How to Make a Board Game in 2024

so when I looked at the YouTube analytics for this channel recently I noticed a common theme for my viewers six out of their top 10 searches were some variation of how to make a board game so I figured I'd put together a little video and talk through the process from start to finish and just go through how to get that idea out of your head and onto a table now I've been designing games for about 12 years and I've created around 100 games at this point that at least got to the play testing stage and most of those have ranged somewhere between absolute dumpster fire and meh but quite a few have been commercially viable and I've got around 15 or so that are either already on the market or will be very soon and so as I walk you through this process please know that I've done this quite a few times but let's get into it now the first thing to talk about is the general idea what is your idea that's going to be turned into a board game or a card game like maybe you just saw a really good movie or just read a really Sensational book or maybe you just found out about a really interesting real world real life process and you're like hmm I bet there's a game in there somewhere and if you're a game designer you're probably having that idea all the time it's like oh I bet that could be a game oh that could be a game and you're going to have way more ideas than you could ever bring to life and get onto an actual table and so you're really just trying to figure out out of all these ideas which one do you really want to work on which one do you really want to focus on and you also kind of have to understand as my good friend Jamie stigmeyer says your idea is brilliant your idea is worthless you know it's all about the execution everybody's got ideas all game designers across the world have good ideas and in their minds they're probably really really good but then what's next like how do you go to the next step with that idea and the first thing I do is just a simple brain dump I get a notebook I really like to write things down in this stage more so than just typing it out on a word doc or something like that I really like just the feeling of writing it down in a game design notebook that I can carry around in my pocket or my backpack or something like that and I just get out every single possible idea about the idea about the game than I that I can how many players is it going to be how long do I want the play time to be what are the the ideas for mechanisms and themes and different angles for that mechanism or four that theme and is there going to be certain components is it going to have you know meeples and cubes and basic stuff do I need custom Miniatures but I'm just like writing down every single possible thing I can come up with and this is really cool too if it's like a real world real life thing like you're if you're gonna design a game about you know creating cars or you know going from uh taking a resource out of the world and then turning it into some kind of widget or whatever it is like you're just writing down ideas about how that could be laid out in game mechanics and like actual gameplay is is it something you're gonna actually have to dive into and really focus on or is it something you can kind of abstract out whatever it is though you're just writing down every single thing you can come up with about the game and how it's going to play and also realizing that a lot of this maybe most of it maybe all of it is going to change especially once you get later on into the process of play test and we'll get to get to that just a minute everything is subject to change so if you have a pencil maybe that's good or an erasable pen because you're going to be scratching stuff out you're going to be erasing things and making it different but the idea about your idea is to get it all out I'll just get as much out as you possibly can because you're probably going to forget if you don't get it out as soon as you can and as I'm writing down notes and really trying to figure out what the game is going to be and flesh out all of my ideas one of the things I really like to think about early on is what is The Game's main driving force what is the main focus going to be and in my mind it's one of four possibilities and the first one is theme is it a thematic driven game are you really trying to evoke a certain theme a certain setting or world that the player is just going to be able to run around in and do cool things or is it mechanism driven do you have an idea for really interesting mechanism the way cards play or dicer are placed on the board or something you know do you have a variation on a mechanism that's already been done before but you want to do it differently but you're going to really focus on that mechanism is it component based this is a game maybe like Jenga where it's very specific components that kind of turn the game into what it is that really make it the most fun or is it experience based are you really just trying to create a certain Vibe a certain experience for the player to have and you want to really lean into that now more likely your game is going to have a variation of all of these things in some way but what's the main one that you're focusing on because that's really going to help you make certain decisions and going to give you some focus on your game design and what you're going to be working on next and another thing that's really helpful to figure out as early as you possibly can is how do you win what's the end goal what's the end stay the end game trigger overall because until you have that you don't exactly have a game you need to know players need to know what they're trying to accomplish how do you win and until they have that it's just really you're just doing things you're just going through some processes but but why and you don't necessarily have to have that idea early on like first off but you need to have that pretty soon because it's going to determine a lot of other design design decisions that you're going to be making and you want players to be incentivized