board game design assignment

Ideas on gamification, project based learning and genius hour to encourage students to become lifelong learners in the age of technology.

• Gamification
• Mystery Pixel Art
• Color by Numbers

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

More than a "design your own board game" project.

Final Design 

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Iste standards (for students), no comments:, post a comment.

• all Visual Literacy lessons
• all classes
• art teacher resource
• art vocabulary

by JuliannaKunstler.com

assignment:

• Create a design for a dice board game.
• Include directions sheet
• Make game prototype including all pieces
• Design and produce packaging
• Marketing campaign

Think of a theme (subject matter) for the game ( medieval, pirates, butterflies, ocean, underground, etc )

Think of images that will support the theme.

Do all necessary research on the topic.

Use worksheet to write down words associated with the theme.

Ex: castle. unicorn, knight, horse, rock bridge, dragons, etc.

Create the rules based on the theme. Consider the following questions:

1. What is the objective of the game? Get somewhere, rescue somebody, escape from somewhere, find something, collect bonus points, be the first one to get to a point, etc

2. Who are the players? How many players can play? Do players follow the same path?

3. What are the start and end points? Where are the players at the beginning of the game and what is their goal and the purpose of the journey?

4. What obstacles are there for the players to set them back, quit, stop, or change the rout?

5. What advantages can the players get to move forward? Are there any shortcuts? Are there any perks or "lucky" steps?

What layout will work better for your game?

What is the shape of the field itself? It does not need to be a rectangle.

Start sketching concept thumbnails.

Mark Start and Finish spots.

How many players can play?

Do players follow the same path?

How many Start and Finish spots do you need?

May be all players come to the same finish spot?

Is the play field going to be a side view or a top view?

What is the general shape of the path?

What is the direction of the move (up, down, return to start, etc.) ?

Are there any hidden paths?

Design the board. Use full size drawing paper.

Start with the background / setting. Include possible "obstacles" and "advantage" spots.

Add start and end spots.

Add obstacles that would slow down the players.

Add advantage spots.

Draw the path that will go through action spots.

Draw step spaces along the path.

Mark return spaces.

Use arrows or signs (ex.: return 3 spaces).

Mark advance spaces with arrows or signs.

Mark other actions (skip turn or skip 2 turns, etc).

Create the board & play pieces

Write down and design the game rules

Design marketing campaign

Design and create packaging / ad

Test the game based on your rules.

Any adjustments needed?

Game-opoly: Designing & Building Your Own Board Game

Introduction: Game-opoly: Designing & Building Your Own Board Game

• By researching and preparing a presentation about board games, students will develop and improve 21 st century presentation skills.
• By executing design concepts on the computer, students will develop and explore graphic design techniques using Adobe PS and Illustrator.

Attachments

Step 1: Research & Present

Step 2: Presentation Day

• This is not a formal presentation. Don't worry about wearing a suit and tie. You're not presenting to a board of directors. You're basically just having a conversation with the class about the cool things you found out about board games.
• Try to have fun with your presentation. Board games are fun, so the information should be fun.
• Use technology to your advantage. You have a smart board at your finger-tips. Ask to try it out before you present so that you're comfortable with what it can do.
• Think outside of the BOX . Your presentation will stand out in the mind's of your audience if you do something original or unexpected. 
• Content is important, but so is delivery. You might have the best ideas, but it's possible to kill those ideas with a poor presentation.
• Immerse yourself in your project. The easiest presentation to give is the one you know everything about. You don't have to memorize anything if you know it already. You'll find that when you present something you're passionate about, it will just come naturally.
• Make sure that all of your group members have something to contribute to the presentation. There are many different ways to do this.

Step 3: Brainstorm

• Make sure that you have a pencil and some scrap paper. Write EVERYTHING down. Most people discard what they think is a bad idea before it even gets to paper. A lot of times a bad idea is all it takes to help someone think of a good idea. If you put it on paper, other people will have a chance to interpret the information in a different way.
• Get feedback from as many possible sources. Talk about your ideas to everyone. You'll be surprised by who gives you the best feedback and inspires you to come up with your best creative thought.
• Your rough work is part of the DESIGN PROCESS . Keep it all, and hand it all in. It's like GOLD , and is actually worth a lot of marks.

Step 4: Logo Design

• Brainstorm ideas for the name of your board game company.
• Once you have a name picked out, prepare a page of rough sketches for your logo.
• There might be one member of your group who completes this task. Logos are fun though, so maybe each member of the group creates a concept and then you vote on the final concept.
• Take the time to come up with a great name and a catchy logo. You'll be using it later when you design the box for your game.

Step 5: Sketch

• Try to be original. You might model your game after an existing game, but please make it different. I don't want to play RISK under a differnt name.
• Again..... write everything down. You're being marked on your design process and your rough work is like GOLD!
• The most important thing to figure out is the CONCEPT of your game and the RULES .
• Once you get a rough idea of the concept and the rules, make a crude version of your game and try to play it. Tweak the rules as you go until you stumble upon something that is fun and intriguing to play.
• You'll be surprised how much your concept changes. Don't forget to get feedback from as many sources as possible.
• Once you think you have the concept and rules figured out, start to think about and sketch what the final board, pieces, cards and box might look like.

Step 6: Design

• Adobe Illustrator works with VECTORS . This means that you can draw clear crisp lines that can be scaled up and down without the loss of resolution. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
• Adobe Photoshop use PIXELS.  If you design an element of your game and decide to enlarge it later, it may become pixelated. Make sure to draw your designs full size and start at a minimum resolution of 300 .
• It's not a bad idea to draw the layout of your board or box in Illustrator, and then export to Photoshop to add graphic elements.
• Decide what box you intend to use. Unfold it, measure it, and draw the outline of the box in ILLUSTRATOR.
• If you choose a box larger than the one pictured, you won't be able to print the entire design on one page.

Step 7: Build the Box

• Print out your good copy of the box.
• Peel a sheet of DRYTAC laminate film and place it carefully over your design. Try to avoid dust and air bubbles.
• Let the heat press heat up to approximately 80 degrees.
• Make sure to put a piece of transfer paper on top of the laminate film.
• Clamp your box design in the heat press for approximately 15 seconds.
• Disassemble your box and lay it flat on the table.
• Spray the top side of your box and the back side of your box design with spray adhesive. 
• Wait for a minute and then stick the two sides together. You only get ONE chance, so make sure it's lined up properly.
• Trim the excess paper with an x-acto knife and reassemble your box.

Step 8: The Board & the Pieces

• After the board is printed out you will glue it to a piece of white foam core that is 20" x 30".
• Use spray adhesive to coat the back of your board and the piece of foam core.
• Carefully align the board and then press it on to the foam core. Remember... you only get one chance to line this up.
• To protect your board, apply a layer of DRYTAC laminating film to the top of your board and clamp it in the heat press for 15 seconds.
• Trim the edges of your board and then cut through the paper backing of foam core to make your creases. Please measure carefully, and make sure not to press too hard on the knife. You don't want to cut all the way through.
• Depending on the size of your board, you may need to make several cuts so that the board folds more than once.
• The thing about making the pieces is that it's easier to find existing ones.
• If you can't think of something to use for your pieces, please ask and I will help you figure something out.
• A good way to make tiles is to print your designs, glue them to a sheet of plastic, laminate them and then cut them out.
• You might also be able to modify existing pieces as shown in the last picture.

Step 9: Commercial Advertising

• Create a stop motion commercial for your game using Stop Motion Pro.
• Create a 2D animated commercial for your game using 2D animation software.
• Create a live action commercial by shooting video and editing it in Adobe Premiere.

Step 10: Final Presentation

Step 11: Play

Step 12: That Was FUN!!

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Board Game Design 101

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How to Make a Board Game (a step-by-step guide)

I’ve written hundreds of articles over the years, although I only recently realized that I hadn’t specifically written one in-depth article on how to make a board game. I’ve gone into how to come up with game ideas , creating prototypes , playtesting (including blind playtesting ), and a whole lot more, but I didn’t have one concise article on how to make a board game.

I’m going to remedy that today.

This article is going to show you how to come up with an idea and turn it into the board game you’ve always wanted to play.

So, without further ado let’s get right into it.

Coming up with an idea

Now you may already have an idea for your game or perhaps you’re not sure what your game should be about. In either case, you’ll want to consider whether your idea is fresh and new, or just a retheme of another existing game.

While it’s totally fine to come up with new house rules or perhaps an expansion for an existing game that you love, which is often a new designer’s starting point, you’ll want the first game that you’re serious about making to have something innovative about it.

Ideas can come from just about anywhere. You might have an idea based on an existing board game, video game, movie, or even a scenario or a game name that you are trying to come up with a game around.

I wrote a whole article on how to come up with different ideas for a game , including using the randomizer at boardgamizer.com .

Once you have your idea, it’s time to turn that into a prototype.

Creating your first prototype

This is often where most aspiring game designers get stuck. They have an idea, but don’t know what to do next to make a board game.

The easiest way to get going is to create a minimum viable prototype (MVP).

This means that rather than create the entire game you have in your head, which may consist of hundreds of cards with distinctive art, an elaborate board, and dozens of different components, you start with the minimal game you need to just get started.

What you’re doing is testing a concept. That means you don’t need to have everything fully in place.

The problem is, if you wait until you have everything you need and your game is absolutely perfect before you test it, you’ll never get your game to the table.

Don’t let perfection get in the way of what could be a really great game.

Instead, you’ve got to move forward if you want to make a board game. Create a minimal number of cards, a simple board, and grab whatever components you need from around the house or other games on your shelf, and let’s get this to the table fast!

Tools and components you can use

When you’re creating your MVP, use what you have available to you. Don’t worry about going to the store or ordering special components online to get it just right.

You probably have a computer, hopefully also a printer, along with paper, scissors, pens, and pencils. This is all you need to get started and make a board game.

You can make some simple cards from paper, card stock, blank playing cards, or index cards if you have these.

As a gamer, you probably have plenty of games on your shelf as well. Borrow whatever meeples, cubes, dice, tokens, money, or anything else you may need. You can always put these back in the original game box later.

While you can definitely create cards and other components by hand, there’s something to be said about being able to make multiple changes quickly. This is where computer software can help you to create and make iterations to cards and other components quickly.

Rather than changing the value and actions on multiple cards by hand, you can set things up to make one change that will be reflected throughout your entire deck.

There are plenty of computer programs you can use to create cards, tokens, boards, etc.

You can use any of the following programs to create most of what you need:

• Component Studio
• Various others

There isn’t necessarily a “best” program. However, you could say that the best program for you right now is the one you’ll use.

You can always learn Nandeck or InDesign another time. These programs will likely save you time down the road, but if all you know right now is PowerPoint, stick to this to make your first prototype.

Keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate things. I can’t stress this enough.

Delaying the creation of your MVP because you don’t have the perfect wooden rutabagas or image of a sorcerer is just procrastination. These things are not needed to test your concept, which is all you’re doing at the stage.

You want to see if there is something fun and engaging about your idea, which will let you know whether it’s worth developing further. Imagine spending countless hours trying to put together the perfect prototype just to find out the idea is terrible or that it will never work.

Now imagine you’d spent 10 minutes creating a simple prototype to get this same information. This will allow you to make some quick changes to see if the game can work another way or decide to move on to your next idea quickly.

Again, you just need to go ahead and make a board game, not keep that idea stuck in your head until you’ve perfected it

How to make a board game and playtest your game

Once you have a prototype for your game and you’ve tested it out by yourself to work out the initial kinks, it’s time to put your game in front of others and start gathering feedback by playtesting your game.

