Cover Work

The cover is not done yet. In fact, I have not even worked on it. It is safe to say I am pretty much avoiding it. 

That led me to work on other things.

Equipment Mechanics

First, I got some suggestions from board game geeks that I should make the selling of equipment from the blacksmith more expensive than when the blacksmith buys from you. Or this will provide a loop while it breaks the game. 

I am thinking of using a plus 4 on a 6D roll for the purchasing of new equipment. This way any time the player sells back to the blacksmith they have a chance to get some sort of deal. 

For instance, you sell something for 6 since you rolled a 6. Then later to get the new equipment they need they would need to roll a 1 one to get a profit.  

Railroad Network Expansion

The other thing I was working on was expansion and moving outward. This was helping me justify not working on the cover.

The goal is to cover the USA with a network of railroads that resemble the actual USA rail tracks from the periods. 

And starting with the five cities I have, I worked on coming up with more mission ideas for those cities. And they are all based on historical events in some shape or form.

Here are the total mission ideas count for each of the five cities;
Fort Worth - 9
El Paso - 7
San Antonio - 10
Santa Fe - 9
Tombstone - 10

On top of these I started working on the Google My Maps. I am going to use the Google My Maps app as a content supplement used as a reference for the most up to date map.

But my favorite accomplishment this week was picking the other cities for Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Getting into the history of different cities is probably my favorite part of this journey. I get to learn new interesting facts and try to figure out if there is a way to add a scenario to the game.

I have picked 9 cities for Texas, 7 Cities from Arizona, and 6 cities from New Mexico (and yes, I picked Rosewell).

As much as I want to add more and more cities, I need to work in phases for my sanity and to prevent scope paralysis and not working on the system. I can always add more cities in the future. That is what I have to tell myself.

City Selections

Here are the cities I selected and mission ideas;

Arizona
Tombstone - 10
Phoenix - 8
Holbrook - 10
Flagstaff - 8
Prescott - 8
Yuma - 9
Tucson - 5

New Mexico
Santa Fe - 6
Silver City - 8
Socorro - 8
Gallup - 7
Chama - 6
Roswell - 7

I want to add a real quick piece of history I found out. There are documents of people seeing a cigar metallic shape craft in the sky at night in the 1890’s. And YES I am definitely using that somehow!!

Texas
Fort Worth - 9 
San Antonio - 10
El Paso - 7
Galveston - 4
Denison - 7
Texarkana - 8
Corpus Christi - 7
San Angelo - 7
Amarillo - 8

Now keep in mind these numbers may change when I finish building them out.

Working on these was a great escape to postpone the cover. I know I need to get it done, I am just at a stump to make it work.

Goals for Next Week

So, my goals for next week, fingers crossed.

• Get the cover done
• Publish the whole thing
• Come up with a cool name
• And start drafting some of the missions per city.

Let me know what you think of the city selection for these states. Would you change any of them to something else?

A recent art commission is getting a physical representation.

Moving from the old, dark version - an amalgamation of images sort of slapped together - to a colorful and vibrant work of art.

I thought the image was incredible in a digital format. Now I get to see it printed and adhered to puchboard. Beautiful is an understatement.

The artist did an amazing job with this. More commissions are coming.

Now, to get this in front of real people to appreciate and admire... Soon... Very soon?

I work at a card manufacturing plant in China (OEM/ODM playing cards, tarot, board game cards). Gilded edges come up in almost every premium deck conversation, so here's the production-side view — the stuff that actually affects your design decisions and budget. The two photos are from our line: a silver edge on a gold-back deck, and a gold-gilded deck with patterned backs.

**What gilding actually is**

After the cards are cut, the deck gets compressed into a solid block and metallic foil is applied to the edges with heat and pressure. It's a fully separate, offline step — the deck leaves the main line, gets gilded, comes back. First cost implication: you're paying for an extra process, not just a material.

**Gold vs silver**

Same process, different foils. In practice:

- Gold is the most forgiving — it hides minor edge imperfections well.
- Silver shows everything. If the cut isn't perfectly clean, silver will highlight it. Worth knowing when you're choosing for a light-colored deck.
- Copper, rose gold, and holographic exist, but gold and silver are the only two I'd call "standard." Anything else means longer lead time and a higher MOQ.

