I need to make some changes for final version

Sorry for the delay, but as I promised in my previous post, here I go showing off pictures of my party/race hybrid game (Pinnacle) like a proud father bragging about his newborn. Feel free to let me know what you think of them and happy viewing!

I'm still on cloud nine that it's now a "real" game 🤩.

Hi All - would love some feedback. The basic question: Does the Kickstarter need polish? Does the game not look interesting? do we simply need more marketing? or something else?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/themothership/the-mothership-board-game

A little background:

We are wrapping up day 2 of our Kickstarter campaign, and knowing we are about 20% funded, I have to imagine it's going to be tough for us to grow enough organic interest over the rest of the campaign to hit our funding goal.

We have been posting to our socials (Facebook, IG, TikTok), and running meta ads. Our friends and family have been very supportive, which is where we've gather most of the funding. Meta ads seem to be generating VERY little interest based on the Kickstarter analytics.

I'd want to believe it's our marketing efforts, because as a first time designer I think our game and Kickstarter look good (I get that I am biased - it's why I'm here asking for feedback😄 ) and simply I just need to refocus our marketing efforts.

If you think it's one particular thing (the game, the KS, our messaging, the marketing, etc.), let me know, if you think there is a resource that can help - please let me know. The wife and I are pretty invigorated to make this successful, but just need some direction at this point.

I recently ordered a batch of cards from DriveThruCards. When I got the cards, it looks like there is quite a bit of variance in the colors on some of the backs. This is my first time interacting with a printer. I told them about this issue and they are going to ship me a new deck.

Has anyone else experienced similar print issues with DTC or other printers?

I checked my files and the colors I sent were consistent across the backs of the cards, so I don't think this is a print issue. Looking at the files I provided, it looks like the earlier cards in the run had a deeper/richer hue than the rest.

Any advice on stopping issues like this in the future? I'd like to do a bulk order of my game cards at some point. I am concerned about spending cash on cards and getting inconsistent results.

Hello everyone,

I am in a graduate program in User Experience Design and am beginning to work on my major project for my course. I know quite a few people use BGG or Reddit to get information like board game reviews, rule clarifications, and pricing for purchasing/selling. If you could take a minute or two to answer these couple of questions to help me figure out if my idea to propose and produce a better board game database has a need, I would appreciate it.

1) Do you use BGG, Reddit, and/or another site or app for crowdsourcing board game information?

2) What information do you normally use the board game specific websites or apps for?

3) Do you have issues with the current platforms you use? If so, please briefly describe them.

4) What is one thing you would like to see in a board game information platform that is not currently there or that you would like to see more emphasized?

Thanks for your time in reading this post, and feel free to let me know if there are any questions!

It’s not like it’s a common occurence to me and I’ve yet to act on them but I have had two dreams in recent years that included a game.

The first one was a solo RPG crossed with a coloring book. The colors you use to color a scene would affect the outcome of that scene. I don’t really have any experience with solo journalling type games so I have no idea how I’d turn that concept into a real experience. I figure you’d pick limited colors (5?) and it would be a moody dream-like exploration of a magical landscape.

The other came to me more recently and prompted this post. This one I was playing with others and they were telling me to pick a starter unit. There were face down plastic token and I flipped one revealing a curved shark silhouette in white on a lavender background. I asked what it did and I was told ‘it doesn’t need an action to dive underwater’. I figured it was some sort of tactical confrontation with different terrain type. There was also, somehow, a legacy aspect where you put a sticker on a LEGO block component. I understood it as having to ‘build’ your unit by purchasing studs and putting stickers on the bricks fo identify them to a unit. And I understood that each stud was an action. I don’t know why both tokens and bricks were a component or why it was specifically a building brick.

Not sure if eitgee of those could be anything :p

Info in link. Crosspost from the r/bostonboardgames. I hope this doesn't break posting rules. As a fellow designer, this is an opportunity for other designers in the Boston area to demo their game at a convention for free.

So, currently I'm working on a solitaire pick up and deliver game.

