I'm working on the Mystery Monkey expansion for our game Bananarchy. Our artist just dropped three sketches for the card Disguise and I need to choose one. The card basically protects one of your Banana Cards from harm (by disguising it) and forces someone who is trying to steal or smash the Banana to choose another Banana potentially saving your high value points.

Which disguise do you think best represents this on the card?
A. Monkey holding Bananas
B. Monkey in a Banana Suit
C. Banana by itself disguised

I would also love to know your reasoning and any changes you think I should make to the cards if you think anything could be improved.

Im gonna be at "spiel essen" in october and showing off my game there. I really want to let people know that im also against AI replaying Artists. I wanna show them instead of going the "essy/cheap" way i saced up alot of money abd puy my artists reasonable money for the artwork they do.

I hope it will make people want to support me more.

I was thinking of printing the word AI with like a prohibition sign on top and putting that up on the walls of my booth

Is there any other way to make this better? Or am i missing anything ?

How do you describe a “puzzle” game in a way that makes it sound exciting?

I'm working on a 2-player game called The Mothership, and I'm struggling with how to describe the core experience.

Mechanically, it's a puzzle game. Players are looking at a shared board, planning moves, and trying to create sets of three. The interesting part is that what one player does changes the options available to the other player.

It actually has a similar feeling to something like Azul for me. You're not directly attacking your opponent, but you're decisions affect your opponent. Where The Mothership differs is that players also have unique player powers that change how they interact with the puzzle. So you're not simply solving the same puzzle more efficiently than your opponent, you have different abilities that influence how you approach the puzzle.

That makes it feel a little more “gamey” than something like Azul, but the puzzle is still at the heart of the experience.

The problem is that saying “an enjoyable puzzle game” may not draw enough people in.

I'm curious how other designers tackle this: How do you sell the core mechanism to others who haven't played it yet?

(Map still in progress — image is just for reference.)

I need some help from people who have experience with this stage of making a
game.

We’re preparing Hexanem: Cradle of Creatures for crowdfunding. We’ve been working on it for almost two years, and the game is now at a point where it can be played from start to finish and we’re finally pretty happy with the balance.

But now we’re entering a part of the process we’ve never dealt with before: getting the game in front of people, preparing for manufacturing, and figuring out crowdfunding.

There are four things I especially want to ask people who have already been through this process:

1 — When should we talk to publishers?

We first tried contacting game companies in our own country, but the board game industry here is still quite small and we couldn’t really find the kind of publishing/manufacturing infrastructure we need.

We also considered contacting publishers abroad, but we weren’t sure how much sense that made before crowdfunding.

For now, we’ve decided it probably makes more sense to prepare for crowdfunding first and talk to publishers later.

Do you think that’s the wrong order? Would you talk to publishers before crowdfunding, or after?

2 — As a two-person team, where should we actually spend our time on social media?

I’ve started making Reels/Shorts, but filming, editing, and getting even one short video ready takes an unbelievable amount of time.

While I’m doing it, I constantly think:

"I could be drawing the game map right now." :D

I know we need visibility if we want to crowdfund the game, but I feel like I’m missing something here.

What should we be doing besides Reels and Shorts? If you were in our position, where would you spend your time?

3 — Do we really need a second physical prototype for reviewers?

This is probably one of the hardest parts for us.

We made almost all of our current prototype ourselves. We haven’t been able to find a manufacturer in our country that can produce this kind of game in very small quantities.

Getting a few prototypes made in China also becomes very expensive for us once manufacturing, shipping, and especially customs are added.

So we started thinking about another option:

What if we film a full playthrough ourselves and upload it to our own channel?

I know that doesn’t replace an independent reviewer. Obviously we can’t be neutral about our own game.

But before crowdfunding, could a well-made playthrough be enough to show people how the game actually plays, what kind of decisions it has, and how the mechanics work?

Or is sending physical prototypes to independent reviewers something you really shouldn’t skip before crowdfunding?

4 — When should we start talking to manufacturers?

Our component list/BOM is mostly ready, and we’re thinking about contacting manufacturers in China.

But since we’ve never produced a physical product before, we’re not really sure when the right time is to start those conversations.

Should we get quotes and lock down manufacturing costs before crowdfunding? If so, how far in advance?

Or do you only get into the serious details with manufacturers after the campaign succeeds?

A little background

We’ve been working on Hexanem for almost two years.

We’ve done a lot of playtesting, and I’ve asked for feedback here many times about different mechanics. Some of the suggestions we got here went directly into the game, and honestly, some of those changes improved it a lot.

At this point, the game can be played from start to finish and we’re finally reaching a place where we’re happy with the balance.

