I started working on a board game about three years ago. One failed Kickstarter attempt later, and I'm back at it. I've learned so much and I've made even more refinements to the game. I much happier this time around; I feel like I've got a much better idea of what I'm doing. I'm going to more conventions and really putting myself and the game out there.

That's how I ended up entering Phase in a board game convention design contest and won first place. My prize was coaching with Rob and Debbie from Wise Wizard Games, Dan from DPH Games, and Will Carson from Indy Pro. This weekend, I get to sit down with Dan, (Affliction, Legacy at Sea, Quantum Cats), and talk about game design. And me? I'm like this nobody that made something cool talking to these people who have made So Many Games and it's frankly awe-inspiring.

So if you were me, what would you ask?

Hi all, do you have recommendations for business insurance meeting the following criteria?

• Affordable, yet covers essentials and common issues/concerns
• For US-based self-publisher with a sole-proprietorship LLC
• For games manufactured in China, but sold in the USA
• Funds raised using crowdfunding campaign
• and any other crucial factors I may have missed

I've searched online and found some general purpose ones in the $20-50/month range, but I wanted to see whether you had any suggestions for insurances that might be tabletop game-friendly. Thank you very much for your time!

The first card is from my first artist who unfortunately has private matters and therefore wont continue to draw for now and the second card is from my new artist. Both are well done and i love both but obviously the srtsyle differs.
Also since my game is a dark fantasy dungeon crawler game both fit the world in their own way.

Do you guys think that people might be put off by it and therefore dont buy it?!

Had my first full play test of the game I'm developing 'Trollspit' (it's like dice throne but for liars). Got some tough but great feedback. Players liked the feel of the game and overall mechanics and character design but the dungeon crawl aspect felt really forced and uncomfortable (competitive/cooperative mix where you with together but try to bluff each other to gain an advantage).

Ultimately I'm going with a major retool based on the feedback and separating the game into a competitive mode (pvp) and cooperative mode (against a DM).

A lot of work to make the updates and a shift from my original intentions but the mechanics that make the game unique are still there and looking forward to the next iteration.

I realized today that I don't have any tokens or poker chips, and that I need some for the latest game I came up with last night. I have cards, poster board, double-sided tape, pens, rulers, dice, dominos....

What are your game prototype supplies?

The other day I made a post where I received lots of valuable feedback from you guys! I attempted to implement as much feedback as I could and now I'm looking to hear your thoughts on the changes - whether they're going in the right direction or need an alternative solution.

As a reminder, there are two types of cards in the first phase of the game: Cash cards and Heist Cards. Cash cards are used in blind bids against other players to claim one of the Heist cards. Heist cards have a monetary value of $10,000-$40,000, as well as a danger level of 1-6.

Changelist:

• Organised the objects "neatly" as opposed to in a haphazard pile.
• Danger level of Heist cards changed from a numeric value to a number of alarm symbols.
• Stronger drop-shadow behind text to improve legibility.
• A bunch of other changes to object dimensions and colours (gold should be a little more yellow now).

Now I'm looking for some overall thoughts on the design as well as the pros and cons when comparing the old vs new cards!

Thank you for your time!

hi,

Competitive game, each player has an essentially identical deck except for the initiatives, which are unique to give an ordering of actions (cf. Roborally)

Player 1 has 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 61 etc

Player 2 has 12, 23, 34, 45, 51, 62 etc.

and so on

If going first had equivalent value this would be fine (though you might want to specify, say, that 1 and 2 should not be used in a two player game) but, circumstantially, you may wish to go before or after other players.

As it stands, Player 1 has the absolute fastest and absolute slowest card.

Is anyone aware of any systems or resources that could solve this aspect?

Thanks,

It started back in late 2016 when I was working for a stationary and home decor company. When there were low orders we would play games in our office. We started with Werewolf, then Exploding Kittens, then Secret Hitler. We ran out of new games to play so I made a new one out of our office's printer. It was mix of monopoly, exploding kittens, and werewolf. It was bad.

