Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 4, 2017

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the fifth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? What is a rule? What is a rule?

Point and Click 130

Point and Click Games Mechanics Writing 130

Brand Game Development

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

Leder Games really nailed it when they came out with their board game Root in 2018. It’s broken into and remained within the Board Game Geek top 50. Need help on your board game? Need help on your board game? Many games have come and gone on Kickstarter.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Balance Games 130

Logic Simplified

JULY 31, 2023

There is one area every game designer must focus on to ensure that their games are captivating enough to entertain and provide an impactful experience to the user: game mechanics. When creating a new game, video game mechanics are often considered the most important factor. What are game mechanics?

Mechanics 93

Mechanics Puzzle Balance Games 93

Brand Game Development

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

Tasty Humans is the latest, and in my opinion, the greatest creation of Pangea Games. It’s a tile-placement, puzzle-solving board game for 1-4 players about villagers attacking monsters. They were the creative force behind the game, and really, the soul of it. Need help on your board game?

Tile 130

Tile Prototyping Games Vector Graphics 130

Brand Game Development

MAY 13, 2019

Board game development is notorious for its trial-and-error approach. Experienced designers and developers will tell you that it’s all about iteration. You may create dozens of versions of the same game until you finally find one you’re satisfied with. Need help on your board game?

Game Developer 130

Game Developer Game Development Development Art 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 17, 2018

Creating board games takes an enormous amount of time and effort. The simple fact is that there are a lot of distinct tasks that have to be handled to turn a game from an idea into reality. This is why I urge each new board game designer to share the workload , delegating tasks to a team instead of doing them all alone.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Development Games 130

Brand Game Development

AUGUST 17, 2020

For the last several years, wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns have redefined the rules of success in the board game industry. You no longer had to submit your game to publishers or raise a bunch of money to bankroll your own print run. Need help on your board game?

Games 130

Games Fantasy Simulation Media 130

Brand Game Development

MAY 18, 2020

As the coronavirus lockdown continues, a lot of people are having a hard time getting their board game fix. The ability to play board games online, however, has never been easier. Need help on your board game? Need help on your board game? How Did I Start?

Simulation 130

Simulation Games Demo Playtesting 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 16, 2019

Box art is incredibly important in the board game industry. Not only are board game boxes beautiful, they are also iconic. People love looking at board game boxes – just check out Instagram sometime. There are whole accounts dedicated to showing off board game boxes!

Art 130

Art Games Communications Fantasy 130

Brand Game Development

JUNE 3, 2019

The concept is simple: through gamification, you take the elements we associate with games – point scoring, competition, rules – and apply them to something else. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

UX 130

UX Playtesting Game Design Game Designer 130

Brand Game Development

FEBRUARY 4, 2019

I am pleased to say that it is an absolutely fantastic game that’s worth purchasing. I consider this to really valuable for learning game design simply because there is so much going on. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Games Tile 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 1, 2019

Creating a great scoring system in a board game can be a difficult process. Once you craft the basic concepts of your game and find the right mechanics to express them , you have to set rules. Scoring rules are among the most important, particularly in euro games. So how do you do it?

Tile 130

Tile Games Mechanics Build 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 2, 2018

Having your board game reviewed for the first time can be nervewracking. It’s difficult to send your brainchild to a critic who can influence the way your game is seen when it comes time to Kickstart or publish it. Need help on your board game? How long do reviews take?

Writing 130

Writing Games Art Dev 130

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 27, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Last Saturday and Sunday, I attended my first board gaming convention – Protospiel in Atlanta. Prototype of a beach volleyball game by Julio Nazario. Need help on your board game?

Prototyping 130

Prototyping Dev Point and Click Mechanics 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 22, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. I’ve already play-tested this game a ton. I even blind play-tested it at a game design convention. Need help on your board game? Click here. That’s a good thing!

Dev 130

Dev Point and Click Games Mechanics 130

Brand Game Development

APRIL 13, 2020

Board games have been wildly successful over the last decade. In a world with abundant entertainment options, including video games, it might seem strange that a throwback hobby has done so well. Much of this success comes from the physical presence provided by board game components. Need help on your board game?

Data 130

Data Games Art Texture 130

Brand Game Development

MARCH 8, 2021

There are over 100,000 board games in existence. A handful have stood out head and shoulders among the rest, working their way up to the top 10 games on Board Game Geek. This is a truly staggering achievement because pleasing Board Game Geek users is no easy task! Need help on your board game?

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Games Fantasy Tile 130

Deconstructor of Fun

AUGUST 15, 2023

This article discusses and compares male and female stereotypes in gaming for the purpose of analyzing common societal perceptions. Who is your target audience? This is a much-dreaded question game developers ask themselves at every stage of game development. A very casual summary of the casual puzzle player demographics.

Puzzle 98

Puzzle Games Animation Animation 98

Brand Game Development

JANUARY 28, 2019

Sagrada is one of my recent favorite board games. It is fundamentally a pretty simple game, but it has a lot of really endearing qualities. The dice are bright and pretty, as are the puzzle boards on which you build stained glass arrangements of dice. Need help on your board game? Got all that?