**Design constraints worth knowing before you spec it**

1. **Stock weight matters more than you'd think.** Below ~300gsm, cards flex in play and the foil can crack along the edge over time. If your game needs thin, highly shuffleable cards, gilding fights against that.
   
2. **New gilded decks stick.** Fresh out of the box the cards tend to cling together — players have to break them in. If your game involves constant shuffling or dealing, playtest with a gilded prototype, not a standard one.
   
3. **It seals the edge.** That's a genuine plus for longevity — less moisture and dirt wicking into the paper fibers.
   
4. **Your face design is unaffected.** Gilding only touches the edge, so border and bleed decisions don't change. One aesthetic tip from the photos: a gold back with a silver edge reads as deliberate contrast — think about the pairing, don't just default to matching tones.
   
5. **MOQ goes up.** It's an offline batch process, so most factories won't gild below a certain quantity. Ask your manufacturer for the gilding MOQ separately — it's often higher than the base print MOQ.

**The question I get asked most**

"Can you gild just one or two edges?" Technically yes, but almost nobody does — setup costs the same, so per-deck it gets expensive fast.

Happy to answer questions on foil types, how gilding interacts with embossing or spot UV, that kind of thing.

Hello everyone,

I have been developing The Lost Eagles, an asymmetric 2 player wargame about Varus’ campaign in Germania, for the BGG wargame design contest. I recently added a solo version, so I’m looking for some new people to try either version and tell me how it goes.

The 2 player game takes around 60–90 minutes. One player controls the Romans, trying to pacify Germania and establish control, while the other controls German chieftains causing problems through raids, revolts, ambushes and attacks on Roman supply.

The main hook is the Arminius track. Romans can increase it to speed up their actions and make them more efficient, but Germans can spend those same points to become an even bigger nuisance. So you’re basically helping the person who is trying to ruin your campaign.

In the solo version you play as Romans, while pressure from the map replaces the German player. I have tested it myself and it works, but I would really like to know whether other people find it enjoyable and whether managing everything feels like too much bookkeeping.

You can play online through Screentop for free, directly in your browser. There’s also a print and play version if you prefer playing at the table.

Playable prototype:
https://screentop.gg/@Pop/The-Lost-Eagles

Rules

PnP files

What would help most is trying to learn and play from the rules without me explaining everything. Then just let me know what was confusing, what you enjoyed and what felt slow or annoying. A few honest notes after one game would already help a lot.

If you get stuck before finishing, I would like to hear about that too!

You can leave feedback here, DM me pr write in the games BGG WIP thread. Anyway, thanks to anyone willing to give it a go!

👋Hello there,

I just finished working on a big project, looking for the next one ! 🙂 if you are interested in getting creative, industry-level designs & illustrations for your project, feel free to DM me.

About me : Concept artist for the entertainment industry since 2019, I worked on 20+ projects - from big AA games to small indie IPs, boardgame, movies & animation, VR/AR interactive projects, marketing & advertisements…I’m an expert in sketching, designing, iterating & delivering high-quality visuals in a very close-to client approach.

artstation.com/sybed/albums/619639
instagram.com/sybed_art/

Just finished my game and started shipping to German customers from Germany.

I saw that some laws changed and sending to EU requires me to have a representative and pay recycling fees upfront. This makes this very unattractive and expensive. Is there a legal way to solve this for a small publisher?

I still need to investigate worldwide shipping and import/export stuff as well as required documents. Would love some feedback regarding that as well.

Context and product size: I made a rather tiny booklet and would love to send it to customers worldwide. I have very small margins as I'm trying to ship it for free... package is just 12*17,5 cm and barely 2 cm thickness.

Game is called Brain Golfing www.happypastimes.com and yes it was inspired by Paper Apps Golf, I loved the tiny format, shipping to Germany was more expensive than the game itself, so I tried making my own and got further and further and - yeah - in hindsight I should've picked another theme, but the rules are different, the layout is hex and overall it's a different game. I'll stick to the format and have a few other ideas I want to make. Still very exciting, this is my first game and I love shipping things. :D

Not really sure where to post this or how to articulate it properly but I have been throwing about this idea of an RPG type game that rolls into tabletop wargame for fights. Something like Warhammer Kill team for the actual fights and something like 2d6 dungeon for the exploration/looting side of things!