to go towards that end goal towards that in-game state so that they win and so the quicker you can figure that out and hopefully part of your initial idea the better and speaking of end goals what is your end goal with this game and it's something else just to be thinking about early on as you're writing down notes and you're coming up with different ways that the game plays and different components that you want to have what is your goal for the game do you want to get it published or is this just a fun little hobby a fun little side project some you know fun little thing to to occupy your mind there's no wrong answer I mean whatever you want to do is it's totally fine I've done both I spent several years just designing games for fun and it was really for no one other than me and maybe some friends me and my wife maybe me and my cat whoever just to sit down play the game not trying to get it published not trying to license it out or make money off of it it's just something fun to do that's totally fine but if you want the game to actually show up on a store shelf if you want it to go to Kickstarter or game found to be crowdfunded if you want it to be a commercial viable product they're gonna have to make different decisions it's going to change certain things about your design process so as you're coming up with ideas you're coming up with all the different ways the game is going to be played and all that what what's your big idea personally for this game's end goal just for fun store shelf because that's going to be a very different process all right now you've got all these ideas swirling around you've written down as much as you possibly can now it's time to get the game out of your head and onto a table in the form of a prototype and my advice is make the ugliest prototype you possibly can just just get it out there just get some note cards and some dice and some little cubes some some dust over from around here some little pieces of trash some some dirt and some any anything just anything to get the game on an actual table because until then it's just an idea it's not actually a game yet until you actually can have something that you can play so the quicker you can do that the better get the Prototype made I've talked to so many designers that have such good ideas really cool ideas but they can't get out of their notebooks they can't just make the time or take up you know use the energy whatever it is to actually make a prototype and just a little bit overwhelming and it's also a little bit scary and I just want to be honest about that all of us in the game not necessarily all of us but a lot of us in the game design world there's a little bit of fear because in your head the idea is perfect it's the next best thing it's better than Monopoly it's gonna sell more copies than Monopoly it's gonna be something that changes the world but but probably not you know and and you don't really find that out until you get it onto a table and so if I don't get it onto a table then I don't have to deal with it I don't have to reconcile the fact that my wonderful idea is actually a hot mess and so that's okay it's okay to be a little bit weary wary about making your first prototype for your for your game and I just want to encourage you set the bar low just lower the bar as far as you possibly can I mean put the bar on the floor so you don't have to jump you just you just step over it that's what I'm talking about with just an ugly prototype just something get it out there and in any form that you can and then go from there right your game is going to change drastically as you go into that first prototype a lot of times as you're making like as you're literally building the Prototype as you're turning the note cards into useful cards for your game you're going to realize different things about your game that aren't going to work and you're going to be taking down new notes and changing things not long before play testing just in the prototyping stage it's why it's so valuable just to go through the process to do the work and just actually get something on the table and what I like to do is just work on one system at a time one thing at a time don't sit down and try to prototype the entire three hour experience of your game game just prototype one tiny aspect one thing I like to start off with is like the movement system or the combat system just that one thing how is it going to work and just prototype that and just make some cards and get some dice or whatever you need it's going to make the system work and then just do that one it's helpful from a research standpoint from like a testing standpoint because you're only working on one thing at a time you can focus but from a prototyping standpoint again it just gets it out as quickly as possible so one thing at a time one system at a time and as you prototype one you kind of mess around with it and you prototype another mess around with it and then you'll start interlocking and kind of bringing the systems together to make the actual game but one thing at a time now when it comes to components for your prototype there are the obvious choices of just taking out of boxes on your shelf do you have games that you don't care about or don't play anymore or take the dice take the cards take the boards take the box take whatever you need out of those published games and then convert it into your prototype I'm a big fan of stickers you can go to Walmart and get the eight and a half by 11 blank label stickers and then cut those up and right on those with the Sharpie and you know paste it over or just stick it right on top of a board and just draw your new board onto there again make it ugly just make it functional make it usable you can also go on Amazon they have really good deals on cubes and meeples and dice and anything you know generic that you need when it comes to components of kind of the more like custom nature the more gamery type components the game crafter is a wonderful place to get that kind of stuff and print and play games another really awesome resource to get special