It's pretty small scale:

On a hex grid with 7 hexes (2 left, 3 center, 2 right) you've got 7 guests. Deliver as many as possible with food of their liking.

However, I'm a bit at a loss regarding an interesting goal. Because currently it is "deliver as many as possible" leading to "beat this and that score to win" .. are you aware of any more interesting goals for a game like that?

Many thanks in advance,

Kai

My wife and I designed Street Food Shuffle, a card-drafting party game about Indian street food (2-6 players, 5-10 minute rounds). We’ve playtested it with 100+ people, and this week it got accepted into District Arcade, IGDA DC’s showcase of local game makers in Washington DC.

The twist: past editions have been all video games. We may be the only card game in the room, and the crowd is a walk-up mix of families, kids, gamers and other developers.

What we’re working with:

• One 2'×5' table, 4 hours, no sales allowed (QR codes are fine)
• Plan is a short 3-4 player round so people can sit down, play and move on

For those of you who’ve demoed tabletop at mixed or digital-heavy events:

1. What made people stop and sit down instead of walking past?
2. How did you shorten the rules pitch for drop-ins?
3. Anything that worked for collecting emails without being pushy?

Happy to share what we learn afterward.

Hello! I just want to know or understand the community's pulse when it comes to voicing their videos.

As someone who's not from a country that English is not the main language, what do you think is acceptable to do if ever I do a voice over on my videos?

a. Try to speak in English and it's alright? Altho I tried this but people either have guessed my accent or laugh about it.

b. Native Language with subtitle? or maybe just subtitles?

c. Generated voice over in English with subtitles?

I did not include hiring voice actors since it is too expensive in just for a prototype.

Strategy games are all about the decisions you can make as a player. Players are also generally very good at identifying the short-term costs and benefits of a decision. So when you want to encourage chaotic board states in a strategy game, the last thing you want to do is discourage players from attacking. If you can throw aside the simulation lens for a moment, what I hope to convey is that as strategy game designers, we should evaluate attacker/defender advantage as an entire system within our game that can strongly affect player behavior.

Player agency is probably the most important factor in differentiating a strategy game from other game types. If player decisions do not significantly affect the outcome of a turn for that player, then you might as well not have played that turn. I’m very specifically interested in the dice-rolling combat of Risk and Risk-likes as this is the system I chose to use in my game, Kairos. 

If we take a look at Risk, which uses Defenders Advantage (defenders win ties) you get the following probability table for dice rolls:

In this table, I’ve provided the probabilities of each roll, as well as an exchange ratio which is the (Expected Kills / Expected Losses). 1.0 corresponds to a 50-50 probability of winning an exchange, so above 1.0 is attacker favored and below 1.0 is defender favored. 

In Risk, the attacking player lacks agency over the effectiveness of their army. Ignoring the scenarios with only 1 defender for a moment, the exchange ratios (or “odds”) for the attacking player are ~1.17, 0.64, and 0.34. That translates into real terms to the player “Decent, bad, and terrible”. Because two of the options have such poor expected outcomes, they can pretty much be ignored as options by the player, which means we now only have 1 option, and no more decisionmaking regarding unit odds. This means that once a player learns that 2v2 and 1v2 are bad options, they never have to think about unit probabilities again. In my opinion, the juicy part of strategy games is trying to guess the long term expected outcomes of decisions, and manipulating the odds to favor me over my opponents turn by turn. 

There is a whole body of literature on how humans interact psychologically with probabilities when making decisions, which was the basis for me wanting to skew the positive outcomes onto the player with agency (i.e., the attacker) rather than the defender. The gist of it is that humans (thus players) are irrationally more averse to losses than wins. This means that if we want to encourage players to make decisions that carry the potential for losses, we need to offset this with significantly larger benefits. The subject is fascinating, but I want to focus on the game design element in this post. If you are interested, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17835457/  and Achievement Relocked: Loss Aversion and Game Design by Geoffrey Engelstein are great places to start. 

So what can we do to increase player’s agency over the game? First, I want to shift the default scenario to be significantly in the attacker’s favor, as the defender cannot “choose” to defend. I also need there to be some secondary system that the attacking player has the ability to recognize, and consider when deciding which territories they attack. 

