Lessons learned from working in board games: the game design process, knowing your values and priorities, co-designing, attending conventions, and more (video):
Why are you designing games? Things to consider when thinking about your motivations in board game design:
https://www.thedarkimp.com/blog/2024/01/24/whats-your-motivation/
Our annual Best Practices booklet, filled with board game design tips and resources, is back for 2024! Lots of articles and interviews covering all steps of the board game design process!
https://cardboardedison.com/award
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eM_Y1BBUi3ts7jaei99zojTya1N-qVzV/view
Adam Porter shares an epic list of 100 lessons about board game design and finding commercial success as a designer, learned over a decade in the industry (video):
Lessons 100-91: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D8omU-Ejj4
Lessons 90-81: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEbA8BYJ2Xs
Lessons 80-71: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYs3wApBYVE
Lessons 70-61: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INsfDpTQzlg
Lessons 60-51: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozai-xir6G0
Lessons 50-41: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0EvkRnjzZI
Lessons 40-31: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LYVscmpj-A
Lessons 30-21: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JITsKXWf7pI
Lessons 20-11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvol9tXnyFk
Lessons 10-1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIGP-CE0Dow
Why playing other games will make you more original, not less—a BoardGameGeek designers forum discussion:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3211056/does-learning-what-works-other-games-make-you-less
How do you manage multiple designs and decide which to work on? A Twitter board game designers discussion:
https://twitter.com/BenjaminGoldman/status/1736804238649700784
Malorie and Ryan Laukat offer some rapid-fire tips for board game designers: working on multiple games, collaborating, making changes, incorporating feedback, and more (video):
Lots of pointers and lessons learned about board game design and publishing:
https://stonemaiergames.com/20-questions-and-answers-about-game-design-publishing-and-beyond/
Getting out of a game design slump—tips from the Bluesky board game design community:
https://bsky.app/profile/senfoonglim.bsky.social/post/3ke3ccrzco42n
How developing your communication skills can make you a better board game designer:
https://shippboardgames.blogspot.com/2023/11/communication-is-design-skill.html
“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
Highlights from Hasbro's inaugural Women Innovators of Play event (video):
—The journey into board game design, with Elizabeth Hargrave
—Lots of tips for pitching to publishers
—How mass-market toys and games are made
—Overcoming doubt and imposter syndrome
—Working habits to be a successful toy and game inventor
Why “don't expect your first board game design to be publishable” might be bad advice for new designers:
https://bsky.app/profile/elizhargrave.bsky.social/post/3kbpzvaf3jv2t
“Do as much as you can with a project BEFORE you start investing a lot of money into it. Test your prototype, polish it, get it to as perfect as possible before spending. From there you can start investing in the art, editing, etc., but get it as close to final as you can first – it can save you a lot of future headaches.”
When to abandon one of your board game designs, when not to, and when to just put it on pause for a bit:
https://www.thedarkimp.com/blog/2023/10/11/when-to-abandon-a-game-youve-designed/