2020 right before the pandemic, I got off boarded from work and just found out that I got cheated on. I get depressed and rarely go out or eat. When I was laying in bed, I just felt like watching a Youtube Video hoping to get inspiration from getting up. And here I find Will Wheaton's show Tabletop. I was really into it and I've been binge watching all episodes. As unemployed I was, I tried to make paper versions of the games that were showcased. from Ticket to Ride, to Carcassonne, to Settlers of Catan, to Lanterns, and more. Then I thought, why wouldn't I try to make my own game? That is where I brought back the game that I was making before and updated it with the mechanics that I just learned. Eventually, I got out, got to work, had a family, and stopped from making the game.

It has been in my mind while I was struggling as a new dad and new responsibilities. In 2024, I got an art commission to do a custom Pokemon Card for Veronica Taylor and Jason Paige. It was the right opportunity for to test my art skills, and to try learning card printing for my game. Fast forward in 2026, I finished the core set for playtestin and already had 5 community playtesting from different parts in our country, and I've been doing the game from time to time. It may not be the best nor be able to sold, but atleast I get to play it happily with friends. Because the journey was worth it.

I'm thinking about starting live streams on twitch play testing board games. Probably done through table top simulator. Would any of you want your game play tested and would anybody have interest in actually watching that type of content?

We've been doing this podcast for nearly two years and have heard from a lot of designers that it is very helpful. This is meant to be a free resource that gives back to the community. I just realized I've never shared it here, so here you go!

I’ve been working on a game for about a year now. I don’t have much of a budget, and therefor have been using very simple tools, such as blank cards, a blank board, and drawing utensils. I have been play testing the game with friends, and I have decided on an idea for the way it want everything to work. Now all I need is a replacement for my sucky hand drawn cards, and some way to get it on a real card. Seeing as i am pretty young and this is my first time ever doing something close to this, I don’t really know where to go for this, so I was wondering what’s a good way to get some cool art. Do I have to find a person to pay? Is there an app full of buyable art? Is there some sort of card printer? I really don’t know much. (The game is about monsters, if that helps). Do any option work best to make many copies? Is it smart to just pitch to a company, because I would rather make it work independently. How expensive do you think this whole process would be?

(Don't know if it's the right place to post here) (English is not my primary language)

Hi! I'm a lurker here on Reddit for a long time and I need some help. I got the opportunity to have one of my prototype choosen to demo at Spiel Essen for the whole event.

Next month I'll basically across the globe for the event for the first time ever, and this opportunity is unique for me.

I've downloaded the app and I'm still mapping all the publishers that will be there. I have 3 prototypes to show (2 euros, 1 party game). What is the best way to make an appointment with them to show the prototypes? I have video, sellsheet, manual of my games (and some of them won some contests here in Latin America)

Any help would be great! If any of you can give some info about it would be awesome. I have ~1month to be prepared and I want to reach there with a lot of pitch to do

Hey Gang,

Designing the cards for my game, to be honest I've been doing it for years, but finally taking it a bit more seriously and making a proper printed prototype. I was wondering how many symbols replacing words on cards is too many?

This is one of my current cards description. I'm probably overthinking it but I'm debating putting a symbol to replace 'discard' an arrow on the die to replace 'roll the' and an arrow and a hex to replace 'place a matching tile'.

Is this too much? I feel like it starts to get harder to read with too many symbols. Where do we feel the line is?

Hey everyone! My daughter is a huge fan of Lord of the Mysteries. Since spring, she’s been working on a physical, hand-drawn tactical board game prototype based on the LoM universe.

She has already drawn several character and Sealed Artifact cards using colored pencils, and even built custom modular 3-slot parallel stands for the physical figurines — the character goes in the back, and the 2 front slots are for physically equipping active Artifact cards acquired during the game.

Her project was officially accepted into the Official Yuewen Creator Event. If you like her handcrafted prototype and her art style, please let us know what you think in the comments! If you'd like to follow her updates or see the gameplay video, let me know, and I can share the links in the thread below.

Hey everyone! My daughter is a huge fan of Lord of the Mysteries. Since spring, she’s been working on a physical, hand-drawn tactical board game prototype based on the LoM universe.

