If you could send one game back 100 years to dramatically accelerate board game design, what would it be? A Bluesky game designers discussion:

https://bsky.app/profile/dxdydz.northsky.social/post/3mzp7k3wo2s2d

Alternatives to victory points: racing games, tug-of-war mechanics, sole survivor, and more (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4YbSh5Fx_E

How some kinds of components can be essential to gameplay in certain designs—and what that means for the designers and publishers working with them:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/11/03/material-matters-when-components-become-mechanisms-topic-discussion/

Considering some ways the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion is relevant to game design (audio):

https://genesisoflegend.podbean.com/e/episode-393-loss-aversion-and-player-psychology/

Magic: The Gathering’s head designer explains why he doesn’t think Magic will run out of design space and lays out a process for building out a complex game’s mechanics (audio):

https://share.transistor.fm/s/7f69f937

The math behind expected values and high-variance strategies, and the game design decisions that determine whether players are rewarded for steady progress or taking big swings:

https://gametek.substack.com/p/horse-race

A deep dive into magnetism and the many ways magnets are used in games (audio):

https://thespiel.net/node/1415

(heard while prototyping our own magnetic game, Mini Discus!)

Complexity in board games: what it adds and what it costs:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/10/13/costly-complexity-the-limits-of-complexity-in-board-games-topic-discussion/

Basics of probability theory for game designers: dice, betting, balance, and more (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3QHqwbtCY

Five designers’ approaches to making historical board games and deciding which parts of reality to include or leave out:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/09/29/reality-realisation-how-board-games-represent-reality-topic-discussion/

All downtime isn’t equal: considering the differences between dead time, plan time, and rest time:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/09/15/downtime-chat-allowing-for-social-interaction-in-board-games-topic-discussion/

Expansions for successful board games: designing them, working on them for publishers, players’ views, and more:

https://faidutti.com/blog/blog/2026/09/08/les-extensionsexpansions/

Thoughts on how board games function as an artistic medium, with their mechanisms as a form of expression:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/09/08/artistic-board-games-how-board-games-are-more-than-visually-pleasing-topic-discussion/

Rolling, re-rolling, and locking: variations on the Yahtzee dice-rolling mechanic in both classic and modern games:

https://www.skeletoncodemachine.com/p/rolling-and-locking

This panel discussion featuring game designers and developers covers the difference between design and development, how they incorporate narrative into games, and where they draw inspirations from (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FaAwCn2eDM

How some modern trick-taking games play with the genre’s mechanisms while keeping the characteristics that have made such games so long-lasting:

https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/08/25/magic-tricks-what-makes-trick-taking-games-great-topic-discussion/

Board game design basics: defining your goals, restrictions, the iterative design process, qualities of good games, taking feedback, and more (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAiCR1XVe68

How do you define “interesting choices” and design a game with them? A Reddit board game design forum discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoardgameDesign/comments/1vovj61/how_do_you_design_an_interesting_choice/

Keeping players’ attention: how to design for pacing, meaningful choices, tension, and rewards (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_0QN4Wmehk

Game flow: how to ensure players feel engrossed while playing, what contributes to a good game flow, and what you can do as a designer to improve it (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqspauIq0ls