Brandon the Game Dev

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the tenth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development.

Accessibility is a big issue in board gaming. It’s also a very complex issue that is hard to talk about succinctly because it covers game design, product testing, individual behavior, and group behavior under a lot of different circumstances. To help understand this subject, I’ve brought in Dr. Michael Heron of Meeple Like Us.

But first, let’s go ahead and define accessibility, using Michael’s own words (paraphrased):

Accessible games are ones where people can still play your game even if they have extraordinary usability needs. An inaccessibility is any feature of a game that presents a barrier to enjoyment. Mostly it’s about how information is presented and how the game is manipulated, but I also include aspects of cultural inaccessibility and representation.

This guide comes in four parts:

• Who is Michael and what is Meeple Like Us?
• What is accessibility and why does it matter?
• Visual Accessibility
• Physical Accessibility

Below is a transcript of our conversation over Discord DMs. It has been lightly edited for clarity and flow.

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Who is Michael and what is Meeple Like Us?

Brandon: Thank you very much for agreeing to help with this post!

Brandon: Tell me a little about yourself and Meeple Like Us.

Michael: I’m a lecturer in computing at Robert Gordon University in Scotland. My main research interests are accessibility, games, but especially accessibility in games. Previously I’ve been mostly focused on video games, with a special emphasis on games with unusual interfaces, such as text-based games. A couple of years ago I got into tabletop games in a reasonably big way, and as I saw my collection start to balloon I decided I need a way to pretend this was in some way an endeavour that had some applicability to my career. Thus began a study of the accessibility of tabletop games. That in turn resulted in Meeple Like Us where I document all my observations about the games I play.

Brandon: You go into a lot of depth on Meeple Like Us, especially on board game accessibility teardowns. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of reading one, they cover eight different areas of game accessibility and show how well a game covers each one.

Brandon: Nothing comes out alive! Except for, I want to say Splendor, but correct me if I’m wrong here.

Michael: There haven’t been a lot of games that have come out unscathed, but really that’s not surprising – they’re being judged against criteria that are sometimes contradictory, sometimes counter to the game design, and sometimes just really, really difficult to meet. Some of the games that have come out smelling of roses have been Skull, Love Letter, Lanterns and most recently Blank and Wibbell++. Cottage Garden, as yet an unpublished post, also does very well.  Mostly, games tend to fall down in one or two categories rather than across the board (although there are a few of those too). In the end, it’s not so much about complaining, but about trying to give people some insight into game elements that usually don’t get covered in reviews.

Brandon: Right, and the difficult criteria are not there to condemn, but rather to show ways in which game developers can make their games more accessible.

Michael: Yep, absolutely. One of the difficult things about designing for accessibility is that often the compensations for one category come at the expense of another. Icons can sometimes be good for visual accessibility (information dense while taking up small amounts of space), but be a problem from a cognitive perspective as an example.

Michael: So in a lot of cases it’s not pointing out mistakes, but pointing out where design or graphical choices are likely to be a problem for people.

Brandon: So it’s about making conscious choices that benefit as many people as you can.

Michael: Absolutely – inaccessibility comes at you from all kinds of angles and they’re often not obvious. Tales of the Arabian Nights, for example, is a mostly narrative game that is a problem for those with physical accessibility concerns purely because of the fact the spiral binding in the book tends to stick and becomes difficult to manipulate.

Michael: There are some clear, uncontroversial accessibility wins, but more often it’s a case of just trying to maximise the accessibility for the groups you’re looking to design for. A dexterity game likely won’t ever score highly for people with physical accessibility concerns. A game of pattern matching probably won’t be great for people with visual accessibility issues. It’s about being conscious of the inaccessibilities even if sheer pragmatics mean you can’t do much about them without changing a game into something different.

What is accessibility and why does it matter?

Brandon: So here’s an “easy” question.

Brandon: What, broadly speaking, is accessibility in board gaming? Why does it matter?

Michael: A quick definition of accessibility would be “people can play your game if they have extraordinary usability needs.”