My solution: Attackers win ties + a rock-paper-scissors counter system with “advantage” provided to the strong unit. Advantage = roll 2 dice, take higher result

Looking at the outcomes of this table is a bit more straightforward because I chose to have all battles in Kairos occur one-at-a-time (this was to make the counter system work). By shifting the tiebreak to the attacker, the default odds goes towards the attacker, but thats not an interesting decision yet. That is why I added the counter system: Infantry is strong vs cavalry, cavalry is strong vs archers, and archers are strong vs infantry. The players can recruit any of these 3 types of units to assemble their armies, but this recruitment step happens AFTER the attacking step, meaning that the attacker needs to identify their unit types, identify their opponent’s unit types, and estimate the odds of the battle given the available units.

In any given battle, there is likely to be some mixture of all three scenarios, meaning the expected outcome of a fight will fall somewhere between 0.73 and 2.93. The attacking player must try to estimate the complex probabilities of attacking, which gives them that juicy ability to develop a skill over time and win more of their games. With this, the attacker is:

1. Encouraged to attack as a default (attacking options are okay, better, and best), which keeps the board state chaotic and fresh
2. Has the opportunity to estimate complex probabilities, and skew fights in their behavior by taking matchups with favorable counters
3. Can strategically opt into a moderate-loss scenario to take a highly valuable location on the map.

As an unintended but welcome benefit, I can now also use the tiebreak as a modifier on the dice values to provide as a bonus to the defender for fortifying a territory or investing in defensive tools. So the defender has agency over which territories are harder to take in ways other than just more units, and the attacker has agency over the efficiency of their attacks. Both are encouraged to push into this “positive expected value” regime, rather than minimizing losses.

In conclusion, shifting the odds towards the player with agency over the game allows for players to express skill and have a more rewarding experience while playing strategy games.

Hi all,

I’ve designed a game called Wonder of the Gods. It’s been playtested extensively, and I’m pitching it to publishers.

I would love to have some playtests of the recently finished solo mode - would anyone be interested in doing this?

It would be on Tabletop Simulator (I already have 2-4P set up on there, so can quickly create the 1P version if there is interest).

It’s a medium-weight spatial puzzle - see this 3 min video for more details:

https://youtu.be/vS74P_DZHzQ?is=JSaNyS3jmnii4oTF

The solo mode has a very light touch automa, and gives you target victory points to reach.

Let me know if you would like to playtest, and I can create it in TTS and send you the rules.

Hopefully it’d be an interesting experience to test the game and give any feedback, as well as being an enjoyable gaming experience in itself!

Thank you :)

Elliot

Buenas! Quería compartir algo que me está pasando con mi proyecto y conocer sus opiniones, especialmente de quienes hayan diseñado juegos, publicado alguno o estén metidos en el mundo de los juegos de mesa.

Estoy trabajando en la creación de mi propia editorial de juegos de mesa en Argentina. Mi idea inicial era lanzar Pilares de la Naturaleza, un juego en el que vengo trabajando y que tiene bastantes componentes, tablero y una producción relativamente compleja.

La verdad es que estoy muy convencido del juego y creo que tiene mucho potencial. El problema apareció cuando empecé a hablar con proveedores y a pedir presupuestos. Los costos de producción son bastante más altos de lo que puedo afrontar en esta primera etapa, y tampoco quiero resolverlo sacrificando demasiada calidad. Una de las cosas que quiero que caracterice a mi editorial es justamente el cuidado por los componentes y la calidad de los juegos.

Así que me puse a pensar si no tenía más sentido empezar con algo más pequeño, que me permitiera dar los primeros pasos, conocer el mercado y construir la editorial de a poco.

Ahí apareció Yo no fui!, un juego de cartas que tenía en mente desde hace un tiempo, pero que hasta ahora era apenas un prototipo bastante feo. Decidí retomarlo y empezar a trabajar en serio en su diseño.

