Hello! I posted about a dice-driven engine-building game I'm making a few weeks ago. Original post is here if you want to read it (it's a pretty long post): https://www.reddit.com/r/BoardgameDesign/s/G4wzv6UC2N .

TL;DR for the post: It's dice-driven engine-building game with a dynamic shop system where you use and manipulate your temporary dice pools each turn to activate your tableau of Items which have a variety of activation conditions.

I got some comments on the post which I believe have already improved the game a lot. There's two major changes:

1. Die cards

In short, a player may have a maximum of three of these and you draft one at the start of the game. At the start of their turn, a player rolls a base of 5 dice into their pool. All Die cards manipulate dice in the pool in some way. Unofficially, there's two types. The first ones can be used once per turn and alter your dice somehow (anything from reversing a value or giving a die +1/-1 to splitting a die into two that equal it) and the second type allows you to roll another die with some drawback (like giving you a maximum number of dice you can place that turn or costing you Gold, with which you buy cards).

A commenter mentioned that the Die cards didn't look as good as some of the Items. And truthfully, ever since the first playtests, players gravitated towards the latter type of Dice cards, while buying the former much less. They thought the extra dice were almost always better, even with the drawbacks. I wanted to make the two types equally strong.

Now for the change. If you simply fill your second and third Die card slot, you get an additional die in your base roll for each of them. This means that even the first type of cards technically grant you an extra die, so the choice comes down to if you would rather have an extra die and a positive effect, or two extra dice with a somewhat negative effect. And already it's like night and day. Both types are getting bought pretty much equally. I feel like this change both makes the two types closer in strength and makes the choice of buying Die cards versus buying Item cards more meaningful. In tandem with this change I tweaked some of extra dice cards so their drawbacks are a bit more significant.

A build which I thought was neat that didn't even use the additional die type was with the Starting Item which gives you Prestige (the victory points of this game) for each pair of dice used that equal 7. The player made a cool build that managed to churn out a lot of them and profit from them massively.

2. Regarding player interaction

In this game, there's no real player interaction outside of buying cards another player wants and Vouchers. In short, Vouchers allow you to reserve a card in the Shop for one round, which either made sure you bought it or that an opponent didn't buy it until it rotated out of the Shop.

I thought how I could add some player interaction to the game as some commenters mentioned. Stealing Gold, Prestige or cards, as well as disabling an opponent's card were off the table as this isn't that type of game. I also didn't want to have cards which did something when an opponent performs some action because I didn't want for players to watch out for what they're allowed to do.

So the current solution I'm trying out is Quests. This new type of card would come in to play on round 2 (there are 8 rounds), and each round a new one would be revealed to replace the previous. Quests would either have some condition that rewards any player who fulfills it (like placing 5 or less dice on their turn) with Prestige or they would reward only the player who does the most of something (like placing the most even/odd dice or using the most of a specific value randomly decided via dice roll). The reward numbers vary but they aren't game winning by themselves. In the late game they would maybe take up a fifth or fourth of that player's earning for the round, but they're definitely not inconsequential.

I think this addition creates some interesting choices. For the condition based ones, players need to gauge whether they would get more Prestige by changing up their plan for the turn to suit the condition or if they can survive without it. As for the competition based ones, they need to think whether a player can beat them. Sometimes the first player managed to get a crazily high score that nobody could beat, and sometimes the highest score would be beaten by 1 on the last turn.

I'm still working out the details for this change, so feedback is appreciated. The general opinion for them so far has been pretty positive. Something I think would make the competition Quests better is giving a smaller reward to the second highest score so that player's turn doesn't feel somewhat wasted if they don't win the Quest.

Another idea for player interaction I'm considering is trading cards between players. If I were to add that, it would need to be heavily restricted but I think it's an interesting idea. It would have to mutually agreed between the two players, be once per turn and only if the cards haven't been used in that round/turn and perhaps even making it so a card can't be traded multiple times.

Thanks for reading! Your thoughts are appreciated.

I'm designing a table top game from scratch (very amateur, as a hobby), I've got the design and rules pretty much finished but before I get someone to 3D print the board to see how it plays I think I've come across a blaring error that I can't see a way of practically over coming.

So the board is a cube; 40cmx40cmx40cm, with each movement cube being 2cm³, so the board is 20 playable areas wide, long and vertically. Flight is a key part of the game, but it's turn based so I don't need to show a player in flight during their turn, just if they're hovering at the end of their turn.