Michael: An inaccessibility is any feature of a game that presents a barrier for someone when it comes to enjoying the game you’ve designed. I have a holistic approach to this that also includes aspects of cultural inaccessibility – that sometimes it’s not an aspect of a game as it exists but how that game is presented in its art, aesthetics or theme.   Issues of representation are a big part of what gets talked about in each teardown. Mostly, though, it’s about how information is presented and how the game is manipulated.

Michael: It matters because a) there are a lot of people out there with accessibility needs, and b) we are all going to fall into that category sooner or later. The accessibility issues we discuss on Meeple Like Us aren’t just factors of disability, but also of aging. Assuming any of us ever get to retire, and assuming we want to play the games we never had time for in our working lives, we’re going to want them to be accessible.

Brandon: It’s a good way to include as many people in on the fun as possible – including ourselves in the future!

Brandon: Running with your definition, I’d like to point out that your own site splits it into eight broad categories, which I’ll just paste here:

• Visual
• Physical
• Cognitive (split into Fluid Intelligence and Memory)
• Communicative
• Emotional
• Socioeconomic
• Intersectional

Brandon: I’d like to dive into each of these in further detail.

Michael: Sure thing.

Visual Accessibility

Brandon: What are some ways in which games often fail to be visually accessible?

Michael: Well, the most common one is colour blindness – it amazes me that in 2017 we’re still seeing games that use palettes that are a problem, and not doubling up game elements with icons where it could be done. Other common inaccessibilities are tokens you can’t tell apart by touch (different denominations of money as an example), tiny text, random placement of game symbols, poor contrast, non-standard dice with special faces, paper money, and so on. More subtle things come in when you consider the realities of how people with visual impairments will interact with a game – touch where possible, as an example. That means that flimsy components tend to wear away over time.

Brandon: Colorblindness is the simplest thing to scan for. You don’t even have to use icons if you use a color-safe palette. Here’s an online tool you can use to simulate colorblindness.

Brandon: Tiny text is another usually straightforward fix because it’s usually covering up for overly verbose text – a larger problem.

Michael: Where possible, what you’re looking for here is redundancy of information – colours in a colour safe palette are great, but colour-blind senstive palettes with icons are better if you can accomodate that.   That way you get around environmental issues such as poor lighting too.

Brandon: And visual accessibility can be improved on more heavily used components just by upping the physical quality of the goods, too.

Brandon: Doing one is good. Doing both is better.

Michael: Yep. 🙂

Brandon: Flipping the question, what are some easy fixes to improve visible accessibility?

Brandon: As opposed to invisible accessibility, I suppose. I meant “visual.”

Michael: Haha

Michael: Larger fonts, limiting ornamentation, good contrast ratios, consistency of component layouts are all useful. When using physical components, follow the design of physical coinage – if you look at denominations of coins in your pocket you’ll see they usually alternate size and shape which means that you can tell the difference by touch. You can adopt that with any chits and counters in the game.

Michael: And again, avoid paper money. That’s actually an interesting case study of accessibility in tabletop games. Because there are ways in which paper money can be made accessible in real life. Such as the folding method where different denominations are given a different folding pattern so you can tell them apart in a pocket or wallet. But that doesn’t work in a game purely because of how rapidly money circulates in a game economy.

Brandon: Or you can do what we do in the US with paper money and make everything the same length and texture 😛

Brandon: Same issue board games have, by the way, with paper money. That’s why you avoid it. It’s annoyingly hard to fix that in small print runs – punchout coins are almost always a better, more cost-effective, more accessible option.

Michael: Yep. I don’t have those accessibility issues, but I will almost always replace paper money in any game with poker chips.

Brandon: You can always replace paper money in games with pounds sterling if you want to keep it really interesting.

Michael: With the way Brexit is going, that’s probably also cheaper than using paper money.

Physical Accessibility

Brandon: What are some ways in which games often fail to be physically accessible?

Michael: The main problem in games with physical accessibility problems is that they sometimes don’t offer people easy ways to verbalise their instructions. If you’re playing with someone that is fully unable to interact with a game, most of them can still be enjoyable if instructions can be delivered clearly and simply. But many game boards don’t offer easy ways to refer to game locations, or lack grid references or landmarks, or so on. Tight constraints or fiddly pieces are a problem, as are many different components of different kinds. Card shuffling can be a big problem too, especially in deck builders. Again, consider the real world way games get played in these circumstances – often with card holders and card shufflers to alleviate problems. Except that may not work if cards have key information along the edges that get covered by a card holder, or non-standard card sizes that don’t work in a shuffler.