things come you know get those things made you can also get custom printed stuff and when you get a little bit later on and you're prototyping if you want cards that are actual cards more than just like you know a poker card with a with a note card in front of it stuck inside of a clear Penny sleeve or something like that you can actually go to these companies and they'll print stuff and send it to you it's not the cheapest thing in the world but it does look good and it does make you feel good and it's kind of cool to show up to game night to show up to a play test session and have a a really nice prototype but do that later just again make it ugly at first but those are some excellent companies to work with when it comes to Graphics I'm a big fan early on of just an erasable pen and just writing down as quickly as I can okay this is an eight and this is a four and this is this icon and this is that icon again you're just trying to do it ugly and as quickly as possible but when you want to move up a little bit into kind of a nicer still a bit of nicer prototype canva.com is an incredible resource it will be your best friend throughout the prototyping process and you can create graphics and you can get custom stuff and you can get photos and icons and all sorts of stuff put it into templates things like that print it off and then slide it into your card sleeves or you know cut into stickers and things like that for your boards for your dice for anything really that's canva.com but when it comes to this part of the process I want to caution you a little bit because it can be really easy to fall into the Trap of trying to find the perfect Graphics The Perfect Image the perfect whatever and you'll just scroll through Google Images over and over and over again and you'll waste hours and it feels like you're doing something it feels like you're progressing in some way but you're not you're not actually getting anything done it's kind of like being in your car and you're stuck in the mud and you might have your foot on the gas foot on the floor and the tires are spending at 100 miles an hour but you're not going anywhere and so it's way better to not worry about the perfect art perfect illustration I mean it's it's a prototype and just find what works I'm a big fan of icons I don't even worry about illustrations or art anything like that especially early on I just get icons game icons.net and the noun project are my favorite places to go to get icons and I just slap an icon on everything if it's a card if it's a board whatever throw an icon on there it's good enough it's good enough and then go from there all right so now you have a prototype and so it's time to get into the most important the absolute most important part of this entire process and that's play testing if actually figuring out what works about the game and what doesn't and it can be kind of scary again it's it's a little bit anxiety creating when you make a prototype because now you're finding out for sure that your game ideas nowhere near as good as you thought it was but then you get into the play testing and it's uh it can be it can be rough it can it can it can be really just soul sucking oh when you find out your your game it's not the hot mess you thought it was it is it is the absolute dumpster fire uh you never dreamed of and so that's what play testing does but it's it's not just a dumpster fire it's a refining fire it is the way that the game really truly comes to life when all the bad gets burned away and it just kind of you get that pure goodness hopefully that elegant wonderful Masterpiece of a game that it comes out in play testing and the more play testing you do and the better you are at play testing the better the game is overall and so early on starting out you're probably just gonna play test by yourself and just figure out how the game works and you're going to play through you're kind of going to go through the motions of the game on a turn okay this is what I do okay I draw five cards and then I can play these cards and then this happens and then that happens okay now it's the next player's turn and early on you're probably gonna play all the turns if it's a four player game You'll Play This player's hand and their turn and then you'll will play the next player and then the next player in the next player and that can be really challenging if it's a game about like hidden information or something like that you just gotta have to pretend but this is a really good way to do it early on just to figure out does the game work is there something in here is is there fun to be found is the mechanism playing the way that you want it to is the theme coming to life is the overall experience that vibe that you're really going for does it feel like a kind of a creepy game you want it to feel creepy you want the player's experience to be creepy or exhilarating or action-packed or whatever is that coming through early on Just for You by yourself now also it can be kind of hard to know those things because you have all the information in your head you know how the game is supposed to work you're kind of playing it out in a perfect world because you know all the rules you're literally creating and changing the rules on the Fly and so it can be kind of hard sometimes to know for sure is the game fun to know for sure is the experience coming through and so that's when it's nice to have a good friend or or seven to bring in to help you play test the game people that you can you know give them some snacks give them a meal thank them later on in the rule book if the game ever does get published but just some people that you can bring in that you trust that care about you they'll tell you the truth as much as possible as much as you can with somebody you care about and somebody you love but people that you can bring in and go okay I'm gonna try not to waste your time and we're gonna shut this play test down you know if anybody gets to a point where they're just bored beyond belief and that's something you really want to do early on I've got a video All About play