Exercises to get into a daily game design routine in the new year:
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:
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:
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
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 requirement for the January 2018 24-hour contest is "hope":
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1911581/24-hour-contest-january-2018
18 New Year's resolutions for board game designers:
http://brandonthegamedev.com/18-new-years-resolutions-for-board-game-devs/
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/
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
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