Brandon: In general, you want mechanics to de-emphasize fiddly actions as much as possible. And cut out parts when you can.

Brandon: Regarding physical accessibility, what best practices can you recommend for piece size, board landmarks/references, and card shuffling?

Michael: Bigger and chunkier is better, but there are obviously cost considerations there. Standard card sizes where possible, and as generous as you can be with physical proportions in board state and the like. Try to limit hand sizes, and provide alternatives to fine motor control – let people position rather than flick, for example. Position game information where it’s not going to be obscured by card holders.  Also remember that a good insert can be a user interface tool in your game – a well designed insert can help limit game sprawl by permitting components to be kept in the box rather than on a table.

Michael: Mostly though, make sure it’s possible for people to unambigiously describe any action they want to take in the game and where they want to take it. If you have a map, provide landmarks. If you have a grid, provide chess style grid references.

Brandon: A simple grid overlay and using thicker tokens is a really simple fix, for example.

Brandon: That’s as easy as saying “2.5 mm punchboard instead of 1.8 mm” – very little material price difference and can be night and day for some.

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In next week’s article, we’ll continue our conversation, focusing especially on the mental and emotional aspects of board game accessibility.

Often times, small tweaks and a general sense of awareness go a long way toward creating professional and polished board games. By exploring some of the ways we can make games more accessible, especially visually and physically, we can create games that more people can play. More fun for everyone!

Here are some key takeaways:

• Accessibility is about making games for as many people as possible.
• No game can be accessible in every situation. Accessibility is about practicing mindful design with your target audience in mind.
• Use colorblind-friendly palettes.
• Pair icons with colors when possible.
• Make tokens differentiable by touch.
• Use the largest font size possible.
• Use game symbols sparingly and deliberately.
• Make it high contrast.
• Try to avoid non-standard dice.
• Avoid paper money.
• Use consistent layouts.
• Make it possible for people to verbalize their instructions if they can’t touch the pieces. Include landmarks or a grid on your game if appropriate.
• Avoid tight physical placement and fiddly pieces.
• Avoid excessive card shuffling.
• Do not place critical information near the edge of cards.
• Use thicker pieces when possible (such as 2.5mm punchboard).
• Limit hand sizes when using cards.

Got any questions or comments? Leave them below, I’d love to read and respond to them 🙂

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the ninth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development.

This suite is based on the Five Levels of Communication through Game Development, my own personal board game development philosophy. However, I’ve brought in Carla Kopp from Weird Giraffe Games so that you can get two viewpoints instead of just one.

With various other developers, I’ve talked about all the different parts that go into making a board game: the core engine, the mechanics, rules, and storytelling / internal narrative.

Except that’s not really all, is it? These elements will give you a game in a box, but they won’t make a game with social impact. Games are more than just what’s in the box. They are also the marketing used to promote them – the advertising and the footwork of the game developers who made them. They’re the Kickstarter campaign and the stores they’re kept in. They are the community that talks about them on forums and plays them at conventions. Games become everything that people claim that they are. I call this “external narrative.”

So how on earth do you bring all that together into a cohesive whole? There is only so much a game developer can do to influence player perception and much of it is not what you’d expect.

This question is why I’ve brought in Carla, who you might know from Super Hack Override & Stellar Leap, two tabletop games that have been successful on Kickstarter. Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation via Facebook Messenger.

This guide comes in four parts:

1. Who is Carla?
2. The Forgotten Parts of Game Development
3. Finding an Audience
4. Parting Advice

Who is Carla?

Brandon: Thank you very much for agreeing to help me out on this post! Tell me a little about yourself and your projects.

Carla: I’m Carla Kopp and I’m a software engineer during the day. During most other times, I’m working on my game publishing company, Weird Giraffe Games. So far, we have two published games, Super Hack Override and Stellar Leap.