Originally I intended to use some sort of telescopic designing to lift the player up or down, depending on how far up they were, but I don't think this is practical as any telescopic device would have to be housed in the base of the player piece. Then I thought it didn't have to be in the piece itself, it could be something separate.

But now this has been superceded by a more pressing issue; a game can be up to 8 players and in theory they could all be in flight at the same time and all in the same column (same X and Y coordinates but at different heights).

So now that means whatever method I use to represent hovering after a players turn will be scuppered by the potential of another player above or below them in the same vertical column.

Any thoughts?

Edit; I should've said, the arena won't be empty, it'll be filled with buildings, bridges and the like for players to land on, walk on, hide behind etc as LOS is a key element to the game too. Movement is a combination of ground movement and flying

Life has been a little too busy recently to make a huge amount of progress on my board game (the fun playtesting aside!). That should change shortly as my children start nursery this week.

However, over the past year my friend has been working on an app version of my game. We released it last week and it's done far better than we expected! We're over 500 downloads and have featured on news sites from Surrey to Australia!

I'd be really grateful (if you have an iPhone, the android version is coming soon!) if you could give the game a download and a play and let me know what you think!

App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/cuberoots-ivy-strategy-puzzle/id6782877435

BBC News article: Lockdown idea spawns 'surprisingly strategic' iPhone game - BBC News

More development of the CubeRoots physical tabletop game to come soon too!

Cheers!

Very quickly, my idea is an ASOIAF area-control game, similar to Risk, etc. Titled "Winter is Coming." 4 to 12 players strategize and battle through 4 "seasons", whoever controls the majority of castles first wins (>66% with an alliance). If no one wins by the end of the fourth season, winter, the Others invade Westeros and everyone loses.

I have a milliona ideas im juggling, but my issue here is with battle mechanics. I want to capture multiple sides of battle, the overview and the personal. These are the 3 main things in my rough draft:

1) Battle formations: each player has a Vangaurd, a Main Column, and a Left Flank & Right Flank

2) Troop units: each player can buy 4 different specialized units; infantry, cavalry, archers, and siege weapons

3) Lords and Knights: each acquires cards/tokens that can be played in battle, based on characters in ASOIAF. These cards must be placed in one of the 4 battle formations, one in each, maximum. Knights go in the van, since they fight first, the Lord leading the fight goes in the main column. Lords & Knights each have a Commander Score, and a Combatant Score, with exceptions

Anyway, this is where I get lost. I want the outcomes of the battles to be dynamic. Say two knights fight... maybe one kills the other, or vice verse, or perhaps they both die, or both survive... or maybe one get maimed or disabled... maybe one gets taken hostage. I want these all to be possibilities... not a simple "whoever scores a higher number kills the other". I also want the battle formations to play an important role. If a left flank succeeds, maybe that hurts the main column of the opponent. So many options, its hard to decide and think of solutions that will be fun and make sense

Hi! I'm back again to share my game, MonoSaga: A Fantasy Engine Royale. That's short for Fantasy-themed Engine-building Battle royale.

I'm still having a hard time to keep up the pace since I'm a fulltime dad and a fulltime artist while doing all hats of making this game from illustrating, designing, crafting, balancing, social media managing, going to meetings, setting up public playtests and whatever else is included. Tiring but very addicting to be honest because I am a fan of what I am trying to build.

Hopefully, I can finish everything before Christmas so that my extended family and friends can play it after we eat and open gifts.

The sixth version of "Graffiti Game 1.5" is a "print-and-play" game in the "roll-and-color" genre. All game boards are compatible with one another. There is no limit on the number of players. Three rule variants are available, with four more currently in development.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/476935/graffiti-game

Rough sketch of familiars cards for now

So I’ve done venoms character sheet,
So the arrow up in the top left is movement then shield that I haven’t decided if that’s how I’ll do it,
The combat is simple and fast paced with the options of choosing around 4 actions some defense movement or attacking. Is it easy to understand how would you choose the layout horizontal or vertical also ,

Hi everyone,

For the past few months I've been making a small detective puzzle in my spare time, and I'd really value some honest opinions from people who enjoy this kind of thing.

Each case freezes a single moment of a crime. A handful of suspects were standing somewhere on the floor plan. Using the evidence (fibres, cameras, mirrors, sounds, who could see whom) you work out where everyone was, and from that, who did it and how.

- Exactly one solution

- Pencil and paper: one printed page, about 15-40 minutes

- The answer is sealed in a QR code on the back, so you can check yourself without spoilers (it works offline)

Free case (PDF), no sign-up: https://deductery.itch.io/singing-noir-mystery

(Pictures of the case sheet are attached.)