It’s important to make a distinction here between playing a game and playtesting a game. You play a game for enjoyment, social interaction, and a host of other reasons. However, when you’re playtesting a game, you’re essentially running an experiment. You have a hypothesis that things will work in a certain way, and you’re trying to validate whether or not that’s true.

That’s how you make a board game.

You’re trying to figure out first whether your game has potential (if it is fun and engaging) and then secondly trying to identify if the changes you’ve made have actually improved your game and made it more in alignment with the vision you have.

Outlining a clear vision for your game is also really important. You’ll receive feedback from playtesters that can vary quite a bit and will sometimes even be contradictory. Knowing what the vision is for your game will help you determine which feedback is helpful and what should be ignored (or at least not considered as highly).

To help you identify the vision for your game and get you moving ahead faster, make sure to check out my 10 Minute Board Game Design Blueprint .

It’s totally fine to start with friends and family or others you know, just to get the feel for your game and to determine what’s working well and what could be improved. But pretty soon you’ll want to start playtesting your game with people you don’t know.

Your friends and family won’t necessarily be able to give you the kind of unbiased feedback that you need in order to make your game the best it can be. While it may be hard to hear sometimes, you need critical feedback from people who can be honest with you.

You’ll playtest your game dozens if not 100 times or more as you iterate, make changes, and improve your game to the point where people ask you if they can buy a copy.

The important thing to remember here is everybody is trying to help you make your board game the best it can be. So, you have to get good at taking feedback and being able to filter this feedback to make your game better.

Taking feedback and improving your game

When you start to playtest your game, particularly with people you don’t know, you’ll get all sorts of feedback. You’ll have to get very used to people telling you what’s wrong with your game. This can be challenging when you’re first learning how to make a board game.

Rather than get defensive about things that people don’t like in your game, really listen to people to understand what their pain points are. If a comment comes up once, it may be something that only matters to that one player or only speaks to their own preferences and biases, but if you are hearing this comment consistently from multiple players, you know there’s definitely a problem you need to address.

What you’re really trying to identify are the problems, not the solutions (at least not right away). So, if a player suggests making a change, such as being able to attack other players to take their resources, ask them why they feel this way. Keep asking why until you get to the root of the issue. It could turn out that they feel that resources are too scarce in your game. That’s a valid concern. However, stealing from other players is only one possible solution to this problem.

It’s your job as a game designer to help playtesters identify the problems and then develop potential solutions yourself. That’s not to say that some playtesters won’t come up with some great ideas (I’ve received some amazing ideas from playtesters that greatly improved my games), but you shouldn’t rely on them for solutions.

Also, don’t take feedback personally. If players don’t like something in your game, this is no reflection of you as a person or as a game designer.

Remember, the role of playtesters is to help identify issues and make your game the best it can possibly be. That’s why playtesters are our most valuable resource and we need to treat them with dignity and respect. Even if you don’t agree with everything a playtester says, you want to thank them for sharing their thoughts and make sure they know they’ve been heard.

If a playtester doesn’t feel like you’re listening to them or if you get defensive about anything they suggest or bring up, they are far less likely to continue to share their thoughts openly or play another game of yours and offer helpful feedback. As a game designer, you must be able to receive this helpful feedback more than anything else.

Finalizing your game and what to do next

As you continue to work on your game and make it the best game it can be, the feedback you are receiving should change over time from identifying problems to merely suggestions that might make your game different, but not better.

If players are consistently asking to play your game again or wanting to buy a copy right then and there, you know you’re on the right track and it’s getting close to being ready to pitch to publishers or self-publish. Just make sure this is happening consistently. If issues are still being identified every other playtest, you’re not there.

The key is consistency.

If your game is feeling like it’s in the final stages, you’ll want to make sure to blind playtest it to ensure players can play your game correctly and have a great experience with your game when you’re not around.

Then, you’ll have to make the decision about whether to pitch or self-publish. Or maybe you’re not interested in either of these options and rather just wanted to create a fun experience for others around you. That’s totally fine as well!

But if you’re looking to get your game out into the world, the approaches you can take are vastly different, and require completely unique skill sets, time commitments, and efforts.

I can’t tell you which path to choose. It’s really up to you and your situation as to which one is right for you. This can also change over time. Maybe you’ll pitch your first couple of games, then run your own Kickstarter campaign once you have more experience and a better understanding of the industry.

Final thoughts

I want to emphasize the importance of simply taking your idea and turning it into your first prototype. This is where it all starts. It’s also where it often ends for aspiring game designers.

Just getting your idea out of your head and onto the table is a huge step. Then, you can playtest your game and continue to tweak it and make it the best game it can be. That’s how to make a board game that people can’t wait to play.

If you’d like to move ahead even faster, make sure to check out my 10 Minute Board Game Design Blueprint .

This guide will help you outline your game and your vision, so that you can always be moving forward in the right direction.

Tags: Board Games , Game Design , ideas , Kickstarter , Playtesting

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Great article, Joe!!! Really helpful to get your most helpful thoughts all on one place.

My pleasure, Jack!

• Become a better game designer by using constraints 2024-08-05
• How to be more efficient by automating your game design process 2024-07-29
• How to playtest your game online with others (and play their games as well!) 2024-07-22
• How to figure out what’s working in your game (and what’s not) – revisited 2024-07-15
• How to playtest your board game even when you have no other playtesters 2024-07-08
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• Game Design

Video Game Design and Development

Encouragement, advice, and support for aspiring game designers.

Board Game Design Tutorials and Start Guide

This is where the reliable backbone of entertainment comes in: board games.

Whether it’s chess or Settlers of Catan, board games have been a quintessentially human invention and piece of entertainment throughout recorded history.

Board games have been a staple in civilization, and they are no new phenomenon. While the electronic counterparts have only been in use within a few generations, physical board games, some still played today, have been played for over five thousand years.

For example, the beloved game of Checkers, or Draughts, has been played since 3000 B.C.E.

Mentions and depictions of board games have been seen as far back as ancient Egypt. This means that people have been creating and playing board games for nearly all of recorded human civilization.

The oldest game is Senet, a game based on grids and pawns. It has a rich history, and the rules on how it was initially played are the subject of heated debate amongst Senet historians.

An Overview of Board Game Genres

As with any detailed medium, there are a ton of variations and genres to choose from. We are always innovating and improving upon inventions and innovations. This is especially apparent with board games and board game design.

There has never been a better time to design or play the many different types of board games. Let’s take a look at some of the more dominant genres that exist.

Abstract Strategy Board Games

Abstract strategy board games are the heart and soul of the very first board games . In terms of board game design, these games present themselves as a sort of puzzle for each player to solve.

Common themes and elements in these types of board games are the seemingly infinite number of alternating turns between players, no dice rolls, and card shuffling. There is no simultaneous movement between players and no hidden information.

With Checkers, everything you see on the board is precisely what it appears to be. You take alternating turns with your opponent, attempting to eliminate their pieces.

Some of the most common and prolific examples of abstract strategy board games are:

Educational Board Games

Educational board games are the types of board games that aim to have the player learn some sort of piece of valuable information or skill . These are marketed mostly towards children and can help them with different subjects like reading, math, science, and history.

Some variants are for all ages.

Critical parts of educational board game design are having the player engage in gameplay that is informative, mentally stimulating, and of course, educational in nature. These could range in style of a more relaxed educational focus to a more massive, concentrated effort to educate in a specific field.

Some famous educational board games are:

• Scrabble: The famous word game in which players use letters and positioning to score the most points. This can introduce the players to new vocabulary words and adds strategic play.
• Boggle: A fast-paced word game, Boggle has the players forming words out of randomized letters.
• Catan: A resource-based game, players must acquire ten victory points to win. They will build settlements, roads, and more to achieve this.
• Risk: An educational strategy game that encompasses the entire globe. Players choose nations and attempt to take over the world through strategy and combat.
• Monopoly: Monopoly technically educates the players on financial matters like renting and buying property. Although by no means an actual guide to buy property, it introduces the elements of fiscal responsibility and risk to the players.

Cooperative Board Games

Coop board game design allows for players to accomplish a goal by working together . They will either win or lose entirely as a group dedicated to a common goal.

This is a unique type of board game for socializers. They can also be used as great social icebreakers and team-building exercises.

Some great examples of cooperative games:

• Pandemic: This fascinating game has a group of people work together to eradicate an ever-changing virus that aims to destroy humanity. Players take on different roles like doctors and army officials to better combat the spared of the virus. The game is over when the infection is eradicated or if humanity meets its doom.
• At The Mountains of Madness: Based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, this cooperative board game has players scaling a foreboding mountain in the frozen northern wastes. As players make their way up the mountain, they must work together to expand and gain resources, avoid losing their sanity, and more. Players will die, go insane, and experience horrors that will put friendships to the test.

Eurogame (German-Style Board Games)

These unique types of board games emphasize social play and less on social conflict and drama. While American board games tend to emphasize character elimination and open conflict, Eurogames lean into meaningful social interaction, resource gathering, and require a lot of thought and planning.

Some notable Eurogames are:

• Carcassonne: This game is based on the French countryside, and has players trying to create a medieval landscape using tiles. Along with placing tiles, players must place followers on these tiles. The last tile is set, and the score is calculated.
• The Settlers of Catan: See above

Hidden Traitor Games

These games aim to pit players against each other . Usually, a group of players is trying to accomplish a goal. Unbeknownst to them, one of their friends is a traitor, or a character actively working against the goal, undermining the group’s progress.

Many of these games will have dedicated periods to have the players try and expose the traitors.

Some notable examples are:

• The Resistance: Players will band together to try and complete different missions. If three various missions are completed successfully, then the game is won. However, there exists a traitor. This person is actively trying to sabotage the game. The leader of the missions must decide who goes on the missions, choosing carefully who could make missions succeed or fail.
• Battlestar Galactica: Based on the hit TV show, BSG has players taking on the role of the Battlestar Galactica’s space crew. Along with trying to save humanity, the humans must combat the stealthy Cylons: cyborgs that are hellbent on destroying humanity. Each card determines if a player is human or Cylon. It quickly devolves into a cutthroat exercise of trying to find out who the Cylons are, and ultimately protecting your star fleet.

RPGs (Role Playing Games)

If you have ever played Dungeons and Dragons, this is the quintessential RPG . With RPGs, you take on the role of a character, embody their ideals and actions, and carry out game objectives either cooperatively or head to head.

Some fantastic RPG examples are:

• Dungeons and Dragons: The original king of RPG tabletop board games. The customization and imagination of the players drive this RPG into a fantastic and entertaining title. Each player creates their character, personality, and skill set to interact with the dungeon master’s world.
• Gloomhaven: you take on the role of a wandering mercenary in this game. Each player has their own unique skillset and must complete objectives in a dungeon-crawling style of gameplay. This may be a more welcoming version of Dungeons and Dragons for the more casual player.

Okay, so how do you design a board game? There are many steps involved, including ideas, planning, implementation, manufacturing, and player considerations.

Coming Up With A Board Game Idea

This could be an extremely difficult or simple step in board game design. In either case, it should be taken seriously and planned out thoroughly. Having a smashing idea for a board game is crucial to actually make that board game a reality.

Fleshing Out Your Idea

A great way to flesh out a board game design is to brainstorm. Bouncing ideas off others is a fantastic and efficient way of not only forming final thoughts about the game but also improving the original concept.

Player Aids

Why are they important?

