“If it stops being fun and feels like a chore, take a break. Come back to it when you’re feeling it again. When you play a game, you can feel how much fun the designer had making it, so ensure that you maintain your own passion for what you love throughout the process, and most of all enjoy yourself, so you know that your players will, too.”

— Tristan Hall

PNP Arcade has a “prototype zone” for print-and-plays with feedback forms:

https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/prototype-zone

Lots of links to tabletop-gaming industry companies’ websites:

https://www.tabletopdirectory.com/

Daily exercises to get your next game design session off to a creative start:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EL8_UgBh4VnNFJh6Fa8cnVVqxKtWEKbnTF7IAIN9cZI/edit#gid=0

An extensive list of board game manufacturers:

https://boardgamemanufacturers.info/

Board game designers share their favorite prototyping tools:

https://twitter.com/ProtospielNotts/status/1273293939924230150

10 methods of creating tension in a solo game or a game’s solo mode (video)

Tips for designing your games for a specific audience (audio):

https://www.boardgamedesignlab.com/designing-games-for-a-specific-audience-with-phalgun-polepalli/

Lots of pointers for running a smoother online playtest:

http://www.thegamespeople.co.uk/getting-the-most-from-virtual-playtesting/

Why might a designer exchange a simple rule for one that’s less elegant? A Twitter board game design discussion:

https://twitter.com/PuppyShogun/status/1270400646685097985

A thorough survival guide to pitching your game, from scheduling and preparing to answering questions and tracking your progress:

https://www.dmrcreativegroup.com/post/pitching-survival-guide

A note on the “rules” for new designers to follow—but also when to break them:

https://twitter.com/KevinWilson42/status/1270757552834347011

“So many mistakes have been made, and so many lessons have been learned by other designers. If you don’t play their games, you’re going to waste time making all those mistakes again for yourself.”

— Adam Porter

Making your prototype more appealing for pitches through stock art, example diagrams, decent components, and a how-to-play video:

https://randomskill.games/so-you-think-you-can-be-a-board-game-designer-part-5-presentation/

A massive guide with basic info on all sorts of marketing platforms and techniques for board games:

http://atgn.com.au/designers-dangers-103/

Free illustrations of black people for digital projects or board game prototypes:

https://www.blackillustrations.com/

6 ways of using randomness to spice up a game design–without overseasoning it:

https://subsurfacegames.ca/2020/06/06/when-to-use-randomness/

Julio Nazario and Jason Slingerland discuss rules documents (audio):

http://www.buildingthegamepodcast.com/episode-418-julio-explains-the-rules/

Design choices and challenges with Richard Garfield (audio):

https://player.fm/series/magic-the-gathering-drive-to-work-podcast/ep-737-richard-garfield

10 brand extension strategies for tabletop games:

https://stonemaiergames.com/10-brand-extension-strategies-for-tabletop-games/