Making your first board game — A storytelling journey
It’s quite tough making your first board game. Tabletop, card, and board games, in general, are beacons of pleasure and community. Friends and family may spend time together by playing games. I also understand that the only thing better than playing a board game with other people is playing YOUR board game with other people.
My objective is to assist you in creating that amazing game that you can’t stop thinking about. We’ll show you how to come up with ideas, create your game, advertise it, and publish it.
If you’re working on a future project, bringing your ideas to reality, for the first time, may be both exciting and frustrating. That is never more true than in board games.
If you want to self-publish a game by yourself or with a small team, I’ll be adding a new piece to this series every week for the next year, and perhaps much longer. In it, I’ll walk you through every stage of the board game production process, from fundamental concepts to ideas on design, development, manufacturing, crowdfunding via sites like Kickstarter, selling, and marketing.
If you’re reading this far in the article, you’re the type of person I’m writing for.
So what is a game?
A simple answer is — A game is an enjoyable activity with a goal, restrictions, and interaction.
When you remove the goal, you’re left with free-form entertainment. When the limits are removed, there is no competition, which is the natural outcome of any game. Remove the interaction — whether it’s between the player and the game or between players — and you’re left with a sequence of disconnected occurrences that don’t add up to anything meaningful.
Games are, especially board games, about having fun, interacting with others, socializing, competing, and enjoying the company you keep. Much of game creation, as well as the entrepreneurship that goes with it, is about expressing yourself and imprinting your unique meaning on the world via your creative pursuits.
You do not need to obtain my approval.
You don’t need permission from anyone. I’m only here to pique your interest and explain what board game jargon means.
So for this first article, go out and play some of these great games —
Classics:
- Settlers of Catan
- Pandemic
- Twilight Struggle
- Dominion
- Agricola
- 7 Wonders
- Splendor
- Dixit
- Hive
- Mysterium
- Terra Mystica
- Jaipur
- Power Grid
- Netrunner
And some newer entrants —
- Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
- Gloomhaven
- Scythe
- Terraforming Mars
- 7 Wonders Duel
- Blood Rage
- Great Western Trail
- Food Chain Magnate
To read more about board game development —