testing and that's one of the main things is letting your play testers know hey we don't have to finish the game you know this is supposed to be a 30 minute game and so if it gets into 45 minute territory we're done we're shutting that down we're not gonna be here for three hours because then they don't want to play test anymore they don't want to do that again and so anyway going through the play testing process by yourself and then with some close friends trusted people some family members maybe not your dog maybe not your mom depending but just people that will tell you the truth to a certain extent then it's time to start Play testing outside of that maybe you can go to a game store or to a gaming convention and go to an unpub convention or something like that where you're sitting down with other people people you don't know people maybe you've never met before never knew they existed and now you're sitting down to play the game and now you're gonna get some really interesting data some really good feedback as the game kind of gets out into the wild and this is when the play testing can get really really good as you're sitting there you're taking notes you're watching the players as they play and that might even be better information a lot of times you'll do like a feedback session after the game but honestly during the game as you're watching people play it there's a lot of times is the best information it really sometimes all the information that you need as you go through that after that you get into kind of the unguided play testing territory where either you're in the room but you're not saying anything you give give play testers the box and you say hey here's the rule book you figured out and you're watching them or maybe you teach the game but then you step back either way maybe you're not in the room at all maybe you've shipped your game across the country to a brand new set of Gamers and they're going to play it and then give you feedback later maybe they're going to film it and you get to kind of go in and like like a football team and watch the film later but that's kind of the late stages of play testing typically after you know the game works it's kind of working the way of moving the way that you want it to because again you don't want to waste a bunch of people's time and also you might want to reciprocate if you're working with game designers you play test my game and give me feedback and I'll play test your game and give you some feedback and we'll work together on this that's a really good way to do it you can also go online there's some really cool resources like table Topia and tabletop simulator which are completely digital where you can sit down and play your game with people in totally different parts of the world now there's a pretty steep learning curve to those programs you have to learn a good bit as far as like how to get your game onto those things and there's there's all sorts of really good videos on YouTube to teach you how to do that but it is a wonderful viable Resource as far as play testing goes but all that to say play test I mean you just just keep play testing when you think you play tested enough do 10 more right you're never sure about what you're going to see you're never sure how a player is going to sit down to this wonderful play tested game that you think is basically done and then they come in with a weird strategy you've never seen anybody do before and it completely breaks everything and you're like how do I fix that and so just over and over and over again just keep play testing your game will be better for it you as a designer will be better for it then the next part of the process and this is actually going on simultaneously in parallel as you're play testing is iteration you're changing the game sometimes especially early on you're changing everything I mean so many times I've play tested a game for the first time and then wiped the almost the entire slate clean and so the next prototype the second version is a totally different game so going into the second play test vastly different experience and that's perfectly fine one thing to always remember while play testing is that you're not just playing your game that's different play testing is like research it's like scientific you know data Gathering where you're going into it with a hypothesis with some ideas about what you're looking for about what you're trying to test what you're trying to figure out saying things that you're trying to fix or whatever it is and then you're iterating you're figuring out okay well that didn't work let me try this other thing okay that didn't work let me try this other thing oh that worked really well okay but now this is broken over and over and over again one thing to remember during the iteration process this is actually my number one thing that I'm constantly trying to focus on trying to look into is where's the fun find the fun as much as you possibly can remember that a board game is a fun engine where players put time in and they get fun out that's the idea overall of why they sat down to play the game and so the more you're able to lean into that fun and just cut out pretty much everything else the better your game will be so find the fun as quickly as you can and then iterate over and over and over again through the play testing through the feedback Gathering about where is that fund and how do I make that just the absolute focal point over and over as the game plays now as you iterate more and more as you get more play tests under your belt you're going to be changing fewer and fewer things and eventually you kind of get to a point where you don't really want to change more than one thing at a time because if you change too many things and then well some things are now fixed and but now some things are now broken well which one caused which one you don't know so it's kind of like again it's like science where you want to have a control and then you want to do one thing that's different and then compare the two right and so you don't want to change too many things as you