Good habits can be powerful tools for board game designers to enhance their creativity, productivity, and overall success. By committing to start positive design habits, you can establish a foundation for consistent progress. Similarly, ending bad habits helps streamline the design process and ensures projects stay on track. Additionally, setting inspirational yet realistic goals provides a clear sense of direction while maintaining motivation throughout the year. Below are six possible habits for your consideration. These practices not only foster personal growth but also improve the quality and marketability of the games created, making them more enjoyable and memorable for players. Choose one, two, or all six to help your journey this year as a game designer.
1. Pitch to publishers
Pitching a game to a publisher can be a transformative experience for an indie game designer, offering invaluable insights and opportunities to grow professionally. One of the primary benefits is gaining a deep understanding of the pitching process itself. Crafting a pitch requires you to distill your game’s essence into a concise, compelling narrative, clearly communicating its unique features, target audience, and player experience. This process hones essential communication skills and teaches you how to present your ideas in a way that resonates with industry professionals. Additionally, pitching often involves creating supporting materials like sell sheets and polished prototypes, which can enhance your ability to showcase your game effectively in various contexts.
Another key benefit of pitching is the opportunity to learn what publishers are looking for in a game. Publishers typically have specific criteria based on current market trends, audience preferences, and portfolio goals. By engaging with them, you can gain valuable feedback on how to mold your project to best align with these priorities. If you want some tips about pitching, read my article “Top Six Tips for Pitching Your Game to Publishers.”
Some of the best opportunities to pitch your game is at a Designer Publisher Speed Dating event, which can usually be found at the larger game conventions like Gen Con and Origins. At a Designer Publisher Speed Dating event, you’ll get the opportunity to pitch to several publishers, one after the other, over a couple of hours. If you want to read about my experience at a Speed Dating event, read my article “Designing the Perfect Partnership: Gen Con Speed Dating.”
2. Don’t let the fear of bad feedback keep you from designing an amazing game
Having playtesters actively criticizing a project you’ve poured your soul into can be a tough experience. But you shouldn’t let the fear of negative feedback stop you from continuing the game design process, because feedback is an essential tool for growth and improvement. Every game has its flaws and areas for refinement, especially in the early stages. Identifying these issues through playtesting is a natural part of development. Rather than viewing negative feedback as a failure, you should see it as an opportunity to understand what isn’t working and why. This perspective shifts the focus from perfection to progress, enabling you to make meaningful changes that ultimately result in a better game. Negative feedback isn’t a verdict on the designer’s abilities; it’s a guide for improvement and a stepping stone toward creating a more engaging and polished final product.
Making great games requires many perspectives and experiences. The game design process is inherently collaborative, and inviting others into the development journey can transform challenges into opportunities. By involving playtesters and other designers, you gain fresh perspectives that help uncover problems you might not have noticed on your own. Collaboration allows for brainstorming and problem-solving that leverage diverse skill sets and experiences, ensuring that the game evolves in innovative and unexpected ways. Playtesters, especially those from various gaming backgrounds, can highlight shortcomings while offering suggestions that might align with different player preferences, ensuring the game appeals to a broader audience.
If you want some tips on getting through the playtesting stage, particularly with dealing with harsh critics, read my article “Top 6 Most Annoying Playtesters and What They Can Teach You.”
3. Play games you normally wouldn’t play
You can gain tremendous benefits from playing games you wouldn’t normally gravitate toward. Stepping outside your usual preferences exposes you to unfamiliar game mechanics, themes, and design philosophies, which can provide much inspiration. By experiencing how different games handle challenges like player interaction, balance, or replayability, you can gain fresh perspectives on addressing similar issues in your own projects. For example, when playing a cooperative game, you might find innovative solutions in competitive games, such as a novel way to create interest in other players’ actions during downtime. Exploring new mechanics can broaden your creative toolkit, enabling you to craft unique and engaging experiences.
Playing diverse games fosters a deeper understanding of what resonates with different players. This awareness can help you refine your own games to appeal to broader audiences or cater to specific niches. For instance, a designer specializing in strategy games might find inspiration in a party game’s pacing or simplicity, leading to new ways to streamline complex mechanics without sacrificing depth. Engaging with a variety of games also encourages experimentation, which can result in groundbreaking designs that stand out in the competitive board game market. Ultimately, the willingness to explore unfamiliar games can expand your creativity and adaptability, equipping you with the tools to innovate and solve design challenges more effectively.