Player aids allow players to quickly reference rules or things that have happened in the game thus far. They can streamline the game so that gameplay is hard if ever interrupted by players searching out game rules or happenings.

They allow for seamless gameplay and more immersive styles of play for all players involved.

Be Inclusive With Your Board Game Design!

Color Blind Accessibility

Not everyone can perceive colors the same way. This means that sometimes aspects of game design may be challenging for some players to see or comprehend. It would be best if you had the struggles of those with color blindness or other vision impairments in mind during board game design.

Language Dependency

Translating your game into different languages, if possible, is a fantastic idea. With board game design, including players who don’t have English as their first language is an excellent step towards diversifying your game and reaching a much wider audience.

Character Diversity and Portrayal

It’s always important to craft players’ pieces and player profiles to allow for a better feeling of inclusion. This means that different races, genders, and ages should attempt to be displayed. Representing only one race, especially in a global game like Pandemic, doesn’t exactly make sense. You want to pull everyone in. That means reflecting the player in the board game design.

Find the Balance

Balancing your game could be one of the most vital aspects of success. If the pacing and player balance is off, people will most likely not have as much fun as possible. You have to make sure player powers, rules, and more are balanced for a better gaming experience.

Player Count Considerations

How many players?

Classifying a game by how many players are involved can change the pace and gameplay of entire game sessions. You need to make sure you have the right number of players in mind when designing the game to get the best experience.

1-Player Games

2-Player Games

Is the symmetry or asymmetry between the two players a facet of the actual gameplay?

Balance Issues

Once again, balancing is key. For example, does the order in which a player starts fundamentally affect the game? If so, you should reconsider the balancing.

You need to determine if there are robust enough mechanics that the game doesn’t become a slog to get through with repetition. Back and forth could get boring!

3-Player Games

Is There A Crowded market? 3-player games are more ideal in some cases than 2-player games. They allow more people, however, it might not stand out in the marketplace.

There need to be multiple victory strategies. If there isn’t, the game could get blocked up in various players trying to do the same things at once.

Adding one more person to a game changes the way the game is played drastically. As opposed to the back and forth of a two-player game, 3 players may form alliances, gang up on one player, and strategically pace the game to win.

5-Player Games

5 player games suffer from downtime; players who aren’t taking a turn have nothing to do. The board game design can lend itself to creating a turn system where everyone goes at once. It would be better to craft some downtime for planning, but too much downtime can distract players and absolutely ruin the pacing of it.

Scalability

Change the size.

As more players join, the bigger the deck or board should be.

Change the starting or ending conditions.

With the increase of players, you need to change the conditions of victory to be better suited to a larger group. Otherwise, the victory will be achieved quickly.

Change the object value.

By changing the object value, you change how a game’s economy works, adjusting it to more player interactions. It adds value to something that was otherwise easier to gain.

Alter the notion of a “player” or a “turn.”

You will need to basically redefine a player or turn, changing what each player’s role can be, and what an actual turn consists of.

Player control is the overall effect that the player has on the game’s outcome based on game decisions.

Diminished player control

Quantity of luck

A game could be too luck driven, making rolls of the dice crucial to victory instead of actual planning and strategy. This turns your strategy game into a variant of Candyland at this point.

Player skill

This is where different players can become OP or overpowered. This puts others at an extreme disadvantage and can ruin the game.

Gaming the System

Players can throw the rules and caution to the wind, gaming the system and winning through a combined effort to throw everything off track. While gaming the system can lead to victory, it isn’t how the game was meant to be played at all.

Player Interaction

This can be a massive draw to playing a multiplayer board game. Interacting with players, either working together or against one another, can be amazingly fun. However, it can inadvertently be derailed by bad game design. This is determined through things like how well it scales, and how complicated the game and its rules are.

Loss of Control

As more players are added, control wanes. This also ties into detrimental downtime in games. Interaction between players diminishes, and the game’s pacing is once again thrown off.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you design a board game.

You need to establish rules. By creating rules, you effectively build a framework for which your game runs on. Decide what the player pieces will be. Will players use cards? Game pieces?

What makes a board game successful?

Significant design aspects like robust rules, visually appealing elements, and quality of play all make a board game successful.

How do you make a professional board game?

You need to do a few things. You need to pick a playstyle, sketch out your ideas, build your board, make pieces, make dice, playing cards, and rules.

How long does it take to design a board game?

It could take anywhere from 6 to 12 months to design a board game.

What are game rules?

Game rules are the framework in which the players conduct gameplay. Following the rules ensures every player is playing the game as it was intended.

What are some rules for a board game?

Some rules for board games are:

• First to 10 point wins
• Players must advance to the right side of the board
• Players must eliminate all monsters
• The first player to conquer all other players wins the game

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About Bryan Wirtz

A graduate of Penn State University and a Philadelphia native, Bryan has been a gamer since day one. Using his vast experience of gaming, game culture, and all things tech, Bryan aims to deliver the most up-to-date and captivating game design content to readers.

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How to Make a Board Game, from Ideation to Design to Distribution

Jacob vander ende.

So you want to make a board game.

For the sake of this post, let’s assume that’s all  you know. You aren’t sure how to design around your idea, or how to turn a finished design into a real, physical game.

All you have is a blank slate of personal experiences and preferences and you need to shape those into something you can actually play.

Let’s fix that.

But who am I? Why listen to me?

I’m Jake and I run an independent studio called Spriteborne. I’ve been making games for a decade now, and I’ve been in the games industry even longer than that. My work has been nominated for awards, I’ve been featured on Geek & Sundry, I’ve spoken at numerous conventions, and I’ve even designed and manufactured board games on a moving train.   Twice .

Even if you’re a seasoned video game designer you can still learn something here because of the differences between the media:

• Without concrete code governing what can and cannot happen, board games are limited only by the rules that exist in the players’ minds.
• The players have to perform all the calculations themselves.
• Non-player characters cannot be autonomous; players still have to perform their actions for them.
• Every component has a significant material cost compared to the requirements of a video game.
• Board game components are far less flexible. A video game can effortlessly turn a D6 into a D7, for instance, but a board game would need a totally new piece to do that.

All of these differences add up!

For now, let’s start at the very beginning: your ideas.

By the way, if you have any questions as you read this post, feel free to ask in the  Funsmith Club Discord where you can seek advice and network with game devs of all levels including me.

You can also get notified on exclusive game design tips, workshops, and guides (like this one) here 👇

Table of Contents

How to Generate and Organize Your Board Game Ideas

One of the most common questions that creative people in any discipline get asked is “Where do you get your ideas?” People usually ask this question with some sense of awe and magic, as though creative people have mysterious, unknowable powers.

I don’t think that’s true. I do think creativity is magic, but I think it’s a knowable magic that we can quantify, understand, and practice.

Let’s pull back the curtain, turning the mystique into practical concepts that you can use to start designing your own board game right now .

Finding a game concept with design catalysts

I like to start game projects with what I call design catalysts .

Everyone is familiar with the idea of inspiration—the reservoir of energy that propels you into creative work.

A catalyst, then, is how  you tap into that reservoir. It’s not a destination, it’s more like the directions to get there or the vessel you’re traveling in.

The easiest way to understand catalysts is in the form of questions you can ask yourself when you’re getting started.

Any one of these design catalysts is enough to start making a game, but the more questions you ask yourself, the more vivid your inspiration, and the more likely you are to be successful.

If you don’t ask yourself these kinds of questions, you could find yourself in perilous territory:

• You could design a game for no one.
• You could design a great game that is impossible to manufacture.
• You could design something that plays really well in an exhibition hall and terribly in a private home.
• You could design something that checks a lot of superficial boxes but feels like hollow busywork.

There are lots of design catalysts and there isn’t space to cover every single one of them. Maybe you’ll think of more of your own as you read!

For the sake of organization, I’ll group each catalyst into one of four categories:

• Fundamentals : The most basic questions you should always ask about every board game you make.
• Business : Important questions that will help your game succeed financially.
• Conceptual : Questions that are useful for growing your skills as a designer.
• Meta:  Questions that help you understand where your game fits into the broader picture of the industry and society.

Fundamentals

These questions are the essential core of designing a board game. Every board game designer should ask these questions, no matter what is going to happen with the project.

Any project that moves forward without good answers to these questions is almost guaranteed to run into trouble at some point in development.

Who is going to play your game?

Perhaps the most important question to answer when designing a new board game is “Who is going to play this?” Be specific!

Is this a game for:

• yourself, to be played alone, that no one else is ever going to play?
• a family member, friend, significant other, or someone else specific?
• your regular board game crew?
• the audience of “people who liked (other game)”?
• a specific group of people, like independent farmers ?

Whether this is a game you want to design for commercial reasons or personal ones, asking yourself who is your audience, is going to be is a critical question when you’re first settling in on your design .

This question won’t necessarily tell you what to make, but it’s very good at reminding you what not  to make. Don’t design a deck builder if you’re trying to design a game for a loved one who hates deck builders, for example.

Where will people play your game?

This one is deceptively complex, even though it looks simple. This is also one of the most important questions you need to ask, because skipping it will undermine everything else you do.

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine you’re playing your game right now. When you do, try to think about the environment where you’re playing your game.

Try to imagine everything surrounding the game:

• Are you playing by yourself or with other people? How many people?
• Do you usually play with these people or are they folks you don’t see very often?
• Are you sitting at a table or are you playing in chairs or seats without a surface in front of you?
• If there’s a table, how big is it? Is there anything else on it?
• Are you sitting on a blanket on the sand at the beach?
• Are you in a building or a vehicle?
• Are you standing in line waiting for something, maybe outdoors?
• How much time do you have?
• Is it cold or wet where you’re playing?
• Are you doing anything else or are you just  playing this game?

These aren’t abstract questions, because any one of them could change the kind of game you’re trying to design.

A game that plays well in a boisterous, crowded convention may not work in a quiet house.

A game designed for a large table may not be playable at a bar.

A game that relies on knowing the people you’re playing with may not work with strangers.

Once, I made a prototype that was designed to stretch your short-term memory to its absolute limits. It was something I designed alone and, for a little while, only ever played in a silent dining room with one other person.

The very first time I tested with other designers, they hated it.

Suddenly, we were playing in a busy, loud room with lots of games running at the same time. My game wasn’t made for that environment, so the experience crumbled.

When I realized that most games are played with some noise, or at least player conversations running at the same time, I knew that this wasn’t a project that should move forward any further.

Where you think people will play is just as important as knowing who you think will be playing.

What’s the core ‘atomic nucleus’ of your game? What do you do each turn?

I’ve found success by identifying one specific effective behavior and then making an entire game that centers that action. Here’s an example:

In 2015, I traveled to SXSW with my own board game, Yomi’s Gate. It was my first game and my first convention, so I had no idea what I was doing and spent a lot of my time observing everything I could.

In Yomi’s Gate, the game board is different every time you play. There are three “pinwheel hex” boards that can be spun in six different ways, plus connector pieces that are kind of like hex tile Ls.

All of these are laser-cut and they have interlocking tabs that fit together with, well, laser precision.

I noticed that the single moment where peoples’ faces lit up the most was when they slid together these interlocking tabs for the first time, which made this really satisfying thunk .

Over and over again, click thunk, click thunk, smiles every time.

On the way home, I kept thinking about that repeated experience. I thought, “What if I made a game entirely around the satisfying clunk of sliding laser-cut tiles together?”

So I did. That game became Breaker Blocks .

I released the earliest version of Breaker Blocks during a game jam the following week, with many versions and updates coming afterward.

To this day it is about ten times as popular as Yomi’s Gate, all because I found that atomic nucleus early.