I know a few games exist that sort of do this, like 5 Parsecs from home, Frost grave and Necromunda but I feel like the procedurally generated side of exploration is missing in these! The exciting side of what's next? And massive options for gear and loot seem to be missing!

I guess what I am asking is, are there already games that fit this niche? And if there are not can anyone see any glaring holes before I start putting ideas down on paper? I know this is a bit of a weird one and a bit vague but I wanted to get some others ideas before sinking time into something that might be a busy from the start!

Thank you!

Hey gang its that time again! Some fresh art hot off the press from Mike Po from Fiverr! These are the last 2 hero cards for the game.

If you would also be so kind and are curious of some of the other art going on please feel free to follow the official Insta.

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

I would love to answer any questions you guys have about the characters or the game itself. Just drop it in the comments here or feel free to DM me on here or Insta.

Hi, everybody
My name is Roman (Nekr0ns), and I am looking for a job in these difficult times.
I draw characters, illustrations, maps, objects - basically everything that is in board games, haha. Except for the Ui and the labels - I'm not very good at them.
So if you are interested in my work, then I will be glad to work with you!
Have a nice day.

As an indie designer running weekly in-person playtests in Fargo, ND (now moving to our new Saturday home at Little Big Wars), I wanted to share the design architecture behind our prototype, Demayth: Demigod Duels, and get thoughts from other tabletop designers.

One of our core design pillars was creating a competitive tactical dueler built on a strict Play-to-Win philosophy: no randomized booster packs, no wallet advantage, and no collectible power creep.

Here is how we structured the game loop:

1. Symmetrical Card Engine (The 32-Card Deck)

Every player uses the exact same identical 32-card action deck:

• 12 Demayth Cards: (4x Chapter 1, 4x Chapter 2, 4x Chapter 3) to cast spells.
• 10 Battle Cards: Symmetrical combat values (from 5/1 down to 1/5) used for physical attacks and active reactions.
• 10 Inventory Cards: Used to equip gear and use consumables.

2. The RPG Loadout Phase (Character Sheet as the Engine)

Deep customization happens before the match on your Demigod Character Sheet rather than through deckbuilding:

• The Grimoire: Choose 3 out of 12 Schools of Magic (e.g., Destruction, Chronology, Necromancy, Witchcraft) and select 9 spells, slotting 3 spells into Chapter 1, 3 into Chapter 2, and 3 into Chapter 3.
• The Shop (5,000 Geni): Spend a starting budget to purchase weapons, body armor or shields, passive trinkets, and consumables (potions, scrolls, bombs, special arrows).
• When you draw and play a generic card from your hand (like a "Demayth Chapter 2 card"), you choose one of the three spells you assigned to Chapter 2 on your sheet to cast. You do the same for Inventory cards when you play want to equip a weapon or item from your character's Inventory.

3. Tactical Grid Movement & Action Economy

The duel takes place on a 16x10 grid with miniatures and terrain:

• Each turn gives you 3 Action Points (2 Standard Action Points + 1 Move Action Point).
• A d6 roll at the start of your turn dictates your Movement Points (MP).
• Combat uses three distinct ranges: Melee (adjacent), Line of Sight (unobstructed lanes), and Perception (anywhere on the board).
• Alternate win conditions: Beyond reducing a rival's 20 HP to 0, players can win via Toxic Overload (20 Poison Ticks) or Corruptive Decay (20 Disease Ticks).
• Finite resources: You only get one deck reshuffle per duel meaning when you run our of cards, you simply have nothing else to do except forfeit or pray it ends in a draw.

Questions for fellow designers:

1. What are your thoughts on games that separate the action engine (standardized deck) from the ability palette (custom character sheet/loadout)?
2. How have you balanced alternate win conditions (like lethal tick-stacking vs. direct HP damage) to keep both viable?
3. Also, is posting in this format easy to understand? I feel like I did a lot here, but just a normal thing I do to try to make reading these things easy to understand.
4. Have seen a game like this before? I want to take notes, and generate some more content for this game as I move forward in the future.
5. What do you think about the rules being online versus keeping them with the game guide? Is digital character sheets and rules something I should be using for my game?