iterate more and more and more because it's going to make things harder to figure out and so just change one thing at a time and then you're kind of you're going to get to a place where you feel like hey I think I might be kind of done and that's where I just want to share with you one of my favorite quotes from a guy named Matt leacock who designed pandemic and he said yeah when I'm 90 done I realize I've got about 90 left to go and he's one of the greatest designers in the world one of the greatest designers of all time so if that's if that's his take on it then then my thought is okay so if I get 90 of the way there I've probably got like 342 percent left to go considering so part of it you're going to have a lot more to get done than you realize even when you think you're almost finished it's so hard to get a game across the finish line and just those last few tweaks those last few iterations it can be really challenging so just know that going in you're not alone you're not the only one experiencing this you're not the only one that's frustrated by the fact that you just can't find a way to fix that one little detail it's all of us it's everybody so it's okay but with that being said finish the game find a way to get it across the finish line and it can sometimes be a grind it it almost always is a grind at this point where you've done a zillion play tests you've taken all this feedback in you've heard some really tough criticism you've changed everything 17 times it's so hard to finish a game but get it there and finish is a weird word at the same time right because you can never really be you can get to a place where you're never really done right where you can always tweak one more number you can always change one more ratio one more probability you can always add or take away one more card so don't get caught up in trying to make things perfect right again good enough is good enough right just just make it as excellent as you can don't fall into that Perfection trap but just get it to a place where you're like hey this is good to go where maybe you're making little tiny adjustments tweaks here and there but it's good it's it's publishable or whatever your goal is and then step away let that be good enough go work on something else go design another game whatever it is but it's done it's finished and and it's it's good but now what do you want to do and again that gets back to the earlier question of what is your goal for the game is this something that you were just doing for fun is this nice a nice little thing you can put on yourself and pull out a Thanksgiving when your family is all around and just have some fun with your friends and something like that or is this something you want to actually see in a store you want it to show up in the marketplace you want it to go to Kickstarter and make a zillion dollars whatever it is because then now what are you gonna do and that's when it gets into okay how do I get this thing published and with publishing there are really two main paths there's self-publishing and there's licensing out to an established publisher but let's talk about self-publishing first and there are really three main paths for self-publishing and I'll talk about them in order of complexity order of work involved the first one is just online as a digital download maybe you release it as a print and play file you go out and commission some art or you know some graphic design you put into a really nice kind of packaged PDF and then put it out there for free or charge people a dollar or two whatever you want to do you could also put it online on teletubia tabletop simulator something like that is a kind of online way for people to play it digitally but that's the first way the least amount of work involves this will work you're still doing some businessy type things where you're hiring Freelancers and getting things together you probably want to set up an LLC again that's a whole another business thing a whole nother YouTube video as far as that kind of thing goes but you know posting it online it's the only way totally good way to do it a lot of game designers do it that way and have success the second way is using the game crafter they have a really awesome system where you can upload all your files and they will print out physical copies and they kind of have a storefront and you create all the stuff you put your videos on there you put some images things like that and you just sell it through there and whenever somebody wants to buy it you just link them to the gamecrafters store and then they purchase it the gamecrafter prints it on demand you know it takes a few weeks to to get it printed and then they ship it out so you never have to do anything beyond again commissioning art and graphic design and you know creating all the files and the initial setup but then the gamecrafter takes care of the rest they also have a really cool crowdfunding system that works pretty well and they're again there are designers there are Publishers out there that this is all they do they don't worry about the big Kickstarter campaigns and things like that they just use the gamecrafter and they make a decent amount of money doing it you're not going to get super rich off of this you're probably not gonna get rich doing any this to be fair uh but it's it's just a really cool way to see your game come to life so that's another way that I recommend is using the gamecrafter and then the Third Way is crowdfunding things like Kickstarter game found any GoGo any of those kind of sites where you're basically creating a pre-order campaign for people to say hey I want to buy that game and they give you money and then they're expecting to receive it you know a year or sooner hopefully than that but probably like three years from now depending on how long it takes for the development process to finish in manufacturing in probably China and whatever you want to do and there's a lot of work involved used to you could go to Kickstarter and say hey I've got an idea and here's a little bit of artwork and here's a playthrough video