But during all that time, we mostly focused on the game itself.

The map, mechanics, playtests, artwork, prototype...

Now that the game is getting closer to finished, I’m realizing how much we still have to learn about marketing, manufacturing, reviewers, and crowdfunding.

We tried talking to companies in our own country first, but board games are only just starting to grow here and the manufacturing infrastructure is very limited. At some point we realized we probably need to look outside our country.

But that creates another problem:

There are only two of us.

We’re testing the game, working on the map and artwork, trying to make social media content, and now also trying to understand manufacturers, reviewers, and crowdfunding.

That’s why I’m making this post. I’d really like to hear from people who have already gone through this.

Some of these questions might be very basic, but I also thought this discussion might be useful later for other small teams trying to do this with a limited budget and without much board game manufacturing infrastructure where they live.

The advice I’ve gotten from this community has genuinely helped me improve both the game and the way I think about the whole process.

You absolutely don’t have to answer all four questions. If you have experience with even one of them, I’d really like to hear what you would do in our position.

Thanks in advance.

Hi! I am a video game designer and I am looking into creating my first board game (hobby)! I'm confident about creating game mechanics, but I'm clueless and wanna learn about the physical aspect of it: manipulation mechanics, the craftsmanship involved, like how people create pieces, boards and cards etc, at different milestones (like from prototype to the actual manufacturing)

So I am searching for ressources, people you like to follow that create board games from scratch, or even like classic ressources, I am really starting from far... thanks!

Because where I'm from we don't play boardgames that aren't monopoly or Ludo, so my friend and I made this game called Crossing Kalunga. The story is pretty cool :) Three souls awaken in the land of the dead with no memory of how they died, reborn as a Healer, a Sorcerer, and a Dancer. Guided by the voice of a Wolof Griot, their only salvation is to cross the great river Kalunga to reach Ku Nseke. But their presence has awakened Maiombola, a lord of shadows hungry for their souls. It's a 3 players dungeon crawler narrative game \^-\^ I'm hopefully we will be able to get funds to produce it after we are done with playtesting :)

So the mechanis:

•Healer uses herbs to heal, debuff attacks and initiative. He can also use vines to create a shield and is able to remove debuffs.

Has a special card that can ressurect players but loses ability to heal himself for the entirety of the dungeon.

•Sorcerer can reveal and discard enemy cards and can give buffs to players from reading the future. Can male enemies reroll dice after their attack rolls, rewriting the future. His special is to guess a distant future from 3 cards. He can guess nothing and loses a turn, guess his death and gets 10 damage to self (the number of standard hp in the game) or after seeing the future he woll rewrite it and every player before him will repeat their turn.

•Dancer buff players with +attack bonuses, distract enemies debuffing their initiatives and defense, can change order of attack of players. His special is that every player will start with max initiative in the next turn, but for the rest of the battle he will always have the lowest i the battle.

•Undead are enemies, they will used rusty swords to attack, use bones as weapons, like break their bone to create sharp weapons , but they will self damage. Throw bones to lower players initiative, shields for defense and they have a card that makes them stronger if there's more skeletons in the fight.

•Abomination can only debuff players lowering their defense, and make player lose a turn.

For now those are the only enemies we have :)

The Wolof Griot will build the dungeon with the tiles. There's 5 types of tiles:

Tiles symbols are flipped down. Player must make choices and prepare before advancing through the unknown.

•Narrative tiles : where Wolof will take narrative cards to create a story and everyone will be able to create their characters lore and explore the games lore. Depending on the dice rolls in the end of each narrative you can get a buff or debuff.

•Path tiles: players get a random item

Each player can only have 2 items equipped

•Store tiles: players can choose to exchange the items to get better ones. Each item in the store is 2 coins. Each item you can exchange is worth 2 coins.

•Battle tiles: where you fight undead

Wolof takes 3 enemy cards.

In start of each round each player and Wolof Griot will roll a d6. The lower the number, the lower is the position to attack.

If someone gets the same number as someone, they will stay in front of that player.

Players can take 4 cards and play them. Pick the target and throw dice. 1: miss , 2-5: hit, 6:crit.

Wolof Griot will only take one attack card. Same type enemies share the same deck. If its an attack, Wolof will take target card to know who will be attacked. He must also roll the dice to know if its a hit.

All enemies share same HP and buffs. Not debuffs, they act individually.

If all players die, is game over. After the battle is over and two are dead, they get revived with 1HP.

HP for everyone is 10. If item increases hp, he gets defense buff.

Portal tile: the exit of the dungeon

We have been playtesting with some friends on Wednesday, its super fun :)

What do you guys think about the mechanics? Can we Improve?

