Jesse Terrance Daniels - Make Your Own Board Game: Designing, Building, and Playing an Original Tabletop Game

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Edited by Deborah Burns

Art direction and book design by Ash Austin

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Indexed by Christine R. Lindemer, Boston Road Communications

Cover and interior illustrations by E. M. Engel Illustration

Additional illustrations by Ash Austin Storey Publishing LLC, (all ex. characters)

Text 2022 by Jesse Terrance Daniels

Ebook production by Slavica A. Walzl

Ebook version 1.1

November 7, 2022

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To those who believed in me when I forged my own path.

Thank you to my teachers, Bonnie Tatro Capogna and Patricia Galvis Assmus.

Thank you to my wife, Jaclyn Gladstein.

Thank you to my friends and family.

Make Your Own Board Game focuses on tabletop game creation. It takes the tricky terminology of game design and translates it into easily understandable language. Piece by piece, tabletop games are broken down into their most basic parts so that you can understand how the pieces work and use them to build your own game from the ground up.

This book is designed for the gamer in everyone. Its accessible to a younger audience, and adults will find it a useful resource. Its a handbook that focuses on designnot funding, publishing, manufacturing, marketing, or any of the less creative aspects associated with crafting a game. The first step to success is to focus on creating a game that is accessible, fun, and timeless.

This handbook is for aspiring young game designers. Its for the ones creating house rules in existing games and crafting together expansions by collaging homemade components. Its also for those who are attempting to produce brand-new games. Its for all crafters: from those designing their first game to pros looking to improve their crafting skills.

This book will strengthen your understanding of what makes a game great and illustrate how to facilitate fair gameplay. It explains the art of timeless replayability. It is a reference for gamers who want to use it as a collection of mechanics, explanations, and motivations. Even teachers who want to understand how to relay this information to students could use this book in their lesson plans.

Gaming is full of educational opportunities. Players read and memorize; use math, logic, and deduction; gain social skills; bolster cooperation; and boost their creativity in a fun and interactive way. Game crafting is an artistic medium and an educational engine. Not only can crafting deepen your imagination and ingenuity, but it can also be enriching for the players. You may inspire players to wonder about strategy or create a game of their own.

Make Your Own Board Game will give you an understanding of the tools at your disposal. Just like understanding brush strokes and color theory before beginning to paint, or tempo and rhythm before playing music, the basics are the first step. Of course, you can pick up some drumsticks and start drumming. Maybe youre a natural! But its important to study and practice; even the most naturally talented artists, in any field, learn about theory and style.

This book contains those theories, in an accessible format for all experience levels, but is especially helpful for those just starting. It displays a multitude of styles and interpretations in a practical order that you can easily reference. After completing Make Your Own Board Game, you can hit the ground running and create your very own games.

And not only will it make you a better game crafter, but it will also make you a better gamer once you have an empowered understanding of the construction, rules, and natural flow of a game.

When it comes to gaming, a mechanic, also known as a mechanism, is a combination of components, rules, and gameplay, resulting in a process. Its similar to combining pulleys, gears, and screws to form a complex machine like an engine or a motor. A game is the culmination of multiple mechanisms, in the same way that many complex machines combine to create a car or robot.

This book has collected these mechanics into broad categories, such as what happens in a turn, or how pieces move around a board. Under each category, you will find examples of specific mechanics. Once youve digested the options available, you will be ready to move on to the Game Crafting chapter.

The Game Crafting chapter will show you where to begin and where you can go. Designers can craft games in millions of different waysthe creativity and original ideas you bring to the table will create a unique game.

The last section of the book provides customizable games to give you a starting point. These games are like a drawing reference that an artist uses to learn with their eyes and hands. Perhaps an artist is interested in sketching geckos. Without any geckos nearby, how can an artist know what they look like? A reference lets the artist cement an image in their mind and a muscle memory in their hand of how to draw a gecko.

The very same concept applies to this books customizable games. They offer an example of a balanced game. The instructions provide the groundwork, and the customizations make it yours.

When you feel ready, you can craft games on your own. Thats when this book will serve as a resource to help you figure out which mechanic will demonstrate your original games concepts best.

Note that pink type identifies a term that will be followed by its definition.

If youre eager to get designing, feel free to start at the Game Crafting chapter. If you come across a term that you dont quite understand, use the index to find out where an example or explanation appears in the book. Jumping in with both feet, bounding around the text, is in the spirit of interactive stories where players make choices throughout.