Carla: Super Hack Override is a fast-paced filler game for 2-6 players that plays in 10-20 minutes. In the game, you’re a hacker trying to hack into enough facilities to gain the attention of the Supreme Super Hacker, all while avoiding Hacker Jail and making sure no one else can hack faster than you can.

Carla: Stellar Leap is a space exploration game for 1-5 players with worker placement, variable player powers, and a strategic twist on dice rolling in about an hour. The Galaxy is determined by the players who can also choose to trigger galaxy-wide events that can change how the game works for everyone.

Carla: I’ll be Kickstarting my next game, Fire in the Library, soon! It’s a press-your-luck game with variable turn order in which players must try their best to rescue books and accumulate knowledge. Everyone starts with tools to help mitigate their luck or change the probabilities for their opponents and can gain more as the game goes on.

Carla: I have a few other games in the works as well, Drapple and Observance. Drapple is an abstract, tile-laying gardening game. Observance is a game of stargazing, engine building, and time management. There are a few more, but those are the most far along.

Brandon: My copy of Stellar Leap is still being manufactured at the time we’re doing this interview, but I’m looking forward to it. My brother and I have had a lot of fun with Super Hack Override!

Brandon: Respect to you and Nick for being able to put these games together as fast as you have. That’s a lot of work!

The Forgotten Parts of Game Development

Brandon: Games are big projects. What goes into making them that a lot of people forget about?

Carla: There’s a ton of work, but one thing I spend a lot of time on is updating all the game data in a spreadsheet, updating nandeck files, printing out new cards, and cutting them. Every iteration of each game has to be created somehow and there are A LOT of iterations – usually a new one after each playtest, especially in the beginning. I sometimes use blank cards or write on prototypes if I need to iterate quickly, but that typically only happens at conventions.

Carla: There’s making the review prototypes themselves. Stellar Leap took more than two weeks to put together 11 prototypes. This meant separating colors of cubes, chits, and meeples, counting them, putting them all into individual small bags. Cards from the Game Crafter are also in a random order, so I had to separate all of those and put them into different bags. I decided to make my own player boards out of foamboard and artboard. That meant printing out the board images on paper, gluing them to boards, waiting for them to dry, and cutting them all out. There were 5 boards for each game – 55 boards – and cutting each one wasn’t exactly easy or fast. There were a few other pieces to add in, but it definitely wasn’t a fun few weeks.

Brandon: The manual sorting of pieces can be an especially big one if you’re not expecting it. That’s really easy to forget.

Carla: Granted, it’s not necessary to do that level of effort; the reviewers could separate the cards themselves and not everything needs to be in its own bag. I could have done simple card stock for the boards. I’m just a bit of a perfectionist and want to make a good impression.

Carla: There’s also just all the logistics of it all. Games aren’t made by one person usually and definitely not in my case. I work with at least one artist per game, if not an illustrator, graphics designer, and even an artist specifically for meeples! Then there’s playtesters, manufacturers (many at first, until you make a decision on which one to go with), reviewers (I try to go with at least 10), interviewers (written, podcasts, and video), and people to talk to to set up demos. There are just so many people and events to coordinate and it definitely doesn’t magically fall into place.

Brandon: There’s a lot of truth to this. It’s common to juggle a lot of technologies and demands on your time. Even though I “work alone“, I don’t really. I have a freelance artist, a community of game developers to bounce ideas off of, play-testers both online and offline, reviewers, bloggers, podcasters, etc. You get the idea. I have dozens of spreadsheets for different things – people to talk to, marketing leads, game files, play-testing logs, you name it.

Finding an Audience

Brandon: All this is behind the scenes. You have to think about what’s publicly visible, too. How do you find the right audience and spread the word?

Carla: Right now, my methods are really varied. I post frequently on all the progress I make on Twitter and occasionally Instagram. I make “work in progress” threads on Board Game Geek to talk about progress, then post to the appropriate Geek Lists during the Kickstarter. I’ll post in a large variety of Facebook groups while progress is being made on art and other aspects of the game and usually ask questions, while also linking my Facebook page. During the Kickstarter, there are about 20 different groups I post to, depending on the game.

