I'm trying to design cards, and I'd like to know what games cards you find were pleasing on the eyes and that it was readable and intuitive to understand.

For example, Hearthstone cards that differentiate between spells, quests, and creatures by the border of the card (and other clever details).

Or Catan, which has a consistent design throughout the whole collection of different cards.

So Relicon it was... but somehow I missed this when doing my search the first time around and I insist on an original name.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Caelorum is the idea I have so far (meaning "of the heavens" in Latin, which tracks since this is a sci-fi game).

Now I'm thinking of using the full name I originally planned and calling it Relicon: War of the Fragment as the official name, and Relicon as the common name.

The past few months, I've been working on overhauling my board game rulebook. For context, my game is a turn based asymmetric dice combat game, mixing coop with vs.

I really tried to streamline the rules, cut down on text heavy pages, and provide better examples and more relevant pictures throughout the rulebook. Please give me some feedback, and let me know which one you like better!

My old rulebook is 24 pages, 8.5 x 11 size. Here it is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lOLD9_7JsiGU2svbxzFaLb4NcgjQFtUA/view?usp=sharing

My new rulebook is 16 pages, 11x11. Here it is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sKSJ41nsEOHr6JEcy5ybOyFqMs_KnbwQ/view?usp=sharing

I used lego brick style

The soul of the game to be like Minecraft

Let me know if you like it.

Hi! I’ve designed a few board games and would love to bring them to Board Game Arena. I’m looking for an Italian developer who knows the platform and would like to work on them with me.

This is paid work, of course. We can agree on a fee and timeline once we’ve talked through what’s involved.

If you’re interested, send me a DM and I’ll tell you more about the games. If you’ve worked on BGA before, I’d love to see some of your projects!

Hello! I'm making a worker movement game where players select a card from a grid. The way it works, each player has two workers and a neutral worker to choose from when moving a worker. The card they must select, however, is a card that intersects at an elbow with their other worker.

I'm having trouble coming up with a term for this other than "elbow connections?" Does anyone know of a game that does this or a better potential term?

I've attached a picture showing the cards available to the white and red player to better demonstrate what I mean.

Obvious issues:

Yes, I know the game is similar to MTG in a lot of ways. I'm still adding new elements to the game as I go. If it's not your cup of tea, I get it.

It's on version 21 and it's still a bit convoluted. Working on that.

It's lacking a layout image for the tabletop. Just waiting on few more card designs before I create that.

https://jplumley4.wordpress.com/relicon-aevum/

(It's a PDF download at bottom of description. Ignore the rest of the website - I know it sucks.)

We are finalizing our first arena map for our game Big Battle Beat Down, and would love to hear any feedback as this is our first big game.

Quick game synopsis: It is a really dumb future and corporations control the world. Every Monday night those corporations promote themselves by entering contestants to fight on the #1 TV show, Big Battle Beat Down. Basically you pick a corporation and their three fighters. You buy gear and then you fight to last man standing in either a free for all or team battle format.

The game is hex based and combat meant to be chaotic and fast. The map is likely to kill you too as every round event cards are drawn that either benefit or hurt the fighters.

Would love to get some comments on the board and if it makes sense given above comments.

The map is going to be something like 28inches by 20 so most things will be plenty big to see all the detailsg. Also this picture is reduced to fit upload size limits.

Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

It’s been months since i started developing my board game inspired by pokemon and i’m really proud of all the rules i already thought and i’m really excited to finally test it with my friends. Before i start actually making the game, there’s two problems i’m still trying to solve designing this game and i would really apretiate if you could help me with this.

The first problem is about the gameplay, this game is sandbox, when every player goes on their journey exploring the region, collecting monsters, battling npcs or each other if they end up in the same place until the day of the tournment when the players will compete to decide the winner. The main problem is about how long a turn will last. A player could move, explore an area to find a creature and to find a creature you would roll the dice and the result will determine which species you will find. I’m just scared the turns might take too long and the pther players might feel bored wating their turns or just that they are not interacting enough. There’s also battles, i want battles to be strategic, but not take to long. what are good solutions for this problem?

The second problem is about thematic, i don’t want to compete with pokemon and i’m not hinding the fact that this game is heavly inspired by it, however, i’m really demanding of having something mine or unique. I’m been months trying to think of a unique setting for this game, but i don’t think it needs something so strange or something that no one sees before, it can be familiar, but i at least want some things that are new. So, how unique do you think i should be with the setting or what kind of setting do you think it could work in this type of game?

Tldr: I have a digital working prototype on my own site of a gardening deck/engine builder and I'm looking for alpha testers to try out the game solo digitally. AI related disclosures at the bottom (no ai art or game design related usage to clarify).

My goal is to finesse the design enough and facilitate several playtests (digitally on my site and then tabletop sim before prototype prints), eventually self publishing a few physical copies.
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On a solo board game related discord over the weekend, we had a discussion about an Imperium style game with farming elements where you could tuck cards to farm.

The idea of tucking cards to farm sparked something wild in me and I spent about 36 hours over the weekend putting together (various iterations) of a cozy gardening deckbuilder / engine builder that I would enjoy playing.

Please don't ask how much of that time I spent sleeping.

Game: You're taking part in an annual Garden Festival where 1-5 gardeners have to showcase their gardening skills and harvest ripe plants. Build a tableau of plants, water and grow them, decide between harvesting them or keeping them around for strong benefits. Deal with challenging events and earn new tools and companions to help you grow your garden!

