Brandon the Game Dev

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways.

Just here for Highways & Byways updates? Click here – it will take you right to the updates at the bottom of the page.

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Highways & Byways has just been upgraded from “State Route 11” to “Highway 1”. Highway 1 is actually version 12, but there is a logical reason behind my bizarre, thematic numbering scheme. The “Highway” designation is my way of saying “I’m ready to play-test the game.”

Passing this major milestone got me thinking about a question which game developers no doubt find themselves asking: when do I start play-testing my game with others?

First, let’s go ahead and get this out of the way. There is no definitive answer. It depends upon the complexity of your game, the ease with which you can find new play-testers, and your overall project schedule.

No matter what, you’ll have to play-test your game in order to take it to the market. Play-testing requires an organized effort and, if you are partial to digital play testing like I am, playing at least a few times with similar physical parts before you order a sample and start playing with that. This is a given. The play-test question ultimately comes down to one trade-off:

If you play-test with others too soon, you run the risk of running out of new play-testers. That would make it very hard to do blind play-tests.

If you play-test with others too late, you run the risk of spending too much time on gameplay elements that don’t work and which players would not accept.

With this trade-off in mind, here are a few questions for you to consider:

1. How easy is it for you to find new play-testers?
2. When self-testing, do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels – making no new progress?
3. Are there parts of your game that you aren’t so sure about and feel the need to run by others?

If it’s easy for you to find new play-testers, I suggest testing with others as soon as you have a playable game. It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to play without a cataclysmic breakdown that halts the progress of the game. Play-testers are often a patient bunch, but you still want to iron out the obvious flaws before you share your game.

If you have deep connections at cons or game stores, or even an active and large gaming group in your town with whom you frequently play, don’t waste precious mental effort ironing out all the kinks on your own. Get help play-testing soon. You are among a privileged class of game developers.

If it’s hard for you to find new play-testers, test alone until your game is close to complete. If you don’t have a lot of gamer friends, I suggest asking family to help you out. Many of you know that I test my games very heavily with my brother. I iron out the catastrophic flaws and turn to him, asking gently (and occasionally begging and cajoling) for his assistance. I also test games with my cousins and parents, all of whom have different levels of experience with board games. You’d be amazed how much quality play testing you can do with a handful of family members.

Much of this game’s development has gone well because of my brother’s inexhaustible wellspring of patience for testing broken games.

— Brandon (H&B Game) (@BywaysGame) May 30, 2017

You can’t just test with family members and close friends, though. You really have to get the opinions of some acquaintances or strangers. You need people who don’t have emotional attachment to you! You can find them through game stores or through social media. In fact, regarding the latter, Twitter and Instagram both provided me with a handful of play-testers for War Co., which really helped me refine that complex game.

Here’s the thing about recruiting strangers who have no emotional attachment to you for play-testing: they expect polish. Your game should probably have art by the time you speak to them, but if that’s not plausible, it needs to look as professional and possible. Above all, it must play well.

To bring it all in, here’s what I’ve got in mind so far:

1. Make sure your game doesn’t break down.
2. Are play-testers easy to find? If yes, start play-testing and stop here. If not, read on.
3. Do more self-testing.
4. If you’re still self-testing, do so until you start spinning your wheels. Then get family or close friends to help.
5. Get your game to a really professional point, then start testing with strangers.

What if you don’t have family or close friends in town? What do you do then? I recommend using online software such as Tabletop Simulator. If that’s not viable, though, and you really have no one close to turn to, then you have one option remaining. Self-test until you cannot any more. Then find strangers to play-test with and grit your teeth through all the vague and dissatisfied feedback. It will take longer and hurt more, but you can still get your game play-tested even without people you know to help.

Knowing precisely when to test with others is really tricky. It’s a tough call to make, but I hope this Dev Diary entry has got you asking the right questions. After all, that’s where the magic in game development truly starts: asking the right questions.

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Key Takeaways for Game Devs

• There is no definitive answer about when you should start play-testing.

• If you play-test with others too soon, you run the risk of running out of new play-testers. That would make it very hard to do blind play-tests.

• If you play-test with others too late, you run the risk of spending too much time on gameplay elements that don’t work and which players would not accept.

