So you want to build a board game?

I was drafting Shadows over Innistrad with some buddies on Saturday and it turns out the birthday boy, my very good friend, has been planning and designing his own board game for several months now. He's figured out the mechanics and is close to wanting to playtest the game. He also needs to find an artist that would work on the cheap for some of the illustrations and such (I someone recommended hunting down a student).

Anyway, he seemed pretty lost as to where to go next when he wants to actually build, market this game. He's thinking of kickstarter but isn't sure. I know lots of people here have lots of experience with this stuff. Do any of you have a critical path to follow on how to get your first game to completion and give it the best shot possible.?

I asked him if he was planning on designing more games down the road but he doesn't think so. I've known this guy for 15 years and I would expect this game to probably have some very solid mechanics.

Unless he's going to self-publish, do not commission any art. Publishers change game themes settings all the time and it would likely be wasted money.

Just use placeholder art, like clip art or something.

I suggest that he creates a prototype, and after he feels it's ready, contacts a few publishers to see if they will take a look. I would not hire an artist to make the prototype look pretty; publishers are talented enough to be able to see the end result, and besides, a game that looks like crap and is still fun will be all that much better with professional art.

What he said.

If he wants to self publish I have a bunch of friends that may take the work. I also considered going to the local art school and see about hiring interns or something. For Hoodrats I used all Collective Commons art with filters/modifications and it turned out really well.

James Mathe (Minion Games) has a bad ass blogspot that has tons of great, accurate info on bloggers who do previews, places to get manufacturing, etc.

He needs to do some research and really think about whether he wants to self-publish or not down the line. It seems like he isn't quite sure.

If you're not self-publishing spending money on art is a horrible idea. Wasting money completely.

He should have the game playtested enough and as close to finished (in his eyes) as possible before showing it to a publisher.

Game design is tough. Long hours and lousy pay, and that was before the market got flooded with half-baked Kickstarter games. Your friend should ask himself why he is designing a boardgame and then proceed accordingly. If he is doing it for the money, he is mistaken and should do something better with his time. If he is doing it for fun, he shouldn't worry about publication and should just swipe whatever online pictures he needs for his components. Sure, he could do a Kickstarter instead of working with an existing game company, but then he needs to be good at a lot of different things: game design, technical writing, project management, marketing, budgeting, and distribution. It would also be helpful if he was fluent in Chinese.

I have designed a few games over the years, and even got one published ten years ago. (Maybe sometime this year I will do a series of articles here at the Fort about my experience.) It was always way too much time and not enough money compared to my day job. The biggest surprise and disappointment was that playtesting is hard work and not especially fun, and that most of my friends would rather play a published game than an unpublished prototype.

That said, I have been working on a design for the last 18 months, and have been frantically doing another round of revisions lately. I want to get in more playtesting in May, because I have a meeting with a potential publisher in July. This started as just a fun project which I thought had zero chance of publication due to the IP, but then I discovered that there was a company working with a close variation of that same IP that might be interested. My original goal of making a fun game about a favorite topic is near completion. Re-theming it for publication will be a fair amount of work, but at least I would make some money and earn a tiny bit of fame within a certain geek sector.

charlest wrote: He needs to do some research and really think about whether he wants to self-publish or not down the line. It seems like he isn't quite sure.

If you're not self-publishing spending money on art is a horrible idea. Wasting money completely.

He should have the game playtested enough and as close to finished (in his eyes) as possible before showing it to a publisher.

Great points. The decision to self-publish or not is a big deal. Self-publication is a lot of work, while working with a publisher could lead to major changes in the game.

Shellhead wrote: The biggest surprise and disappointment was that playtesting is hard work and not especially fun, and that most of my friends would rather play a published game than an unpublished prototype.

+1

btw, it's cool we have so many designers (at various levels of volume) on the board willing to talk about their experience.

Gary Sax wrote: btw, it's cool we have so many designers (at various levels of volume) on the board willing to talk about their experience.

Yeah exactly, this is GREAT stuff guys, thanks so much for sharing all of this. I'll link him this thread since I won't be able to accurately reflect all this advice and direction.


Yeah playtesting is brutal. I'll help my friend do it cuz I loves him, but I know it's not usually fun. Decipher (when it existed) offered to fly me down to Viriginia once or twice to playtest some of their CCGs. I said no and they seemed shocked (as did the other playtesters). Apparantly no one ever says no. Free food, lodging and transportation and you get a bunch of free product. But the actual work (even though it's just a weekend) sounds brutal. Locked up in a room with chalkboards, playtesting with a bunch of stinky guys who are all trying to act as alpha as possible to score a job with the game company itself. NO THANK YOU.

again, thanks for the comments thus far. If anyone has moar to say on it, don't hold back! The more the better and i'm sure this isn't just relevant to my friend but to others as well

xo

Black Barney wrote: Yeah playtesting is brutal. Decipher (when it existed) offered to fly me down to Viriginia once or twice to playtest some of their CCGs. I said no and they seemed shocked (as did the other playtesters). Apparantly no one ever says no. Free food, lodging and transportation and you get a bunch of free product. But the actual work (even though it's just a weekend) sounds brutal. Locked up in a room with chalkboards, playtesting with a bunch of stinky guys who are all trying to act as alpha as possible to score a job with the game company itself. NO THANK YOU.

Not to hijack the thread, but I have to agree. I used to do some playtesting for Warmachine/Hordes a number of years ago and after the coolness of it wore off, it got to the point where all the games I got to play were playtesting, which is definitely work, and not especially fun. It kind of drained my interest in playing the game at all. Playtesting is rough, especially for a game you actually enjoy.

Another question your friend should ask himself is what makes his game special. We have all seen too many DOAMs, deckbuilders, Euro vp efficiency races, etc. Without the draw of a culturally relevant IP (i.e., not Labyrinth) or at least a distinctive setting, a game needs to offer something different.

If possible, get different kinds of playtesters. Get people with lots of boardgame experience, because they will offer useful perspectives about what works and what isn't fun. Get at least one or two playtesters without a lot of boardgame experience, because they will have the toughest time with the rules. Best of all, try to get people who will try to break the game with extreme strategies.

One more simple thing to piggy back off the playtesting sucks discussion - as a designer you should be playtesting your stuff solo long before it hits living/breathing playtesters. Even social deduction or hidden information games need to be played solo. Go through the motions at the very least and look for all obvious flaws. Iterate, fix what you need to. Solo it again. Repeat as many times as you can.

Two (kind of obvious) reasons:

1 - This will save you time ultimately. You won't need to organize and convince people to play and hope for feedback. It also filters out obvious problems so that you can focus on harder to find details when your playtesters are in front of it.

2 - Your playtester's time is valuable. If you're serious about getting your game published you will only be able to get in X number of playtest sessions before it is published. That number is finite whatever it is. You don't want to waste any of those sessions on things you could have found yourself. You also want to provide the best experience possible for your playtesters so you can convince them to come back and try it again. If the game breaks in the first 20 minutes based on something you could have easily seen in solo play, I'm not going to playtest your game again because you didn't respect my time enough to perform basic work in your own time.

We were laughing at how the first playtesting will go since the opportunities for comedy will be priceless. I myself am planning on bringing Puerto Rico, secretly, and when we're about 30 minutes the game I'm going to let out a BIG sigh and put Puerto Rico on the table, "can we just play this?"