10 Steps to Design a Tabletop Game (2020 version)

It's impressive how clear you manage to point things out when talking about game design and pitching games to a publisher. Very helpful and entertaining, thanks :)

Youve convinced me. Im gonna do it.

Im gonna make a game where 3 to 6 people compete to fuck bigfoot.

$30-40 tops for selling at Target? Nova Ark sells at Target for $75.

Two of my favorite games are war of the ring and Twilight Imperium 4…. When I comes to combat their both dice based. Roll a certain amount of dice they hit on certain numbers. Something I’ve been playing with and would like to see in a war game is the thematic idea of battle experience. Units that survive battle become improved and hit on lower numbers to a certain point. I think it’s thematically cool, but also a strategic element. Maybe have a stacking limit of experienced soldiers or how many you can have.

Great video! Thanks for the info.. Honestly, one of the biggest things that has previously held me back is sharing my game publically. I was afraid of someone possibly stealing my idea, but like you mentioned, if you get it out there, then it can be traced back to you originally.

Great video. It would be great if you could expand on two points please.
How do YOU judge when a game is or isn't working?
Have you ever hired a developer for any of your games?
Thanks

As a Trello alternative I would recommend Obsidian Notes, its a markup note taking app that is very customizable, i find it even more useful than trello

So you're the scythe designer?!?!😮😮

I find it curious how late rules writing is.
For me, when I design games, rules writing happens during or shortly after brain storming,
Reason for this is to have a clear and concise reference document for people to refer to during play testing.
Granted, the rules document is going to change a lot in that time, which is usually why it isn't printed out at this stage, but it's simply there to have something to refer back to in case you somehow forget the finer details of your own work. In my experience it also makes things a lot less waffly when you can just point at the document and say with clarity what you wanted to happen instead of going "uh, I don't know, how about this?"

Panda Games Manufacturing. Noted.

How did you make the jump from a daytime job to full time creator of your own games? I would love to pursue developing my own ideas but this can be very time consuming. Any advice is appreciated.

I'm working on my first game idea, it's new territory for me but I'm enjoying it very much! Was able to print out a rough version and already identified some things that need to change.
Thanks for sharing all this information and resources! The icons website will be amazingly helpful!

This was super helpfull, thanks. I've designed a few games my self,🎲🎮 but I've never published one.😄😃

So useful to know that when I’m ready to do blind playtesting I just send it to those groups around the world waiting print and slice it up and test it. So helpful to the unpublished indie developer to know how the established companies do it 🙄

Hi Jamey, thank you so much for this informative video. This really helped a lot.
I am a final year graphic design student and I am building a table top game on the concept of trauma assistance therapies.
It is a game for children from the age group of 3-6 years. I want to keep the game very simple in it's working.
I wanted to ask you what would be some interesting mechanisms that I can use to make it fun for the children ? I am worried that the game is very simple (although I wanted it to be that way).
Thank you !

Is there any way to reach out to you more directly don’t know if you do speak to people about game ideas that they have but I believe our unique group based game it is unlike anything on the market I am in the brainstorming phase and would like to construct a model it would be nice to discuss it with someone of your expertise

Hey thanks for this video! When I was younger, I got half way through a small battle card game I was making (40 cards in total), but stopped painting the artwork for each card around 13 years ago! This video has made me look at my old game (which was playable and seems fun from what I remember) with a renewed desire to finally finish it!

Cheers!

Thanks so much for this fantastic guide, Jamey! Sorry for a necro-comment, but I was wondering: for step 9, for each wave do you typically use the same set of lead playtesters, or do you rotate through your list of vetted groups for each wave so that every wave is getting fresh eyes, or do you typically keep the same sets if possible so that you're working from a consistent baseline response?

I have seen my share of videos that showcase the general ignorance of the public in what used to be "common knowledge" and would think there could be a HUGE market for online gamed or board games that will "make learning fun" and help some of these kids get up to speed on things like history, geography and the like.

can you post a video of your cat?

I always assume my unique ideas have already been done before. But I keep going.

Hey, I sent you an email recently, I looked at your Kickstarter blog. However I didn't find the information I was kind of looking for, which is basically like I'm making these 3D printed hextiles that are going to be significantly large is what I was thinking. How do you know How big you can make something like that for packaging purposes later? That's more or less the direct question I have

Hello, loved the video. Can you please share your trello template? I would like to use something like that but don't know where to start :)

This was amazing thank you

Thank you for your insight. I’m working on my first game and am definitely navigating the difficulties of getting the game out of my head into the table! 😊

Very informative video, many thanks for sharing your thoughts and processes. I'm in the process of playtesting a board game with just friends at the moment, it's been so fun to see them playing it.