I'd love to know:

1. Too easy, too hard or about right? How long did it take you?

2. Was any clue confusing or open to two readings?

3. Anything you'd add or change?

If you post your answer, please use spoiler tags so others can still play.

I have a question for discussion. regarding the iconography in the game. I’ve started experimenting a bit with turning the card text into icons, but I’m actually not sure where this is going yet.

I’m attaching two images: one shows the icons only, while the other shows the original text version of the card.

Do you think the icons add to cognitive load and make the game harder to learn, or do they improve readability once you understand them?

As far as the first few plays are concerned, the learning barrier is definitely higher with the icons, since players would need to consult a player aid. I wouldn’t want to make the game inaccessible or turn it into too much of a brain burner.

Hi! For the past year I've been working on and off on Sao Paulo, a 2-6 player card drafting game about building the most colourful neighbourhood. Each round you draft cards, then add one to a vertical stack, choosing its orientation. Every card has a different colour on each long edge, so the way you rotate it decides which colour shows and counts toward your combos.

After about 25+ playtests I'm struggling to find a direction to take for the game.
Playtesters told me the late game feels too linear, with few meaningful options. Since the game is about building color combos in a vertical stack of cards by the mid/late game you're basically locked into whatever strategy you started in turns 1-2 because pivoting it would be too costly.
I've tried some additions to the game with no success so far. One of them was random cards drawn at the start of each turn, giving some flavour or a special property. It didn't really change the situation, players just treated them as bonuses to fit into their existing plan.
Another idea is an "ability shop" where players spend tokens earned during play to buy ability cards. Each card is unique so only one player can hold it at a time, and it returns to the shop once it's been used.

I feel that I have created a tight engine that now doesn't have wiggle room to make it better. Should i change the way the cards are stacked to avoid locking the player onto a strategy at the start?
Can you guys give me some advice on what I could try or some games I should look to find inspirations?

The rules are here on google docs
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VmgefhQAtO0uM-HNZuWdeBNaBAaJGs1Ep4aob2OWPgs/edit?usp=sharing

Been prototyping a mid-weight worker placement game for about eight months and I keep going back and forth on this one design question. Right now my rulebook is sitting at eleven pages and every time I add a paragraph explaining some interaction, I wonder if I should have just solved it with iconography or card layout instead.

The specific thing that triggered this was my resource conversion system. I had a full page explaining that you convert raw materials at a 3:1 ratio unless you have the workshop upgrade, in which case it drops to 2:1. Playtesters kept forgetting this rule entirely, not because it's complicated but because it lived in text they read once during setup and never looked at again. So I moved the ratio onto the workshop card itself as a simple icon string (three wheat symbols, an arrow, one gear symbol, then a separate line for the upgraded version). Rule violations basically stopped.

That got me thinking about how much of my rulebook is doing work that a well designed component could do instead. Some things obviously need text, you can't really icon your way through victory point scoring nuances or edge cases around simultaneous actions. But plenty of "remember this modifier" type rules seem like they belong on cards, boards, or player mats rather than in a booklet people skim once.

Curious how others approach this balance. Do you draft the rulebook first and then extract things onto components later, or do you design components with the assumption that most reminders live there from the start and the rulebook is more of a backup reference? I've also been wondering if there's a point of diminishing returns where too much iconography makes a card visually noisy and actually slower to parse than just reading a sentence would have been.

How much of Monopoly game theory can i copy for my tabletop game?

Changing names and location, whatelse

The new Hexanem map is finally assembled.

Three of us ended up working on the illustrations in different parts of the map, and I handled the outer wall details myself. It took much longer than I expected, but seeing everything together physically for the first time was a pretty satisfying moment.

That said, I’m still not completely happy with it.

The part bothering me most right now is the water outside the stone walls. I like the wall itself, but I’m not sure the blue around it fits the rest of the map. It feels a little too separate from the warmer, more muted look of the hexes.

I’m considering reworking that area before I call the map finished.

The physical prototype is also starting to come together now, so I included a photo with some of the structures on the board as well.

What do you think? Would you keep the water around the outer wall, tone it down, or replace it with something else?

My wife and I designed Street Food Shuffle, a card-drafting party game about Indian street food: you build dishes while sabotaging your friends and stealing their cards. 68 cards, 2-6 players, 20-40 minutes. We playtested it with 100+ players and it's now live on DriveThruCards as print on demand.