• Ask yourself these questions:

   

  • How easy is it for you to find new play-testers?
  • When self-testing, do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels – making no new progress?
  • Are there parts of your game that you aren’t so sure about and feel the need to run by others?
• If it’s easy for you to find new play-testers, I suggest testing with others as soon as you have a playable game.
• If it’s hard for you to find new play-testers, test alone until your game is close to complete.
• Try asking your family and close friends to help you.
• If you really have no one to turn to, ask strangers at game stores and online. Just know that it will be harder and it will slow down development. It’s still doable.

Most Important Highways & Byways Updates

• Upgraded game version from State Route 11 to Highway 1 (version 12). That means I’m ready to start play-testing with others – within limits!

• Cleaned up the rule book and added diagrams. This will let play-testers read the rules with the level of detail that I will include in the final rule book.

• I’ve been running experiments with advertising. This is only tangentially related to the game for now, but if advertising showed to be more cost-effective, it could have changed the whole way I promoted this game in the future.

• I took a few days to write the entire art spec document. It’s about 10 pages of prose and 45 pages of photos for reference.

• I’m working on finding an artist. More details to come later.

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways.

Just here for Highways & Byways updates? Click here – it will take you right to the updates at the bottom of the page.

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Great art is one of the most critical parts of a board game. As game developers, we have only a handful of tools at our disposal to help teach players what a game is about and how to play it. We have only a handful of tools that help us say “this game might be for you” and “I think you should buy it.” Art is the most powerful marketing tool for board games and one of the most powerful tools for communicating game information.

Art is also one of the only tools handled by someone other than the game developer. A lot of the artists I know who work on board games are freelancers and not actual members of the development team. To help you find a freelance artist for your game, I’ve got an article coming up in the near future. In the mean time, I’d like to talk about making specifications for your artist to use. In keeping with the Dev Diary tradition, I’ll be sharing an example from Highways & Byways development.

When creating an Art Specification Document, it’s a good idea to follow this outline:

• Art Needs
• Aesthetic Guidelines
• Functional Design
• Accessibility Concerns
• Technical Notes
• Workflow & Schedule
• Individual Design Specs

Each section will provide your artist with different information that they need to do their job well. Please note that there is no industry standard for how you communicate with artists. This is simply an approach I find effective. Sending this document along with the latest prototype of your game gives artists a ton of information to work with.

I’ll go ahead and break down each section in more detail. Each section has a snippet from the Highways & Byways draft specs (which are subject to change).

Art Needs: This is a list of everything that you need created for your game. Boards, boxes, cards, rules, components, and so on. Anything that you need made should be listed here in specific quantities and sizes.

1 Game Board (25″ x 20″)

1 Box (12.75″ x 10.25″ x 3″)

101 Card Designs, Poker Size (2.5″ x 3.5″)

72 Byway Card Designs

64 Green Byway Cards

8 Yellow Byway Cards

24 Event Card Designs

1 Construction Card Design Template (for 10 Cards)

4 Card Back Designs

Aesthetic Guidelines: This will give your artist a sense of the broad themes and styles. In short, summarize the art style and provide examples.

The overarching theme of Highways & Byways is “wanderlust.” This is done by creating a game based on scenic road travel within the United States…

The board will essentially be a road map of the United States. The rule book will resemble an atlas. The Byway Cards will resemble postcards in aesthetic (but not size). The Vehicle Cards will resemble car advertisements. Event Cards will be somewhat more abstract but still travel-themed. Construction Cards will use imagery associated with highway construction such as traffic cones.

Functional Design: In this section, you describe how each bit of artwork will be used in the game. That helps your artist use their discretion when making art that actually serves its purpose.

Box has to be perfect – use the “Instagram rule” (clear object in focus, high contrast, lots of detail). This will be used to get people to click on the box when they see it on Kickstarter / Amazon. It will also be what attracts people to buy it in the store.

The game board needs to elegantly display a lot of information – roads should not overlap. Byways should be clearly separate from highways. Byways will mimic their real life shapes, and highways will be straight lines. Everything needs to be readable and clear. Remember that people will be placing pawns or car pieces on spaces. State names should be clearly visible, but unobtrusive. Board will need a subtle longitude/latitude grid.

