How to design a game for a non-gaming brand: questions to ask, setting your price, managing the project, setting expectations for the client, and more:

https://www.thedarkimp.com/blog/2025/01/15/designing-games-for-brands/

Co-designing: The ins and outs of making board games with another designer (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ht-xqUC8fg

So you have an idea for a game—what next? A Reddit board game design forum discussion about the earliest stages of working on a design:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoardgameDesign/comments/1hztygf/how_do_you_start/

3 tips for how to start designing your first board game (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Urh-jDShY

Artwork from a publisher perspective: gaining a vision for a project, finding the right artist and art style for a game, and more (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irvKUL--mF8

The Public Domain Image Archive is a collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright works that are free to use:

https://pdimagearchive.org/

Triangular numbers and why they show up so often in game designs:

https://gametek.substack.com/p/2025-triangles-and-you

Thoughts on doing your own thing as a designer and making games that are authentically yours:

https://bsky.app/profile/travisdhill.bsky.social/post/3leky2uezik2o

A short thread on the fine line board game designers need to walk when considering playtesters’ experiences:

https://bsky.app/profile/nickbentley.bsky.social/post/3leox3netlk2r

Which is harder: self-publishing or pitching to publishers? A Bluesky board game designers discussion:

https://bsky.app/profile/ziongg.bsky.social/post/3leuylez3bs2x

How to create a custom card deck in playingcards.io (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9hXJRHpGns

Our annual Cardboard Edison Best Practices booklet, filled with board game design tips and resources for every step of the process, is back!

• evaluating playtesters’ feedback

• improving your rulebook

• making your prototype more usable with graphic design

• setting design goals for yourself

• and lots more!

  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EPqJLYnwt0LXDEmZaZ8ebbA6M2MS_quN/view

Looking for inspiration for a new board game idea? The Random Board Game Idea Generator does exactly what it says:

https://www.randomgameidea.com/

Making “toyetic” games with a strong toy factor (audio):

Games that do it well:

https://sites.libsyn.com/19999/obg-553-toyetic

Manufacturing and marketing them:

https://unboxedboardgamepodcast.podbean.com/e/s2e3-toyetic-games/

Digging into a fundamental question about games: What are rules? And what kinds of rules come into play with board games? (audio):

https://decisionspace.podbean.com/e/the-5-types-of-rules-what-we-talk-about/

How can tabletop designers make games that are less likely to trigger analysis paralysis in players?

https://www.skeletoncodemachine.com/p/analysis-paralysis

A short thread on better co-designing efforts through learning more about your design partner:

https://bsky.app/profile/senfoonglim.bsky.social/post/3ldjt2gxbsc2x

Player failure: considering what kind of penalties make sense with the game’s theme (audio):

https://ludology.libsyn.com/thinking-beyond-mechanisms-ep-14

What constitutes plagiarism in game design?

https://gametek.substack.com/p/copy-paste

An overview of all the steps you’ll need to take to self-publish a board game (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4jKhdMv8sk