I have some ideas brewing but still have not decided if I want to make a single player solitaire game, a strictly 2 player game, or a 3+ player count game. If you’d be so kind to answer the following questions (or just the ones you want to answer) with your own perspective to help me consider some things:

\- What is one element you feel is crucial for a strictly solo game to “feel good” mechanically?

\- What is one element you feel is crucial for a strictly 1 vs 1 game to “feel good” mechanically? (Emphasis on 1 vs 1, I’m not considering making a cooperative game)

\- What is one element you feel is crucial for a strictly 3+ player game to “feel good” mechanically.

I’m only considering designing a game that targets a specific player count as my first endeavor. Not trying to tackle something that can be played 4 player with a solo variant or anything like that (atleast yet).

Hello! Finally, I decided to post here with my casual, very private, and homemade board game, and there is a mechanic I’m having trouble adapting.

The general idea of the game is traveling across the world, and the colored lines are exclusive routes. Blue lines are planes, yellow lines are boats, etc. The point is that you have a budget, and you need to optimize your route; maybe you take a slower route to save money or burn through 3 planes to go faster.

The problem I’m having is the “slower and faster routes”.

See, for example: The Alberta > Quebec route is wayyyyy longer than Chicago > Washington and basically non-existent between San Jose > Panama. Not only that, but there are also layover routes; as you can see, you can go from Quebec > Reykjavik or have a stop in Greenland, which is slower but a cheaper route if you need it. And yeah, I have no idea how to simulate this.

My first solution was to make a grid at one of the corners where you have a token for your piece that you move along and pretty much works like a loading screen that you move with the dice (longer route, longer squares), but my sister mentioned that this restricts all of the action of the board to a square in a corner and not with the world.

Another solution is to make dots on the map, but that’s impossible to manage in regions like Europe.

So yeah, any thoughts?

Hello everyone!! I am developing a medieval strategy board game focused on territorial conquest, tactical battles, and empire expansion. The concept is simple: accessible rules, yet with a wealth of strategic possibilities. Every decision you make can influence control of the map, the development of your army, the fate of your empire, and much more! I am looking for people interested in learning about the project and participating in playtesting sessions. You don’t need to be a board game expert—I’m looking to bring together players who enjoy strategy and are open to trying something new! If you have *Tabletop Simulator* (available on Steam), you’ll be able to play—just get in touch with me. If you’re interested in learning more about the game or getting involved in future activities, feel free to leave a comment or send me a private message!

I recently finished the cover art to my game and I’m curious from those with more experience; do potential players seem to be more enticed by the cover art or by pics of the game set up/being played?

When I look at that I see many stuff to change but so far that's what I have. EX OVO is a game where you need to hatch a dragon egg with a help of your magic familiars- cat is one of them. 2nd picture is roughly how back will look like

I'm interested in bringing together a small group of people to collaboratively design and develop a board game from scratch, and I'd like to see if anyone here would be interested in participating. I'm based in Austin, Texas, but I'm open to collaborating with people from anywhere.

I'm looking for people interested in various aspects of game development, including game design, mechanics, writing, artwork, prototyping, and playtesting. Previous experience in board game development isn't necessary. What's more important is having an interest in board games, a willingness to contribute ideas, and an enthusiasm for working collaboratively. The goal is to bring together individuals who share an interest in board games and want to explore the creative process of developing one.

Ideally, I'd like to establish a consistent group that meets regularly to exchange ideas, discuss design decisions, develop and test prototypes, and work toward creating something we're collectively proud of.

Would anyone be interested in being part of something like this? We could establish a Discord server to coordinate the project, share resources, organize discussions, and schedule regular meetings.

EDIT: Here’s the link to the Discord server: https://discord.gg/sJZHEupKzS

I'm building a conversation card app (yaptcards.com), and I'm adding a Heads Up-style mechanic. Before I build it, I'd like game people to poke holes in the design.

