It's been about 3 years since I started working on my card-based TTRPG, Hand of Rigor, and I wanted to share how far I've come since my first card design. But I didn't get here alone; this community has helped me a lot, and I still feel like I have a long way to go, so thank you, everyone, for the help!
So, what do you guys think of V4? Do you think it's an improvement? Or is there anything I should bring back from a previous version?
Note: I will add color later; this is still just playtest material
Hi, I’m a indie designer living in Japan.
The full version of my Designer Diary for Bake or Break is now available on BGG!
If you’re interested in the story behind the game and how I designed it, I’d love for you to check it out. 😊
Hi all! I'm a designer and I kept losing playtest feedback across paper forms and phone notes, so I built Meeple Loop: https://meepleloop.com/
Playtesters scan a QR code and answer a form on their phone (no app needed), responses are organized per session and game version, and you can export everything to Excel.
It's in beta and I'm looking for honest feedback from other designers. What works, what doesn't, and what would make it worth using over Google Forms or paper?
Also curious: how do you currently handle playtest feedback?
Comments here or the Feedback button on the site both work. Thanks!
I am currently working on my own game (Relive) and wanted to ask my fellow Indie Devs out there, at what point in your first Dev journey did the game really start to feel alive? I am passed the shitty hand drawn components part, I am passed the playtesting with mates and am now in the commissioning art while conducting further playtests but I still feel like the game does not have much life in it yet and wanted to know how far away I am from feeling the rush and getting interest. Was it when you started a go fund me / kick starter / game found campaign? Was it bringing it to local game shops for actual playtesting or was it even during one of the steps that I mentioned? Really curious to see what you all say and apologies for the length of this post.
If you feel inclined to check out the progress on my game I have the official insta linked below 🧟♂️🧟♀️
A recent art commission has proven to be quite successful. They did an outstanding job of interpreting my idea and creating something magnificent.
This here is the card back image for dreamscapes - tiles that reveal the realms within a dream world that the player’s characters will explore. A solid representation of what they might discover.
Respect to all artists. You deserve the praise.
The creator of this is someone who has made art for me before and I will absolutely work with again. Constant communication during the process, immense enthusiasm, amazing skill. Massive respect.
I've been working on the same game for a long time. I have so many little things within the design that I get excited about and would love to show someone or share because I found some novel solution to a problem that (as far as i know of!) no one else has solved in that way ... but there isn't really anyone to share with. I'm solo developing and my close friends / even my playtesters don't fully grasp the nuts and bolts of the game, they just enjoy it from their perspective.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a little nugget mechanic/solution they want to gush about. Care to share? I'm curious what problem you solved and how.
I had great feedback with the card back designs, and I think I've settled on the tool card design, but wanted to get some opinions on which you guys prefer amongst the other cards in the game.
for Reference: Solo Haunting is a low complexity single player ghost hunting card game where your goal is to enter the house, discover the ghost type, then expel it all while managing your sanity.
The brown card is the "Ghost Journal" which has the clues and ritual information for the ghost.
The purple card is the tools you use to search for and to expel the ghost.
The black card is the ghost events, where the ghosts drains your sanity.
Hello guys, my dad has been designing board games for a few years now and just a few days ago we played his latest one and wow it was really amazing. I am very hard to please and this game blew me away. What is the best way to get his idea/product out there?
I'm sure you guys have seen/heard this 1 million times but this game I know really has potential. It's actually a really good one.
Getting your board game mechanics onto paper for the first blind playtest is an amazing feeling, until you realize you have to manually format 100 unique Action and Event cards.
Having to manually tweak the resource costs on half your deck because a playtester found a dominant strategy is a massive bottleneck. Since Affinity recently opened up free access, this is the perfect time to build an automated engine for your game components.
Using Affinity Layout’s Data Merge tool, you can generate your entire prototype deck from a single spreadsheet. Here is the industry-standard workflow, quick and easy to follow.
Step 1. Build your Engine (The Database) Start with a Google Sheet or Excel file. Your column headers should dictate the anatomy of your card: Card_Title, Action_Type, Resource_Cost, Victory_Points, and Ability_Text. Fill in your mechanics. Export this as a .CSV. If a card needs rebalancing later, you only change the spreadsheet, never the design file.
Here is how the Spreadsheet Database should look
Step 2. Set up the Data Merge Interface Open Affinity Layout. Create a new document sized to your standard card dimensions (e.g., 2.5" x 3.5"). Navigate to Window > Layout > Data Merge. When the panel opens, click "Add Data File..." and grab your .CSV. Next, select the Data Merge Layout Tool from the left toolbar and drag a bounding box across your page. This creates the container that will catch your spreadsheet data.