…

Byway Cards and Event Cards will be the pretty ones. Construction Cards will be more functional. Byway Cards will need to have small maps on them to show where the roads are located. Event Cards will need to have maps when relevant to showing affected states.

Accessibility Concerns: Pay special attention to the physical, cognitive, and socioeconomic needs of your players when you’re designing art. As a general rule of thumb, you want everything to be visible, clear, and inoffensive. Accessibility is a loaded topic, so you can read more about it here, here, and here.

Be sure to account for colorblindness when making art. When creating designs, make sure text is as large as possible. When designing the board, make sure relevant information is easy to find and track.

Technical Notes: Printing is extremely technical. Artists don’t necessarily know how to create art that prints well, especially if they’re digital artists. I strongly suggest you read about offset printing before asking an artist to do work for you. Technical notes exist to make sure that what looks good on the screen also looks good on paper.

• Highway signs in the USA use the font Highway Gothic, so be sure to incorporate that everywhere that it is appropriate.
• Make sure all art has safe, bleed, and trim zones
• Make all designs in CMYK Profile “Japan Color 2001 Coated”
• Send all designs in PSD form to me
• Make sure different parts of the designs are in different layers within the PSDs
• Create designs with 300 dpi or greater
• Make sure to use rich black
• When in doubt, refer to the Print Ninja ideal CMYK values: http://www.printninja.com/printing-resource-center/file-setup/offset-printing-guidelines/offset-color-requirements/cmyk-suggested-values

Workflow & Schedule: This will give the artist a rough idea of when different parts of the project will need to be done.

• Initial Conversation
  • Consultation on Overall Aesthetic & Theme
  • Discussion of Cost and Payment Plan
  • Discussion of Rights and Royalties
  • Contract
• Phase I
  • Create templates for all the cards in the game
  • Create a draft version of the board
• Phase II
  • Bring board art to near completion
  • Bring all card art to near completion
• Phase III
  • Draft box art
  • Draft rule book

Individual Design Specs: It is in this section that you would describe briefly how each piece of art should look. I actually don’t have any examples yet. I still want to get some more play testing done before I start writing these.

Once you’re done writing all this, you’re in good shape. Having your needs clearly documented helps artists out a ton. It will help prospective artists make sure they are interested in your project, it will make contract writing easier, and it will serve as a guide for your artist or artists once the art process actually begins.

Communication is key. You are telling your artist what to tell players. Make sure you give this a lot of thought.

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Key Takeaways for Game Devs

• Art is the most powerful marketing tool for board games and one of the most powerful tools for communicating game information.

• Communicating clearly with your artist is critical.

• When working with artists, I create a document called Art Design Specifications. I send that to the artist with a copy of my latest prototype.

• Here is the outline I use for Art Design Specifications:

   

  • Art Needs
  • Aesthetic Guidelines
  • Functional Design
  • Accessibility Concerns
  • Technical Notes
  • Workflow & Schedule
  • Individual Design Specs

Most Important Highways & Byways Updates

• I was on vacation from May 19 to May 26. It was a long road trip. I did it to get away from responsibility for a while, but I came back with a lot of new material for the game.

• Tweaked some game rules to improve balance.

• Prepared version State Route 11 for testing.

• Play tested State Route 11. Results are inconclusive. More testing is needed.

• Drafted art specifications for the game.

• Drafted physical specifications for the game.

• I’m currently working on finding an artist. I want to get my game a little further along before actually starting the art process, though.

• Working on some process improvements that should free up time and bring in money. They include:

   

  • Cancelling the Roadgeek Blog on the Highways & Byways site (which never made a lot of sense to begin with).

   

  • Switching all social media automation to the same platform (Buffer).

   

  • Advertising tests.

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways.

Just here for Highways & Byways updates? Click here – it will take you right to the updates at the bottom of the page.

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Many of you know that I am open and activate promoter of the Tabletop Simulator software available on the Steam store. Not only did it help me tremendously by allowing me to stream War Co. prior to and during its Kickstarter campaign, but it is also my favorite rapid prototyping tool. There are a lot of software suites better suited to different games, but I use Tabletop Simulator for its versatility. Still, Tabletop Simulator is just one form of digital play testing for board games.