and you can make a hundred thousand dollars it's not that way anymore craft hunting is a whole nother world it's a whole nother just skill set of things that you have to learn and figure out if you want to be successful and there's that's a whole another video series involved as far as that kind of thing again you're starting a business you're going to be working with Freelancers and manufacturers and freight shipping company like there are so many things to do and I'm just gonna be honest I don't recommend it and this is coming from a person who is kickstarted and game found as well now a bunch of games a bunch of books t-shirt campaign I've done a lot of different stuff on crowdfunding made a good amount of money I don't recommend it to people especially if you're just starting off the risk is massive it's it's it's huge and I can't tell you how many companies have made a bunch of money it looked like it looked like they made a million dollars and then the game never developed you know delivered and they actually went into debt and they're still trying to recover financially because they lost everything because they didn't manage the money what like success has ruined a lot of people through crowdfunding and so be careful with that I know you see the big numbers you see these big campaigns you're like oh that could be me and it could it could be you probably won't be and the odds of you making a pretty terrible mistake with the shipping quotes and all that kind of stuff it's pretty high and so I'm gonna not recommend it knowing that the people that really need to do it aren't going to listen to that advice like I know that that's totally fine but if you're just starting out if you're just trying to figure this this whole game design game publishing thing out be smart be careful do a small campaign do a small you know ten dollar game do something that's very you know Limited in scope don't come in guns blazing with a 200 or tons of Miniatures you know deluxified everything game it's just it's just hard get your feet wet figure things out and then go from there start small Build It Up over time so those are the three main paths and let's talk about pros and cons of self-publishing the main Pro is that you are in full control of the project you know if you view this game as your baby as your child you're trying to bring into the world then you get to control all aspects of it you're doing the art Direction you're hiring the people that are going to be creating the illustrations doing the graphic design you're going to be in control of all of it and so if that sounds fun to you and it's something I really enjoy I like having I like having the ball if that makes sense like if I'm gonna be you know doing all this kind of stuff I want the ball in my hands and I'm either gonna succeed and win or I'm gonna gonna fail and lose but it's going to be on me either way that's when I'm a huge fan of so that's why I publish my own games that's why I do crowdfunding for all you know most of them because I I want the ball in my hands and if you're like that then crowdfunding or you know going through gamecraft or whatever that might be the path to take that's a huge Pro you also get to keep more of the money if you're licensing a game to a publisher you're gonna get somewhere between like four and eight percent of each copy sold which is not a lot of money if you have if you have a 20 game and you're making four percent is that much money to speak of you're gonna have to design a ton of games I think it's like 10 to 12 a year if you're gonna do this full time if you're licensing games to publisher that's that's kind of a hard thing to do and so anyway those are the main Pros the biggest cons though the big cons are you have all the risk again kind of when I was talking about with crowdfunding like you're assuming all the stuff all the workload all the marketing all the figuring out manufacturers and quotes and hiring artists and then that artist you know didn't actually do what you needed them to do and then they they left halfway through the projects now you gotta find another artist to kind of come in and do the other you're going to be dealing with all of that you're going to be dealing with customer service this is one of the things that I just got so frustrated now I have a person that handles all my customer service and Kyle if you're watching this really appreciate you man you are excellent awesome uh but you're gonna be answering emails and I still have to enter a lot of emails and then Kickstarter messages and things like that you're going to be dealing with all the stuff that goes along with the business right and you might actually find that you don't have a ton of time for game design because a lot of your time a lot of your energy a lot of your mental processes get eaten up by business stuff and so that's just something to to think about and just things to be aware of so let's talk about licensing your game to a publisher if you don't have to deal with all the business stuff and all the the garbage that goes with it and you just want to design games and get them out there and then design more games and get them out there approach Publishers see if they'll publish your game see if they can bring it to life but just keep in mind this is probably like a two-year process it's probably gonna take a while to go from approaching a publisher and then eventually signing a contract to your game coming out maybe three years maybe long I mean it just takes a while like the game creation game manufacturing and shipping all that process it just it just takes forever unfortunately and then the pandemic didn't help anything and so anyway just kind of have your eyes wide open without going in that it's not like oh I signed my game and it's gonna show up and show on store shell soon probably not it's probably gonna be at least a year maybe two uh and so let's just talk through the different steps along the way and just kind of kind of do a brief overview and not dive too deeply into these this is a whole there's a whole nother video in and