So I think we can all agree that the original Terraforming Mars player boards are an absolute work of art. Immaculate in design and practicality, I actually have one framed pride of place in my living room.

What? You don't agree?

It's the worst player board in all of boardgaming history?

Whoa whoa whoa, that's a bit far... maybe… 😉

Jokes aside, I don't think I'm saying anything too controversial here: the original paper-thin boards leave a lot to be desired. A single bumped table or accidental hand swipe sending resource cubes skittling millimeters away… completely ruining the game that's so finely balanced on the exact amounts.

There are a plethora of fantastic third-party dual-layer boards out there that fix the table-bump issue. But I wanted to take things a step or two further to address the rest of the game's tactile experience.

THE PROBLEMS & THE FIXES

1. The Resource Admin & Constant Cube Juggling

Even with dual-layer boards, you’re constantly reaching into a shared bowl, grabbing loose metallic cubes, converting production into physical tokens every single generation, and swapping 1s, 5s, and 10s back and forth. It breaks the flow of actually running your corporation.

On a personal level, I'm autistic and find these situations very difficult. When is it my turn to get cubes? I always end up last and having to make do with what's left. Cue a couple dozen bronze cubes for me 😅

THE FIX: I completely eliminated the resource cubes from the player board entirely. Instead of collecting and swapping piles of cubes, you simply rotate a dial, slide a track, or flick a tactile switch! The between-round production phase becomes a 5-second (and very fun!) process using your personal control console.

1. Thematic Disconnect

A game about engineering an entire planet and commanding a megacorporation should feel like you're operating high-tech hardware. Placing shiny plastic cubes on cardboard never quite captured that space-age immersion for me.

THE FIX: My background is in architecture. To me, theme and concept drive every design detail. Instead of just dual-layer wood, I designed these as spaceship consoles and Mission Control panels (drawing heavy inspiration from aviation cockpits and mechanical watch aesthetics like Bell & Ross).

The switches flip, the dials click, and the sliders track smoothly. The satisfaction of managing your megacorporation like you’re sitting at NASA Mission Control completely changes the tactile experience of playing the game.

Full Disclosure & Background

I recently left my 11-year career in architecture to pursue board game design and component engineering full-time. I approach these boards with the same rigorous design principles I used in my old day job, aiming to build what I call "Components+” - uncompromising, premium upgrades that elevate the hobby.

I have always valued quality and precision. Nobody sees the 10 rounds of design I did on just the captive slider pieces, literally changing them 0.05mm at a time until they're perfect. But they do see the result. Hopefully!

Everything is manufactured in-house by me using precision lasers. If you like the direction I’m taking these designs, feedback and thoughts mean the absolute world to a solo creator making the leap!

Thanks for checking them out—let me know what you think!

Prototyping a new game I created last night. Working title is called DungeonForge. I put it together in just over 24 hours with full mechanics and everything. It’s a roguelite rpg dungeon crawler tabletop game. I decided I will be making two versions of the game, one in card deck form and the second as a booklet with tables instead of cards. Reminiscent of 4AD a bit with a little bit of edge. Would you guys be down to see a development playthrough? Let me know in the comments.

So we have our game mostly finished, we are now trying to adjust the game length with the number of points needed to win, for each amount of players.

Ham'per Scamper is a tile-placing, path building/blocking collection game for 2-6 players. Strategic and interactive enough for strategy players but also light-hearted in presentation, and simple enough for kids to play. Set-up takes less than 2 minutes

We originally were shooting for 15 minutes per player, but have managed to get it as short as 48minutes for a 6-player game of experienced players. We're just not sure the 48 minutes is enough to really satisfy the strategic aspect, and can adjust it with our scoring rules. The only comparable game would be Ticket to Ride, which is slated as 30-60minutes.

We're trying to find the right sweet spot between meaningful path placing and rapid playability.

We made a horror-fantasy-sports card game, but the played-out power/toughness mechanic that so many games use for creature battles didn't make sense in the context of our game's universe, so we invented a new way for creatures to face off!

Our game, Monsterball, is a sports-inspired game with rules not unlike baseball, so our creatures don't fight but rather they pitch and bat against one another. Some creatures are dedicated pitchers while some creatures are dedicated batters, and they have stats that reflect their roles; pitchers have 3 pitching stats (P for pitch - P1, P2, P3) and batters have 3 batting stats (S for swing - S1, S2, S3).