Finding an atomic nucleus that people really enjoy and making a whole game around it is a totally viable way to design board games.

Tabletop Game Business

These questions are designed for anyone who’s going to pursue any sort of commercial future for their board games. If you want to make money with your games, read on.

If you’re just making games for you, your friends, and your family, you can skip to the next section.

What components will your game use?

It’s possible to make games with a bottom-up philosophy, starting with your components instead of your gameplay.

If you have access to a high-quality art-grade printer or print shop, you could design a game that can be played with only cards and no chits, boards, dice, or tokens.

Alternatively, if you have an industrial laser but no printer, you might want to come up with games that don’t use dice or cards.

This does not have to just be a means-related question, either; you can design around components and manufacturing methodologies for cost-saving reasons, too.

Locking in your components early can save you lots of time, money, and frustration later on, as we’ll see in future sections on manufacturing.

What  genre or game mechanic(s) will you build around?

It’s perfectly reasonable to start with genre and game mechanics when you’re coming up with board game design.

Maybe you really like deck builders, and want to come up with a unique take on the genre.

Maybe you’ve been itching to make an engine builder, or a worker placement game, or a marketplace game.

Or you liked a neat mechanic in a game you played, and could see it working totally differently in another context.

For example, I just recently played Spirit Island, where each Fear card had multiple outcomes determined by an evolving macro game state.

I can see that working well with a completely different game, so I’ll squirrel that mechanic away, write it down in a note-taking app like Obsidian, and revisit it when I’m designing games in the future.

According to Song Exploder , Rivers Cuomo of Weezer keeps a spreadsheet of lyrics organized by length and syllable emphasis and consults it during songwriting to fit the needs of the moment.

You could make a game mechanics spreadsheet that does the same thing. Need a mechanic that creates a pressure clock? Consult your database for mechanics that create a sense of time and pressure.

Are there any market trends you want to tap into?

If you’re designing games as a business and not just as a hobby, it’s a good idea to have some sense of business about what kinds of games you want to design.

For that reason, following market trends is both sensible and common.

Identifying market trends can be a deep rabbit hole to explore, but there are three totally free strategies I like that you can do right now:

• Browse “The Hotness” rankings  on BoardGameGeek, checking back frequently to monitor trends
• Check the featured displays at your local board game shop, ask the owner what’s selling, or visit an open play night to see what’s popular
• Follow how the public sales reports of board game companies change year to year

Be methodical about it, whichever you choose. Make a spreadsheet and add to it often. The more data you have, the better your market trend predictions will be.

If you really  want to get into the trending side of things, there is an entire industry centered around trend forecasting, the difficult and inexact science of trying to predict trends to help plan your release.

Even without expensive, proprietary forecasting models, you can still predict trends with rough guesses based on what you know about the future.

For example, if you know when the next Mass Effect game is going to come out, you could try to launch a futuristic science fiction game around the same time.

You know people are going to be playing Mass Effect and craving more science fiction, so it’s possible they’ll find your brand-new game.

Forecasting isn’t a guarantee of success, but there is real financial value in asking yourself questions about what trends your game does or does not fit into, reducing some risk for your project.

For some, making their own board game is an exercise in improving their design skills. The questions in this section will make you a more flexible, skilled designer.

What experience could you convert into a board game design?

Have you ever experienced something and thought, “I wish there was a game about this?” That’s what design conversion is all about, porting one experience into a new format.

There are tons of good examples of this approach:

• Tokaido is a game about visiting Japan.
• Decorum is a game about furnishing a new house together.
• Parks is a game about traveling to national parks.
• Suburbia is a game about city planning.

When you design a game like this, you can be grounded and direct about it, making a game that is literally about that thing, or you can use this sort of ported reality as an abstraction.

There is also an entire industry based around converting games from one format to another. You might start with Horizon: Zero Dawn and end up with Horizon: The Board Game.

If you go this route, however, be sure to get the license first.

What reactions do you have to existing games?

This one is probably my favorite way to design games.

Imagine you’re sitting down playing something you really like, but there’s something about it you just can’t stand. A fateful phrase crosses your mind and after that, there’s no turning back.

“That’s not how I would do it.”

When I was a kid, I used to play this old Avalon Hill bookshelf game with my dad called Feudal. We loved it, but the game took an eon to set up.

“That’s not how I would do it,” I thought to myself, many times over.

Once I finally had the means to create a board game as an adult, that was the catalyst. How do I make a deterministic, fast-paced war game that sets up quickly?

One question led to another and pretty soon what started as one quibble evolved into my first commercial title, Yomi’s Gate.

Is this game just a prototype for something else?

The board games you design don’t have to be the end goal. You could design board games as rapid prototypes for video games , or even for other systems in general.

Board games are great practical simulators for things like macroeconomic engines and you can make them entirely with paper, pencils, and dice.

Being able to do this quickly and effectively can be a useful skill in any game design role.

Is this a cooperative or competitive game?

This seemingly basic question can completely alter the direction of a project.

A set of game systems that feels obtuse and frustrating in a competitive context might shine if you put the players on the same team.

Conversely, a cooperative experience might really start to glow if you add a traitor mechanic. Can you imagine Battlestar Galactica with no traitors?

The following questions are more advanced and intended only for designers who’ve mastered use of the previous design catalysts.

Can you synthesize something from two or more ideas?

There’s a theory of creativity that says creativity isn’t about the novel genesis  of ideas, but rather about the novel connection  between existing ideas. I think, broadly speaking, that’s true.

Every single person is unique. We each walked our own path to get where we are today, with a complex set of experiences that is ours and ours alone.

We all have inspirations to draw from.

We all have different tastes in what we like and dislike.

We have our own ideas of what’s good and bad, desirable and undesirable.

When you’re designing board games, you can mix and match anything. There’s a pretty good chance that if you’re pulling from two things that are unique to your life, you’re going to come up with something original that will resonate with others.

What emotion do you want players to feel?

The hottest take you’re going to read from me in this article is this: Games don’t have to be fun. You can design games to make people feel anything!

Shigeru Miyamoto designed the original Legend of Zelda because he wanted people to feel the way he felt getting lost in an unfamiliar forest.

Firewatch is exquisitely designed to make the player feel immense guilt.

You can absolutely design board games with emotion in mind, too.

I designed Long Road to Ruin, for example, around the feeling of driving on a long, cross-country road trip for the second or third time, where you kind of  know what’s coming, but you can’t remember for sure if you’ve been to this exact place before.

How do you want your game to change your players?

You can take that emotional question and run with it, too. Board games can also be designed as agents of social change.

Famously, Monopoly was designed as a harsh critique of capitalist real estate, meant to make people feel frustrated with how housing markets and urban developers worked.

More recently, Spirit Island was designed to be anti-colonialist and to make its players feel that way, too.

How to Design Your Own Board Game

You’ve asked yourself a bunch of questions about your game. You know who’s going to play it. You know where it’s going to be played. You know what components you’re going to use.

Maybe you have a rough idea of what your game means to people, where it fits into macrotrends within the industry, how you’d like your players to feel, and so on.

It’s time to start the actual design.

Many lessons from video game design apply here too, but it’s worth spending some time on what makes board game design unique.

Prototypes and Rapid Iteration

First, you need pieces you can play with.

These are the supplies I almost always use:

• A stockpile of blank poker-sized cards, for any cards a player is expected to have in their hand
• A stockpile of blank, square cards (sometimes it’s useful to have two shapes of cards)
• Blank paper and/or cardstock, for making a game board and player sheets
• Pens, pencils, and colored markers
• A collection of interchangeable face dice; I use dice made for Rattlebones, plus small circular stickers
• Card sleeves to hide the backs of your cards (especially if you’re using cheap, see-through cards)
• A Dymo 4XL thermal printer. You can cut 4” x 6” thermal stickers into quarters and use them to rapidly print new card faces. I made a whole card game on a train with this, blank cards, Adobe Illustrator, and scissors.
• A bunch of meeples of different shapes and colors. I usually recycle ones from my older games.

With those supplies, you can make most types of games.

Game design is iterative . Everything will change many times, so don’t spend too much time or money on your first game pieces.

Only invest in more detailed prototyping components when you have to (for instance if players can’t read your handwritten components).

Playtesting

You won’t know much about your game until you test it.

For your first tests, I recommend playing by yourself.

Play every side, even when your game relies on players not knowing information about other players. This will at least give you data about what optimal play will look like.

Once you know the general flow of your game, try to play exclusively with other players. Be mindful about playing with the same people repeatedly, because they’re going to develop an expertise bias over time.

Try to take note of how you teach your game to others. You’ll naturally discover that there are good and bad ways you can teach your rules, and testing is where you’ll discover that.

If you’ve reached this stage and have more questions, this guide to playtesting  might answer them.

Writing Game Rules

Strangely, this step comes last. Only after you have tested your game repeatedly should you worry about writing the rules down because testing is how you discover how to do that .

Generally, I find that players respond to knowing their victory conditions up front, then how a typical turn goes (in very broad strokes), then setup, and then detailed mechanics.

It’s a good idea to try to design your game to have as few exceptions to the rules as possible. If there’s a way you can make a rule universal, you should almost always try to do so.

For instance, in Breaker Blocks the Automate tile lets you play another tile instantly. To prevent these chaining together, instead of referencing Automate specifically, I wrote the universal rule “Action tiles cannot target themselves or copies of themselves.”

Universal rules are much easier to understand than a series of exceptions, especially in board games.

Once strangers are testing your game without you present, having a strong rulebook is even more important. At this stage, I would also recommend making your own tutorial videos.

To make a good tutorial video, set up a camera on a tripod facing the table, then explain the game the exact same way you would during a playtest.

Speak naturally, like you’re explaining the game to a friend, not like you’re explaining the game to an interviewer. Clear footage and simple language go a long way.

Common Pitfalls in Board Game Design

Maybe you’re stuck and you’re not sure why your design isn’t working.

Alternatively, you’ve designed your game and tested it extensively, and you want to make sure you’re ready to move on to manufacturing.

Either way, here are some useful questions to move your design forward and get your game one step closer to reality.

Players are often thinking about these elements, but it’s up to you as the designer to verbalize them.

Irrelevant Gameplay

Is there anything that happens in your game that isn’t part of the core experience you want to deliver? This can mean many different things.

For example, early in my design process for Yomi’s Gate, I decided that setup was actually irrelevant gameplay.

The real meat of the gameplay was during the player’s turn when they’re deciding which units to use.

Once I made that decision, I worked to make setup as short as possible.

Player Interaction

How interactive do you want your game to be? Is it the level of interaction you’re striving for? Board games aren’t like video games; they only do stuff when the player does stuff.

This isn’t a binary question, either. Too much interaction can feel crushing or ruthless, but too little can feel like we’re playing solitaire in parallel.

Think of interactivity like the pressure of a stage spotlight.

Just like there are natural rock stars and people with stage fright, there are people who enjoy both ends of this extreme. But most audiences are seeking something in the middle.

What kind of pacing do you want your game to have?

Is this the kind of game where every turn is high pressure and it can end at any time?

Are the early turns the best and the game slows down as it goes on?

Does your game accelerate, with the best turns at the very end?

The simplest way to think about this is in terms of cognitive load. What variables and decisions is your player expected to be responsible for at any time? The number or nature of these things can change over the course of the game.

This one can also tie into interactivity.

Games where players can’t interact when it’s not their turn will naturally feel slower. This can make them easier to understand at first, but risks making them boring in the longer term.