Carla: Always post in relevant groups, but try to make the post engaging. Whenever I demo or playtest, I make sure to get the email address of the person, so I can inform them when the Kickstarter starts. I also run a game night at the local cupcake store and get emails from the people that attend that. There’s also Reddit and I tend to stick to my local subreddit, as the board game subreddits tend to not approve of posting about your own games. I also try to go to as many conventions as I can and playtest as much as possible.

Carla: I also do a lot of interviews! Between written, video, and podcasts, I did 17 interviews during my last Kickstarter. Not only that, there’s also certain board gaming websites that take press releases. I’ve tried a variety of advertising, as well, but I’m definitely going to get farther away from that as traditional advertising doesn’t seem to work as well as I’d hope. I’ve run a few contests as well, but I’m not sure any of those have helped all that much. Contests might be good for unknown publishers, but I’m not exactly unknown at this point.

Brandon: That’s a ton of really good information and I have, in response, a few reactions. The first being that no matter what location you go to – Board Game Geek, Facebook, Reddit, or cons – you’re going to really specific places to spread the word of your games. Not only do you make engaging content, but you post it to specific groups, specific lists, and specific subreddits. It’s targeting. It’s smart business, and because attention is limited and constantly being sucked away, it’s polite, too.

Brandon: As for finding out which places are the best, well, I haven’t found a better way than experimenting – online and offline. Once you found places that work and people who were receptive to what you had to say, you always got their email and give them a place to go. That helps build a community, or at the very least, keep you organized. That’s where podcasts, video, interviews – even this very one – come in. It’s all outreach!

Brandon: This is what networking looks like…it’s talking to a lot of people. Both to spread your ideas and to make them better.

Brandon: Think I just had a marketing geek moment there.

Carla: Reviews are also so important! I have a list of reviewers that are great to work with, but you can’t just choose the ones you like, you have to choose ones that will like your game and increase your audience.

Brandon: Yes, you definitely need to reach out to reviewers for trust and visibility to your intended audience. I try to aim for professional ones with a well-targeted audience, even if they might say something I don’t like.

Parting Advice

Brandon: If there were one piece of advice you could give yourself before you started making games, what would it be?

Carla: Be prepared for a lot of work, learning, and growing as a person. It’s going to be hard, but you’ll be better for it and gain a ton of friends. It’s not an industry where you’ll earn a lot of money, but it does have a lot of heart.

Brandon: Amen to that. It’s a fun process and you meet a ton of people.

Brandon: Alright, that’s all I’ve got. Thank you very much! Good luck on Fire in the Library, I’m looking forward to it 🙂

Carla: Thank you! I’m looking forward to seeing Highways & Byways, as well!

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Board games are big projects, so a lot goes on behind the scenes. Experts can make it look easy, but it isn’t. How you handle manufacturing, logistics, and marketing can all affect how your games are perceived. Those perceptions, in turn, become a part of your game – even if you don’t intend for them to.

Got any war stories from your game projects? Tell us about them in the comments below 🙂

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the eighth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development.

This suite is based on the Five Levels of Communication through Game Development, my own personal board game development philosophy. However, I’ve brought in Dylan Cromwell, the lead designer of Seize the Bean so that you can get two viewpoints instead of just one.

Just like last week’s article, we’re going to focus on what I call internal narrative. It is true that games speak to players through gameplay – the core engine, mechanics, and rules. However, when people think of storytelling in games, they think of theme, story, art, components, and even box design. The internal narrative covers everything about the game itself as a complete product minus the gameplay. That’s what we’re talking about today.

This guide comes in five parts:

1. Play-testing storytelling
2. How do we make stories that resonate?
3. Art and storytelling
4. Physical experience and storytelling
5. Parting advice

Playtesting storytelling

Brandon: We spoke a lot last week about how to tell stories in board games. One thing we agreed upon was the necessity of making sure gameplay and storytelling fit together perfectly. This is true even for games that aren’t considered thematic. Even abstract games like chess have an intrinsic story to them. How do we play-test our board games to make sure our stories and our gameplay match each other?

Dylan: Wow, that’s a pretty intense question because there are certainly a lot of “right” answers. We could cover a whole series of articles just on the topic of proper and productive play-testing. I think one angle – epecially true for asymmetrical characters or seemingly unbalanced strategies, as is the case with Seize the Bean – is making sure you’re aware of at least a few of the player paths you expect or want to exist in the game.