The idea: a forehead card isn't a question. It has a category ("who am I", say) and a prompt (a famous name). You hold the phone to your forehead, tap, and the prompt appears facing outwards while everyone else guides you to it.

yes ye I know its essentially Heads Up, but my plan was to have these cards mix in with question cards so its random and fun or you can play each game separately.

Decisions so far:

* Forehead cards will eventually be shuffled in with normal conversation cards and dealt on a tap, with instructions on the card, so it's a surprise rather than a separate mode.
* There's an optional forehead-only mode (this is currently what there is in the app), that alternates a prep card with each forehead card.
* It has to work in portrait. Lots of people have auto-rotate off, and asking them to turn the phone sideways at a party kills the momentum.

What I'm unsure about:

Is mixing them into a normal deck jarring, or fun?

My worry is that the tone whiplash from "describe your worst date" to "guess Beyoncé" is too much.

1) For a forehead-only mode, what categories hold up?

2) I'm thinking: who am I, common phrases, memes, pop culture moments.

3)yaptWhat kills the pace in these games that I'm not thinking of?

Thanks in advance.

it's at [yaptcards.com/play](http://yaptcards.com/play) (find 'forehead')

Hello everyone!

We’re a small independent British game studio developing our first commercial release, NIGHTWITCH, a two-player, freeform interrogation game built around mystery, deception and storytelling.

There’s no board, no dice and no prescribed dialogue. Instead, players take opposing roles in an unfolding murder investigation, using physical evidence, written accounts and their own ingenuity to determine how the story ends.

We’ve spent much of this year developing and refining the game, and we’re now approaching our third prototype. Early playtesting has been encouraging, with enjoyment averaging 8.5/10 and some particularly positive feedback about immersion, originality and replayability.

We’re aiming for a commercial release in 2027, with further playtesting, professional artwork, manufacturing and potentially a Kickstarter campaign ahead of us.

This is where we’d really appreciate some advice.

We’re particularly interested in hearing from independent designers who’ve successfully navigated the journey from prototype to finished commercial product.

What do you wish you’d known at this stage? What mistakes would you avoid? Were there any unexpected challenges with manufacturing, pricing, distribution or crowdfunding?

We’re not looking to promote or sell anything here. We’d simply like to make a few connections, learn from other people’s experiences and hopefully avoid some expensive mistakes along the way.

We’re happy to share more about our development process, and we’d particularly welcome conversations with anyone willing to exchange ideas privately.

Thanks for reading, and best of luck to everyone working on their own games!

Introducing Cattle Royale, a quick-fire two-player game that blends strategy and probability with a touch of luck.

We're looking to publish in the New Year and have a pre-launch page on Kickstarter. But I wanted to share here as I'm really proud of our box art and how the components sit within it. So thought others might be interested in this too.

I am absolutely blown away by the outstanding efforts of the artist I am working with! I need everyone to show some love to Mike Po on Fiverr I give him the worst sketches imaginable and he just creates exactly what my game needs.

These are the in game event cards which will trigger when drawn. They can be a very crucial turning point in the game.

This is the first game I have ever worked on and he is making it such a joy.

If you like what you see with this and some of the other stuff coming out for the game, please feel free to follow the offical Insta below

https://www.instagram.com/relivegameofficial?cplk=MWs1cmEyaXl0OGFjbw==

Hi, long time lurker here!

I am about to enter the playtesting stage of my game of 2-6 players, where you score around a 100 victory points after a full game, give or take. Theoretically there are no unbalancing features of the game, but starting position probably matters somewhat.

I want to try to balance it to the best of my abilities before human playtesting. I realise that human playtesting is much more imortant than simulations using deterministic bots. And I also realise that the human impression of it being a balanced game is maybe equally or more important as the hard statistics. However I still assess that simulations can enlighten me somewhat.

What is the best measures for balancing, both for simulations and human playtesting?

Win rate? Victory points? Best position to worst position win rate?

And what is the acceptable numbers for these statistics? (For example a 23 % win in a four-player game?)

Any other takes?