La idea del juego, resumida:

• Hay varios inocentes y un único culpable, que tiene una condición secreta que debe cumplir durante el debate.
• Se revela una situación y cada jugador tiene que construir una defensa usando un objeto aleatorio y una carta de acusación.
• Todos debaten, inventan sus explicaciones e intentan descubrir quién es el culpable.
• Cuando se acaba el tiempo, se vota. Hay un sistema de puntuación sencillo y se juegan cinco rondas. Gana quien consiga más puntos al final!

La gracia está en que el culpable tiene que defenderse cumpliendo su condición secreta, mientras los demás intentan argumentar, improvisar y descubrir quién está mintiendo.

Por ahora estoy trabajando en el diseño de las cartas, y creo que puede ser una buena opción para lanzar primero algo más accesible en cuanto a producción.

Pero me gustaría conocer sus opiniones:

• ¿Les parece sensato empezar una editorial con un juego de cartas más económico de producir y dejar un proyecto más ambicioso para después?
• ¿Creen que un juego de debate, improvisación y roles ocultos como Yo no fui! puede funcionar bien en el mercado argentino?
• ¿Qué les hace decidirse por un juego de una editorial nueva? ¿La mecánica, el arte, la calidad de los componentes, las recomendaciones?
• Si estuvieran en mi lugar, ¿intentarían lanzar primero el juego más ambicioso o apostarían por uno más pequeño para empezar?

Me interesa especialmente escuchar experiencias reales, críticas y opiniones sinceras. No busco que me digan que la idea está buenísima porque sí; quiero aprender y tomar una buena decisión antes de meterme en una inversión importante.

Gracias por leer gente! Y les dejo algunas screenshots de como viene el diseño de las cartas, todo el arte hecho por mi! Un saludo!!

Suppose some effect in a game references "a Merchant card". Assuming there was no card or type just called "Merchant", but various cards whose names with names like "Spice Merchant" and "Apprentice Merchant", would it be intuitive and obvious that the effect interacted with those cards? Would you also assume it applied to the cards "Merchant Caravan" and "Merchant Ship"?

I made a free Kaiju skirmish game. It's Print & play or Tabletop simulator.
So it plays pretty well. It's been in heavy rotation w/ my sweaty MtG group for months now. It's pretty easy to teach in person, but man does the rulebook not do a good job of getting anyone anyone from 0 to playing.

In person, it's easy to teach set-up, and then what you do in a round, and then teach the things that happen as they come up, It's much harder to get that last part from the written rules.

The game has some bits like if you destroy a special type of building a special event is triggered. So if I'm there I can stop the game and go over the procedures as they come, but its' very easy to miss them if you don't already know.

I mostly work in RPG design, and it feels from watching testers, that RPG players are fine w/going to the rulebook, but boardgame folks want to hold all the rules in their head at once.

I think I'm at the point that I can't see the forest for the trees. No idea what in the book makes sense to folks that don't already know the game. I'm also out of people I know IRL that haven't seen it yet.

So, if anyone here would be so kind as to try a cold read of the rules and drop a flag wherever it loses the thread?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FU5TpZ8Kces3G3xRRvCW1MV4HYATg5bwRV7eEj2VDLc/edit?usp=sharing

The game was going by “Monster Hunters” but will obviously change as that is already owned. I was thinking maybe realm of monsters but who knows.

I have about twenty years of game designs that I’m starting to build out as browser based games for testing. I really need some folks interested in testing these games. If your someone that likes to play board games than maybe you can help me out. I’m making these available online in essentially a mechanics only variation. I’ll be adding art and making it pretty as time goes on. But right now it’s using basic coding to test the mechanics. Any help is appreciated.

Play(dot)newgamestudios(dot)com

I’m creating a board game inspired by pokemon and other creature collector games. I’ve already thought about most of the rules, how the board will look like, how will movement work, the battle system, the capture system, encounter system, win coditions, etc. the only thing i’ve been struggling to come up with, it’s the setting of the game. I’m not trying to compete with pokemon, i just want to create something inspired by it, to express my love to the franchise and to make something to play with my friends, but i’m also really demaning of my own creations and i wanted to my setting to atleast be a little unique, but also mantaining the essence of pokemon. I’ve tried a lot and had come up with some setting ideas, but i’m still a little undecisive. Can someone help me with this?