One question: what is your opinion on luck determining the winner in a board game? In my game, the victor is decided by the player successfully completing a move based on randomness (rolling a dice in a target pattern etc) once they have unlocked the opportunity to do through normal play. However I'm torn on whether this RNG type move would annoy seasoned board gamers, especially as no skill is involved. Do you think the removal of skill to win is a deal breaker? Thanks again!

Great ideas thank you got some new ideas watching this

If there are any game designers out there, I wish rulebooks would make more turn reference cards which take the thirty pages of LONG DETAILS and summarize it into a reference card.

Example for Catan. 1. (Optional) play Knight Card. 2. Roll dice. 3. Collect resources. 4. Trade. 5. (Optional) Play Development Card 6. Build 7. Pass dice to next player

I always think of neat ideas, and then realize I’m just copying Catan.

I was studying game theory the other day. It's just like music theory. It will give you immortal knowledge to put your next blockbuster game. But it'll take time and dedication to study the theories.

Thank you so much for this video! I've been tasked with creating an educational and functional board game for a college final exam and I had no idea where to even start, so your advice has been very helpful!

Hey. Just wanted to let you know that I am in the middle of self-publishing my very own, and first ever game, and I wanted to say thank you. I've seen this video a long time ago, and the tips in it helped me so much with designing this one (along with other videos on your channel in general). I just wanted to thank you, and to express how excited I am to have my first ever game so close to being published.

Just starting down the trail of designing a board game. Thanks for the inspiration and instructions!

Syth is you!? Dope

Amazing guide. It is certainly a journey.

Interesting video.
Given how much time and effort goes into creating a game, has there been occasions when a game has got far down the development line only to realise it's just going to work for whatever reason?

Thank you for your insight! Quick question do you recommend pitching your game to publishers or is crowdfunding still the best way these days?(or do you still launch a CF to show publishers the merit/demand?)

Another awesome video! Thanks! How do handle art in your prototypes, before you are at the stage where you are ready, willing, and able to pay an artist? I really don't have the artistic ability for this stage, especially if its a design that needs something more specific.

Great job! Clear and concise!

Such a great advices, thank you Jamie. May I ask how you disgn a Board Games regarding all probabilities, statistics and the matter related to balance the game?
Do you use any software or have a math background?

Question? Is it legal to create am add on/ mod for an existing commercial board game. Not using any of their art or logos... just referencing some of the locations / names and properties in the game. No logo or artwork use at all.

Just curious before I develop... if it is a 50/50 perhaps I will use an S-Corp to protect personal liability

Watched this video again as I'm pretty sure I'm at stage 7/8 with my own (first) game design idea. Coming into this I didn't realise how much there was to learn about the industry, but the wealth of knowledge that Jamey has is fantastic. I am intrigued by the fact that 'Write Rules' is so late in the process. I've watched videos from other designers and some recommend starting to write the rules pretty much from the start and editing them as you go along. I guess each to their own, and I'm sure if Jamey doesn't keep a forever-changing physical copy of rules as he continues development of an idea then he has them firmly in his mind throughout.

Hi,
Do you need a game to be completely finished when you approach publishers or can some of the development be done with the publishers resources?

I'm in the playtesting phase for a card game and found this sort-of series really helpful. Especially when it comes to thinking about collecting feedback. I decided to go with anonymous feedback. What do you think of keeping things anonymous?

Before I watched this video I designed an scientific sorting board game for preschoolers. Thank you for creating such an incredible and simple list of steps to take. I ended up doing the things you mention here exactly in that order and was wondering if I was going about it the right way, and your video really makes me feel good about myself! Thanks for that :)

Thank you for the step-by-step, Jamey. I was looking for some foundation before starting a personal project and made sure to book-mark this video along with a few others. Extremally helpful, and I still love playing Euphoria. I remember way back when it came out I made some fan-art of the game to share with your team and got a really nice response, was super cool of ya'll. Thanks for continuing to be awesome!

I got inspired by monopoly and am trying to make a similar type of game. I just love the game.

Man you're the best!

THANKK YOU