Joe Slack - The Board Game Designers Guide: The Easy 4 Step Process to Create Amazing Games That People Cant Stop Playing

THE BOARD GAME

DESIGNERS GUIDE

By

JOE SLACK

Copyright 2017 Joe Slack

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Dedication

To my wonderful, amazingly supportive wife, Lisa, and my awesome son, Evan. Thanks for always standing behind me and my dreams!

This is also for all the board game enthusiasts helping to spread the word about our amazing hobby, especially those who are brave enough to try creating their own game.

CONTENTS

There were so many people who had a hand in this book, and I hope I havent forgotten anyone!

Thank you so much Jamey Stegmaier, for your support, kind words, and inspirational foreword.

To all the amazing game designers and community members Ive learned from, and in many cases become friends with , o ver the years, I couldnt have done this without learning from all of you. Thank you Chris Chung, Gabe Barrett, Rob Daviau, Steve Jackson, Matt Leacock, Sen-Foong Lim, Uwe Rosenberg, Kristian Amundsen Ostby, Vlaada Chvatil, Tom Vasel, Luke Laurie, Eduardo Baraf, Daryl Andrews, Sylvain Plante, Colby Dauch, Ben Gerber, Gil Hova, Daniel Zayas, Seth Jaffee, James Mathe, Artem Safarov, Mark Kolb, Pam Walls, Shannon McDowell, Ben Bratzel, Matthew Hester, Kevin Carmichael, Allysha Tulk , Peter Hayward, Daniel Rocchi, Jeff Lai, Harry Timson, Raf Rahman, David Van Drunen, Jeff Fraser, Andy Kim, Damian Fleming, Maddox Campbell, Rod Currie, Stefano Liseno, and Mitchell Allen.

A special thanks to Rebecca Reid, my amazing editor and a great friend. I know this was a big project and I appreciate all your help! You made my book so much better and I cant thank you enough.

A huge thanks to Shawn Clouthier, who read my early manuscript and provided invaluable input. You made The Board Game Designer s Guide even more helpful!

Thanks to my writing coach, Scott Allan, and the wonderful Self-Publishing School community.

To my oldest friend (what are you, a hundred now? ) Jason Deline, for all your help with the audio book and your undying support.

To my great friends and family, Matthew Guillemette, Margie Guillemette, Derek Welford, Aizick Grimann, Lubin Martinez, Lucas Cesarone, Daniel Longmire, Dave Neal, Renee Laviolette, Matt Mitchell, Cory Bildfell, Rob Slack, Kerri Beaulieu, Penny Slack, Kal Mollison, John Acuna, Cindy Alexander, Helena Patte, Caitlin Hartley, Jordan Loshinsky, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McDougall, Stu Sackler, Brayden Jones, Celia Bradshaw, Siva Bradshaw, Shannon Boyce, Marco Garcia, Todd Taylor, Helen Deline, Gary Deline, Paul Brown, Nan Brooks, Jane Goldthorpe, Mike Sone, Adam DeVita, Frances Maxwell, Voula Maroulis, Jeremy Banks, Chris Cormier, AJ Brandon, Nathan Frias, Chad Nikolic, Margarita Prunskus, Pat Prunskus, Yvonne Tellis, James Pawelkiewicz, Leah Smith, Adam Smith, Momo MacLeod, Dave Rossi, Belinda Rossi, Krista Miller, Bernard Blassnig, Rob Routh, Kim Routh, Anna Murray, Helen Taylor, Steve Camacho, Andrew Gibson, Deb Piskunov, and Maks Piskunov. Thank you all for your support and playing so many early prototypes of my games.

Thank you to my parents, Nancy and Bob Slack. Thank you for everything you do and for always being so supportive.

Last but not least, thank you Lisa and Evan, for putting up with me, especially all the time that I put into this book and designing board games. You are the best! I couldnt have done this without you.

My only regret after reading The Board Game Designers Guide is that time travel doesnt exist, because I would very much like to send this book back to myself in 1989.

When I was 8 years old, I had my first desire to design a board game. At the time, I had played a small number of classic games like Mille Bornes, Labyrinth, Chess, and Monopoly. I took what I liked about those games and combined them with my youthful love of knights and castles, and the result was a game called Medieval Quest. I spent hours brainstorming ideas, illustrating the board, typing out the rulesand I played it exactly once.

Medieval Quest spent the next 22 years in my parents attic, along with other games I designed during that time. In 2011, I found them during a trip home, and they were part of the catalyst for me to start designing Viticulture. Even then, after years of light game design and participating in the game hobby, I had so much to learn.

Without a doubt, if I had read Joes book back in 1989, it would have accelerated my progress and potential as a game designer by decades. I would have known from an early age to play a wide variety of games and even look for inspiration beyond the world of games. I would have known to target a specific player experience and use constraints to inspire meaningful decisions through multiple playtests. And I would have known to identify the golden moment and accentuate the resulting wow factor to make my games stand out from others on the market.

Ive now designed and published several games (Viticulture, Euphoria, Scythe, and Charterstone) and developed games by other designers that my company, Stonemaier Games, has published or will publish. Even with that experience, Im constantly learning, and I found The Board Game Designers Guide to be insightful and inspiring. I hope it has the same impact on you.

Jamey Stegmaier

November 17, 2017

Congratulations! Youve taken an amazing first step towards creating your very own board game.

Making a board game seems so easy, but if youve ever tried to design one yourself, you quickly find out theres a lot more involved than you bargained for. Mechanics. Theme. Playtesting. More playtesting. Its enough to make your head spin.

A lot of work goes into something that seems so simple. You have a great idea for a game and it plays perfectly in your head, but when you get it to the table, it falls apart. Or maybe you just cant get past the idea phase.

The good news is, theres a mountain of information out there on how to make a board game. The bad news is, theres a mountain of information out there on how to make a board game.

When I was creating my first game, Cunning Linguistics, I was able to find bits and pieces of helpful information, but the problem was, I couldnt find any kind of step-by-step process that would take my idea from start to finish. After having to learn everything by myself the hard way, I wanted to help others interested in getting into board game design so that they could create better games faster, and without all the headaches, wasted money, and missteps that I made.

Creating and publishing a really polished board game doesnt have to be so hard. In this book, I will show you how to take an idea and turn it into an amazing game that people will love. Im going to walk you through the process step-by-step, first taking your idea and getting it to the table, then playtesting it and making quick iterations, getting it to a final stage, and then helping you figure out what the next best move is for you.