Cardboard Edison’s Favorite Tips & Resources - February 2016

This month, our roundup of favorite board game design links includes some important advice about making it in the industry as a designer or publisher, a tool for tracking your progress on designs, a look at the future of board games, and more.

featured:

• Meaningful Decisions: Anthony Amato & Nicole Kline on Design Choices in RESISTOR_

industry:

• Making a living as a board game designer--a BoardGameGeek designers forum discussion

theory:

• Ways of implementing variable turn order in a worker placement game

• Ways of analyzing a game design according to various measures, including player choice, ease of learning, gameplay variety, originality, interaction and more

• The obstacles and opportunities in designing board games with a digital component

• Game balance: why it's unachievable, and some tools to approximate it

process:

• Keeping track of your game designs (copyable spreadsheet)

publishing:

• How setting the right MSRP affects your cash flow

• Cash flow for a Kickstarter board game publisher

licensing:

• 7 tips to get your game picked up by a publisher

Cardboard Edison is supported by our patrons on Patreon.

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

JUNIOR INVENTORS: Ryan Abrams, Luis Lara, Behrooz Shahriari, Aidan Short, Jay Treat

ASSOCIATES: Robert Booth, Doug Levandowski, Aaron Lim, Nathan Miller, Marcel Perro, Matt Wolfe

APPRENTICES: Kevin Brusky, Kiva Fecteau, Scott Gottreu, Michael Gray, JR Honeycutt, Scott Martel Jr., Marcus Ross, Sean Rumble, Diane Sauer, Steven Tu

Ways to strengthen the playfulness of your designs:

http://hyperbolegames.com/2016/02/29/the-importance-of-play/

How to respond when someone compares your design to another game: 

 http://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/comments/48b67x/you_didnt_invent_the_wheel_and_thats_okay/

“Tension is like power for your game. You need some to keep it running, but too much will burn out your circuit / frustrate your players.”

— Jay Treat

Considering a game's depth when designing

How to approach reviewers about a Kickstarter board game:

https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/51471/how-not-drive-reviewers-away-kickstarter

Cash flow for a Kickstarter board game publisher:

http://blog.foxtrotgames.com/2016/02/24/kickstarter-cash-flow-profit/

Ways of implementing variable turn order in a worker placement game:

http://www.bgdf.com/forum/game-creation/mechanics/worker-placement-and-variable-turn-order

Keeping track of your game designs:

https://oakleafgames.wordpress.com/2016/02/24/organizing-my-designs/

Copyable spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R94PRs2ypGiB3c08mhUgJmpr-4uOTubn-5xDe2KpvyM/edit#gid=0

Pointers for attending a publisher speed dating event:

http://breakingintoboardgames.libsyn.com/breaking-into-board-games-episode-12

Advice for getting started with a game design and overcoming early obstacles: 

 http://www.justingary.com/getting-started-and-overcoming-obstacles/

“New game designers, learn what’s out there. No time to play them all? At *least* find the videos or rules PDFs.”

— Daniel Solis

Hooks: what they are, how to find them and how many a board game design needs:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/48513/354899-episode-11-hooks-in-game-designs

Evan Derrick joins the Building the Game podcast to discuss graphic design in games:

http://www.buildingthegamepodcast.com/2016/02/21/episode-195-evan-derrick-and-graphic-design/

What to consider when coming up with a title for your game:

http://ludology.libsyn.com/ludology-episode-122-the-name-of-the-game

Analyzing win conditions: what to measure, how to measure it, and when to measure it:

https://oakleafgames.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/how-to-win/

Advice for adding rewards in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign:

http://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-175-adding-new-rewards-during-a-campaign/

Ways of analyzing a game design according to various measures, including player choice, ease of learning, gameplay variety, originality, interaction and more:

http://nerdstable.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-rubric-for-game-design.html

Tips for finding and working with a board game artist:

http://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/4-tips-for-finding-the-perfect-board-game-artist/

“You have to love the process of designing games to be a successful game designer. You can’t be only in it for the outcomes.”

— Matt Wolfe