Each stat has an associated modifier that falls somewhere on a scale from -5 to +5. For pitchers, the more negative a modifier is, the more powerful that particular pitch. For batters, the more positive a modifier, the more powerful that particular swing. So a pitcher with P1: -3, P2: -2, P3: -1 is a pretty decent pitcher, whereas those same stats for a batter would make them pretty horrible.

When players pit their pitchers and batters against each other, the players "throw" to determine which creature wins the exchange. Throwing is very much like paper-rock-scissors, except that in Monsterball players throw a 1, 2, or 3 and in our system 3 beats 2, 2 beats 1, and 1 beats 3. You'll notice these numbers map perfectly to the pitching and batting stats of the creatures. For example, if a player throws a 1 for their pitcher, they are using the pitcher's P1.

In a nutshell, if the pitcher wins the throw, it counts as a strike. 3 strikes and the batter is out. 3 outs and the teams switch places, with the batting side taking the field and pitching, the the pitching side going up to bat.

If the batting side wins the throw, the throw counts a hit! The batter now rolls a d20 to determine what type of hit they made... and this is where the P1, P2, P3 and S1, S2, S3 modifiers come into play. Let's say the pitcher threw a 1 and the batter threw a 2 - in our example image the pitchers P1 is -3 and the batters S2 is +1 - add those modifiers to the batters d20 roll and then find this number on the batting quick reference card, which will tell you if the hit was a single, a double, a foul, and so on. So if the batter rolled a 14, you'd add the pitcher's P1 (-3) and the batters S2 (+1) to the roll to get 14 - 3 + 1 = 12, which we can see on the batting quick reference card is a single - so the batter would move to first base.

Of course there are edge cases such as throwing ties, and many abilities and playbook cards that might modify stats, and other considerations and outcomes such as the type of hit, pitching stamina counters, getting walked, and even getting hit by pitches, but this is the basics of the system.

We're super happy with this set of mechanics. We've found that players at every age and skill find it easy, fun, and exciting to play. Players are no longer at the mercy of another player with super dominant cards - they have a shot, with some skill and some luck, to come out on top no matter what.

Thank you for taking the time to read about our system!

Mostly to aid the unfortunate souls that I introduce to the game and force to play with me, these tri-fold cheat sheets provide a quick overview of each piece and their movements and abilities. The reference guides include all three Hive expansions (ladybug, mosquito and pill bug), and when folded up fit comfortably in the Hive Pocket travel bag. I had so much fun with this!

To make the sheet, print out this file and cut to size. Fold along the horizontal centre line and the two vertical lines, scoring the folds. Use a glue stick to cover the blank side of the printout, and then fold the page closed along the horizontal centre line, printed side out. Ta-da! A trifold Hive cheat sheet, ready for all your insect insanity!

I have been making bread games for over 2 years now and I think it's too much for me anymore.

I started it as a little hobby to flush out my creativity but it started awful, my first ever prototype was a disaster and even after making the game not fun my friends have that option that my games are bad just by this prototype, I had made few more games along the way and I made a game that after the first playtest was already called fun by my friends.

The thing is after some time when we were talking with other friends one of the playtesters called it "barely playable" I don't know if it was out of spite or it was actually bad but it hurt me. It was one thing in my life I was proud of and now when I made the game's new version I can't find playtesters.

I'm getting tired I can't find players and I have so much studying I don't know I can take it.

I just wanted to make games people want to play, maybe even buy but I just have enough

I don't know what to do, I even had to kill off my first even game because of my friend, I loved it, like a child you saw grew up.

I don't know if I should take a break (which I don't want) to drop my games for now and make a new one, without carrying about anyone or if it will make profit or anything else

I'm sorry for how I wrote it, it's probably the last post I'll make on this account here so I wouldn't embarrass myself more here, thank you for your help

I've updated the game artwork for my two player domino-shoving strategy game, Tyu. Previously it was just the middle bit - Tyu spelt out in mini dominoes across five columns, mirroring the game itself.

Now I've added a bit more detail which I think makes it stand out more.

Welcome any thoughts.

More about the game here: https://robinson-games.myshopify.com/products/tyu

The game starts in 1815, with 25 years of war concluded and 5 million dead. At the Congress of Vienna, the Great Powers of Europe convene to build a stable international system that will prevent the madness of another general war in Europe.