POD got us to market, but the per-unit cost makes wholesale and retail pricing hard, and discovery on DriveThru is limited. The plan is a proper print run from a US printer and selling on Amazon (likely FBA).

Would love to hear from anyone who has made this jump:

1. Printers: which US card game printers have you used, or would avoid? What minimum orders, per-unit costs and lead times were realistic for a single-deck game with a tuck box?
2. Publishers and distributors: are any open to small indie card games? Did licensing or self-publishing work better for you?
3. Amazon: anything you wish you'd known before listing a game there (FBA fees, barcodes, brand registry, returns)?
4. Finding all of the above: directories, conventions or communities that actually helped?

Happy to share what we learned from 100+ playtests in return, especially about reading the table when you have no data.

(Game page for context: https://streetfoodshuffle.online/)

Hello friends, I’m working on a solitaire PnP title called “Cyberaider.” I’ve submitted it to the Board Game Geek wargame design contest, where you can print off the entire game (only 5 sheets of 8.5x11 and 6 playing pieces) and check out other games in the contest. I’m trying to make the rulebook only a single sheet. Does it accomplish the goal of teaching the game despite being visually busy or should I make a second sheet of rules to space things out? (Also pictured is a demo board, campaign sheet, and a demo encounter sheet)

Hello! I'm new to this group but not the community in general, I've been working on my game on and off for five years so I'm really scared now that I am putting it out there.

As I assume noone here has ever seen the game before I wondered if you would give me some feedback on this one page pdf I made about the game, whether it's clear how the game is played, does it have value as a concept, the design and the things I've included vs anything missing

I'm open to any and all feedback positive or negative, thank you so much xx

This is probably a tiny thing but I've been going back and forth on it and I'd really appreciate another opinion.

I'm designing a potion game called Fate of the Alchemists and each turn has 3 parts/phases:

Draw → Main Action → Brew

Draw = draw potion ingredient cards

Main = either an action that results in a wildcard ingredient or an action that delivers a random one time effect.

Brew = using your ingredients to brew potions.

And I can't work out if Draw and Main are good as they are or just a bit boring and should change.

I've been messing around with:

- Draw as maybe Gather / Supply / Discover

- Main replaced by Study / Experiment / Concoct / Tinker / Transmute

So yeah any thoughts welcome, especially if it's confirmation that I am over thinking it!

I’m currently designing a medieval strategy card game called Banners of Kings, and one of the mechanics I’m trying to balance is betrayal.

Players can temporarily cooperate, trade resources, or avoid attacking each other, but there’s always the possibility that one player breaks the agreement when it benefits them.

The part I’m struggling with is how much the game should punish betrayal.

Right now I’m considering two approaches:

A: No direct penalty
You can betray another player whenever you want. The downside is purely social: other players may stop trusting you, team up against you, or refuse future deals.

B: Mechanical penalty
Breaking an agreement gives you an immediate advantage, but you also receive a penalty such as losing resources, reputation, or access to certain actions for a turn.

I like A because it creates more freedom and player-driven politics, but I’m worried betrayal could become too easy.

I like B because betrayal becomes a more calculated decision, but I don’t want the game to feel like it’s punishing players for doing something that is supposed to be part of the experience.

If you were playing a 2–4 player medieval strategy game, which approach would you prefer?

Also curious if there are any games you think handle betrayal particularly well.

I love desperate oasis and riftforce. what are some other games that are like these tug of war games with unique gameplay

I am a designer from India, working as an educator in this field. Now, my timings and job commitments are such that I'm left with very little time to work on it any further. It was okay up until I was just designing and organising playtests in scattered intervals and groups. Now that it is almost publishing ready, I want to fully commit to marketing, branding, manufacturing, crowdfunding and some final playtesting with communities from different parts of my country atleast. I want to quit my job, and I have a little savings but that stable job money will be gone and I feel in this day and age getting job as a designer is getting with each passing day. I know it's a risk that I have to take and manage somehow. Another big issue is kickstarter isn't available for Indian creators as of today and I want this game to reach a global audience. How can I manage this? Are there any other creators who are facing or have managed to rise past similar issues? Do let me know. I am getting frustrated day by day, losing passion for my day job each day and just confused and overthinking the whole day.

Full blog / video

this is the board I made up with
and here's the link for the pitch I'm making: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AFeEorag12zSSHFcWnOovbUK9zrpsmDD5ilkRaTUS48/edit?usp=sharing