Hello everyone

I'm André, a small designer from Switzerland. I've been working on First Down Snap, a quick 2-player American football card game. Before I commit to a print run I put a free browser version online so people can actually play it instead of reading rules on a PDF file.

Short version of how it works:

- Offense and defense each pick a play card in secret (Draw, Blitz...)

- Cards are revealed, check the position tokens and let the dice roll. A matchup table decides who wins the down.

- 4 downs per drive, you can kick a field goal or go for the touchdown

- Weather cards change the dice each drive

You can play vs the computer, pass-and-play on one phone, or online with a friend via code. No signup, no ads.

FIRST DOWN SNAP WEB

What I'd really like to know:

1. Did the rules click after one game, or was something confusing?

2. Does the matchup + dice combo feel like real decisions, or too random?

3. How long did your game take, and did it feel too long/short?

4. Card art and look: does it fit a football game?

5. Would you play this as a physical card game?

Be blunt, that's why I'm posting. Thanks for taking the time.

I've been working on Kravestorm, a print-and-play card game, and wanted to show what an actual match looks like.

So I put together a full simulated game between two players, with commentary covering the decisions, strategies, and interactions as the match unfolds.

It's not really a how-to-play tutorial, but more of a way to get a feel for the gameplay without having to learn all the rules first.

The game and starter decks are free to download, but for now I'd just love to hear what other card game players think of how it plays.

And more specifically, which software would you recommend when starting out for designing board games? I’m fairly new to board game design and a total beginner at graphic design

In order to play test my board game without needing to pay to print a bunch of copies for play testing. And to make it easier to collect data and update rules I created the play test in defold.

You can check it out here: Ziusudra A trick taking board game by Kabocha Games (https://schlista.itch.io/ziusudra)

Feel free to give it a test. You can play 3 and 4 players by yourself by adding bots, or sharing the room code with friends. 2 Player mode requires 2 human players (there are no bots). And Solo…well you can play that mode by yourself.

Feel free to leave feedback on itch.io or here. To be clear I'm not promoting this game. I'm looking for playtesters to provide feedback on the game design/mechanics. While it is played in a browser, the intent is to go to production with it, once the mechanics are sound and I believe it scratches a new itch in trick taking games with some unique mechanics. And theme-wise I think it does nail the Sumerian mythological history.

Feedback should be focused on gameplay as if it was being played as a board game not a PC game (please).

Ziusudra: Before the Waters (Playtest Build)

This is a playtest, not a finished game. Ziusudra is a physical card and board game I’m designing. This browser version lets people play it and tell me what works and what doesn’t before the rules and components are final. Expect rough edges and rule changes between builds.

The game

The river is rising. Along its banks, the cities of Eridu, Sippar, Nippur, Uruk and Shuruppak hold the Me, the divine powers of civilization. You lead a house trying to claim those powers and hold the last cities standing when the Flood arrives. The game is named for Ziusudra, the king of Shuruppak who survived the flood in Sumerian myth.

It’s a trick-taking card game combined with area control. The deck has 48 cards in four suits: Humans, Watchers, Giants and the Anunnaki, who can bind the lead suit and take the trick.

• Chapters 1–3*:* Collect. Each chapter, secretly choose a city and its Challenge, then play eight tricks. A Challenge might ask you to win at least one trick, win four or more, forecast your exact total, or take none at all. Control the city and complete its Challenge to claim its Me, a permanent power you can use in later chapters.
• Chapters 4–6: Battle. The Flood drowns a city before each chapter. Use your Me to fight for the cities that survive. Every city you hold scores points, and the payout grows each chapter.
• Laws revealed during the game change how the cards play.

At the end, the highest score wins: battle points plus one point for each Me and Challenge token.

Ways to play

• 3–4 players (Standard): play online with friends, fill empty seats with bots, or mix both.
• 2 players: two people plus an automated rival, the Watcher.
• Solo siege: you against the City Garrison. Claim Me before the Flood reaches 6.