Can you avert a world war, while still supporting your nation's interests?

My new game I'm working on, *Ultimatum* is a war game without the war. Players threaten, put down revolutions, expand and develop their empires, and fight minor battles, all while trying to keep their thrones and stop a great power war.

The game is split into five rounds, each lasting twenty in-game years, in which players draw and play cards from their decks. Every nation has a unique starting deck, but you can change your deck over the course of the game by drawing new cards to it; also, each round begins with everyone drawing a copy of the same card to their deck, representing what that round is "about" - for example, in Round 4, 1880s-1890s, the "Scramble for Africa", everyone draws an "establish a colony" card into their hand.

One round consists of three turns, in which players discard, draw, and play cards.

Cards can have positive or negative effects, and can be played in multiple ways. For example, all cards do something different if they're held in hand at the end of a round compared to played in the course of a normal turn. The "Secret Police" card reduces Unrest if you play it, but if it's left in your hand at the end of a round it backfires, possibly causing a revolution - just like how in real life, government repression has a chance to backfire!

Those are just the basics, there's a lot more going on, and I'm very interested in questions or feedback, please let me know what you think!

So, I have a prototype that I want to make some copies of for family and friends. It fits nicely into a fabric bag.

But because it is a bag, any type of rules printout I make tends to get all crumpled, and doesn't feel or look nice.

So I'm seeking advice from all you creative prototypers on what I could try instead. Not looking for production quality but as close as I can get to make a "nice" feel on a homemade product.

Ideas so far:

- Some kind of 3d printed scroll device that you pull on to reveal the rules (Haven't managed to get this working yet).

- A 3d printed QR code tile that links to a site containing the rules (very practical, but people tend to dislike it)

- Maybe a smallish, folded booklet? Anyone done this before on a home printer?

The game I’m illustrating features a "stress" mechanic: players must draw "panic cards" once their stress reaches a certain level. Here are some of the cards I’ve designed: Sadism (the player harms their own allies), Coprophile (the player must draw a "poop" item from the item deck), Pyromaniac (the player sets themselves and everyone nearby on fire), Panic (the player skips their turn), and Rage (adds +1d6 to attack rolls).

Hello!

I’m Albert, and I'm looking for players who are brave enough to test the prototype of my game – "Divinus Debilis: A Pocket Full of War, also known as The Pocket Wars." It's a combination of a tabletop wargame and a board game; you could say it's a tabletop wargame "packaged" in a board game.
I wanted to create something clearer and easier to understand, but still with significant depth, for people who may be interested in miniature wars but don't have the time/money/will to invest in current giants and are more interested in the gameplay itself. The game's rules are already mostly written (roughly 80-90%), primarily, it’s about testing the factions themselves, of which there are currently four (12 planned). Obviously, I’m ready to rewrite whatever will need to be rewritten if it won’t give players fun. I understand that the main challenge will be the graphics, as the game elements are currently adorned with my beautiful (to me) drawings, created in the advanced Paint/Paint 3D program. Of course, everything will be updated (slowly) over time.
Currently, I'd like to focus on battles themselves. Later, I plan to add a campaign mode ala HoMM or Total War, which will be playable with multiple players, where they will engage in conquering land, gathering resources, eliminating neutral factions and other such 4X activities. Players will have a variety of unique commanders and units to choose from, each with different stats and unique abilities. Using them most effectively will lead to one of the following ways of victory: eliminating all enemy commanders, crushing their morale, or surviving with the most power points. There's also a light card system called Divine Powers, which has a significant top-down impact on the gameplay, for a cost.
The tests will be organised on my own discord server, we will be using Tabletop Simulator to play, so you'd be required to own it.

If you're interested, here's the link to the testing server:
https://discord.gg/3FZSc7SC8K

Just wanted to blurt out how excited I am to be nearing the finish line for all of my placeholder artwork, rulebook and game component designs. The main thing I’m most excited for is to finally playtest an actual working version (as far as I can tell right now lol) of a game I’ve wanted since I was a kid.

