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We often get emails
from students who want information about designing board games
as projects for GCSE and degree courses. These are are some
of the questions we've been asked in the past and the answers
we've been given. Remember though, that we are a games shop
rather than a group of designers, so this is from a retail
perspective.
How do you come up with designs
for board games?
There are two ways, the way a game is played,
which is often how people who
are good at maths or spacial awareness begin. The other way
is to start with
a 'theme' which might be 'School' or 'London' or 'Nature'.
A lot of simple games are race games where the play is generally
decided by dice, there is not much strategy in these games.
Some have more sophisticated play with cards and obstacles.
It is important to play games if you are
going to design one. You could also read some of the rules
on this website and have a think about the mechnisms they
use. You could try a simple board game like goose
a tile laying game like mexican trains
or a card game like cribbage.
Think about the basic mechanisms, like
blocking your opponents or scoring for combinations and how
you might apply them differently. For children a simple matching
mechanism within the game can be very effective.
Redesign can be very original, for instance
the game tri-ominos
uses a traditional method of play from dominoes, but with
an innovative new twist, that the tiles are triangular.
What board games sell best?
A game that has been advertised well; Cranium
had lots of tv advertising. Or games that have been around
a long time like monopoly. If it has spiderman on the box
it can sell without being a good game but we don't sell any
games like this (the name for these is 'licensed'). It is
very difficult to get a new game to sell well, though we do
our best when talking to customers.
Do you trial your games on the public?
Its important to get lots of people to
play the game through because different people will come up
with different problems. Most games are printed in runs of
20,00+ to keep the costs down to something reasonable, so
obviously you have to be very sure of the design before you
go to print.
Have any types of board games have
you found to be unsuccessful?
Its very difficult to get people to take
risks with new, unadvertised games, but some poeple are moderately
successful. Its easy to kill a game by being too expensive,
the more components, and the more different kinds of components
a game has, the more expensive it will be to produce.
New games will benefit by word of mouth
so if it is boring it won't get that. You might also want
to avoid
- long rules that are difficult understand
- a long setup
- a mechanism where people are 'knocked out' if you are the
first to be knocked out that can get boring.
Does your board have to be a board, some games
have tiles that you lay down so the board is different every
time. Some boards are simply places to lay cards.
I would say its important to decide whether
the game is for children or adults, since these are very different.
Ask yourself, what is your favourite game, what do you like
about it.
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