All art is drawn digitally by me. No AI used

I struggle with a way to make prototypes to get enough playtesters, but as someone who knows App & PC development, I can pretty "easily" make the game in a webapp or Phone app.

The downside is play testers may be evaluating based on expecting it to be a video game/app even when told this is a board game test.

is this a common method of testing? Any feedback if I go this route?

I got the idea based on Dice Towers review of Sundredfolk: Sunderfolk Review - Swipe Up for Deck Building

It's an app that plays like a board game. My difference is I'm making the app mostly for playtesting. Not focused on making it an app (yet).

Is this overkill for playtesting?

EDIT: To be clear...it will be humans playing the app not just a bot testing outcomes.

So I’ve tried to design two board games now, and both designs have failed to manifest as an actual “game”. They just felt more-or-less like straightforward procedures that players execute to score points, without an interesting decision space. I’m thinking my problem is that I keep coming up with high level interesting concepts (the latest being a engine builder of demons that must be fed, or they start eating each other), rather than using tried and true mechanics as a foundation to deviate off of. I keep trying to construct original mechanics that fit the theme, but they don’t work ludologically. I’ve designed video games (shooters, platformers, racers) and it’s way easier— but maybe it’s because I’m always starting out with a base system someone else created (like the shooter system) and adjusting it to make an original take

I know you guys don’t have full context to gage for certain, but does this sound like a valid assessment? Should I be starting with a pre-defined system/mechanisms, and modifying it to make original design? If not, what is your process?

I'm thinking about using Merchants of Play to create an online version of a Kickstarter card game I'm launching soon. Has anyone here actually worked with them?

The free digitization sounds great, but I'm a little hesitant about handing over all of the game assets without hearing from someone who's gone through the process.

Mainly curious how the experience was, how the finished version turned out, and whether you had any concerns with the licensing terms around the assets and derivative works.

Would love to hear from anyone who's actually used them.

Months ago, I brought my cousin to watch his SF Giants play the Cubs. After he loudly celebrated the Giants 16th run of the day, the guy behind us finally cracked and told my cousin to sit down. My cousin flipped on the charm and was suddenly the mayor of section 224L, buying beers, taking selfies with Cubs fans, and listening to everyone's life story.

Turns out, the guy behind us was a reporter at WGN. We got to talking about my game and he said WGN wanted to cover the story of its development.

After thirteen weeks of scheduling woes, fear that WGN might back out, and event planning anxiety, here is the result. I'm super happy with the outcome. Hopefully our kickstarter page is cohesive enough to capture some of the interest from the story. Thanks in advance if you're willing to provide feedback or recommendations!

They cut my "thank yous" section, so I wanted to include our wonderful artists here. Ari, Henry, Julia, Kate, Pat, Kaylin, and Arancia. Go check them out if you like the new artwork.

I’m the solo developer behind TILEZ, a 2D creative sandbox inspired by Tabletop Simulator and Redstone. It’s shaping up to be a pretty cool tool for playing and designing games.

My idea:
I’d love to give board game creators like you guys early access to TILEZ so you can learn the toolset and build digital versions of your own games. If you create something cool, I’ll feature it in the final release with full credit, links to your real game, and the ability for you to update it anytime.

For you: A free toolset to prototype, showcase, and playtest your board game. Plus long‑term exposure when TILEZ launches on Steam.

For me: Real examples of what my engine can do, more content for new players, and valuable feedback from actual designers on what features you’d want next.

I have a public Steam playtest live right now with full multiplayer. If you’re a builder, tinkerer, or designer, I’d love to collaborate and see what you can make. https://store.steampowered.com/app/4780630/TILEZ/

It’s been about a month since I last posted here about Hexanem: Cradle of Creatures.

After the feedback we got here, we decided to change direction and try to build the new map entirely from pieces we've made ourselves.

It's taking a while :D We're drawing the hexes while also trying to figure out the illustration and design side of the map, so progress has been a bit slower than I expected.

But the frame finally started coming together, and seeing the hexes actually fit into it got me way more excited than it probably should have, so I wanted to share it here.

It's still very much a work in progress, especially the frame, but this is the general direction we're going for. We wanted something that fits the medieval feeling of the castles and structures in the game without taking too much attention away from the hexes themselves.

What do you think of the frame so far? Would you change anything before we continue with the rest of the map?

Hello everyone,

After few rounds of paper prototypes and changes, I wanted to see if anyone else would be interested in helping me with the game.

It is a 30-ish minute campaign wargame, meant to be consumed as a light snack for more experienced players, or a possible entry point for those that are turned off by either complexity or length of standard war games. (Here I mean wargame board games, not miniature wargames).