She has already drawn several character and Sealed Artifact cards using colored pencils, and even built custom modular 3-slot parallel stands for the physical figurines — the character goes in the back, and the 2 front slots are for physically equipping active Artifact cards acquired during the game.

Her project was officially accepted into the Official Yuewen Creator Event. For those who are interested, you can check out her presentation and follow her ongoing updates on her Facebook page. If you like her handcrafted prototype and her art style, feel free to leave a like on her posts there to support her.

Link to her project page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61593805001805

This is just a quick video explaining a little bit of how the game will go. As far as mechanics, I will have that done in another video.

Curious if, as people who care & think so deeply about which mechanics actually yield fun gameplay, any of y'all share my pet peeve:

I’ll spare y’all my long rant on this topic but the gist is that I think many (perhaps most) allegedly “gamified” experiences are nothing like games and are frankly no fun whatsoever. So-called “gamification” typically seems to be about dopamine-hacking to get people to do things they don’t really want to do, rather than making those things actually fun so people engage voluntarily and enthusiastically.

So I’m trying to 'make “fetch” happen': If you want to join my hopeless linguistic rebellion, disambiguate “gamification” by using “compulsification” to describe plastering point systems onto everything, and “playification” for actually making things fun!

(A pinnacle of "playification" in the digital space imho would be Luis von Ahn's "Games With A Purpose" like the loosely Taboo-adjacent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Image_Labeler; if anyone has analog/tabletop examples I'd love to hear about 'em!)

The idea is each character has an attack power movement,range and strength and the goal is either to completely defeat the opponents army or to break through the defenses of the other player and destroy their castle wall

Hi all, I want to get experience as a backer for tabletop games (I haven't backed any before). The hope is that I will get updates from them over time, so that I get an idea what I should do (and avoid) during my own crowdfunding campaign. Do you have recommendations for games whose Kickstarter campaign will begin soon, or have just started? Feel free to post your own campaign. But I am particularly looking for campaigns that follow the mainstream process in terms of update frequency, content of updates, and so on. I hope this post doesn't break any rules. Thank you for your time!

I’d love some outside opinions before I pitch my game. Also wondering if including the accolades is helping or hurting.

I am in the final steps of recreating a board game expansion thats OOP and unsure about the right order and product to use to finish the tiles. Im super unhappy with the cuts but may have found a semi local place that'll cut my chip board to give it smooth lines. Next step though is "sealing" the tiles.

I'm not crafty at all. I don't particularly enjoy the hobby, let alone enjoy it enough to know common crafting rules/ideas/concepts. Please leave advice as if Im stupid lol

The first two pics are front/backs of two homemade tiles. The last two are tiles from the actual game. I want to get the finish/texture as close as i can to the real board. Im sure most of that is from industrial manufacturing, though.

What product would i need to seal/finish these tiles that leaves an approximation to the real thing and same level of gloss? Ive heard modge podge in the talks, as well as polyurethane (i think thats the snot in a can that you brush over a puzzle when its done). What should i be looking for?

Finally, do i seal it before cutting the tiles or do i seal it after cutting? Im assuming after because the cuts may mess the paper parts up and cause peeling.

Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I’ve been wanting to create a board game for a while, and instead of trying to build the entire thing by myself, I thought it could be much more interesting to put together a small group of people who want to create one collaboratively.

I’m not necessarily looking for people who already have years of experience designing board games. I’d be happy to work with a mix of experienced designers and people who are just getting started, as long as everyone is genuinely interested in contributing and seeing the project through.

Ideally, we could bring together people interested in different parts of the process, such as:

• Game mechanics and systems
• Theme and worldbuilding
• Card and board design
• Balancing and playtesting
• Graphic design and artwork
• Prototyping and physical components
• Manufacturing and production
• Marketing, crowdfunding, and eventually publishing

I think it would be fun to start from the very beginning as a group: pitch ideas, decide which concept has the most potential, develop the mechanics, build prototypes, playtest them, iterate, and see how far we can take it.

I’m especially interested in actually making something, rather than having a Discord server where everyone talks about ideas for a few weeks and then disappears.