Conversely, games with immediate actions and reactions possible at all times can feel fast and exciting, but they also risk feeling exhausting and intense.

Variance and Replayability

How is one playthrough of your game different from the next? Similarly, how many times do you expect players to play your game and still have fun?

There are two traps here to avoid:

A game that’s great exactly once…

For some games, learning how to play them is the fun part.

These games can feel great when you’re introducing new people to them, but once you know how to play you don’t choose to return.

There is a business model for legacy games, but these are usually spinoff variants of highly replayable games (e.g. Pandemic Legacy). Even then, they’re not played just once , but their discoverable elements are each discovered only once.

This is a serious divergence from many video games.

I’m fine paying for a video game that’s 10-30 hours long that I’ll only ever play through once, but I would feel bad paying for a one-shot board game that’s gonna take up space on my shelf forever.

Infinite Replayability

Infinite replayability is a trap. Board games aren’t really infinitely replayable. Sure, you can trot out Chess or Go, or whatever, but most players aren’t reaching for those games on board game night.

The risk of chasing infinite replayability is infinite brown . The idea is that if you were to generate infinite sets of randomized colors, what you’re really going to get every time you mix them together is infinite shades of brown.

Think about how many times you’ve played your favorite board games. It’s a real number. It might be as low as once, but it could be a few hundred times, maybe a few thousand tops.

Shoot for that. Truthfully, I think you should shoot for somewhere between 10 and 50.

I know if I buy a board game and I get to have fun with it ten times, I feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth. Some players need more and some players need less.

Player Count Variation

How many players can play your game at once?

How many players can enjoy your game at once?

These are not the same question.

You may find that your game is wonderful with two players but terrible with six. You may find that it works great with four, but crumbles with just three.

You could even run into weird situations like a game that plays beautifully as a solo game, but has too little interaction for multiple players.

Test your game with every audience size you want to target. I mean every size, because weird stuff can surface that you won’t see coming.

If your game is “2-6 players,” then you need to run multiple play tests with 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 players before you should say that.

When your game isn’t fun with a particular number of people, try to figure out exactly why:

• Do players start to gang up on the winner?
• Is the game running too long to hold players’ interest?
• Do finite resources divide in an uneven way that’s causing problems?
• If your game is cooperative, is one player just running the game for everyone?

I recommend finding your niche and sticking with it if you can. Then you can apply your expertise to games of that size for every game you make instead of reinventing the wheel every time. Personally, I love making games for just two players.

Manufacturing: Every Way to Make Physical Board Games

Okay, so you’ve designed a board game.

You’ve prototyped it, you’ve playtested extensively, you’ve balanced everything appropriately .

This game is good and you want it to exist for real where people can get it.

What do you do next? How do you create  a board game?

How do you turn your design into a physical game ?

There are a few questions you need to ask before you get started:

• What is everything that needs to exist for your game to be a real game? Cards? Dice? A box? A board? An instruction manual? The answer is your component list .
• How much of this process do you want to do yourself? What sorts of business partners are you willing to work with?
• How many copies do you want to sell, if any? How big is your market ?
• How much money do you want to spend upfront? What kind of investment do you want to make?

With those questions in mind, there are several options available to you:

• You could artfully make every copy yourself.
• You could outsource manufacturing but handle distribution yourself.
• You could hand everything off to a publisher and do nothing but design.
• You can find a hybrid combination of multiple approaches.

Here’s how to go about creating a board game, from the most involved to the least involved.

Make It All Yourself

• Full creative control
• High profit per copy
• High-value clients will pay more for independent work
• You have to do everything yourself
• Reach and distribution are challenging
• Expensive up-front investment

The first option you have is to make everything associated with your board game yourself.

This is definitely what you’ll be doing when you’re making prototypes for playtesting—you want the quickest and cheapest handmade components when you’re in that stage, as I covered earlier.

But it’s also possible to handle the final version of the game yourself, as well.

You could draw all of the final art , make all of the pieces, design and craft the box, print out the instruction manual, and so on and so on.

Beyond simply creating the physical manifestation of the game, you would also handle all of the back-end work, including buying ad space, managing inventory, boothing at conventions, distribution and warehousing, and a ton of other things, none of which are particularly glamorous.

This is how I do things at Spriteborne .

When I sell a copy of Breaker Blocks , I handle every part of that process. There’s a lot that entails!

• I order acrylic from a supplier and manage my inventory
• I engrave and cut those sheets of acrylic into game components on my industrial 60W CO2 laser (which was a more expensive purchase than any car I’ve ever owned)
• I maintain and troubleshoot that machine myself
• I designed the logo for both my company and the game
• I created the stamp to ink the parts bag
• I ink all of those bags myself and fill them with parts
• I built the website
• I fulfill client orders
• I pack the boxes (different from packing the bags!)
• I print the shipping labels
• I bring finished copies to the post office

This is what the complete board game development process looks like. When you commit to doing everything yourself, this is what you’re committing to.

It’s time-consuming, but the profit margins are good and on-demand production means that I never have to have standing inventory taking up space and costing money.

I also enjoy the manufacturing process, since I like making things!

For most people, however, the challenges of this route are not worth the reward.

It takes the most time per copy, your initial startup fees for equipment are pretty high, and it can be hard to find new players since distribution is entirely up to you.

A La Carte Manufacturing

• High creative control
• Faster than solo manufacturing
• Small upfront investment
• Costs more than making things yourself
• Dependency on external non-partner businesses
• Limited options on craftable items

Let’s say you don’t want to make everything yourself, but you still want to be the one putting a bow on everything and you don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty.

A la carte manufacturing is a great choice when you’re midway through the design process and need to upgrade from your handmade prototypes, but aren’t yet ready for final product design.

You can also use this approach to make final products, if you’re willing to do a lot of work yourself but want some external help.

This means outsourcing individual component manufacturing, paying a small premium to have someone else handle some parts.

This can take many forms and might include one or more of the following:

• Using a local print shop to get boxes printed and die-cut for you (folding and assembling them yourself)
• Using a local printer to print out card sheets for you (cutting, laminating, and packing them yourself)
• Having a local laser shop cut out custom meeples
• Getting an independent die manufacturer to make custom dice for your game
• Buying ready-made, generic components like counters and dice and bagging them up for individual copies yourself
• Finding a supplier of blank versions of something (such as blank dice) and personalizing them yourself (such as with engraving or stickers)

The point is, in this tier, you pick and choose the things you can do best  and you only outsource as needed  when it’s difficult, time-consuming, expensive, or impossible to make something yourself.

Critically, this is different than using a publisher because:

• You are doing all of the work  to identify, contact, and utilize suppliers and other business partners.
• You probably don’t have a contract  with those businesses.

Exercise caution here before committing to a long-term plan. If the businesses you work with close down or change their prices or stock availability, this can significantly impact your pipeline.

Something as simple as a box becoming a quarter of an inch wider can cascade into your whole project, and that’s not something you can control.

I had to stop making copies of Kaiju Stadium for a while because my supplier for jumbo wooden dice stopped making them!

If you can get around these limitations, a la carte manufacturing can be great. I use it all the time to put the finishing touches on my projects. Using someone else’s expertise to do what they do best can really elevate your game.

If, however, you want someone else to do all of the manufacturing work, you might be interested in…

On-Demand Production

• Easy, hands-off
• Bundled distribution
• Reliable production of a wide variety of components
• Most expensive per-copy cost
• Extremely difficult to market and achieve critical mass
• Scales poorly

On-demand manufacturing is where another company manufactures your entire game with professional-quality components, one copy at a time.

There’s a common bias among players, and even among industry professionals: the quality of the components affects people’s perception of the quality of the game.

If you think you’re experiencing significant component quality bias in your testing and it’s negatively impacting your development, it might be time to try on-demand manufacturing to improve your component quality.

(On the other hand, if your pieces are handwritten junk and players still love your game, you’ve got market validation . There’s demand for your product, and you may want to set your sights bigger with bulk manufacturers or publishers.)

The other advantages to the on-demand approach are obvious: you upload all of the files necessary to make your game, post it on the manufacturer’s marketplace, and you’re basically done.

Every time someone orders a copy, it’s made to order and the manufacturer makes and ships it for you .

You can also bulk order small batches yourself to have copies on-hand for things like festivals and independent distribution, where it’s helpful to have physical copies to give to someone on the spot.

Currently, the only business I know of that does this reliably is The Game Crafter . They’re reputable, they’ve been around for a long time, and I can personally vouch for the quality of their output.

Genuinely, I think this is a process everyone wanting to make a board game should go through at least once.

Using a site like The Game Crafter or on-demand production is a great learning process on how to:

• Identify every component that needs to get made, from the box to the instructions
• Get manufacturing guidelines and template files from a third party
• Create production-ready files to match those guidelines
• Order prototypes to make sure everything meets the necessary specifications
• Make production changes based on prototype evaluation
• Enter “full” production only once prototypes are approved

If you’re considering either of the next two options (Bulk and Publishing), you should really  do on-demand at least once first.

All that said, on-demand manufacturing is expensive on a per-copy basis . You’ll be paying twice as much or more as you would with bulk manufacturing, eating into the already razor-thin profit margins of board game development.

It’s also impossible to get any sort of media traction . Nobody will write about games available exclusively on The Game Crafter!

All of your advertising dollars will essentially just be free advertising for the manufacturer, instead of driving traffic to your own store, social channels, or newsletter.

You’ll be completely locked into limited distribution through The Game Crafter. You will only be able to make what they can make and there’s no guarantee that production files you design for their guidelines will be usable by anyone else.

This is all totally fine if you’re a hobbyist  just looking to have your game exist!

It feels great to have professional quality  components that you designed, and on-demand manufacturing is a great way to just get your game into the hands of your friends and family.

If you actually want to make a living doing this, however, you’re going to need to move up or down on the chain. This one isn’t sustainable long-term .

Bulk Manufacturing

• Ultra-high per-copy profitability
• No meaningful limit on copies produced
• All but required for wide distribution
• High lump cost for every project
• Outsourced overseas (unless you’re in China)
• Extremely slow

Have you already played your game a lot and you know it’s something you want to see to completion? You have now reached an important crossroads. You have to ask yourself the following question:

How many copies do you want to get out into the world?

The options above can be great for getting copies into your friends’ hands and/or personally overseeing quality control—but none of them are likely to lead to a breakout commercial success.

So let’s say you have a real hit.

You make a game and there’s a demand not in the dozens or hundreds, but in the thousands.

You don’t just want to make individual deals with your local game shops for distribution, you want to be in every board game shop. You want to be on the shelves at Target. You want to sell copies on Amazon.

The only option for you at this point is bulk manufacturing.

With bulk manufacturing, you work with a company like Panda , Delano , or Longpack  and they make and pack every copy for you. Some of these manufacturers will also handle distribution.

The process for bulk manufacturing is very similar to the on-demand process (which is part of why I recommend on-demand first), but there are several important differences.

For one, it takes much  longer , to the tune of 9-18 months. You have no choice but to plan around this. I’ve had colleagues spend six months on test runs alone, getting a sample, giving feedback, getting another sample, and so on until everything looks good.

For another, contracts are involved . Are you prepared to bring ink into this project? Do you even have a lawyer yet?

Lastly, these companies aren’t handling point-of-sale  for you; you’re making a giant order (usually of 1,000 copies or more) and whatever you do with them after that point is up to you.

Let’s put things into perspective for a moment.

I make every copy of Breaker Blocks  myself, taking about 45 minutes for each one. If I ran my laser 8 hours a day for 365 days a year, I could make almost 4,000 copies a year.

