How to put together a rulebook that’s easy to teach and learn (audio):

http://www.boardgamedesignlab.com/how-to-create-an-awesome-rulebook-with-dustin-schwartz/

Cardboard Edison’s Favorite Tips & Resources of 2017

Our massive year-end roundup of favorite board game design links and quotes includes a huge amount of useful material for board game designers!
 

featured:

• The Gen Con Experience: The gaming convention through the eyes of board game designers
• The Process: The Expanse by Geoff Engelstein
• Meaningful Decisions: Matt Grosso on Design Choices in Dead Last
• How to make a name in board games by helping others (video)

industry:

• Bruno Faidutti's advice for new designers about game design, playtesting, pitching, the industry and more
• Board game industry figures offer advice for breaking in (audio)

theory:

• What makes a game good--or bad?
• 12 skills you can build a board game around
• The right and wrong ways to use roll-and-move (audio)
• A look at the "crescendo" mechanism where something in a game gets progressively more valuable
• Tips for designing microgames
• Tips for designing a heavy game
• Videos from the 2017 Game Developers Conference's Board Game Design Day (video)
• “The optimal move/choice/strategy/character should also be the interesting one. NEVER make players choose between 'fun' and 'effective'.” - Keith Burgun
• “Know what words you want to hear players using. Those words are a great way to tell if your design is immersive.” - JR Honeycutt
• “You cannot design games in a vacuum. They’re played by game-players, and if some method of play will ruin the game, design the game so that it cannot happen successfully.” - Lewis Pulsipher

playtesting:

• “Playtesting, feedback. Playtesting, feedback. Long pause. Repeat. This will never cease to be the secret to making a great game.” - Ben Pinchback
• “Your playtesters’ minor irritants of today are your reviewers’ slams of tomorrow.” - John Brieger
• “Even if you work alone, you *really* need blind playtesters who don’t care about your feelings. That’s how good games get made.” - Brandon Rollins
• “It’s really easy to blame players for a bad test (and sometimes bad tests will be due to the players). But blaming players instead of treating the test like a problem to be solved won’t help your game get better.” - Nat Levan

process:

• Managing your time making a game: years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes
• The right ways to steal ideas
• Questions to ask yourself before making a game
• Game design axioms: starting points for creating good games (audio)
• “It’s ok to rip out something you think you’re married to in a game. It’s hard to accept that something you really want to work just isn’t working at all. But sometimes that’s what you have to do to let the game evolve.” - Nicole Kline
• “If you want to be a creative, cast as wide a net in your life as you can. Read things, try things, do things. That’s where ideas come from.” - Kevin Wilson
• “Don’t stop playing published games. Make it a point to keep informed of what’s going on, what new tools other people have invented. Only playing prototypes will leave you in an information-rut.” - Tim Rodriguez

contests:

• What game designers should know about contests such as the Cardboard Edison Award (audio)

rules:

• How to write the "setup" section of a rulebook
• “If a rule is difficult to explain in words or easily forgotten, consider cutting it.” - Sen-Foong Lim

licensing:

• Best practices for attending a designer-publisher speed dating event
• How new designers can best spend their time to get their games signed
• How to pitch your tabletop game to a publisher (video)

publishing:

• Important advice for young publishers, learned the hard way
• A crash course on Kickstarter for board games

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Cardboard Edison is supported by our patrons on Patreon.

ADVISERS: 421 Creations, Peter C. Hayward, Neil Roberts, Aaron Vanderbeek

SENIOR INVENTORS: Steven Cole, John du Bois, Chris and Kathy Keane (The Drs. Keane), Joshua J. Mills, Marcel Perro, Behrooz Shahriari, Shoot Again Games

JUNIOR INVENTORS: Ryan Abrams, Joshua Buergel, Luis Lara, Aidan Short, Jay Treat

ASSOCIATES: Stephen B Davies, Scot Duvall, Doug Levandowski, Nathan Miller, Anthony Ortega, Mike Sette, Kasper Esven Skovgaard, Isaias Vallejo, Matt Wolfe

APPRENTICES: Darren Broad, Cardboard Fortress Games, Kiva Fecteau, Guz Forster, Scott Gottreu, Scott Martel Jr., James Meyers, The Nerd Nighters, Matthew Nguyen, Marcus Ross, Sean Rumble, VickieGames

“Abilities that automatically and always get applied are much easier to forget (thus, leading to more take backs, etc.) than abilities that you have to consciously choose to apply.”

— Sen-Foong Lim

A "rules structure" document you can use to start your game's rulebook:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13UvO25x5x0FZOieskxJlKCaxVHudACTEC4SBdeE3PjM/edit

What goes on behind the scenes to bring a game to market: prototyping, review copies, networking, promotion and more:

http://brandonthegamedev.com/bringing-it-together-the-board-game-as-a-project/

The 2018 Cardboard Edison Award

Deadline: Jan. 31, 2018

http://cardboardedison.com/award/

The requirement for the January 2018 24-hour contest is "hope":

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1911581/24-hour-contest-january-2018

Game design inspiration: what makes board game designers keep designing:

https://goforthandgame.com/2017/12/27/the-big-answer/

18 New Year's resolutions for board game designers:

http://brandonthegamedev.com/18-new-years-resolutions-for-board-game-devs/

“Before you spend hours and hours writing content for a prototype, playtest the core, core mechanic of your game. If that isn’t at least a little fun before any content is added, it’s not worth making.”

— Peter C. Hayward

Two articles exploring potential ways of designing a game's endpoint:

http://www.gamesprecipice.com/endings/

http://makethemplay.com/index.php/2017/12/27/5-ways-of-ending-your-board-game/

“When you design something and get it out, there are some who will not like it, no matter how much effort you put in. And that’s okay- there is something else out there for them. The main thing is to get it out... Don’t be so worried about what people will think.”

— Byron Collins

The purposes of blind playtesting, and how to know when you've done it enough:

http://brandonthegamedev.com/how-many-blind-play-tests-does-your-board-game-really-need/

Intellectual property, trademark and liability in board games (audio):

http://thegamecrafter.libsyn.com/game-law-with-zach-strebeck-and-the-game-crafter-episode154

Advice for how to create a good player experience (audio):

http://www.boardgamedesignlab.com/crafting-the-player-experience-with-matt-leacock/

How a game's structure can affect player engagement (audio):

http://ludology.libsyn.com/ludology-episode-166-impulse-control

Writing a comprehensible rulebook (video)

How long it will take to make your game, at a bare minimum:

http://brandonthegamedev.com/the-long-haul-project-why-making-games-takes-a-long-time/

Advice for how to filter playtester feedback (audio):

http://thegamecrafter.libsyn.com/filtering-feedback-with-the-game-crafter-episode153

Some of the challenges that come with using licensed IP in a board game (audio):

http://theforbiddenlimb.libsyn.com/total-recall-post-mortem-ep-62