of itself but the first thing is do your research don't just shotgun blast a generic email out to as many Publishers as you can think of really take the time and do your research on which Publishers does your game fit with best right look on yourself what games are on your game shelf that you're like okay it would fit with them if it with them it kind of falls into this this line of games this is a publisher that creates Euro games that take about two hours to play I've got a Euro game takes about two hours to play Hey that might be a good match if you have a 30 minute party game don't approach the publisher that publishes two hour Euro games in general right that's it doesn't make sense and then don't send out emails they're like hey to whom it may concern or hey team hey friend do some research figure out who you're actually contacting put in your initial email your initial message why you're contacting them hey I love your company this game right here is one of my absolute favorites I'm working on a game I've designed a game and I think it follows perfectly into your catalog it fits in your your lineup of games for this this and this reason just be personable be honest be open with them about why your game is a good fit for them some companies will just take a straight up email some companies have a specific contact form you go through some companies don't take game submissions like that at all and so something to to be aware of again you want to do your research get online and talk to you know different Facebook communities things like that highly recommend the board game Design Lab Facebook communities the one that's the one that I run it's phenomenal wonderful encouraging place but get on there and be like hey this is the game I've got which company do you think it would be a good fit for also there's cardboard Edison they have an amazing list of Publishers and what they're looking for and are they taking submissions and I think they charge like 25 a year or something like that to have access to that list that is definitely worth your investment if you want to get to get into game design and get your game published in general but just get online and just figure out as much information as much data new research as much you can and then start sending out emails knowing that your probably going to be rejected if you even get a response at all it's pretty typical to not hear back or to not even hear back from months sometimes it takes a long time to process this stuff and these these Publishers even the big Publishers in the gaming industry aren't that big as far as like number of employees some of them are you know pretty big 100 plus employees but most of them it's like it's like three people if that if that sounds just one person doing everything so it might take a little while and then just see what they say maybe they get back to you they say oh that is a really cool idea and hopefully in your initial message you sent you know what's the hook of the game what makes it fun why is it interesting what makes it different what makes it stand out on the market not only why does it fit with this publisher but why are they going to make money off of it and so hopefully your initial email gets a response and hopefully it creates a dialogue where they send you a message back and say hey that sounds really cool tell me more or they might ask for what's called a sale sheet and that's a one-page document that kind of has all the general information about your game it's got really cool pictures and you kind of see the visual you want more images than than words a lot of times you don't want just big walls of text you want like a components list and a few things that make the game stand out like what kind of mechanisms is it using what's the theme what's the experience what's the overall gameplay like uh what's the the player count the time all the basic information they'll probably ask for a sell sheet so you you want to make one of those again canva is a really good resource for that you might consider hiring your graphic designer and paying 50 bucks 100 bucks whatever their hourly rate is and getting them to design a really good looking sell sheet for you because it's like this is a job interview right you're really going into this process thinking okay I am trying to get a job you know with this company basically where I want to be a designer for them I want to submit my game to be published so why not just put your best foot forward right put your best work out there and so you send them that and again there's this dialogue there's this back and forth they ask you questions and then hopefully they'll say hey can you send me a prototype and that's when you make a nicer prototype and you might consider going through the gamecrafter or print and play games and having some custom cards custom dice whatever it is made put it all together send it to them and then hopefully they play it and then hopefully they really really like it and then they say hey here's a contract and then you go through the terms and then you sign the deal maybe not right again this is a long shot and it's hard to get into any industry it's hard to get published with anything if you're you know if you're writing a book or whatever it's hard to get into that but it does happen right and you never know until you until you ask right you don't know unless you take the shots you just got to get out there take the shot now all along the way you're probably going to be receiving various forms of feedback where the publisher says hey this isn't for us and here's why maybe it's a little you know just a short sentence maybe it's a long paragraph either way say thank you say I really appreciate the feedback don't get defensive don't get mad and angry and send this you know upset email you're not gonna help anybody in that situation you're definitely not going to be someone that that Publisher's like oh I really want to work with that person down the road don't burn Bridges just be humble take criticism you know to the meat spit out the bones so to speak but just kind