Digital play testing is an excellent way to reduce the costs of developing early board game prototypes. Tabletop Simulator keeps my early prototyping costs effectively down to zero because I’m not going through a ton of paper and printer ink. Unfortunately, digital play testing does not accurately simulate the physical movements that players must make in order to play the game. Play testing games with a board and components that are roughly the size and shape of the final product needs to be done before committing wholeheartedly to a certain style of gameplay.

That is precisely why I’ve made this…

This is the paper version of Highways & Byways. It consists of nine pieces of printer paper taped together and pinned to a posterboard. It matches the size of the final game based on my best estimate of how big it will be. I substituted perforated business card stock for regular playing cards because of the similar size. I substituted Pandemic pieces for original pieces.

When my brother and I were playing with the first physical version of Highways & Byways, codenamed State Route 9, we noticed a handful of things. It was a mix of good and bad. The board was a nice size, the spaces were big enough for pieces, all the text is readable, and the number of cards you must handle is manageable. Yet we came across something annoying that we never noticed in Tabletop Simulator. You had to shuffle the decks all the time! It was ridiculous. It was adding several minutes to play time and was tedious.

The deck shuffling tedium is a really important issue. Not only is it annoying, but it could outright ruin a game for somebody whose hands can’t make the subtle movements needed to shuffle cards. This is more than an issue of “7/10 – good game, but shuffling gets old.” It’s an issue of making sure customers can actually use your product.

This was a really easy to fix problem since all I had to do was reword a rule. However, if shuffling cards was a part of the game’s core engine, I would have to go back to the drawing board. It is possible, especially for new developers, to tie important gameplay factors to physically clumsy behaviors. If you do this, you want to find it early and nip it in the bud BEFORE you go out of your way to find play testers or commission art.

The point of paper testing is to eliminate physical accessibility issues before they become an irrevocable part of your gameplay. You can eliminate cognitive accessibility issues such as inelegant data and event tracking through digital testing. You can eliminate socioeconomic ones through digital testing, too. Yet for physical accessibility issues such as fiddly components and hard-to-see parts, there is no replacement for paper testing.

Paper testing also allows for some observations that are neither good nor bad, but rather necessary for the development and marketing of a complete game. Tabletop Simulator has a tendency to greatly abbreviate or greatly lengthen games depending on how much fiddlier it is to play on the software. Highways & Byways, in particular, turned from a 90 minute game into a 60 minute game – which is much more like what I was aiming for.

Of course, a simple paper test won’t be the end of testing for Highways & Byways. Once get game art – which is still quite a ways off from happening – I’ll need to test different colors for pieces. I may also experiment with little car pieces as well. When it’s time to deal with boxes, I’ll have to make sure everything fits in the box. I’ll also want to make sure that sideways storage is feasible for the odd handful who prefer to do that.

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For those of you who would like to learn more about making games more accessible, I’d like to refer you to Meeple Like Us. On that site, you can find a lot of in-depth discussion about board game accessibility. Those articles can give you a depth of information which I can only touch upon in these Dev Diary posts. It’s very worth your time if you’re a game developer.

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Key Takeaways for Game Devs

• Tabletop Simulator is just one form of digital play testing for board games.

• Play testing games with a board and components that are roughly the size and shape of the final product needs to be done before committing wholeheartedly to a certain style of gameplay.

• The point of paper testing is to eliminate physical accessibility issues before they become an irrevocable part of your gameplay.

• It is possible, especially for new developers, to tie important gameplay factors to physically clumsy behaviors.

• Paper testing also allows for some observations that are neither good nor bad, but rather necessary for the development and marketing of a complete game.

Most Important Highways & Byways Updates

• Updated to version State Route 9.

• Updated again to version State Route 10.

• Started doing “paper tests” with a printout of the board, business card stock for playing cards, and pieces borrowed from Pandemic. This was done to simulate the physical movements players would need to make during the game.

• I’ve made lots of little tweaks to the rules, the details of which I won’t go into right now.

• I’ve set up a recurring direct deposit from my checking to my interest savings. This is to help pay for art when it’s time to buy art.