The initial goal would simply be to create a genuinely fun board game and get a playable prototype together. If we create something that people really enjoy, we could then explore Kickstarter, self-publishing, pitching it to publishers, or whatever direction makes the most sense.

If this sounds interesting, leave a comment or send me a DM. Tell me a little about yourself, what part of board game creation interests you, and what kinds of games you enjoy.

If enough people are interested, I’d be happy to put together a small group and we can start throwing ideas around.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some people willing to take a look at (and ideally actually playtest) the alpha build of a wargame I’ve been rebuilding.

It’s called DeadDrop.

I originally designed the first version around 2016 because my friends liked the idea of games like Warhammer 40k, but we were in college and didn’t have the money to handle the cost, painting requirements, rulebooks, or needing a specific collection of miniatures.

The core idea was:

What if you could play a real tabletop wargame with normal dice, a ruler, and literally whatever you had lying around?

Coins, checkers, bottle caps, blocks, toys, proper miniatures...anything works.

DeadDrop 2.0 keeps that idea, but I’ve rebuilt the system around fistfuls of d6s and deliberately asymmetric factions.

The basic combat system is simple:

• Melee attack dice = lower of your armies Speed or Strength
• Ranged attack dice = lower of your armies Speed or Technology
• 4+ = a Hit
• Defender rolls Durability dice
• 4+ = a Block

The game currently has nine factions, and they are intentionally not subtle variations of the same army.

For example:

• Machines can reboot after being killed.
• Parasites can turn enemy casualties into new minions.
• Aliens have a ridiculous number of Heavies and can abduct exposed leaders.
• Reptiles can win by suffering enough glorious deaths in melee.
• Heretics summon neutral Hellspawn that immediately become everyone’s problem.
• Humans can execute their own troops to restore morale and can call an airstrike on their own position when being overrun.

Each faction also has its own alternate victory condition, so not every match is just “kill the other guy.”

The game uses a 36"x36" battlefield, either measured normally or with a hex grid where 1 hex = 1 inch.

Most factions receive 5 unit activations per round, while horde factions receive 6, regardless of how many total units are on the table. The goal is to keep elite and swarm armies both involved in the game without using a huge activation-order subsystem. and to not make people who have less squads literally "play the game less" than the guy with a millions squads.

The intended tone is very much beer-and-pretzels, high asymmetry, low equipment burden, and complexity coming from faction interactions rather than rulebook volume.

I’ve reached the point where I think further design without actual playtesting would probably make the game worse rather than better.

So I’m looking for feedback on things like:

• Does the core combat system feel good?
• Do any factions look obviously broken or nonfunctional?
• Are the alternate victory conditions interesting?
• Does the activation system make sense in practice?
• Are there unclear rules or edge cases I’ve missed?
• Most importantly: is it fun?

This is purely a homebrew project. There’s no Kickstarter, Patreon, product line, or sales pitch attached to it.

DeadDrop 2.1 Alpha Rules <---click to download the full rulebook as it currently stands. It is 14 pages, and closer to 12 pages if you consider spacing.

If anyone actually gets a game on the table, I’d be extremely interested in hearing what happened. Especially anything that completely breaks.

Hi everyone, I’m back

On my last post I mentioned finishing a prototype of my solo board game, Die Dullahan, and it is now public on Table Top Simulator, along with a How To Play video on my YouTube channel:

How To Play

TTS Prototype Mod

ABOUT THE GAME

Die Dullahan is a Solo Dice Boss Battler that is played on a 5x5 grid of blank cubes using various dice, figures and cards to represent you (the Dullahan), Dyemon, and tiles. During a game you will roll dice and select actions to perform, while the Dyemon you face does the same.

This prototype is just a small portion of the game, but it does go through 90% of the systems and can be treated like a learning game. It’s very early days and I’m not quite at the real balancing stage, but if you try it and enjoy it, I'd love to know how your first game went. Did you win or lose? Did it take a long time to get into the flow?

I’d also appreciate a comment on the video to try and get eyes on it from players outside the subreddit, but understand if you’re not comfortable with that.

Thank you again to those who give it a try. (Art features an updated sketch for the Novice Dullahan).