Game ends when someone claims 8 ripe harvests. Score is tallied at the end based on your ripe harvests, coins, and any additional goals you claimed.
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Disclosures:

1. My site has nothing to sell and no subscriptions. I would ask you sign up so I can track your games and debug easily if there are issues but you can play without signing up to.
2. ALL art on cards is sourced from Commons/are in the public domain - I had a very specific hand colored/historical botanist vision in my head and the public domain has a lot of beautiful works. Icons are all hastily thrown together by me (with an emoji or two for things I haven't drawn yet like medals/harvest tokens). 2 cards feature real pet photos of pets that passed away this year (my dog and another tester's cat). Card templates/frames are my own.
3. AI: I know folks are passionate about this so want to be clear about how AI was used and totally understand if any use of AI keeps you away, even if not used for the art or design.

- No AI was used in generating card art or helping me design the game.

- GenAI coding agents (Claude specifically) are used to help put together the digital prototype on top of a generic card game engine I built for a couple of other games. I'm a professional software engineer of 10+ years and have been hobby coding side projects (often in game or game adjacent spaces) for 20+ years. Purely using the coding agent for implementing the technicals that I very closely architect and review

(putting it this way - it does exactly what I would've done myself just helps the grunt work go faster so I can focus on the creative aspects - of both the board game design and technical challenges).

Does anyone know of a really good combat system for pirate ships?

While I'm still playtesting and tweaking systems, I wanted to do a final art test, like "what would the final product look like?" and this is what I got. I'm very happy with the result, but I wanted to get some feedback from other people and see if there is anything I can do better, and mostly if this is appealing to the public.

Note: I did all the art and design for the cards

For context about my game:

It's a card-based TTRPG. Each player has a deck of cards that represents their character; this deck has a bunch of different cards. Active cards stay face up at the table, like Feat cards and Item cards (if the item is equipped, like armor or a weapon). Items that are not being used, as well as Action cards, stay in the deck and can be played by the player at any time\.*

I'm designing SupraMind, a semi-co-op for 3-5 players about labs racing to build a superintelligence the world can trust. Three playtests so far, so it's early.

The short version. You build Data Centers on a hex map and join them with connectors. Every new connector is Unsafe; making it Safe costs resources and time. You win with a Data Center surrounded by 6 Safe connectors, plus Trust 6 and Governance 6.

But careless networks wake the SupraMind. It takes over Unsafe Data Centers and spreads. If it grows too big, the SupraMind wins and every player loses.

The problem. At a designers' meetup, testers told me "everyone loses" is a weak reason to keep fighting. I think the real issue is the player in last place: once you can't win, "a rival wins" and "the SupraMind wins" end the same way for you. So why keep paying for safety?

What I changed. Richard Garfield made the point in a BoardGameGeek thread that semi-co-ops break when nobody cares about second place. "So now there are places: when a player wins, everyone else is ranked by Trust + Governance, the two tracks every safe action raises. When the SupraMind wins, nobody places. It stays a total loss.

What I ruled out:
- A traitor, or players switching sides: nobody should ever want the SupraMind to win.
- Ranking the losers when the SupraMind wins: I think it would rarely decide anything, and it brings back "we lost, but I did best".
- Open deals between players: two friends could gang up on the table.

My questions:
1. At your table, does second place really change how the losing player plays, or does only first place count?
2. Which semi-co-ops handle the player in last place well, and how?

for some reason the first page is last

Vesper — an elven Wild Magic Sorcerer

We are currently working on a small, language-independent card game.

One idea we are considering is replacing the printed rulebook with a QR code that links to a digital rulebook, available in as many languages as possible.

This would save some space in the box and make it easier to update the rules or add new translations.

But I am curious what other designers and players think.

Would you be okay with a card game that has no physical rulebook at all? Or would that be a dealbreaker for you?

Edit: Just to add some context. Its a fast-paced card game with 15 different card types, each featuring a self-explanatory icon. After playing once or twice, most players should be familiar with the rules and be able to play without checking the rulebook again.

Just wanted to share the progress my team and I have made over the past week and a half for our deck building card battler, Birthright!

1. New board layout and art
2. Revamped card outlines + the ability to have card skins in game
3. Stacked tooltips to show embedded keywords
4. Affordability indicators for cards and abilities
5. Synergy highlights on card hover
6. Overall text and theming improvements

Would love to know everyone's thoughts!

Hi! If anyone's looking to commission artwork, either personal or for a project, I specialise in Horror/dark fantasy art.

[Drawn digitally - NO AI!! Plenty of WIPs shown throughout the process]

Check out my gallery for more examples of my work:

https://cara.app/doomweaselart

Socials:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/doomweaselart.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomweaselart

Prices on VGen or message me via email or DM

vGen: https://vgen.co/DoomweaselArt

[email] thedoomweasel@gmail.com

[Telegram/Discord] DoomWeaselArt

Feel free to message me if you have any questions!

I am making a board game with role and move mechanic, and this is a prototype I came up with.

I'm still deciding on how the spawn point should look like, I'm leaning towards the yellow one with a door and a simplified architecture.

I will also improve upon the litle pictures that are a nod to the cards in game.

I want to put a desert scene in the middle but I'm deciding on how it should look.

Follow up from the previous video and announcement that I will be making this on tabletop simulator later.

I would love to hear your opinions and questions that were not answered in the video