Cardboard Edison's Favorite Tips & Resources - August 2013

This was another big month filled with a boatload of tips and resources for board game designers. Below you’ll find a Gen Con panel for first-time designers, thorough explorations of two types of games, a new website to aid in idea creation, and a lot more:

#featured:

• Meaningful Decisions: Dirk Knemeyer on Board Game Design Choices

#industry:

• A panel of game designers at Gen Con discuss lots of topics of interest to new designers
• A Brief Crash Course on Game Design: Issues, Processes, and Resources for New Designers
• Patch Products’ inventor-relations representative offers advice to game creators
• Abstract Strategy Games Online: The Definitive Guide

#theory:

• A guide to network-building games
• A guide to storytelling games
• What makes a euro a euro?

#process:

• Board Game Idea Generator
• Lukas Litzsinger (@RukasuFox) talks about developing Android: Netrunner, working at Fantasy Flight Games (@FFGames), telling stories with games and more

#prototyping:

• Forget the debate over “pretty” prototypes, here are some tips and resources to make them functional

#licensing:

• Two very important things to do before you pitch your board game to a publisher

#publishing:

• A detailed timeline for how long it takes to design, test and produce a board game
• How and when to say no to Kickstarter backers