During that time, manufacturing would be my full-time job. I wouldn’t be designing new games, I wouldn’t be writing, I would just be making copies of my game.

With bulk manufacturing, I could just order those 3,000 copies. They might still take nine months to get here, but I’m free to do anything else during that time.

I might even be able to develop an entirely new game in that window of time, then order those  copies, overlapping games in a waterfall of development, manufacturing, and distribution.

So there’s a clear advantage to bulk manufacturing, but you still need to consider cost  and time .

If you’re ordering 3,000 copies, you might get your cost down to $4 per copy. That sounds like very little at first, but at 3,000 copies that becomes $12,000 that has to be paid all at once!

This is why people run crowdfunding campaigns (or snowball one success into the next game’s development).

Beyond that bulk cost, these things also take time. Lots and lots of time.

It takes weeks or months to make inroads with a manufacturing company.

It can take months to have a back-and-forth getting the prototypes to look correct.

It takes many more months for the copies to be made. In the worst cases, it can take over a year or more.

After everything is manufactured for you, those copies then have to be shipped to you. Unless you live in China, that probably means slow oversea freight shipping.

But wait, there’s something else very important that you might not have thought about!

Once all of your copies have arrived, now you have to warehouse several thousand copies of your game , which can take up an entire garage even if they’re small card games. If you don’t have that kind of space, now you have to rent a storage unit just to warehouse your game.

You might be able to get a manufacturer with distribution bundled in to alleviate that last one, but then you wouldn’t be selling any copies yourself. Most manufacturers don’t do distribution.

2024 note: Overseas manufacturing was hard enough pre-2020, but supply chain problems are notably bad with board games right now. This may clear up, but at the time of writing all overseas manufacturing is quite bogged down .

Bulk manufacturing solves some critical problems when you want to sell your game at scale, but it’s also a lot of work.

If you want complete control over your sales and distribution channels and you know you can sell a reasonable volume on your own, it is unquestionably the best route for you.

If, however, all of that sounds daunting, there’s one more option for you.

• Almost totally hands-off
• Often bundles ancillary services like marketing and PR
• Instant visibility boost by being associated with a reputable publisher
• Highest potential reach
• Low autonomy; everything requires publisher approval
• The least favorable per-copy profitability
• Some publishers are predatory
• Publishing takes longer than every other option
• Your game might not get published at all

Maybe you read through everything and your first thought was, “Oh my god, I don’t want to do any of that, that sounds exhausting.” If that’s the case, publishing might be for you.

Getting a publisher is a daunting process that requires shopping an almost-complete game around to multiple businesses, all of which might say no.

If you’re successful, however, a publisher can theoretically handle everything  for you .

They almost always have their own manufacturing and distribution connections, with some handling manufacturing and distribution internally.

They often have their own PR and marketing departments, or existing relationships with firms.

They sometimes come with their own warehousing options.

A few publishers even have in-house development teams, which can include art, playtesting, and more! Yes, there are publishers where all you have to do is design the game.

A publisher can truly be a one-stop shop to make your game a reality.

All of that said, going the publishing route can be a minefield of nightmares.

Here are some of the worst possible outcomes:

• You shop your game around with publishers and nobody wants to publish your game , wasting months or years of your time.
• You lose control over your IP  and can’t make a sequel or other tie-ins because of it.
• The publisher gives you a raw deal where you’re lucky to make 1% per copy sold , leaving you broke even if your game sells thousands of copies.
• The publisher forces you to change creative decisions , altering the design direction of your game.
• You lose control over PR and marketing  and the publisher starts advertising your game in a way you don’t approve of.
• You get locked into unfavorable contract terms  that can put you into an assortment of legal difficulties.

All of those are real things that have happened, many of them to people I know. These aren’t abstract hypotheticals, they’re real possibilities.

If self-manufacturing is the highest business  risk, then at the other end of the spectrum publishing is the highest creative  risk.

One major tradeoff for getting another company to handle so many aspects of development for you is that things could go very differently than you expect them to.

Furthermore, publishing is extremely costly on a per-copy basis, to the tune of 1-5% royalties for the designer. I don’t mean that you’re losing 1-5% per copy, I mean that’s what you get paid .

Yes, it’s entirely possible to make $0.40 per copy sold of a $40 game.

You have to do some serious math to make sure publishing is right for you.

If you make $20/copy crafting everything yourself but you can only sell 500 copies, you’ve made $10,000 on your game. That’s not bad, but also not amazing.

If you earn $0.50/copy, you’d have to sell 20,000 copies to make that same $10,000. That’s quite a few units for an indie board game with no designer track record, but you’re more likely to sell that many with a publisher than you are on your own.

On the other hand, if you make the next Wingspan you might sell 1.4M copies in a single year. Suddenly $0.50/copy sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

At that scale you’d have to work with external partners, at least in manufacturing and distribution.

Bulk manufacturing becomes mandatory for working at scale. A publisher can be a powerful ally in achieving that scale, with its reputation, connections to bulk manufacturing and distribution, and marketing apparatus.

Still, a publisher can also steer you off course, take advantage of you, force you to make creative decisions you don’t like, and leave you in a position worse than if you hadn’t tried to work with one.

If those are risks you’re willing to take and you’re able to find one of the good publishers, however, publishing could be the best route for you.

How do you get a publisher?

Getting a publisher is a lot more straightforward than it may seem. There is no guarantee that your game will interest publishers, but you can follow a concrete set of steps to give it a fair chance.

• Design a game that people like . If you’ve made something that playtesters consistently enjoy again and again, you’re on the right track.
• Make a sell sheet . This is a one-page document that describes your game’s elevator pitch, your unique selling points, the number of players it can accommodate, how long it takes to play, all components involved, and your contact info.
• Go meet publishers . Go to conventions, festivals, and events like Unpub, PAX, and GDC with the specific goal of meeting publishers. I have met plenty of publishers this way without actively seeking them out. It’s a good idea to identify good fits in advance, then email them prior to the event to book a meeting.
• Get a lawyer . Do not skip this step. You need a lawyer who can look over all contracts and terms for you and it needs to be someone familiar with games and intellectual property (IP) law. They are expensive, but worth every penny in long-term trouble avoided.

Finding a publisher can be scary. Be kind, be patient, and don’t be pushy and you’ll be just fine.

Wait, what’s a sell sheet, exactly?

This could be a whole article unto itself, but in summary, a sell sheet is a one-page document that tells a potential publisher everything they need to know about your game:

• What kind of game is it? Genre? Player count? Complexity? Length?
• What sets your game apart from other games like it?
• Who is the target market? Audience? Theming?
• What are the financial needs in order to manufacture it? What’s its component list?
• What does your game look like? Final art isn’t necessary, but a photo of your game in action is important.

Think of a sell sheet as a résumé for your game. Submitting it to a publisher is just like applying for a job.

Next Steps and Future Reading

You should now have everything you need to make your own board game, from concept to completion. Whether you’re going to make everything yourself or hunt for a publisher, you are ready.

If you’d like to be even more prepared, here is some additional suggested reading:

• How to Apply the Iterative Process in Game Design
• What is Game Depth and How to Evaluate It
• Designing the Core Gameplay Loop: A Beginner’s Guide
• What Does a Game Economy Designer Do? And How to Become One?
• How to Use Simplicity to Improve Your Game Design Skills (5 Lessons)
• When to Steal and When to Innovate in Game Design
• How to Market a Game

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How to Design a Board Game

Last Updated: July 6, 2024 References

This article was reviewed by Ashton Wu . Ashton Wu is a Board Game expert at Shelfside. After delving into the Yugioh tournament community while growing up, Ashton launched himself into the board gaming community in 2014 and went into reviewing board games as a career full-time in 2019. His YouTube channel Shelfside has over 35K subscribers and over 4 million views, assisted by written reviews on the Shelfside website and BoardGameGeek.com. He also consults with gaming companies to build high-quality gaming products. Ashton is a tournament commentator, board game playthrough director, and host of the Shelfside Podcast, where he talks about board games with his business partner, Daniel. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in addition to the Technology Management Certificate. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 121,849 times.

Board games have made a major comeback in recent years, partly because they’re so accessible—anyone with a good idea can make one. Designing your own board game starts with choosing a basic theme or central idea that will drive the game’s events. From there, your primary focus will be working out the mechanics of the gameplay in a way that makes sense and keeps players interested. Once all the important details are in place, you can produce a prototype of your game and begin play-testing in phases to see where you can make improvements.

Coming up with a Basic Idea

• For example, “Risk” is a military strategy campaign in which players compete for world domination, while “Candyland” takes place in a colorful fantasy world where everything is made of sweets.
• Take inspiration from other games that you enjoy, paying close attention to how the theme relates to the way the game is played.

• If your game deals with pirates, the objective might be to find and uncover a stash of buried treasure before the other players.
• In a horror-based card game about a flesh-eating virus, the victor will be the player who manages to survive to the end.

• This description will also serve as a kind of rough pitch should you ever attempt to sell your concept to a gaming company.

• A combination of different elements can help make gameplay more sophisticated. For instance, players could roll dice to see how many spaces to move their piece, then draw a card matching the color of the space to receive directions for their next roll.
• Make an effort to tailor the complexity of your board game to the age range of its intended player.

Create a board game that is quick to set up, easy to play, and moves fast. Shorter games are usually more fun. Board game experts are seeing a trend towards shorter, streamlined games. A game with better flow, speed, and ease of movement will be much more enjoyable, so focus on mechanics that prevent dragging and make each turn impactful.

Working Out the Gameplay Mechanics

• In many classic board games, players roll dice and move their game piece a certain number of spaces depending on the number that comes up. More sophisticated games, like "Thunderstone" or "Settlers of Catan," challenge players to build strong card decks or score points in order to win.
• For a game with a “paperboy” theme, players might roll to complete their newspaper route before the school bell rings while encountering obstacles like lawn sprinklers and unfriendly dogs on the gameboard.
• Keep them extremely basic at first. Little by little, you can make your rule system more intricate by adding secondary objectives, random events, or penalties for making poor decisions. [1] X Research source

• Keep in mind that the more people you have playing, the more difficult it will be to make the game mechanics work.
• A head-to-head strategy game could be played by as few as 2-3 people, whereas one that involves identifying a criminal from a lineup of suspects would benefit from having more players in order to make the gameplay more of a challenge.

• Stick to 1 or 2 components to keep the gameplay from getting convoluted. Players who are forced to juggle cards, coins, dice, and a pen-and-paper scorekeeping system will quickly find themselves overwhelmed.

• The simplest game boards are there to direct the players’ movements. Others might serve as a platform for laying down cards and reading their outcomes, or provide clues for solving puzzles.
• Commit a crude version of your game board to paper as soon as an idea hits you. This will make it easier for you to work out any remaining kinks without losing the thread of the game.

Completing Your Board Game

• If you find yourself stumped, it may help to zoom in on key images from the game. What’s the most desired object in the game, or the most important part of the “story”?
• Take your time thinking up the perfect name. This can be one of the hardest (and often final) parts of the creative process.

• Don’t worry too much about how your prototype looks. The only thing that matters at this stage is whether it plays the way it’s supposed to.
• If you’re serious about making your game a reality, send your materials off to a custom printing company to have them printed professionally. The price will vary depending on the different components required, but you can typically expect to pay around $10-20 per game for a wholesale order. [3] X Research source

• Make sure your players are people you can trust to give an unbiased opinion. That way, you can be sure that they’re shooting straight with you.
• Rather than giving your play-testers an in-depth spiel on how to play, write out the rules and see if they can figure them out for themselves. That way, you’ll know whether or not your instructions make sense.
• In order to draw out more helpful criticism, ask specific questions, such as, “Did the basic rules make sense?”, “Was there anything that confused you about the mechanics?”, or “What would have made this game more fun?”

