Yet so many find it difficult to get started. If that describes you, please enjoy this compilation of articles I have compiled for you to help you get started in board game development.

Board game development has become a popular hobby in the last several years. It has captivated the hearts and minds of many creative people.

For that reason, this compilation of articles will break down board game design and development into all its component parts. I’m not interested in complex jargon or big names in board games.

Board game development has become a popular hobby in the last several years. It has captivated the hearts and minds of many creative people.

It’s one thing to create a wonderful board game. It’s another thing entirely to promote your board game.

To many an artistic spirit, marketing and promotion feels really unusual. Indeed, it feels sleazy and amoral. It feels like you’re annoying people with messages they don’t care about. But marketing doesn’t have to be based on bothering people. In fact, it works better if you don’t!

Failure. Nobody likes it, but if you try hard enough for long enough, it will happen to you. Failure in business, especially early on, is well nigh inevitable.

But you know what? It’s not the end of the world. Your failures can be incredible teachers that prepare you for a brighter future than you ever could have imagined.

You’ve finished the game! Now it’s time to raise funds and then eventually fulfill a board game Kickstarter!

Not so fast…creating a board game is only half the battle. Now you have to get people to buy it, have someone manufacture it, and then ship it to hundreds or thousands of different people. No pressure!

Board game publishers have to make a lot of difficult decisions. With limited resources, deciding which games to publish and which ones to abandon is vital. Publishers that aren’t picky don’t last long.

It doesn’t stop there, though. Board game publishers have to respect the feelings of game developers who pour their heart and soul into their games. They have to predict the unruly tabletop gaming news cycle and determine which way the market will go.

When you design board games, it helps to play great board games. By analyzing what works and what doesn’t, you can create something special of your own.

Let’s talk about the old classics, the new classics, and do a deep-dive into the inner workings of recent games like Sagrada, Azul, and Terraforming Mars.

Tasty Humans is a 30-60 minute, tile-laying, pattern-building game for 1-4 players. 

Our game raised $20,536 on Kickstarter. This is how we did it…

Board game makers have it tough. I’m not joking. It requires a lot of time, a lot of testing, a lot of patience, and a lot of money.

But sometimes, I like to tell board game makers hard truths. Ugly stuff I wish I knew before I started.

Inspiration keeps us going when times are hard. Taking a moment to appreciate the true extent of our potential is important to do sometimes. We are often much more capable than we believe ourselves to be.

Feeling down and out? Need someone to cheer you on? Check out these articles to put some wind back in your sails!

As much as I love to write about board game development, sometimes you need to take in other points of view. For that, we have guest posts!

I’ve been running this blog for a long time. While my preferred format for sharing others’ knowledge is an interview, you can find our guest posts below. Enjoy!

Board game development is a rich and complex field of study. You can learn so much about games, their creation, and the tools and techniques you use to bring them into existence.

Despite playing Twilight Struggle and Terraforming Mars with me, Maria doesn’t exactly see herself as a board gamer. Instead, she’s somewhere in the middle ground between diehard board gamers and the “I used to love Monopoly as a kid” crowd.