Getting started

1. Click to launch, enter a name and accept gameplay recording (see below).
2. Create a room and share its eight-letter code with friends, or add bots to the empty seats. Solo siege is a good first game.
3. The full rules are inside the game, on the setup screen and under the Rules button during play.

If you close the tab, come back and choose Resume saved seat to rejoin your game.

What I need from you

I’m running this build to collect feedback. Press the Feedback button at any point in a game. Your note is saved with the exact chapter and trick, so I can see what was happening. I’d most like to know:

Were the rules clear? Where did you get confused?

Did your choices feel meaningful, or did the cards decide for you?

Did any city, Challenge, Me or Law feel too strong or too weak?

Did the game feel too long or too short?

Any bugs, crashes or anything that looked wrong.

You can also leave a comment on this page.

Good to know

Games are recorded. Moves and feedback are stored on the game server so I can study balance and reproduce bugs. You’ll be asked to agree before you create or join a room.

Play on a desktop or laptop. Phones and tablets aren’t supported yet.

Online only. You need an internet connection and a recent desktop browser.

The rules will change as I test them, so a later build may play differently.

EDIT: It does play on mobile as I just tested it, but it's pretty small and hard to read.

So many game mechanics based on luck... can a dexterity-based game mechanic get any love in this day and age?

Don't get me wrong, I love rolling a nice D-20 as much as the next guy, and my favorite games have a mix of luck and strategy. But I feel like there is a huge dexterity-shaped hole in board gaming. Does anyone know some cool dexterity based game mechanics? I'm talking throwing a ball through a hoop or tying a cherry-stem in a knot with your tongue type-stuff. Anything done physically with your hands or body. Preferably something that can be small and fit in a board game box.

I have one idea that I've never seen but I think would be cool. It would be a small, long flat box, like a bowling lane. The top of the box is covered with a long glass or plastic window. At the player's end of the long box is a small opening in the window. The player is given a small round token like a bead or a flat marble. They place the token down flat in the opening. The player slides the token down the long box, toward the end protected by the window. At that opposite end, the bottom of the box has rows and columns of spaces with numbers in them. The sliding token/bead will land in one of these spaces. These numbers can be associated with whatever outcomes the game designer chooses (e.g. low numbers bad/ high numbers are good). The longer the box, the harder it is for a player to land on any precise spot on the far end. Like if you are doing D&D style TTRPG, instead of just rolling dice you can, "slide for defense" or whatever. This would ad an element of skill/dexterity to games while also preserving a good amount of luck.

This could be fashioned in so many ways. You could organize the numbers/outcomes so that there are "hot spots" where the high numbers are grouped together. Or you could evenly distribute the numbers so that the highest and lowest are right next to each other, thereby making luck a greater factor. You could make the box longer so that it's harder to hit the numbers in the far back, and make those the more desirable/risky numbers. The game designer can choose the number of columns and rows as fits their game, the dimensions of the box, the friction of the materials, etc

I'm probably stupid and this is already a thing. But I havent seen it. This idea is most similar to throwing skee-ball at Chuck-E-Cheese or that game retired old people play where they slide things on the ground with sticks

Hi everyone! I just want to share a part of video that I'm editing. It's a playthrough of MonoSaga that me and my friends recorded months ago.

Many parts of the game are still not included and it may seem to give an incomplete impression. Here are some of the features that the video has not yet explained:

1. Marketplace - Items, Magics, and Structures can be bought from this area with resources.

2. Action Point - Each player has 1 action point for buy, sell, or use.

3. Inventory - This involves you hand card management and playing field

4. World Cycle - Game's countdown for Finale

5. Win Conditions - Economic and Elimination

6. Anti-Snowball Systems - Catch up system in Start Tile, Ghost Die, and others

Additionally some of card effects and visuals in this video are mostly outdated and will not be included in Build 5.0 release.

Will try to finish the playthrough video if I get more free time, it's really a bit challenging to do everything alone. hehe