Dylan: For example, the hipster customers in Seize the Bean have a simple, understandable mechanic that is directly tied to the theme and story: they make you raise your hype. Not allow you to, but make you. That means you’re drawing more customers into your line. This pushes the boundaries of what you can handle, resource-wise. So when it comes to the over-hyped café in real life that can’t handle the sudden explosion of business, you get that feeling in Seize the Bean if a player tries to go only for hipsters.

Dylan: Making sure this is working, though, requires myself and my co-designer, Andy Couch (as well as our game developers, Joder, Remigi, and Ninja), to actually implement that strategy during our weekly play-testing. We don’t look for every possible strategy. That’s not possible and it’s not our focus, but we do tackle the ones that make up the heart of the game.

Dylan: There are two other things which definitely take us into the realm of “basics of play-testing process.”  I think they are important to mention, especially when trying to convey thick theme and rich story. Those are accessibility and graphic design.

Dylan: We had to get text sizing right. Colors were backed up by easily identifiable symbols. This is to make sure that all players could clearly see the information on the cards. The amount of people we’ve tested with who are color-blind or have sight issues definitely did not fit the statistic we’ve heard from manufacturers. If we didn’t make things accessible, they wouldn’t get to be immersed in the story as much.

Dylan: The second aspect is the general graphic design, especially when it comes to card effects or other mechanical symbols. We made the huge mistake of taking very verbose iconography to SPIEL17. We hoped people would “decode” the symbols themselves. In reality, everyone needed to look them up on a cheat sheet. If that’s the case, all of those 4 or 5 symbol strings can be reduced to a single symbol.

Dylan: This was massive because visual learners were totally shut out of the whole concept of upgrading their café with decorations since the verbal explanation went in one ear and out the other. It was made even worse because the cards were basically like hieroglyphics to them. They missed the benefit of doing so completely and therefore ignored this aspect of the game, eliminating this part of the story and experience for themselves.

Dylan: In summary: test a variety of strategies. Those are the stories your players will create. Test the accessibility because otherwise players can’t play those stories out. Test the graphics because otherwise players won’t play all parts of the game to discover those stories.

Brandon: A lot of the time you just have to test and test and test to make sure your mechanics and theme match up. You can then either change the theme or change the mechanics depending on what direction you’re going in. You can’t pursue everything – you and the team are wise to recognize that!

Brandon: Absolutely right that accessibility plays a huge role in making sure the story comes across. Failure to achieve a baseline level of accessibility can easily stop a story from resonating.

Brandon: Speaking of which…

How do we make stories that resonate?

Brandon: How do we make stories that resonate with others? I’m not just talking about making theme and mechanics consistent, I’m talking about making memorable stories.

Dylan: This is a great question and really applies to Seize the Bean. Not only does it claim to be about coffee, but it claims to be about Berlin, which is a pretty specific city. We ran into this early on: how will we make the theme and story universally relate-able enough that even people who don’t know Berlin can get into it?

Dylan: What we discovered was that it helps to find an overlap between your specific, unique story details and those that are more universally known. My previous example about hipsters is quite useful and another one would be tourists. Almost everyone can relate to a comical loathing of tourists, even though we’re all often tourists ourselves. The idea that serving a tourist in your shop might make other customers impatient and therefore leave or give you a bad review is pretty universally relate-able.

Dylan: Earlier on, we had our different customer groups bound to certain districts (neighborhoods) of Berlin. While this was super thematic it not only restricted our design massively, but it also ejected players who didn’t know those districts (and even some who did, when they did not agree with our categorization, such as loads of hipsters in Kreuzberg and loads of rebels in Friedrichshain). Once we removed the districts we had less design restriction and a much more accessible story for all players, not just those that know Berlin. For players who missed the districts we even found a way to include them, but I’ll let that be a surprise.

Dylan: Beyond making sure that your story is as universally relatable as possible, it’s also important to make it very unique. That’s the best way for it to be memorable. I think we’re all pretty tired of zombie games (except maybe Rahdo!), so another game about the rise of the dead is probably not going to be as memorable as a game about talking cabbages who are looking for apartments to rent. We discovered this early on with Seize the Bean, actually much to our surprise, that there weren’t that many games about coffee and especially not that many about running a café. This has helped the story of the game be more memorable as well, that it’s unique and doesn’t feel like a clone of another game.