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Point and Click Games 130

Brand Game Development

MAY 8, 2017

A couple of weeks ago, I had the absolute pleasure of playing 5-Minute Dungeon at the friendly local gaming store for the first time. This game got us rowdier than ever before and it was awesome! Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Dev Engine Engineering 130

Brand Game Development

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

Twilight Struggle has been considered one of the best board games of all time. It’s been on the Board Game Geek Top 10 for as long as I can remember and for a while was the #1 game. No matter how you feel about it, there is a lot that new board game designers can learn from it.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Games Fighting 130

Brand Game Development

JUNE 2, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Great art is one of the most critical parts of a board game. As game developers, we have only a handful of tools at our disposal to help teach players what a game is about and how to play it.

Art 100

Art Communications Dev Advertising 100

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 3, 2018

It’s no secret that board game publishers like to reduce risks. Most publishers have a system in place to help them filter marketable game ideas from unmarketable game ideas. Yet the process, so heavy on rejection, has left many game designers heartbroken. Need help on your board game?

Games 130

Games Retail Game Design Game Designer 130

Brand Game Development

MARCH 16, 2020

To get the Start to Finish series going, I’ve spent some time discussing games, game development, and the amount of careful messaging that is needed to create and sell a great game. At this point, you may be beginning to have some healthy doubts about the benefits and drawbacks of self-publishing a game.

Games 130

Games Quality Assurance Art Game Developer 130

Brand Game Development

MAY 14, 2018

This is part one of four in the Failure Recovery series in Start to Finish: Publish and Sell Your First Board Game. Understanding that and moving forward are critical to your success. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

Game Developer 130

Game Developer Game Development Development Concepts 130

Brand Game Development

APRIL 6, 2018

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. The most underrated rule in business is “have a backup plan in mind.”

Point and Click 130

Point and Click Dev Writing Fighting 130

Brand Game Development

AUGUST 17, 2020

It’s tempting to think that the analog nature of board games would preclude live-streaming, but this is not the case. Live-streaming board games can be done with digital tools such as Tabletop Simulator or video cameras capturing gameplay on the physical tabletop. Need help on your board game?

Games 130

Games Media Build Simulation 130

Game Daily

MARCH 30, 2023

It’s been a full year since the consumer advocacy group Truth in Advertising (TINA) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commision about Roblox’s lax policy towards in-game advertising to children. In theory, an advertiser that breaks the rules can be banned by Roblox.

Advertising 119

Advertising Content Media Educational 119

Brand Game Development

SEPTEMBER 8, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. This week with Highways & Byways , I’ve been making little improvements to the game to make it more usable and easy-to-understand. Need help on your board game? Click here.

Dev 130

Dev Simulation Prototyping Games 130

The Bottom Feeder

JANUARY 18, 2023

The big, fun news in the gaming world recently was that it looked like Wizards of the Coast (WotC for short, owned by Hasbro) was going to drastically change the Open Gaming License for Dungeons & Dragons. It's a really incomprehensible, inside-baseball story, but it's also really interesting if you're into games or business.

Games 87

Games Fantasy Indy Art 87

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 1, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. I’ve been making games for about 2 1/2 years now, and a lot of things in my life have clicked because of the ways of thinking I have adopted by making and playing games. Need help on your board game?

Point and Click 130

Point and Click Games Dev Build 130

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 14, 2019

A couple of years ago, Dinosaur Island was a massively successful game. Even now, two years later, the game’s name has enough cultural cachet to lead to the most popular board game giveaway Pangea has ever sponsored. Need help on your board game? Take one good look at this game.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Art Games 130

Brand Game Development

APRIL 21, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Most board game mechanics will not work as well as you intend them to. Good board game developers need to know when to drop mechanics and when to refine them. Need help on your board game?

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Dev Game Developer Game Development 130

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 28, 2019

Last year, Everdell by Starling Games raised nearly half a million dollars on Kickstarter. It has remained a popular board game since, regularly topping out the Board Game Geek Hotness and showing up multiple times as a giveaway prize in Pangea contests. Everdell is a worker placement, tableau-building board game.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Fantasy Mechanics 130

Brand Game Development

SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

Board games can be about all sorts of things. Games, at their core, might just be a series of mechanics and rules, but themes keep us from feeling like we’re playing out the logical conclusion of mathematical functions. Need help on your board game? “Your job is to stack blocks.”

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Communications Art Game Developer 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

“Theme-first or mechanics-first” might be the most asked “big question” in the board game community. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Theme and mechanics are inseparable parts of board games as a whole.

Mechanics 100

Mechanics Playtesting Concepts Art 100

Brand Game Development

MAY 12, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Instead of focusing directly on game development, I’ve focused on learning as much as I can about board games. Need help on your board game? Why go to all this trouble?

Dev 130

Dev Balance Game Developer Game Development 130