• After you’ve made a few tweaks, get your play-testing group back together and see what they think of the new version.
• Designing a unique, innovative board game is a slow process. You may have to go through multiple versions before you end up with a game that’s anything close to what you originally imagined.

• Shop your game around to different companies to find one you think would be a good match. Parker Brothers, for instance, specializes in turn-based, family-friendly games, whereas companies like Games Workshop and Arcane Wonders tend to put out titles with more emphasis on complex strategy and customization.
• Game developers don't have time to look at each and every submission in depth, so it's important that you send them a prototype that's fully functional. easy to comprehend, and different enough from the rest of their catalog to warrant publishing. [6] X Research source

Making a Functioning Board Game

• Stiff cardboard or composite board will be sturdy enough to hold up under hours of play. A sheet of vinyl backing (also known as "contact paper") is another good choice.
• If you've got some graphic design expertise, use an illustrator program to create a design for your game board. Print the design on sticker paper, then transfer it to the board for a cleaner, more professional look.

• It's important that you use clear, easy-to-understand language when typing up your rule sheet, especially if your game has a complicated structure.
• This is a good chance to see the game's mechanics laid out in front of you and review for inconsistencies before you first play-through.

• Make sure your accessories are just the right size for the game board. If they're too big, they may look disproportionate. If they're too small, they'll be hard to keep up with and may be easily lost.
• Try buying and painting small figurines to create detailed, one-of-a-kind game pieces.

• Include any other relevant information that the player might need during gameplay, such as category, point value, and directions for how certain actions should be followed up.
• One you've got your cards looking the way you want them, run them through a lamination machine. This will help safeguard them from tears, spills, and other accidents while lending them a sleek finish. [8] X Research source

• Assuming you're not as concerned with appearances, you could also invest in a compartmentalized carrying case to keep the game board, cards, player pieces, and other accessories neatly organized.

What Are Tips For Designing a Board Game?

Community Q&A

Reader Videos

• Play as many board games as you can. Not only will they be a great source of inspiration, they’ll give you an overview of the different types of games are out there, which will help you create something truly original. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Be willing to deviate from your original concept if it means make the finished game stronger. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Don’t despair if your game isn’t working as-is—it may just need to be adapted to a slightly different format. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

• Avoid copying other games outright. This is considered intellectual property theft in the gaming world. Thanks Helpful 12 Not Helpful 4

Things You'll Need

• Pen and paper
• Scrap cardboard
• Index cards
• Markers and colored pencils
• Other board games (for reference)

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/designing-the-best-board-game-on-the-planet/
• ↑ http://karma-games.com/best-strategy-board-games-by-number-of-players/
• ↑ http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/a11376/stop-reading-this-and-go-build-your-own-board-game-17314604/
• ↑ https://scottalmes.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/before-you-pitch-to-a-publisher/
• ↑ https://scottalmes.wordpress.com/
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0t6PBypahI&feature=youtu.be&t=116
• ↑ http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Playing-Cards.html

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Fostering Creativity & Learning: How to Implement a Board Game Project

Updated: Feb 15

In an era when digital screens seem to dominate, the tactile, interactive experience of playing a board game remains a delight. But what if students were given the opportunity not just to play, but to create their own board games? A 'Creating Board Games' unit can be a powerful way to engage students, stimulate creativity, and apply learning in any subject.

In my classroom...

In our probability unit, I introduced a project where students were tasked with creating their own board games, focusing on integrating probability concepts. This hands-on approach aimed to deepen their understanding of probability in a fun, engaging way. Students worked in groups, brainstorming game ideas that incorporated probability through dice rolls, card draws, or spinners.

They designed game rules, objectives, and mechanics that required players to make decisions based on probabilistic outcomes. As they tested and refined their games, I observed remarkable engagement and a deeper grasp of probability concepts. The culmination was a class showcase where each group presented their game, explaining the probability principles behind it. This project not only enhanced their learning but also fostered creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking.

Here's a guide on how you can run this dynamic and engaging activity in your classroom.

Research and Development

Before diving into the creation process, it's essential to build a solid foundation of understanding. Provide students with the space to research and analyze what makes a board game enjoyable and effective. Encourage them to tap into their experiences and expertise as board game players. Some key topics to consider:

The history and development of games.

What makes a board game enjoyable (compare and contrast different games).

Features of board games.

Thinking critically about board game rules and instructions.

Once students have a solid understanding of what goes into a good board game, they can start the creation process. Encourage them to bring their ideas to life, designing all the elements needed for their game, including dice, spinners, question cards, and the game board. Allow them to be creative, and ensure they know that the sky is the limit!

Application and Review

After the creation process, the real fun begins: playing the games! Students should first play their own games to test out the mechanics and instructions, and to determine if they're fun. Then, they should play each other's games, offering constructive feedback for improvements. This phase allows for genuine reflection and presents an opportunity to make adjustments based on user experience.

Implementation Tips:

Clearly outline the project's objectives and expectations from the start.

Encourage students to reflect their learning and understanding from the unit in the game.

Allow sufficient time for the creation process - it's not a race.

Foster a positive, constructive environment for feedback and game review.

Celebrate all finished games – a game expo could be a fun way to wrap up the project!

Examples of Units of Work:

History : Students could create games based on historical events or periods they've studied.

Science : Games could revolve around concepts such as the life cycle, the solar system, or the process of photosynthesis.

Math : Games could help players practice or apply mathematical concepts, such as fractions or geometry.

Geography : Games could help players learn about different countries, landforms, or climate zones.

Literature : Students could create games based on abook they've read in class, allowing for deeper exploration of themes, characters, and plot.

In conclusion, a unit on creating board games provides a platform for students to apply their learning in a fun, engaging way. If you're looking for a comprehensive resource to support this endeavor, consider the "Create a Board Game: Project-Based Learning Unit." This resource includes everything you'll need to run a successful, engaging, and educational board game creation unit. Don't wait – bring the joy of learning to your classroom with this unique project today! Find it here !

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How to Make a Board Game for a School Project

Kimberley mcgee, 26 jul 2018.

It’s one assignment students tend to get excited about: When a school assigns the task of creating a board game project, the ideas for fun puzzles and playing themes are seemingly limitless. Board games are a great way to get a student involved in learning new things.

Explore this article

• Homemade Board Games and Education
• Board Game Assignment Ideas
• Rules of Play

things needed

• Game board: manila folder, cardboard, foam board, tag board or legal size white paper
• Game box: cardboard gift box or tag board
• Markers or crayons
• Additional tag board, card stock or manila folders
• Craft knife (optional)
• 3x5 index cards (optional)

1 Homemade Board Games and Education

Board games aren’t just fun, they can be a handy educational tool. When you build your own or create board game assignment ideas, you are approaching a lesson from different angles. For instance, a fourth grade math board game project can assist young minds in understanding new and often more complex math problems that haven’t been introduced in the curriculum yet. Board games can teach social skills and moral problems. When kids create their own board games and sets of rules to play, they are considering the concept of rules as well as cause and effect. They also teach children how to win as well as lose with grace.

2 Board Game Assignment Ideas

First, you will need to choose a topic to wrap your game around. This can be a favorite book, a period in history or the future, a math concept, science facts or current pop star crushes. Once you have chosen a topic you feel comfortable enough with to create a multi-layered game, grab a pen and paper and plot out what the board will physically look like. Consider what shape the pieces will be.

If you’ve chosen a singer, the pieces could look like musical notes or a microphone. A sea-themed board game can have starfish, fishing rods or dolphins. You can choose coins or buttons or create specialty pieces out of polymer clay. Next, think through how the pieces will be moved around the game. The players can draw cards, roll dice, flick a spinner or roll specially made dice that correspond with the game’s overall theme.

3 Rules of Play

Make sure to write down the rules to your game clearly. Consider any issues that may pop up when the pieces are moving around the board. Is there a go back to the start option? Are there cards that need to be chosen? Is there a penalty for not saying “blue” when a player lands on a blue square? Have a friend or classmate play out the game so that any issues that could arise can be dealt with before the board game is turned in.

• 1 Fractus Learning: What Board Games Teach Kids?

About the Author

Kimberley McGee is an award-winning journalist with 20+ years of experience writing about education, jobs, business and more for The New York Times, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Today’s Parent and other publications. She graduated with a B.A. in Journalism from UNLV. Her full bio and clips can be seen at www.vegaswriter.com.

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• Mikael Jakobsson
• Sara Verrilli

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Final project - “I’ve Got a Feeling” (PDF) . (Courtesy of Gregory Cartagena, Maddie Cain, Nischal Bhandari, and Neil Borja. Used with permission.)

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Council for Play and Game Studies

Playing pedagogically, teaching writing through board game analysis and design.

As we know from Ian Bogost’s theorization of procedural rhetoric, games can be used to launch valuable, stakes-driven rhetorical. Play can be a medium to teach students how to make meaningful arguments to specific audiences through multiple modes.

In my “Reading and Writing Board Games for Social Justice” course, students analyze and create games to learn composition skills such as argumentation, audience, stakes, and multimodal design. Students in my class have created games about complex, timely topics, including voting access, fake news, microaggressions, and intersectionality.

In this post, I present several activities from my course that engage students in analysis and recursive playtesting to launch procedural arguments. Feel free to adapt these ideas and materials for use in your own classroom!

I discuss three activities: a critical analysis of the game Puerto Rico, analysis and design of board game rulebooks using Canva, and a board game design project using Tabletop Simulator .

Analyzing Puerto Rico

I lead a class discussion analyzing the board game Puerto Rico after students watch a critical analysis video about the game. In class, we analyze the colonial themes in the game using multimodal analysis.

Using the above modes, I frame the discussion with the following questions:

• What dominant narratives does this game challenge and/or uphold?
• What are the stakes (i.e., why does this matter)? Who is affected? How? Why does it matter?
• The workers are referred to as “colonists” (linguistic mode).
• The workers are brown (visual) unpaid laborers (gestural).
• Workers in the game harvest (spatial, gestural) crops that traditionally were harvested by slaves.
• The crops are harvested on plantations (linguistic).
• What is your idea for a game that challenges the dominant narrative you have identified?

Using Canva to analyze and design rulebooks

To learn about genre, students analyze board game rulebooks (available online) to identify common conventions of games. Below, I list some of the conventions that they identified and some of the questions I assign them in small groups to analyze the genre of board game rulebooks as well as unique traits that indicate the audience, tone, and purpose of a game.

What are the common genre conventions of games?

• Consistent design theme
• Number of players
• Characters/roles
• An example turn
• Images of the game

Example questions:

• What are the conventions (common traits) of the genre of game rulebooks? (4-5 traits)
• Which visual design choices are effective/ineffective? (2-3 examples of each)
• What audience is this for (age, views, interests, game experience level, geographical location)? How do you know from the language and design choices?
• What is the tone of this game? Informative? Satirical? Serious? Playful? How do you know?

Students then create their own game concept and corresponding rulebook using Canva , a free online graphic design platform. They apply their multimodal design skills and genre knowledge to create their finished product. See below for the assignment prompt:

• Include an explanation of the premise or theme of the game that connects to your claim and stakes (you do not need to explicitly state your claim).
• The game should have a beginning, middle and end. In other words, setup and game components, basic rules, and how to win the game.
• Use Canva (free online) to design your rulebook. The visual design choices should communicate the claim of the game and its rules through layout, image, typography, and color choices.