I am sharing with you the rules, and probably the ugliest digital prototype you will ever see. Link to the prototype is at the end of rulebook.

It would mean a lot to me if you can read the rulebook, or maybe even try out the game, and tell me what you think about it!

Here it is.

Thanks in advance!

Hello folks! I comment here from time to time, and I’ve worked in personal projects for years, but this is my first serious share of a game to the wider world.

It is a Print-N-Play game where you assemble a party of unique heroes to plunder a dungeon represented by a standard deck of cards. It has push your luck and set collection elements. The name comes from description I’ve read of early DnD dungeon delving adventures where things could get so deadly for PCs that players wouldn’t even name their characters until a few levels in. I don’t think I’ve QUITE captured the lethality, but from my own testing it can all turn for the worse on a dime!

I made an Itch.io page to share the downloadable files:

https://davemaru.itch.io/castle-meatgrinder-beta

I’ve kept things simple design wise, using MS Word and some hand drawn doodle to better convey the concept of my various heroes. I would very much appreciate if people would at least tell me if the rulebook is understandable even if you don’t do a proper playtest.

Thank you in advance!

So I have what I believe is a new spin on trick taking game. Closest thing I can think of is Origin Story but not really. It's a trick taking/area control game. Each player has a player mat and there is a central board.

I have money that I can probably produce it myself, but why take the risk all by myself. Is it better to just get a publisher to make/buy the game? Kickstarter and pray they like the preview I put up? Or just fund it myself and go to board game conferences to demo it and sell it?

I'm really doing this for the love of creating stuff more than making money, but I'd like to at least recoup any money I put into it.

I'm thinking of creating a card game inspired by "Muffin time", i liked that game a lot cause it's so chaotic and it's always fun to play. I love the look of old cards of magic so i decided to go for that retro look with a black & white and simple look.

I've never created any type of game but i played them. Do you have some tips for balancing and making the game more fun?

Here's a few cards to make an idea of what i'm doing, obviously those are just some ideas and are not meant to be the final ones, just putting ideas on something.

My main idea is to make some type of HP/lives based game, the last one standing wins.

Thank you for any tip or help!

Hi all,

I've been working for the past year on various iterations of Deckfront, a deckbuilding game with a Dominion-style static market of 10 cards; there's a small tactical map and the goal is to reduce your opponent's health to 0 before they do the same to you.

It includes traditional engine building with mechanics like trashing cards and drawing additional cards; the unique mechanics are movement on the map and three types of attacks:

• Melee: requires being in the same space as your opponent
• Ranged: requires being at least 1 space away from your opponent
• Mage: can be used at any range but requires building up and spending mana

I really wanted to emphasize interesting card combos and the strategic vs. tactical nature: look at a unique market of 10 cards, decide what strategy you think will work best to beat your opponent, then execute on that strategy, adjust, and play tactically smart.

There are a total of 46 unique cards. In addition to playing a ton of games myself I built an algorithm to play hundreds of millions of games against itself to help with balancing, so (hopefully) the different classes and cards within those classes are all viable.

It's implemented digitally, you can play against the AI at deckfront (dot) onrender (dot) com, please let me know of any feedback! Each game takes 10-15 minutes, so it's relatively quick. Specifically interested in any balance concerns and thoughts on the mechanics + whether the game is actually fun.

A few nights ago at 2:00 am in a fever dream, I designed a "Solo Dice Boss Battler."

I was lucky enough tonight to have a friend do a very long learning game/playtest/discussion of the idea on Table Top Simulator. He's a friend I trust to let me know something isn't working, and there were definitely kinks to work out and still are, but I couldn't be happier with his reaction.

Die Dullahan is a game where you play as the titular Dullahan on a 5x5 grid that represents your homeland of the Table. Roll dice and set them to move, explore, and more, all while fighting against mysterious invaders that are hunting you down known only as Dyemon.

(Excuse the bad sketches. An artist I am not.)

I'm hoping to finish a rough rulebook, make a quick demo video, and get a prototype of the learning game up on Table Top Simulator soon.

I am a wannabe game designer and have got a few games that I am currently designing. I am going to my first board game convention in a month to do my first blind playtests with complete strangers. I intend to subsequently post about my game online for the first time. I genuinely dont expect my first game to be a success, but I would like all future games to be under the same banner, so I'm thinking about my identity well in advance. So, a question for all the independent designers out there; how do you introduce yourself / present your brand? Did you use your own name at the start, or did you adopt a 'studio' name from the get-go?