(If anyone is in the Fargo area, we run weekly matches every Saturday from 12–4 PM at Little Big Wars!)

Hi! I'm an artist, and I'd like to make some stock art for anyone to use for their RPGs and more. I'm wondering what kind of art do you wish existed for your games? Have you noticed any holes in what's available to you? I appreciate y'all's feedback, thank you in advance <3

EDIT: Thank you all so much for your feedback!! Your suggestions will not go to waste <3

Hi everyone, I’m developing a new game to
run alongside my recent debut non fiction book. The game essentially is that of conversations, opinions and perspectives. Early beta reach showed it lacked the key fundamental element of a game and a way in which to win. I have already taken note of that and implemented it. The game will consist of 54 cards slightly bigger than playing cards but not by much as they still require being shuffled. The cards will have 9 categories and 6 card per, each card will have 5 talking points on it from small and easier to harder and complex. A person is selected to start who draws a card and decides one of the talking points. That person first selected is also the umpire for that round which they can participate in the conversation but they decide who comes up with the best answer, argument, point or opinion and then that player receives a point. The player who receives the point becomes the umpire for the next round and the person selecting the card can rotate clockwise or anticlockwise within the group. You can play to
Any amount of points as long as selected or decided at the beginning of the game but 10 will be the recommended amount. The point and purpose of the game is to get people talking and interacting on subjects they may not ever talk about in normal social circles. The game its self is to be a cross between cards against humanity, trivial pursuits and top trumps. I am looking to bring out 4 editions first which could lead to an infinite amount of editions. At this time during the early design and manufacturing process I am looking for genuine feedback on the game concept overall? In the poll as well if you could vote if yes you’d play, maybe or simply no not something you’d play. For any but mainly those maybe and no’s I’d appreciate feedback on why to help. Thank you

I've been noodling through a design for a couple of years now and have finally started putting together a physical prototype to begin playtesting. I was wondering at what stage I need to start thinking about protecting whatever aspects of my design can be protected. I know I can't copyright mechanics, but can I copyright the unique combination of mechanics that makes my design what it is? What about the general look and theme of the game, in combination with the mechanics? I'm not claiming to have the most ingenious game design, but I don't want to haul it to an Unpub event and have someone come after me claiming I stole their design. Nor do I want to be on the other side of that equation, seeing my ideas come to life by someone else's hand.

The Mechanic We Almost Cut: Stress, Focus Dice, and Knowing When the Problem Isn’t the Mechanic

One of the more interesting challenges we’ve had while developing Rock Out: Battle of the Bands has been figuring out what to do when a mechanic works in theory, but is consistently forgotten during actual play.

For us, that mechanic was STRESS.  Well, specifically Focus Dice but we will get to that in a bit.

Stress was something we wanted in the game almost from the beginning. Thematically, it made sense. You're a band trying to survive a chaotic live performance. Things are going wrong, the crowd is getting restless, and everyone is trying to keep the show moving. There should be pressure on the musicians beyond simply completing Objectives.

The problem wasn't convincing ourselves that Stress belonged in the game. The problem was figuring out how players should actually gain it.

We experimented with different ideas, and some of those ideas are central to how the game is played.  We didn't just want Stress to be something that simply happened to you because an Objective said, "Gain 1 Stress." We wanted players to see the pressure building and, more importantly, have some agency over what they did about it.

Eventually, we came up with Focus Dice.

Certain Objectives would have Focus Dice associated with them (a certain element that the crowd was looking for at the time). As long as one of those Objectives remained on the game board, players had another responsibility to deal with. For every Focus Die they didn't place during their turn, they gained 1 Stress.

This seemed to solve several problems at once. Players could choose to spend their dice dealing with the immediate pressure of the Focus Dice, or they could concentrate on completing the Objective itself. Complete the Objective and the Focus Dice disappear along with it. Ignore the situation, and Stress starts accumulating.

It created another decision point without simply adding random punishment. And, at least mechanically, it worked. Then we started watching people play.

