Ideas | Kickstand Games

Don’t start play-testing until you’ve completed these ten steps

Board game design, like many things, is an iterative process. That means your speed of design is determined by how long it takes you to complete a cycle and how many cycles you have. In the diagram above, I’ve simplified this process to show that, by far, play-testing will be the majority of your development time. Although the “Pre-play-testing” time and “Post-play-testing” time can also be iterative, they aren’t nearly as dependent on external forces outside your control (play-testers) and therefore aren’t going to be as unpredictable or slow.

I should also say that since play-testers are usually unpaid volunteers (family and friends to start out with), you should do your best to honor their time by presenting them with something that already has some wrinkles ironed out. Not to mention that first impressions matter — you’re going to want them to WANT to play-test your game repeatedly because they had fun the FIRST TIME.

Steal more ideas

Stealing, copying, inspiration…. whatever.

It has been famously quoted, “bad artists copy; good artists steal”, meaning that a good artist can truly make a work that inspires them their own. I would argue you don’t even have to be that talented to steal — as long as you have the passion and put in the effort to steal something thoroughly, it will become yours.

I have long experience in graphic design, especially with t-shirts. When I started, I was reluctant to to do anything that showed I was inspired by another artist. But once I got more experience and realized the work that inspired me was originally inspired by other works by other artists, I stole more freely.

My game already exists

I did a fair amount of research to try to find similar games before I started designing the game I’m currently play-testing. It looked like my idea was unique enough. However, I accidentally discovered Cutthroat Caverns today. It’s the same as my idea in that it’s a card game, fantasy-themed, and has a “take-that” style of play.

It’s discouraging to have come this far and find something so close. Reportedly, it seems to be a longer playing game than you’d expect something like this to be. Since I’m looking to have something lighter and faster, I haven’t given up on my game yet; but this definitely takes the wind out of my sails. I’m also going to want to play CC at some point to confirm things one way or another.

Have you discovered similar games after putting work into a new game design?

A name that sells itself

There’s a great title in here if you just put in the effort to decrypt it…

One thing I haven’t seen many designers speak of is the importance of the game title. In any list of new titles, on Kickstarter, on BoardGameGeek, or on a review site, you sometimes have little else to make you stand out from the pack. Few designers seem to spend the required time to truly come up with something unique and attention-grabbing. Let’s look at some great titles and analyze why they are good:

Five minute Dungeon: Immediately you know this is a fast-playing fantasy-themed game plus you are curious to know: How fast is it really? How in-depth is the play? What does it look like?
Tiny Epic Quest: This gives you a very similar vibe to “Five Minute Dungeon” but promises a bit more with the claim to be “epic”. Don’t you want to know more?
King of Tokyo: This one is a bit more mysterious but inspires the necessary curiosity. Even if you don’t figure out it’s about giant monsters stomping on Tokyo, you want to know why does Tokyo have a king?

Board Game Publishing Exhaustive List

This is my game publishing list but there are certain things I wouldn’t do, you know, as a career

Although this is my first real post, I will be updating this continually over time. The intention is to capture all the steps that lead up to a published game. In addition, there are step that I intend to do (maybe), that are marked in italics. Besides continually adding new items to this list, I will also periodically flesh this out with links that describe further details.

Company Setup:
- Choose game company name
- Buy domain and arrange web hosting
- Create LLC or other corporate structure
- Trademark company name
- Setup WordPress to begin blogging
- Add content
- Create domain email, social networking, and other associated accounts