I worked intensely on it during college, placed it on the back burner for about 6 years and returned to it in the last year after having the long elusive EUREKA moment I had been struggling with in regards to the core game mechanic to my game. With that mechanic finally locked in; I was able to turn my focus to refining the rest of the game that had already be more or less fleshed out, but required the main mechanic to be figured before fine-tuning everything else. Past prototypes were fun to play but had no end and were not easy to understand/teach. Seriously, this has been a worm in the back of my mind, constantly gnawing on the fact that I KNEW the mechanic I wanted could be done, but implementation & ease of use were my ultimate barriers.

I would’ve actually been posting a lot more about the game and the development process but having read a number of developer horror stories of how their games, mechanics, and concepts were being blatantly ripped off and copied by ai slop posters, it made me clutch much of process closely to the chest.

Ultimately I’m going to wait to show anything on here until I have a well rounded, solid working prototype and maybe also a small local gameshop/playtester following. My hope with this course of action is that any copycat would be obvious and less of a concern of stealing my concept’s novelty (at least to me lol). Plus the internet LOVES to roast copycats which I too enjoy to see very much.

That is all, stay safe out there and keep on board gaming you buncha hairy monkeys.🐒

I requested a prototype to get a feel for the materials a lot of the artwork is already different. Ultimately asked for a matte linen finish because this one was too glossy. And the cards are too flimsy.

Does it feel like a finished product? Sorry for the bad photo

working on a 4x fantasy game. more strategy focused but when armies meet they battle ala total war or homm. does this seem like an egregious ammount of provinces? its 48 not counting the water tiles and islands. i wanted enough provinces that theres some tactics regarding army movements

Hey everyone, I am a first time dev from Perth Australia and I am currently working on a game called Relive (working title) I have been commissioning an artist on Fiverr Mike Po who has turned my sketches into these more polished versions and I added everything else on the cards using Dextrous, I am currently trying to get a feel for how the cards will look and this is what I am currently working with, the back grounds and the wording of the cards are subject to change but please, let me know what you think. Also if you would be so kind as to chuck us a follow on Insta I would really appreciate it! https://www.instagram.com/relivegameofficial?srtk=MWs1cmEyaXl0OGFjbw==

We are the point of printing a small batch of a card game we have developed that is targeted towards children, schools and home schooling. We are wanting to create some marketing material giving a general outline of the game, benefits for schools and their students and pricing options.

Does anyone have something like this they have made and are willing to share? Is there any important information we are missing from this list apart from what I've mentioned?

I don't have a background in sales so your support is appreciated.

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 🤩.

Hey folks,

I’ve been working on a board game project for a while and I’m looking for someone to develop it further with me.

A bit of background:
I’ve developed a main/major game mechanic (like "deck building", or "trick taking" are major mechanics for some games) that, as far as I can tell, is unique. Additonally, I've developed some sub-mechanics aroud this main mechanic. I’ve tried various ways of bringing them together into a game taht's fun to play but so far the games/prototypes that came out of it were not convincing. I am an experienced boardgamer myself and I am convinced that my main mechanic has very good "meta-characteristics" to work as foundation for good medium or heavy bord games. So, the mechanics are strong, but their interplay isn’t yet.

My prototype is (for now) dedigned in a typical medival setting (coins, soldiers, ressources, ...) you know from plenty of other games like Dominion but that is only so the ideas behind certain icons are self-explanatory. I am not set on a setting or design realm. The design of the game will depend on different factors (skills of artists, what fits well with the mechanics, what relams do you and me like, etc...) and the aesthetics of the game are not important for now.

My plans:
I’m developing the game alongside my job. If a good game idea comes out of it, I definitely intend to have a small print run made for myself and my friends. If I’m convinced by the result, I’m also considering marketing it myself. There are no guarantees; it depends on whether the game convinces in the end. If the game turns out good, I am willing to do all the heavy administrative lifiting that is needed to get the game produced.

Who I’m looking for:
People who want to develop a game, enjoy giving input and discussing design. A bonus would be interest in the work around turning it into a real product or "owning" this project together with me. I am germany-based, it would be an advantage, if personal meetings are possible but thats optional. If you've always wanted to design your own boardgame but you were missing some "pieces of the puzzle" this might be your sign :)

If that sounds interesting, feel free to comment or send me a DM. I am willing to share my ideas and mechanics with you

Greetings
Froop :)

Edit: I wrote down the very basics of the mechanic here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cgs5Kmmg9wr_9UbEyfaYLjh4hFbb6xDafeUtk7uJOF4/edit?usp=sharing

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