Brandon: It’s a wise choice to focus on feelings and universal experiences instead of Berliner in-jokes.

Brandon: Similarly, I’m also making a game based on a specific location. I’ve had to strip Americana to its core feelings so I don’t alienate others. That means there’s no reliance on state names, an understanding of the country’s geography, or anything like that required to play. Likewise, I stuck to things just about everything can agree on: road trips are cool and we have nice scenery. All the other American in-jokes got the boot, now referenced only in low-key flavor text for those who pay attention.

Brandon: A good rule of thumb to make sure your stories work (whether or not you work on a game based on a particular region of the world)…

Brandon: Test with people around the world. If your basic messages work in America, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, China, and Japan, then you’ve probably made a story that is essentially human and not cultural in origin.

Brandon: (Testing through Tabletop Simulator makes this all a lot easier, by the way.)

Art and storytelling

Brandon: Before you ask for art and when you’re reviewing your artist’s work, how do you make sure your art supports the stories you’re trying to tell?

Dylan: Before you even ask for art, I think you need a discussion (internally with yourself or with your team if you have one) about what the art should convey; not literally, but what feeling, what mood. A lot of artists call the initial creation of this a type of assessment a “mood board.” It’s not that you have to visually make one, but get a sense of what would best represent your story. As I’ve said, Seize the Bean is meant to poke fun (respectfully) at all the wild diversity of Berlin, so having a cartoony, comical style would fit. Your game might need a more photo-realistic, painterly style, or even like War Co., a sci-fi, 3D style. Whatever it may be, nail that down and then go artist hunting.

Dylan: Once you find an artist (or a few), then it’s important to properly brief them about your work. We’ve learned this the hard way with Seize the Bean. Even though our artist, Mario Fernández García-Pulgar, has been a complete angel through all of our changes, we’ve definitely requested much more work of him than we needed to, due to asking for artwork far too early. This is a common mistake by first-time creators.

Dylan: When timing is right and your game is play-testing well and you’ve got your artist and they’ve seen your awesomely clear briefs, then reviewing their work makes sense. What I’ve found is that artists need space, but also benefit from a gentle nudge to challenge them a bit in how far they can take an idea. When I asked Mario for good and bad review tokens I simply had a thumbs up or thumbs down icon in mind. What he returned to me was brilliant: full on little comments from fake people!

Brandon: I’d recommend waiting until you have a working game and then picking an artist who you either a) know personally or b) whose portfolio fits your needs perfectly.

Dylan: This is great point, Brandon: having an existing relationship with the artist (actually, anyone on your team) is really helpful, especially if you plan to work remotely. For us, it was great for us because I had actually worked with Mario before on previous projects. And I already knew how he worked so we had a lot of trust. Trust is important because you should guide your artists but not control them. Listen closely when they aren’t feeling like an idea or direction is going to work. After all, that’s why you’ve hired them: for their expertise and creative vision.

Brandon: Artists love creative freedom. You give them flexible specs and watch them have fun. Correct a little as needed. I’ve seen great results by doing this.

Dylan: I always like to say it’s good to “let others surprise you” but great to “let them surprise themselves”.

Brandon: And yes, yes, yes, please listen to their feedback on visuals. That’s part of the benefit of hiring an artist. And this is so critical art is not only super important to feeling and storytelling, but it’s also a powerful marketing tool anyone can use.

Brandon: War Co. got sold on its art. Byways will probably be the same.

Dylan: Seize the Bean too, by far! And likely our next project for 2018, Towers of the Sun. All three of the artists on those two projects are just amazing. We’re very thankful to be working with them!

Physical experience and storytelling

Brandon: So let’s say you have a great story that matches your gameplay. Let’s say you have great art, too. A lot of solid games nail these aspects but slip up on components.

Brandon: How do you make sure your storytelling works physically and not just visually or mentally?

Dylan: Honestly, that’s been the hardest and at the same time, the easiest part of Seize the Bean.

