“Pillars of design”: lots of questions for board game designers to think through as they work on a new design:

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSmwcCEmdwY

list: https://boardgamedesignlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Pillars-of-Design.pdf

Some variations on worker placement that have helped the genre evolve:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2023/11/07/working-hard-a-look-at-worker-placement-mechanisms-topic-discussion/

Random production: how some games generate resources for players in random ways:

https://medium.com/@zipo13/the-great-equalizer-7529a25788e7

Winning: a conversation about why players care about winning a game (audio):

https://cardboardphilosophypod.podbean.com/e/episode-016-why-do-people-care-so-much-about-winning/

Horror in board games: thoughts on what works and doesn’t:

https://dailyworkerplacement.com/2023/10/31/i-want-to-play-a-game-horror-in-board-gaming/

What does it mean for a game to be “too long”? What makes players feel like a game goes on too long? Or not long enough? (audio)

https://cardboardphilosophypod.podbean.com/e/episode-015-what-makes-a-game-too-long/

Dice, cards, and more: Different ways of generating random numbers and what makes them fun (audio):

https://cardboardphilosophypod.podbean.com/e/episode-014-rolling-dice-and-flipping-cards/

An argument that “balance” in games isn’t what most people think it is:

https://giantbrain.co.uk/2023/10/26/a-matter-of-balance/

Some hidden ways that board games can be more complex than you, as a gamer and the designer, might realize:

https://shippboardgames.blogspot.com/2023/10/more-about-rules-complexity.html

How do you feel about board games that use electronic devices to assist players with part of the game? A Bluesky game designer discussion:

https://bsky.app/profile/amanpossessed.bsky.social/post/3kbzoslosmg2r

Worker-placement games where more workers isn’t necessarily better—12 ways games handle it (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuymCqs-UgI

Towards a theory of what makes a trick-taking game great:

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/323856/towards-theory-what-makes-trick-taking-game-great

Four interesting examples of game design theory and how designers can use them in their games (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn38jGiEdKc

Money in board games: modeling inflation, different components for money, loans in games, money that isn’t money, games without money, money as the theme, and more (scroll for English):

https://faidutti.com/blog/blog/2023/09/25/les-jeux-et-largent-money-and-games/

Balance: a deep, two-part discussion about what game balance is, why we care about it, how games can be balanced, and the downsides of overbalancing a design (audio):

https://decisionspace.podbean.com/e/balance-pt-1-what-we-talk-about/

https://decisionspace.podbean.com/e/balance-pt-2-what-we-talk-about/

Some reasons why players may find your game’s theme “boring”:

https://shippboardgames.blogspot.com/2023/09/boring-themes.html

Thoughts on best practices for crafting a board game’s pacing, core activity, strategy, and endgame—and how they’re all related:

https://twitter.com/chessandpoker/status/1700210477458923981

Using overlapping turns to reduce player downtime—and some pitfalls of doing so:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2023/09/05/speed-boost-overlapping-turns-in-board-games-topic-discussion/

12 questions to help identify the next step in development for your tabletop game, or to help you get a wayward design back on track:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1utzo5NWTfT0ov-JGXSujLocgU_9iM4Jop6t7i-FjYA4/edit

via @npcaaron

How to make game mechanics feel more thematic:

https://shippboardgames.blogspot.com/2023/09/thematic-feeling-mechanisms.html