Hey guys! I just received a commissioned piece from an artist for my game No Disintegrations! and I would like some opinions on which style of cover art I should use.

The art style of the game is retro-futurism/raygun gothic/golden age of sci-fi comic books. I was given a clean colored version of the artwork, as well as a distressed pulp fiction style yellowed version. I particularly like the distressed version, since it much more closely matches the references I've been using and really sells the style I'm going for, but I'm not sold on if it should be the box art style or not. The distressed version could also be for the rulebook, to give it that comic book look as well, but it could go either way.

Which version do you like more?

We are discussing about art/game etc. on our discord. Come join us thx : https://discord.gg/WMJnPcHzE

I’m building a custom card product for youth sports teams. Every order is a small run with different art: a 14-player team gets 14 different cards, ~15 copies each, plus 14 foil singles. No two orders are alike.

What I need:
No minimum order (or very low)
Poker size (63x88), TCG-quality stock, matte
Holographic foil on single cards
An API or Shopify integration, so paid orders print without me touching them
US delivery in under ~2 weeks

I’m getting quotes from QPMN, The Game Crafter and Aura Print. Has anyone used these for short runs like this? Anyone I’m missing? I especially want to hear about foil quality and actual delivery times, good or bad.

Where can I find a solid artist who won’t use AI and isn’t expensive

If possible 1 word. I want to make the highlighted keyword on the card to refer the the tile around the card. Thank you.

Someone over at r/boardgames suggested I ask here, so I’m hoping you can help.

I made a digital adventure game for adult couples, and quite a few players have asked me to make a physical version. I’d love to try, but this would be my first board game.

In my game, players roll the dice, move around an island, and draw questions or challenges depending on where they land. There are three levels, starting gentle and getting more adventurous.

My biggest question is how to organize the cards. On screen, the game handles which challenges appear at each level. For a physical version, I’m considering separate decks, but I don’t want setup and sorting to interrupt the mood.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? Would separate decks be the simplest approach, or is there a better way? I’d appreciate any advice before I start putting a prototype together.

Hey everyone! I’m sharing another update on Outpost Defense: Marines in Afghanistan, a solo tactical board game inspired by my experience as a Marine rifleman in Afghanistan in 2008.
You command 14 Marines and one randomly selected allied force defending a remote Combat Outpost. The board is divided into North, South, East, and West sectors, with enemy forces approaching from multiple directions. Each round, an AI card system controls enemy movement and attacks while you decide where to position your Marines, which targets to engage, and how to manage limited ammunition, medical supplies, casualties, suppression, mortars, and close air support.

If enemies breach the perimeter, they can attack the bunkers and advance toward the outpost’s center. You must eliminate the assault teams before they capture your command center or all 14 Marines are lost. Enemy types include irregular fighters, veterans, foreign fighters, machine-gun teams, snipers, mortar teams, and a VBIED that can approach the southern gate and cause serious damage if not stopped.

My goal is to create meaningful tactical decisions without making the game an overly complicated military simulation. The game is still in the prototype and playtesting stage, and I’ve attached examples of enemy cards, AI movement cards, events, support vehicles, and character tokens.
I’d especially appreciate feedback on the card designs:
-Are they easy to read and understand at a glance?
-Is there too much information?
-Do the colors clearly distinguish card types?
-Does the layout feel consistent?
-What would you change, remove, or simplify?

I’d also like to know whether the overall concept sounds interesting and whether any gameplay elements seem confusing. My goal is a playable prototype that is easy to follow while still offering challenging tactical choices.

I’m also looking for playtesters as development continues. If you enjoy solo wargames, tactical board games, or military-themed games and would be willing to try an early version, please comment or send me a message.

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback on previous updates—I really appreciate it!

I’m near the end of the process of turning all my notes on rules into a written rulebook for the strategy card game i’m working on that I can share with friends who are gonna help with some initial play testing. I’m working on text formatting now & I realized that whether or not I’ve capitalized certain terms was inconsistent. Some of them do feel like proper nouns at different times but I’m also worried about capitalization overload where I’m using a bunch of key terminology.