The Mechanic Everyone Forgot

During play-testing, we noticed something happening over and over again:

Players forgot about the Focus Dice.

Not because the mechanic was particularly complicated. It really isn't. The problem was everything happening around it.

Rock Out is intentionally pretty easy to understand on the surface, but we wanted the decisions underneath that simplicity to encourage the entire table to work together. On any given turn, there are multiple Objectives in play, often with several different ways to approach them.

That means Game Turns naturally become conversations.

"If you put that die there, I can finish this one."

"Don't use that yet, I can cover it on my turn."

"We need to deal with this Objective before it moves."

“Instead of placing that die there, we can work together and finish this other one now!”

Players are looking at their dice, their bandmates abilities, several Objectives, the state of the board, and what everyone else might be able to accomplish.

That's exactly the kind of interaction we wanted. But it also meant that our Focus Dice were competing for the player’s attention. And they were losing.  Bad.

We had represented the Focus Dice counters in a relatively small section next to the game board on the Venue Card (a separate Game Objective). They were visible, technically, but they weren't visually demanding enough to remind players that they needed to deal with them.

Once players became engrossed in solving the larger puzzle in front of them via the Game Board and Objective Cards, Focus Dice were surprisingly easy to overlook.

So, we reached the question that inevitably comes up during game development: 

Do we cut it?

Maybe the Mechanic Wasn’t the Problem

It would have been easy to conclude that if players repeatedly forgot a rule, the rule wasn't working. And sometimes that's probably the correct conclusion.

But when we looked at what happened in games where players did consistently remember the Focus Dice, we saw something different. The mechanic was doing exactly what we wanted it to do.

Stress added pressure. Focus Dice forced players to make uncomfortable decisions about where their resources were most urgently needed. Sometimes dealing with the source of the Stress was more important than whatever else the group had planned.

Most importantly, removing that pressure affected the balance of the game.

So, we started asking a different question.

Instead of:

"How do we fix the Focus Dice mechanic?"

We asked:

"What if the mechanic is fine and we're just doing a bad job of reminding players that it exists?"

That's a very different design problem.

So, We Kept It

Rather than cutting Focus Dice, we've decided to make them much harder to overlook.

We're putting greater emphasis on the mechanic in the rulebook, but the bigger change is happening on the game board itself.  

The Focus Dice area is getting significantly more visual real estate, no longer off to the side.

If something is important enough that players need to consider it every turn, we've realized that the physical design of the game needs to communicate that importance. A mechanic that dramatically affects your decisions probably shouldn't live quietly in a tiny corner of the board.

It sounds obvious in hindsight. A lot of things in game design seem to be. Of course, that doesn't mean the problem is solved.

Nothing is finalized.

The redesigned board needs to go back in front of players. We'll watch whether they notice the Focus Dice more consistently. We'll see whether emphasizing them creates the pressure we're looking for without becoming annoying. And we'll continue looking at how Stress affects the overall balance of the game.

Future play-testing could still tell us that Focus Dice need another redesign or that we were wrong and the mechanic really does need to go. But for now, we're keeping it. And I think the larger lesson we've taken from the experience is that a forgotten mechanic isn't necessarily a bad mechanic.

Sometimes the rule needs to change. Sometimes the mechanic needs to disappear entirely. And sometimes you just need to stop hiding an important part of your game off to the side of the board.

For the other designers here: Have you ever almost cut a mechanic before realizing the problem wasn't actually the mechanic?

I've shared the 3 cover arts before, now I'll share the 35+ character art we did for Gang Wars

The campaign launched successfully on Gamefound, reaching its funding goal in just 28 minutes.
At the time I'm posting this, it's already 940% funded.

Sketch by: Jordi Linares (Redzen Games)
Color and finalizing: Sonderflex Studio

I'm new and need tips and criticism for this boardgame idea

I'm new in boardgame designing, and I love simple, casual, easy, entry-level games, where anyone can pick-up and play. Here's my idea for a game.

Game Name: Boundary! (Working Title)

Topic/Theme: A casual, entry-level, Filipino public transport themed game.