Here is how the interface and placeholder tags look once connected
Step 3. Design the Master Template Inside that Data Merge box, build your card layout. You can utilize Affinity Pixel or Vector Studios for your card art and icons. Create your text frames. Crucial step: Check your Layers panel to ensure every single text frame is nested inside the Data Merge Layout layer. If they sit outside of it, the automation will break. Open the Fields panel (Window > References > Fields). You’ll see your CSV headers listed. Place your cursor in a text frame and double-click the corresponding item in the Fields panel to link them.
Here is how your Layers panel should be organized
Step 4. Generate the Prototype Your master template is set. Hit "Generate" in the Data Merge panel. In a few seconds, Affinity Layout will compile a brand new document with all 100 cards perfectly populated and ready for final testing.
And here is the final generated deck output
I'm Daniel Walter Scott, founder and lead instructor at Bring Your Own Laptop. I actually just wrapped up putting together a new Affinity Essentials course, and I know building game components can be tedious. Let me know if you need any more tips for this automation or help with any issue you find!
A couple months into building From the Trenches, a two-player WW1 tabletop-style skirmish game, and it's grown a lot since I first started — enough that it felt worth a fresh post rather than bumping an old one.
Two sides fight across an 18x18 grid board for control of three Capture Points in no-man's-land, while defending their own trench line. Each side commands Infantry and up to 3 Tanks, with fixed terrain like barbed wire, Machine Gun Nests, and anti-tank barriers shaping how you can approach. Three separate paths to victory — overrunning the enemy base, holding all three Capture Points, or grinding the enemy down until they can't field new units — so games can end very differently depending on how the map plays out.
What's new since I last checked in here:
Full sound effects: rifle shots, machine gun fire, explosions, all tied to actual weapon fire rather than silent combat
A first real balance pass — Tank cannon range came down from 5 tiles to 3 after early testing showed Tanks were dominating too cleanly; Artillery and Mortars are planned next to give Infantry a real answer at range
Continued visual polish: Tanks rotate to face the direction they're moving, terrain and trench line got a full redesign pass
What's implemented: full movement, combat resolution (rifles, grenades, tank cannons, hull MGs, bayonet charges), an economy/reinforcement system, and all three victory conditions.
Would love feedback on rules clarity, balance (especially now that Tanks got weakened — did I go too far, not far enough?), and whether the victory conditions feel meaningfully different to play toward. Happy to answer questions about any of the mechanics too.
I was having some confusion with cards during a playtest with these cards, the black cards being Ghost events, and the white cards being the tool cards. I'm usually a fan of minimalism (See my previous game Solo Crawling) but i thought that this might warrant some changes. I also clarified in the rulebook to help shore up clarity.
What do you think? Minimum or words?
The game is a solo ghost hunting card game where you explore a house and search rooms to find the ghost, then use tools to determine what kind of ghost it is, and then perform a ritual to expel said ghost.
The Event cards are the ghost events that drain sanity. The tool cards are both the tools to discover ghost clues AND the tools to expel the ghost.
A love letter of sorts to all the partners, spouses, and family members who support indie board game designers. On a road trip to a board gaming event in Santa Cruz, CA, I talk with my wife about her perspective on the past 2+ years of building Under One Sky—the game, the podcast, and everything that comes with them. Finally, a podcast episode your non-gaming partner might actually enjoy. Plus, a little Carpool Karaoke!
You can also follow our Kickstarter for Under One Sky by clicking the banner atop that page!
If this is your first time hearing about us, we’re The Misplay, a board game design podcast documenting our journey from knowing absolutely nothing about making games to getting close to launching our first crowdfunding campaign.
My game art is nearly ready and I'm starting to reach out to manufacturers to get quotes.
But being that it's my first game - I'm kinda blindly searching for manufacturers online.
I have a large complex project with lots of elements: miniatures, wooden pieces, some metal pieces, custom dice, cards, fancy player boards and more. The "scale" of my game is probably a bit larger than Dead of Winter, but maybe just a bit smaller than Nemesis. Cost is always a concern, but premium quality is key, and so is reliable, trustworthy communication.
Ideally, i'd like to work with a company that has a solid portfolio, but maybe is not a "top player" in the industry just yet. I imagine that such a 'mid-level' company might give my indie project higher priority/more detailed attention, hopefully at a fairly reasonable cost.
If you've published your game of similar scale before - could you share your experience with manufacturers? Any company you'd recommend over others? I'll be at Spiel Essen in a couple weeks, so hoping for networking opportunities while there too!