The examples below illustrate students’ demonstration of genre knowledge. The first image shows an example turn and cards from the students’ game. Students identified example turns and images as important useful features of rulebooks during the genre analysis activity.

In the example below, students demonstrate genre conventions including the overview, player count, objective, age range, and table of contents.

In the following example, students demonstrate genre conventions including the overview, player count, objective, age range, and table of contents.

Using Tabletop Simulator for board game design

In the second half of the term, students work in teams of three to design their own claim-driven, evidence-supported playable board game (corresponding with the rulebook they designed in the previous activity) on Tabletop Simulator , a $20 software for playing and designing board games. I assigned the software as students’ textbook for the course.

Through playtesting (which I often liken to peer reviewing an essay), students see how their claims are taken up by players (readers). They engage in a recursive playtesting process and practice skills like making stakes-driven arguments, applying research, and using elements of design to persuade and work with genre conventions.

By watching others play and manipulate a game, students see how different iterations of their projects are received by an audience. Cards are read out loud. Pieces are moved. Players react to each other and to the game. These forms of engagement can happen in other ways through essay peer review, but they do not often happen in real time or through as many modes, and there is a layer of detachment from the audience. The applied nature of the board design assignment and opportunities to receive and respond to many rounds of playtesting feedback cultivate a rich learning experience.

The following examples are among the most successful procedural arguments made through games in this class.

The first of these two groups designed Beyond Democracy, a satirical game highlighting problems with voter suppression and accessibility. Players buy districts, steal money from their opponents, and bribe other players while intentionally preventing working class and BIPOC individuals from voting. The winner is determined by the amount of money and votes suppressed. The Beyond Democracy designers used a satirical tone in their rulebook and subverted traditional symbols of American imagery, such as Lady Liberty covering her eyes and the US Capitol Building on fire, on their game board to indicate distress and a lack of democracy.

While Beyond Democracy takes a satirical approach and targets an adult audience, another successful group tackled an equally serious topic by creating an educational board game for children about racial microaggressions. In The Troublesome Path to Wonderland, players draw situation cards and discuss positive and negative responses to observing microaggressions. Part of the design process in Tabletop Simulator, where students created, revised, and playtested the game is shown below. Example cards are shown in their rulebook in the previous section.

Adapting Materials

Please contact me at [email protected] if you have any questions if you adapt these activities and materials. As always, good luck and have fun!

Acknowledgements

Beyond Democracy was designed by Annicette Gilliam, Pedro Rodriguez, and a student who wishes to remain anonymous. The Troublesome Path to Wonderland was designed by Estella Khieu, Nancy Le, and Rumie Lee. My gratitude goes out to these students for allowing me to share their work!

About the Author Sara Lovett is a PhD candidate and writing instructor at The University of Washington. They design educational LARPs, teach using board games, and study equity and accessibility in higher education. She distracts herself from dissertation writing by hanging out with her two dogs, drafting Magic: The Gathering , and acting in musical theatre productions.

This piece is part of a series written by CPGS members about current thoughts, reflections, or projects in and around games and gaming in the context of college writing pedagogy. If you are a CPGS member and would like to contribute, please us via [email protected] or the CPGS Discord server.

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Board Game Poster Templates

Customize a game poster today.

Create your own printable, poster-sized games to use in your classroom! Choose from pre-made board game templates or come up with your own from scratch.

If you're assigning this to your students, copy the poster to your account and save. When creating an assignment, just select it as a template!

How to Use Game Board Template in the Classroom

It's easy to create printable board game templates for your classroom! Board games and game cards can be used for teaching critical thinking and communication skills, whether by helping students learn something new, or having them build and create their own. Have kids create custom dice, a card game, a new type of playing card, or something else of that nature.

Our poster-sized blank game board templates and other games give students more space to create something exciting. Once you create a board game online and print, these boards can be laminated and used during lessons or indoor recess; you can also make a game online! This project allows students to learn and present information (try trivia or flash cards), but also lets them explore the complexities that designers face when building a game - from the rules to method of gameplay. Creating a narrative from facts and information can prove infinitely more fun and beneficial to understanding.

Benefits of Board Games in the Classroom

Integrating board games into the classroom can be a fun and effective way to promote learning, collaboration, and critical thinking skills. Here are some benefits and ideas for incorporating board games into your classroom:

• Educational Value: Many board games are designed to teach specific skills or content, such as math, language, geography, or critical thinking.
• Social Skills: Board games encourage interaction, communication, and teamwork among students.
• Critical Thinking: Games often require strategic thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Engagement: Board games can make learning more enjoyable and engaging, fostering a positive attitude towards education.
• Creativity: Some games involve creativity and imagination, promoting a different aspect of learning.

Educational Board Games Generator: Perfect Matches for Your Lessons

Board games are a useful tool to bring a new level of excitement to your lessons tailored to your specific curriculum. Whether you are teaching math with games like "Math Maze Challenge" inspired by classics such as checkers, or exploring archaeological history with puzzle-based adventures, these customized board games are designed to make learning a captivating adventure. "Math Maze Challenge" transforms equations into thrilling puzzles. "ArchaeoPuzzles: Unearth the Past" immerses students in the world of historical excavation, where they piece together archaeological discoveries through interactive puzzles.

Other ideas include:

• Math Maze Challenge: Create board games where students solve math problems to advance through a maze to win.
• Time Travelers: History Edition: Travel through different historical periods, answering questions about the era to progress.
• Eco-Adventure: Teach environmental science by navigating a board where players must make eco-friendly decisions.

Popular Board Games for Kids

There are many popular games that can be educational when applied to the classroom. Here are just a few games that we have created similar templates for you to customize and use today!

• Chess: A classic strategy game played on an 8x8 grid, each player starts with 16 pieces, including a king, queen, rooks, knights, bishops, and pawns. The objective is to checkmate the opponent's king.
• Checkers: A two-player game played on an 8x8 checkerboard, players move their pieces diagonally, capturing opponents' pieces by jumping over them. The goal is to either capture all of the opponent's pieces or block them from making a move.
• Dominoes: A tile-based game where players match tiles with identical numbers of pips. The most common domino set has 28 tiles, each displaying two numbers from 0 to 6. Players take turns matching and placing tiles, aiming to empty their hand or block opponents.
• Bingo: A game of chance played with cards containing rows of numbers. A caller randomly selects numbers, and players mark off the corresponding numbers on their cards. The first player to complete a specified pattern shouts "Bingo!" and wins.
• Monopoly: A classic economic board game where players buy, sell, and trade properties. The goal is to bankrupt opponents by collecting rent when they land on owned properties, and players use dice to move around the board, encountering various spaces and events.

Use Storyboard That to Create Your Video Game Design

Unlock your inner board games designer with Storyboard That! Our platform offers a wide array of customizable blank board game templates that cater to every age range, from family-friendly games to challenging strategy titles. Whether you're an experienced creator looking to refine an existing design or a newcomer eager to make your own, our online resources, templates, and graphics are your ultimate source of inspiration.

With just a few clicks, you can create printable board games that feature your unique art, ideas, and the game's rules. Break away from the ordinary and draw players in with engaging gameplay using our user-friendly online boardgame maker. Need an example to help you make a game board online? Our platform offers a library of existing designs and playing cards to point you in the right direction.

Don't miss the opportunity to share your creations with with friends and family. Whether you're crafting classic board games with squares and tiles or inventing new shapes and challenges, Storyboard That is your key to create a game board online!

How to Make Your Own Board Game

Choose One of the Premade Game Poster Templates

We have lots of amazing templates to choose from. Take a look at our game poster example for inspiration!

Click on "Copy Template"

Once you do this, you will be directed to the storyboard creator.

Give Your Poster a Name!

This is where you will include details, text, images, and make any aesthetic changes that you would like. The options are endless!

Edit Your Poster

Click "save and exit".

When you are finished with your game poster, click this button in the lower right hand corner to exit your storyboard.

From here you can print, download as a PDF, attach it to an assignment and use it digitally, and more!

Happy Creating!

Related Resources

• Games Worksheet Templates
• Make Your Own Posters
• Create a Travel Poster
• Movie Posters Templates

Frequently Asked Questions about Board Game Posters

What is a game board template maker.

It is one of our simple tools to create unique and engaging posters for your classroom. Storyboard That’s poster layout options and incredible art make for a one of a kind online board game maker for teachers.

How do I create my own game board?

How to create your own board game is easy with Storyboard That! You can either use one of our premade templates, or make one from scratch with our board game generator in the storyboard creator!

What are good themes for board games?

Good themes include fantasy adventures, science fiction, historical settings, mystery and detective, horror and survival, exploration, economic and business, adventure and quest, word and language, food and cooking, environmental and conservation, mythology, pirates and nautical, Wild West, superheroes, and more. The choice of theme should align with the target audience and desired gameplay experience.

In an academic classroom setting, good themes can include historical events, scientific exploration, geography, language and vocabulary, problem-solving, mathematics, and critical thinking. These themes can help reinforce educational concepts while making learning engaging and fun.

Is it easy to make your own board game?

Creating your own in a classroom setting can be relatively easy with careful planning and creativity. It provides a hands-on way to reinforce educational concepts and engage students in learning.

How do you make a board game rule?

Creating rules in an academic classroom setting involves several key steps. First, clearly define the objective to align with the academic concept you want to reinforce. Next, outline the basic rules and gameplay mechanics, ensuring they are simple and easy to understand. It's important to balance fun and educational value. Use clear and concise language when writing the rules, avoiding jargon or complexity. Include examples or demonstrations to clarify any ambiguities. Encourage student participation and engagement by allowing them to suggest improvements or modifications to the rules. Playtesting and refining the rules based on feedback is essential to ensure the concept effectively serves its educational purpose.

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An Olympics Scene Draws Scorn. Did It Really Parody ‘The Last Supper’?

Some church leaders and politicians have condemned the performance from the opening ceremony for mocking Christianity. Art historians are divided.

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By Yan Zhuang

A performance during the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony on Friday has drawn criticism from church leaders and conservative politicians for a perceived likeness to Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of a biblical scene in “The Last Supper,” with some calling it a “mockery” of Christianity.

The event’s planners and organizers have denied that the sequence was inspired by “The Last Supper,” or that it intended to mock or offend.

In the performance broadcast during the ceremony, a woman wearing a silver, halo-like headdress stood at the center of a long table, with drag queens posing on either side of her. Later, at the same table, a giant cloche lifted, revealing a man, nearly naked and painted blue, on a dinner plate surrounded by fruit. He broke into a song as, behind him, the drag queens danced.

The tableaux drew condemnation among people who saw the images as a parody of “The Last Supper,” the New Testament scene depicted in da Vinci’s painting by the same name. The French Bishops’ Conference, which represents the country’s Catholic bishops, said in a statement that the opening ceremony included “scenes of mockery and derision of Christianity,” and an influential American Catholic, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota, called it a “gross mockery.”

The performance at the opening ceremony, which took place on and along the Seine on Friday, also prompted a Mississippi-based telecommunications provider, C Spire, to announce that it would pull its advertisements from Olympics broadcasts. Speaker Mike Johnson described the scene as “shocking and insulting to Christian people.”

The opening ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, said at the Games’ daily news conference on Saturday that the event was not meant to “be subversive, or shock people, or mock people.” On Sunday, Anne Descamps, the Paris 2024 spokeswoman, said at the daily news conference, “If people have taken any offense, we are, of course, really, really sorry.”

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