Thank you so much for making this video. I have so many ideas for my board game creations. I written down a few and now the next step is to bring it to life and hopefully the prototype process will go as planned. If not, a lesson learned. I needed this as inspiration.

Hmm, loving these videos, thanks so much for making them, first time designer here. Got to the point about adding a "swap hands" mechanic, which made me chuckle as in the game I'm working on I've just added a power card that allows a player to swap hands with an opponent (it also has the dual use of changing suite colour). The reason behind adding it, is that an opponent could try and stall the game by holding, and not playing certain cards, so being able to swap hands can get around this. The game rounds are also about getting rid of all your cards, so you could swap a large hand with a smaller hand to get closer to winning the round. I will keep playtesting and also see if I can find alternatives to a "swap hands" mechanic. Do you think "swap hands" could ever have a place, could it be fun, or is it always going to be an unfun moment?

Foudn your channel recently whilst paroosing. So far, lovely content. I look forward to digesting so much more. I will ask, you had a point about reading what other designers say, and mentioned a few blog and opinion sites; do you have a video listing such sites that you found useful?

That intent to use sounds interesting. We our a new game design team, and we are not maketing and promoting yet, as we want to get our trademarks locked in. We're thinking of trademarking our game name, and company name. We've so far trademarked our game name in the UK. We're wondering should we trademark it elsewhere, and then the same for our company name too.

im at around 42:00 when Emerson mentions how he hasn't figured out an application of calculus, I think calculus helps a lot with understanding functions that model how resources vary through time, concepts like derivatives and taylor series give more intuition as to why certain functions outpace others and clears up the confusion between polynomial and exponential growth, a lot of theory crafting that players end up doing also uses calculus for calculating which stats to pick that maximize for example a damage formula, which game designers should take into account when thinking of damage calculation works.

Juanito blokits, is An argentinian game that made the pass roll and wrote a few years ago

the math comedian probably was @standupmaths: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i6iIZbSCrdK1j30.html

35:25

When listing all the pains of running a self publishing company, you forgot my biggest pain: "Listening to advertising and marketing professionals tell you why you should give them money, knowing that half of them are completely useless, but having no idea which half." I absolutely refuse to manage an advertising budget ever again. That's a casino I don't want to enter.

At 26 mins the topic of having a huge catalog vs 1 game came up and I couldn’t disagree more. Think of music. A lot of groups only have one big hit. They can come out with many albums, but if that hit didn’t exist, no one cares about the other songs. I don’t care how many games you have if you don’t have 1 that I really really like. Am I missing the point? I mean I really appreciate those one hit wonders for their hit, not for their catalog… Maybe the point is more about a body of work proving that they must be good at what they do. I understand that logic and it applies to most occupations, but I think there’s a cap on creative endeavors when using that logic. A person may have a great idea, and that’s it. Just one great game. And that’s great. That’s okay, especially if it’s amazing. They don’t need have a different flavor of game for each type of person, they can strongly appeal to some, and be totally useless to everyone else.

Crazy lol One night I told myself I want to make a board game that would be fun for my son to play with me. Similar to munchkin and dungeon... 6 hours later lol 2 am in the morning I finished lol every card written and hand drawn 40 cards for 4 decks lol 😆 I'm just glad that my son fell in love my my game. After 3 drafts and TONS of editing I finally sorta have an idea of how it will now play 😆 But I'm proud because my son, all he can talk about is my board game to everyone lol 😂

Why did this channel die

My students love drawing pictures of everything (anime, fauna, people) on my R&W prototypes. I really need to do better at ending playtests early if I know what the problems are.

Rob is a genius,onecof the greatest Ameritrash designers ever

Hiw can one like cosmic and citadels and mąkę dull boring worker placement euros instead is beyond me

Is IP not as much of a concern in this area as I’m assuming it is? I was surprised the video didn’t mention it (although I still thought the video was awesome). I’ve been looking into copyrighting for games and it seems so complicated! I’d be so disheartened if I put the work into prototyping and playtesting my game just to see someone else steal the idea and get it published before me!

Wow what a great video, thank you!! Each of these points could be a video it self.