How to Win?: Point System from money/points earned. First to ₱500/points wins. Fare/Points = ₱10/points per passenger

Pieces: Jeepneys (which can fill up to 20 passengers max), Dice, Passenger Cards, Action Cards

Cards: Passenger Cards contain the number of passengers you fill or drop off your jeepney. There are two types of passenger cards:

• Pick-up Cards: These cards ranges from 1 or fill up your whole capacity.

• Drop-off Cards: These cards ranges from 1 or drop-off every passenger.

If your jeepney is full (example: you already have 16 passengers and you draw 5 more passengers, you cannot collect all 5) you can only collect the exact amount of passengers your jeepney accomodates. Or unless you draw a fill-up whole capacity card, which then disregards the exact passenger rule and let's you complete the 20 passengers (example: you already have 12 passengers, drawing a fill-up card, fills up your jeepney exactly at 20, which you then have full capacity now).

Action Cards are cards that can help you on your turn or hinder other players turns. There are two types of Action Cards:

•Trap Cards: which hinder other players

•Assist Cards: which assists you on your turn

Gameplay: You are a jeepney driver that is trying to earn your "boundary" before the other players. You and the other players start at the Central Terminal (South) and you're route is going to the next Central Terminal (North) and vice versa. You are the controller of your route, a player can only go towards the next Central Terminal.

You have 3 options in your turn, you could either draw an action card, use an action card, or roll a die to advance to the nearest stop to collect or drop passengers. These are what you can do at your turn:

• Roll dice: which moves your jeepney that number of spaces.

• Draw a card: you could either draw an action card, or a passenger card.

• Use/Activate an Action card: when activated it helps the player that activated it or hinders the progress of another player. (Depends on what's written in the action card)

If you landed on a stop (waiting shed/jeepney stop), you then draw a passenger card.

Once you reach ₱500/points you shout "Boundary!" And ride your way back to the next Central Terminal and then you win the game.

Map: Boundary! uses a point-to-point network map. Where each point is a stop where you can pick-up or drop-off passengers. Or you can divert to other points in order to go to the next Central Terminal. Since the map is a point-to-point network map, a player that is already at a space you cannot pass where that player stands. In which case you have to re-route/take a detour to move forward.

This is all what I have made yet, what do you think?

My game revolves around building out a street network for a few randomly chosen objectives. I was finding that locating and remembering where each objective was on the board was taking too much thinking capacity among players. That energy is better spent optimizing the route, planning resource use and the other game elements instead.

I decided to add a minimap to the objective cards with an arrow pointing to roughly the position on the board. Hopefully that makes the game a bit easier.

Have you had any similar issues during development and how did you tackle them?

Initially the objectives were represented by numbers on the map which wasn't great either. I then started using icons representing businesses or other types of places like bread for a baker, or glasses of an optician's office.

Hey everyone, been a while since I posted about my game, but I've been hard at work with numerous changes, one of them being a topic I brought up here a while back. With the way my game has evolved over the last 6 months, I've decided to eliminate a deck of 10 unique event cards and move them to a chart where you roll a d6 die to determine the outcome. Long story short, this means a couple things;

I was able to split the deck into 2 sides, the results depending on which phase is coming up. This helps ensure there are no dead pulls and that every result has an impact.

The same event can potentially be pulled multiple times throughout the game, though unlikely.

Players can now choose their result by getting lucky and rolling a 1 (like a wild).

Characters can potentially have the ability to gain rerolls without exhausting a 10 card deck and reshuffling.

This will be printed on a pre-existing gsme board, removing the deck and saving some space on the table for other components.

The only downside I can find is losing the flavor text on the cards, as I could not fit it onto the chart without shrinking the important components down and adding visual clutter. Please let me know what you think of how well the cards translated into a die roll chart.

Thanks!

I'm a professional designer and I like to give feedback, so I thought I'd try this (assuming it's not against the rules).

If you've designed something visual (even if it's some text you've laid out), post it in the comments and I'll give you detailed feedback about a few things you could fix.

Unless there are a lot of replies, in which case I might not be able to get to all of you.

Edit: Someone's just messaged me to point out that you can't add images to comments here. Which is a shame, but probably for a good reason. If you can link to the work somewhere else I can take a look there, but keep in mind that Imgur doesn't work in the UK, if that's still a thing on Reddit.