yourself/

Advice for making time to design when real life happens:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1379846/life-universe-and-playtesting-being-creative-when

Board Game Design Forum’s Game Design Showdown for June 2015

Pitch a competitive game where players are forced to cooperate for a common good

Deadline: June 9, 2015

http://www.bgdf.com/forum/game-design/game-design-showdown/gds-june-2015-enemy-my-enemy-also-my-enemy

“Where haste is useful: going from concept to prototype. Where haste is not useful: understanding and applying feedback.”

— Ed Marriott (@EdPMarriott)

Cardboard Edison’s Favorite Tips & Resources - May 2015

This month, our roundup of great board game design links features the latest in our series of infographics on licensing contracts, networking tips, PNP advice and more.

featured:

• Designers’ Desires: How to get what you want out of a board game licensing contract
  

process:

• Scott Almes offers a cornucopia of advice about everything from playtesting to prototyping to pitching to the design process and more
  

rules:

• Tips for making your game’s text clean, consistent and clear
  

playtesting:

• “You can never playtest enough. If you think you are done, you are not. Playtest some more.” - Jon Gilmour
  

industry:

• Tips for networking at cons
  

prototyping:

• Tips to make the print-and-play version of your game easy to use
  

theory:

• Data and tips for designing two-player games
  
• “So many people talk about theme and mechanism as if they’re mutually exclusive, as if starting at one precludes ever adapting to the other. But where you start really doesn’t matter. It’s where they intersect at the end. Your game’s story won’t be told through flavor text. It’ll be told at the intersection of where your theme meets its mechanism.” - Gil Hova
  

Cardboard Edison is supported by our patrons on Patreon.

SENIOR INVENTORS: Steven Cole, John du Bois, Richard Durham, Matthew O’Malley, Isaias Vallej

JUNIOR INVENTORS: Stephen B Davies, Luis Lara, Behrooz Shahriari, Aidan Short, Jay Trea

ASSOCIATES: Robert Booth, Zachery Cook, Doug Levandowski, Nathan Miller, Marcel Perr

APPRENTICES: Gino Brancazio, Kiva Fecteau, Scott Gottreu, JR Honeycutt, Brad Price