Is there design workshop at gencon from you guys?

i'm 12 min into the video and i really don't regret watching it, the tips are so usefull

I totally felt that way about Century Golem Edition too! ✨✨✨

I'm in the process of making a game for two autistic clients I work with. One of them is non verbal so knows some sign language and the other is verbal and really enjoys learning about cars, and even languages. So I am thinking about making the board sensory and interactive. But I've got no idea where to start...but like you said just get it out there, go mad with that prototype and I know that's going be incredibly fun along with the play testing!

Love the idea of playtesting as personas early on ✨. Makes so much sense ✨

Some good advice but the advice about just watching a Playtest and not asking questions.... AWFUL advice. Don't listen to that. Lol you should have notepad ready and ask atleast 2 questions every test. Only way to find the real golden nuggets of info.

What game does Geoff mention near the beginning, the one with the Chinese emperor's trading ships? At 17:50

I made a prototype board game for my school project and in looking to sell it commercially.

Huge fan of this show. I listen all and enrich my life as boardgame designer

agree, dont take advice at face value. you understand it more, so read what is under it

Wingspan is one of my favorite games, it's awesome to hear from the creator about the process.

thank you😁

it's not "unfortunately" that the "game mechanics" are not gonna protected by the copyright. Game mechanics are finite and therefore required to be public knowledge. Same as common words which nobody can "own" specific word. "Character powers" can be protected, though not mechanically but same as any Marvel characters which got protected for the very specific things such as Iron man. While you can have color schemes and simple shapes similar to Iron man, you must have something distinguish enough from the direct usage of Iron man for the "common fair use" which covered all the combination of colors or simple shapes but not for distinct characters. That being said, who own Slime from Dragon Quest? Blue ball with eyes. Obviously you can use blue ball with eyes and call it slime, but not the distinct face of the Dragon Quest slimes. I'll be honest, law stuffs are just too stupid. People are always there to exploit others for their own benefits. It's the way of uncivilized people to make some gains.

16:00 "They don't want to do that... again" I know the feeling! 🤣

A 4% - 8% cut from a publisher should be criminal. It's absolutely wild that designers have put up with such a disrespectful rate.

I really like this video. I think there are many people who really care about the work they are doing and the community they are building. Those people will naturally reach out to creators in the way you suggest. The 'hello sir/madam' messages can just be ignored, as their lack of interest in the community will show through if they somehow manage to get on a podcast. Doesn't benefit anyone...

From someone who sees a lot of fun being cut from video games because they are just chopping up other successful games to take a mixmashed hodgepodge of features and call it a game (while also cutting their creative staff to a skeleton crew) I'd love to show this clip to a board room and other c-level execs at a host of game development companies

There is no political rant at all. There is a thankful observation of spousal support.

I’ve been to Honduras twice, both for mission trips. I love the country and the people there. It was cool to hear you had lived there

This is the most educational video for me that I’ve seen from this podcast so far!

Chess has uncertainty, but that can be mistaken as luck. Luck depends on something random, but player decisions do not qualify as random (even if they decide randomly). Let's agree on basic definitions, please.

Disagree about MOBA games being over at draft. Sure it can influence it, even give you a strong edge; but its never just 100% over off the rip. You can always get diff items or play different to adapt.

I've had a prototype made for over 10 years and has been play tested dozens of times by several people and they loved it. Maybe now it's time to get this thing going.

Would love a crowdfunding guide for boardgames tbh

good

I like this advice. Make an ugly prototype. I said my prototype would be slightly better than WADDED UP GUM WRAPPERS.

Who cares about bob? I am Bob.

12 ads in the first 35 min of video. KZfaq sucks

Most of my more creative ideas come when I am doing something else. Very interesting video !

Wow that video is a true goldmine for someone like me just starting to get into gamedesign. Thank you very much! Also, #46: "Don't worry about art" - I can relate as someone who already spent alot of time designing icons for a dungeon crawler idea, without knowing if the game has any potential other than in my head. But designing icons is fun, so it is definitely not a total waste of time :P

Great video. So enlightening how multi-staged (and complicated) game development, publishing and distribution is. For someone on their first game, you really spelt out what a long and difficult journey it is.

Great discussion!

Game design certainly is a unique niche for a channel. I wish you the best of luck in figuring out how to monetize it, because I really enjoy your content.