4. Stop telling yourself your game is not as good as other games
Comparing your game to other similar ones can be a double-edged sword. While understanding the market and identifying games with similar themes or mechanics can provide valuable context, excessive comparison often leads to envy and self-doubt. Each game is a unique expression of creativity, shaped by the designer’s vision, experiences, and ingenuity. By fixating on how your game stacks up against others, you risk diluting what makes your game special. Instead, your focus should be on amplifying the unique aspects that set your game apart—whether it’s a specific innovative mechanic, an uncommon theme, or compelling gameplay.
It’s also important to recognize that the board game hobby is incredibly diverse, with a multitude of tastes and niches. What appeals to one group of players might not resonate with another. Success in game design isn’t about being “better” than another game, but about understanding and fulfilling a specific niche or taste. A game doesn’t need to outshine a blockbuster hit. Rather, it needs to find its audience and deliver an experience they value. By leaning into the aspects that make your game distinct, you can carve out a place in the market where your game stands on its own merits.
Most crucially, you should never let comparison make you believe your game will never be as good as another. Every game—no matter how successful or celebrated—had a starting point and a journey of refinement. The passion and authenticity behind a project often matter more to players than any direct comparison to another game. By embracing their individuality and focusing on creating a game that reflects their vision, indie designers can create something that resonates deeply with their target audience, regardless of how it measures up to others.
5. Attend a playtest convention
There are many types of playtest conventions around the US all year around. The biggest playtest events are Unpubs and Protospiels. Unpubs are events that run concurrently with large conventions like Origins and PAX East/West, typically at the same venue as the main convention. Unpubs are run by the Unpublished Games Network, a non-profit organization who advocates for the game design community. Protospiels are typically independent events (not attached to a convention). Most take place in the Midwest such as Protospiel Chicago and Protospiel Madison which occur once a year. But I’ve seen Protospiels pop up on the coasts every once in a while like Protopiel San Jose and Protospiel Atlanta. There’s no group that runs Protospiel; Organizers work independently. However, there’s a network of Protospiel organizers and stakeholders who support each other and offer advice and resources. Meeple Mountain also maintains a frequently updated list of Boardgame conventions from all over the world, which is a great place to begin your search!
I also recommend going to the Unpub and Protospiel web sites to see if these events will be in your local area over the next year. These events provide an unparalleled opportunity to receive in-depth, constructive feedback from fellow designers who understand the nuances of game mechanics, player interaction, and strategic balancing. Unlike casual playtesting sessions with friends or family, playtest conventions offer a concentrated environment where participants are attuned to analyzing and critiquing games. This ensures that the feedback you receive is both insightful and actionable, allowing you to map out the next steps in your game’s evolution.
Beyond the feedback, the value of networking at a playtest convention cannot be overstated. These gatherings bring together a diverse group of designers at various stages of their careers, from seasoned professionals to enthusiastic newcomers. Engaging with this community allows you to exchange ideas, share experiences, and gain a deeper understanding of the board game design process. You can learn about industry trends, publishing strategies, and even make connections that might lead to future collaborations or mentorship opportunities.
6. Regularly Attend Your Local Playtest Meetup
One of the biggest challenges for the indie game designer is finding the motivation to tackle tough design challenges. Finding solutions and incorporating them into a project often requires tedious and laborious work. This is why regularly attending local playtest meetups is essential for indie board game designers. The act of committing to these events provides a tangible deadline, motivating you to keep your project moving forward. Knowing there is an upcoming meetup encourages you to prepare prototypes, refine mechanics, and articulate your game’s core concepts. This cycle of preparation, playtesting, and iteration prevents stagnation, ensuring steady progress on a game design journey that might otherwise feel overwhelming or unfocused. I don’t necessarily recommend having a new iteration of your game at every meeting. Having a new iteration every second or third meeting is a good goal. But don’t skip the meetings in between. When you don’t have a new design, you should attend to provide the same support to other designers that you hope to receive.
Supporting other local game designers at these meetups is important. By giving constructive feedback on others’ projects, you not only contribute to the growth of the local game design community, but also sharpen your own analytical skills. Observing how others approach challenges or innovate with mechanics can spark inspiration and broaden your perspective. Playing the games of other designers has often inspired innovative solutions to my own design problems. Ultimately, however, regularly attending your local playtest meetup will help cultivate a vibrant, supportive community in your local area that benefits all its members, enriching the broader board game hobby.
My Best Advice
Creating a board game takes a tremendous amount of work and can appear daunting, especially to the new designer. But many veteran designers understand that all of that work consists mainly of small tasks repeated over and over again: playtests, feedback, brainstorming, re-design, etc. Make an effort to start good habits that help you tackle these tasks or end bad habits that prevent you from completing these tasks. You’ll see the benefits over the long run.
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