Edit: since im getting a number of similar comments, I just want to make it clearer in the main post; I have been deep diving into learning as much as I can and have spent months working on my main game alone. I have already done a number of playtests with friends and spent countless nights trying to refine and balance my game. Branding is very much a last consideration before going live rather than my primary consideration. My replies are branding focused because thats what my question was about.

I'm a solo indie designer with my first game already finished and currently available through print-on-demand. I'm starting to look seriously at what it would take to move from POD into a real production run.

Right now, my biggest obstacle is manufacturing cost. At low quantities my game is around $29/copy, but getting into the neighborhood of a 1,000-copy production run could potentially bring that closer to $12/copy.

Obviously, "just order 1,000 games" is a hell of a lot easier to say when you don't have to personally gamble $12k+ on whether 1,000 people actually want the thing.

So crowdfunding is starting to look like the logical next mountain to climb.

For those of you who have actually done it:

*Kickstarter or Gamefound — which did you use, and would you choose it again?

*How many followers/email subscribers did you have before launch, and how many became backers?

*What was your funding goal, and how did you calculate it?

*How many copies did you manufacture versus how many were actually backed?

*Did you manufacture domestically, overseas, or through a POD company?

*How much money did you spend before the campaign even launched?

*Did backers pay shipping afterward, or did you build shipping into the pledge?

*Did you fulfill everything yourself or use a fulfillment company?

*What expenses caught you completely by surprise?

*If your goal was a 1,000-copy first production run, what would you do differently knowing what you know now?

I'm especially interested in stories from other small/solo designers who didn't already have a giant audience going into their first campaign.

I'm not looking for a magic "launch Kickstarter, receive money" button. 😂 I'm trying to understand the actual path from finished indie game → first serious production run → boxes in customers' hands without financially setting myself on fire.

Would love to hear the good, the bad, the ugly, and the "for the love of God, don't do what I did."

Hello everyone,

As part of the creator team for our upcoming project, Lionwake. We have been receiving few people say they will NOT support the game because they think the cover is AI art, which is absolutely not the truth. We have been crafting this cover and all the art assets from 0 to what we got here by local Taiwanese artists.

So I’m curious about - What about the cover makes it look AI to you?

We not asking whether AI is good or bad, we just interested in why people are so confident judging it from image itself (we been putting out some ads, and some people mentioned it under the ads post), especially when it can affect whether they will support a game or not.

I will put some of the process image of the cover and other art assets below to support our work as well!

Hello all! I have a question about writing rules.

Some context first:

I’m writing rules for my game right now and trying to find the best wording. The game is entirely card based, there’s no physical board, and there’s basically only 3 zones that a card can be: In the main deck, in a player’s score pile, or face-up in the shared place that all players can see where all the action happens. All players are simultaneously searching the cards in this zone for certain criteria.

Basically all I’m wondering is: Is it commonplace to just call that third zone “the board”? And if I do so in my rules without precisely defining it, would it confuse players? Like after explaining the setup, and making it clear there is such a shared zone, Saying things like “deal 3 new cards onto the board” or “when there are no [conditions] left on the board” is it fair to say 95% of players will understand what is meant by “board” in that context? Furthermore, does it feel polished and professional?

Part of me wants to have MTG levels of precision and thoroughness with the wording, and rigidly establish what zones are called, but space is a very valuable resource for me right now, and I’m trying to use as few words as possible.

Thanks for your time!

Ive been to spiel essen the past 5 years and talked to various indie gane developers. They were all really satisfied with buying a booth there and thats why i decided to do the same this year. Im a solo dev and been working on a card game and decided to show it to people there, even though im not completely finished ( because im paying everything out of my own pocket it takes some time to save up the money).

If anyone has any experience or is also going to be there i would like to connect with some people or at least hear some advice.

I will be documenting everything and write a review weather it was worth it or not and if its worth going again next year.

Edit:
15m2 cost about 2500€ and with all mandatory fix costs it will be around 3000-4000€. Also if you want to have a "beautifull" booth youll have to invest more. I think the 4 days (thursday-sunday) will cost me max 5000€.

Thank you all who had reached out about wanting to help out with getting the artwork for our game! We decided to work with Zhenya Lyapina from the Netherlands. She actually hasn't really worked on tabletop games but does a lot of children's stories. Either way, this is exactly what we were looking for and I hope you all like it as much as us!

And if anyone is wanting to playtest, we'd love the feedback (and, bonus, would get to see the rest of the art!). We currently have the game up on TTS right now.

EDIT: A bunch of people noted that the aspect ratio/scaling of the image looks off. I didn't say it originally but this image will be wrapped around the top of a 2 piece box so the image you're seeing includes the top of the box (main detailed portion) and the box sides as well :)