of figure out okay how can I take this feedback and then make the game better make my pitch better make my sell sheet better whatever it is take in that feedback and then improve because just like game design is a process that you get better at over time so is pitching a game and maybe you get the chance to sit down at a convention and talk to a publisher in person and maybe play the game a few rounds with them whatever it is it just takes time it's a skill set that you have to grow and figure things out and hopefully it leads to getting the game signed and you actually get to see it show up on a store shelf one day it's it's a long shot it's hard it's hard to break into any any industry right whether you're writing a book and trying to get that published or whatever it's hard but you never know unless you try so you gotta just take the shot and maybe it'll go in but you don't know if you're just holding the ball right so you got to take the shot and then see what happens all right so that's the general process the general overview of how to go from idea to published game to get everything out of your head and onto a table but before we get out of here I want to give you just some of my best advice overall and the first one is please realize just let this be an encouragement please realize that you develop taste long before you develop skill and what that means is you're gonna know what's good like you can look at something you can play a game and go oh this is really really good that happens long before you can actually create something that's good yourself right the key is just don't quit just don't stop keep growing keep working keep figuring things out keep getting better and eventually your taste and your skill will catch up right your skill level will catch up to your taste and you can design a game and sit back and go that's good that's fun that's an enjoyable experience but early on those two things are going to be pretty far apart especially if you've played a lot of really really good games like if you're a pretty avid gamer you play a lot of awesome published games your your taste and your skill level they're gonna be gonna be pretty wide and but that's okay right just don't quit don't give up the next thing is don't design in isolation don't try to do this on your own don't try to do it all by yourself it's so much more enjoyable if you have other people around you whether that is maybe working with a co-designer maybe you've got a really good friend that you can sit down and chat through ideas and play test together and come up with different games together that's a really cool way to do it you have to split the profits you know if you do get the game signed or published or whatever but you know hopefully it's a good friend and it's the journey is the destination in this case uh but there's also lots of really good forums and Facebook communities board game Design Lab group is an awesome place where you can go in and just talk shop with other game designers and say hey I've got this issue I've got this problem anybody got any ideas and you can kind of work together help each other to make great games that people love and then see if you can find some local play test groups some local design groups through through meetups or you know Facebook or whatever and just figure out can I get in a room with real people that are game designers or Gamers and want to play these things and then just enjoy that person-to-person contact that personal interaction we've had to spend so much time remote for so long that I promise just the feeling of being in the same room with people and playing a game play testing a game it is it's way better so again don't design in isolation the next thing is read as many books and blog posts and listen to many as many podcasts as you can get a hold of the board game Design Lab podcast ran for 300 us episodes It's got pretty much every topic you can imagine about game design but there's lots of other really good podcasts out there amazing blogs Awesome books on Amazon just look up board game design you'll see lots of really cool things I'll put several of my favorites down in the description below but just absorb as much as you possibly can from other people who have done it before other people who are a little bit further in the process further in the journey than you are just gain as much wisdom as you can and then figure out how you can apply it to your own game design process and then the last thing is have fun I mean this is hopefully an enjoyable experience there's no doubt about it it's work it takes a ton of effort and just a ton of work to bring something to life but it's the best kind of work I mean you're creating a fun engine so find a way to make it fun along the way Ernest Hemingway talked about writing and he said writing is nothing you just sit down at the typewriter and bleed and game design can definitely feel similar to that sometimes but at the same time it's such a collaborative art form where you're working with other people and you're working with so many different parts of your brain to bring the game to life and create the fun and then you know you find that fun and then you hone it and then you iterate and you do all these different things to to create moments for other people and this is honestly my favorite part of the game design process I mean it's such a magical Endeavor because what you're doing is you're creating a pathway for other people for people you've never even met before to have an enjoyable experience making memories around a table it's a special thing so don't take it lightly and I look forward to seeing what you come up with maybe one day your game will hit my table that'd be pretty cool but anyway thanks for watching and I'll see you again soon

Channel: Board Game Design Lab

Views: 79,919

Keywords: bonus episode, bonus, beginner, install, Board Game Design Lab, Dice Tower network, Dice Tower, Discord, BGDL, Board game, how to, howto, tutorial

Id: ylzDYxrRNkc

Length: 41min 54sec (2514 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2023