Cardboard Edison’s Favorite Tips & Resources - September 2016

This month's roundup of our favorite board game design links includes an interview about a Spiel des Jahres nominee, thoughtful articles on small but important corners of game design, answers to legal questions and much more.

featured:

• Meaningful Decisions: Phil Walker-Harding on Design Choices in Imhotep

theory:

• Controlling how long your game feels for the experience it offers: game length vs. perceived length, down time, turn structures, and more

• Alternatives to all-or-nothing outcomes in games

• Three rules for designing tiebreakers

process:

• The benefits of designing within constraints (audio)

• “If you’re not prototyping your idea because you’re worried it won’t be fun enough, remember that games are more fun than game ideas.” - Jay Treat

licensing:

• What to do while waiting to hear back from a publisher (audio)

publishing:

• Options for shipping your game from the manufacturer

• Considerations for international publishing: translation, localization, co-production and more

industry:

• Answers to game designers' legal questions: NDAs, IP protection, art contracts and lots more (audio). Part 1, Part 2.

• “It’s way better to have a game that a smallish group really likes than a game that everyone kind of only sort of likes.” - Sandy Petersen

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ADVISERS: Peter C. Hayward, RetroIn Games, Aaron Vanderbeek

SENIOR INVENTORS: Steven Cole, John du Bois, Richard Durham, Koen Hendrix, Chris and Kathy Keane (The Drs. Keane), Marcel Perro, Behrooz Shahriari

JUNIOR INVENTORS: Ryan Abrams, Joshua Buergel, Luis Lara, Aidan Short, Jay Treat

ASSOCIATES: Robert Booth, Danica E., Doug Levandowski, Aaron Lim, Nathan Miller, Isaias Vallejo, Matt Wolfe

APPRENTICES: Kiva Fecteau, Scott Gottreu, JR Honeycutt, Knight Works, Scott Martel Jr., Mike Mullins, Marcus Ross, Sean Rumble, Diane Sauer, Smarter Backer