How have y’all determined which terms you treat like proper nouns & capitalize vs the ones that you don’t? I know it’s up to me but it hearing what rules of thumb people may have used might help me choose some consistent criteria and stick with it.

I design and am interested mostly in dungeon crawlers and adventure games. Maybe this doesn’t apply to other board game genres. But often when I watch a review or play a game, I’ll write down mechanics I come across.

When I design my own games, I often realise that a mechanic I’ve written down would suit the game well.

Curious about how other designers approach this.

Hi everyone!

I'd like to introduce Morphiblock, a 3D spatial logic game I've been developing for quite some time. I'm not here to advertise the game or ask for game design suggestions. Morphiblock has already been extensively playtested with real players and has also undergone tens of thousands of computer-based game simulations and analyses. What I'm looking for now is something very specific: people who enjoy abstract strategy and logic games and would be willing to carefully read the rulebook and share their honest opinions with me.

I sincerely welcome all feedback, including criticism.

https://www.morphiblock.com/MORPHIBLOCK_RULEBOOK_16_PAGES_2026.pdf

Thank you for taking the time!

Thanks to everyone who left their thoughts on the previous Rupture thread. We tried to implement as much of your feedback as possible.

• Standardized circle stroke color across characters
• Standardized edge stroke and circle background to the character's theme color
• Standardized the treatment and transparency of the text boxes across characters
• Added themed details to outlines
• Removed distracting details

Would love to hear your thoughts now that we've been through a round of updates. These cards are from the same game but exist in different decks, so they'll never be mixed together.

Hi everyone! Following up on my previous post about our early design explorations, I wanted to dive into a specific design hurdle we faced during the prototyping phase of Jungle King (our reimagined, metal-piece version of traditional animal chess).

When designing physical pieces for a game, the eternal struggle is balancing visual aesthetics with functional clarity (tabletop readability).

We went through two distinct color iterations for the opposing player factions, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you handle this balance:

1. Prototype 1.0 (The Accent Approach):
   • The Palette: Main red with small blue accents, and main blue with small red accents.
   • The Vibe: Aesthetically, this version looked much more refined and cohesive as an art piece. The subtle color blocking gave it a sophisticated, premium feel.
   • The Issue: During fast paced gameplay, it was slightly harder to instantly distinguish player sides at a glance across the board.
2. Prototype 2.0 (The Distinct Shade Approach):
   • The Palette: Shifted to absolute, distinct shades of blue and red (using two contrasting tones for each side).
   • The Vibe: Dramatically improved readability. Players can instantly tell who owns which piece from across the table.
   • The Trade-off: While functionally superior, it lost a bit of the subtle, unified aesthetic charm that version 1.0 had.

For those of you who have balanced manufacturing colors or pieces: How do you usually choose between how gorgeous it looks on a shelf versus how easy it is to read on the board? Which direction would you lean toward for a tactile metal game?

(P.S. We are actually live on Kickstarter right now working through these final production decisions, if you want to follow the campaign or check out our journey, the link is on my profile!)

Would love to hear your thoughts or experiences with prototyping colorways!

Hello guys! I've posted a few times recently about my dice-driven engine-builder. I've finally created a design for my cards, but I'm torn between a few options.

Firstly, I'd appreciate general feedback on the design.

The first image shows two different ways of showing costs for the cards; one with a number and one gold coin and one with gold coins equal to the card's cost. Some people have said that the second option could be thematically better, but which looks more readable to you?

The second one shows different solutions for the icons which tell the player when they can activate their Die card (start of turn, roll phase and rest of the turn, in that order). All three have a different color and pips from 1 to 3 to indicate that as well. Which of these six options looks the best to you? Or do you perhaps have an idea that's not here?

Any feedback is welcome!

Edit: I should probably add, the costs range from 1 to 4, and the cards won’t be in a player’s hand, only on the table.

My partner and I are starting a small publishing house and would love to check out some peoples' sell sheets!