Dylan: Earlier versions were already wrapped in the idea of shop upgrades, coffee blends and various customers; those elements have always been there. But what I refer to as the game scope (whether or not you serve individual customers or a whole pile as a unit, whether you can have more than one shop, whether there is a big city map or a small image of a single café, etc) was unclear. While testing various game scopes and finally settling on the one we have, we noticed that 3D beans were awesome to play with but a pain to count in large quantities.

Dylan: Typically our scope didn’t require pay-out of beans in large quantities but it did often involve the initial purchase of them in large quantities. Therefore the physical, semi-dexterous mechanic (and component) of the scoop was born. As fun and silly as it feels playing with it, it solved a lot of serious physical issues early on. So in this sense, my business partner and fellow game developer, Josh Wilson (who was the one that dreamed up the idea of the scoop), identified the problem (too many things to physically count) and created a solution. The beauty here is the things (the beans) helped tell the story so removing them wasn’t ideal, and the solution he dreamed up also helped further tell the story so this was a win-win situation.

Dylan: Why do I say it was the hardest and the easiest? Well, adding in 3D components like beans and milk cartons and even our super realistic sugar cubes is easy. It’s also hard though because now that we’re going to Kickstarter on January 16th we’ll really require a critical mass of backers in order to fund those premium components. If not, we’ll need to find the best way to manufacture them more affordably, say with tokens. This won’t cripple the theme or story but it certainly won’t help tell it as richly. So that’s the danger of specialty components. Whenever you can, as creator, find a way to use economically sound components, you should.

Dylan: Another interesting physical bit of our process was card size. We wanted to get the feeling that a whole city of choices (customers, decorations and products) were out there on the table, but we didn’t want the players to need a huge ballroom table just to play. Therefore we actually looked to Feudalia for inspiration, and have been testing a 75x50mm card size that’s surprisingly worked out quite well for us. That’s something else to consider often; how can you modify the shape, size or other features of your components to better deliver your story? For us it was simple: get as much out on the table as we can, hah!

Brandon: It sounds like you’ve touched on the most important thing.

Brandon: Physical accessibility comes first. No matter how pretty it is, you have to make the game functional before anything else. Easy to use, easy to see, easy to count. Fail at any of these and your story gets lost in the shuffle.

Brandon: When you can add stylish stuff like beans, milk cartons, and sugar cubes without running up the manufacture price or losing accessibility, by all means, do it.

Brandon: The way you use parts is a lot more important than the parts you use. That’s why so many games are still using plain old plastic cubes, punch-out tokens, and so on. It works and it doesn’t hurt the gameplay experience.

Brandon: I will say, though: component upgrades make fantastic Kickstarter stretch goals.

Parting advice

Brandon: Okay, last question.

Brandon: If you go back to when you started in game design and give yourself advice, what would it be?

Dylan: There’s too many, why only one!? Hahaha…

Dylan: …but I think above all: don’t forget to have fun.

Dylan: That’s why we’re all in this, after all, isn’t it?

Dylan: I would let my past self know it’s gonna be a long journey: no matter how well you play-test, how perfectly timed your art briefs hit the artist’s desk, how costly your bits and pieces are, how big and friendly your fanbase grows to be…you’re in for a looong ride, so enjoy it. Do whatever you gotta do to make it something you love every step of the way.

Dylan: That, and maayyyybe drink a little bit less coffee.

Brandon: It’s a marathon, not a sprint. As a coffee fan, I can’t back you on drinking less coffee, though. Thank you very much, I look forward to sharing this!

Dylan: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me on-board the Brandon Game Dev express! It was a pleasure to chat about War Co., Highways & Byways, and Seize the Bean!

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Telling stories is one of the most essentially human instincts. Whether or not we mean to, we tell stories through games. It’s best to embrace storytelling no matter how thematic your game is and perfect its tone. Through art, physical components, and clever use of language, board games can transcend their parts and become rich experiences.

In next week’s article, I’ll be bringing a special guest to talk about bringing everything together for your board game project – mechanics, rules, stories, and business. What does a board game look like when everything finally comes together?

For now, please leave your questions and comments about storytelling in games below 🙂