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Realizations in Game Design

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Casamyr
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Joined: 07/28/2008

Hi all.

I made a post in my journal today, that I though might be an interesting design discussion. It was more about my own trials and tribulations of creating a board game and how I disillusioned myself when it came to making a prototype.

Iā€™m a mechanics and theme kinda guy and limited on the art front, or more specifically I can't put on to the pieces, the vision I have in my head which made me take a big step back from the site and to leave things alone of a while. Ideas still floated around my head, usually to and from work, but I didn't really want to touch any of them due to this fear that I'd just throw it away and not want to come back to it.

My realization only come a week or so ago when I was lurking around on the site and I was looking at some images that had been placed up. It was a simple card with just bits of text on it and made me realize that I don't need a AAA looking game to play test it. That was my biggest hurdle. For solo testing I can just use text, maybe even with my wife and very close friends I could do this. If I wanted a better looking prototype for blind testing there are plenty of people who are willing to donate time, or for a small cost would be happy to help out.

This, for me, was massive. Without that realization, I think my ability to create games that I'd enjoy playing would have never gotten anywhere. I'm not expecting to sell anything, other than to create a game that I would like to play. If others like the game/s I design, then awesome, but that isn't my driving force in this hobby.

I would be interested to know other peoples realizations of design and how they solved a problem for a great and fun hobby.

Pastor_Mora
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Joined: 01/05/2010
I stink at art too

Well, man, welcome to the stink-at-art club. All my prototypes are strictly powerpoint level and openoffice draw recently (great improvement). Anyway, everyone keeps saying the publisher will get his own guy to do the art part of your games, so, why bother? For what I've read you won't be publishing, so never mind. But I strongly support your awakening conclusion. Do the game, and art will come by its own.

Keep thinking!

CloudBuster
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Joined: 04/14/2009
I hear you! :)

Yep!
I suck at art, too. And that was a hurdle for me as well. I started to get frustrated that I couldn't draw and couldn't come up with awesome card art that would make my friends say, "Wow! You designed this? This is great!"

Meh.

One of the ways I got around that hurdle was to work on other aspects of the game that need to be done regardless of the art work. (I actually DID come up with a card design I liked, but it took a long time.) You still need to come up with rules, pieces, a board, etc. I just worked on other things. Also, I highly recommend learning some techniques you can find from tutorials for paint.NET (or any other painting/drawing program out there). The reason I mention this is because someone else already has the talent to come up with these tutorials. All you need to do is follow their instructions and viola! Something cool that you made yourself, but you don't need to know how to draw! For instance....my game is space based...there are lots of tutorials out on the net that show you how to create a starscape, planets, nebulas...etc. Once you do some of these tutorials, you can quickly see how to apply other effects/colors to make something your own.

Have fun!

-CB-

Willi B
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Joined: 07/28/2008
lots of images out there...

if you need to use them. Pretty prototypes do get more playtesters, so when it is ready just swipe things from the net. As long as it isn't earning any money at any time or being displayed elsewhere, why not? IANAL!

I work in Microsoft Word and Paint. That's all I know how to use, but all I need.

larienna
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Joined: 07/28/2008
Make prototype as cheap as possible

Prototyping rule number 1: Unless you are near the end of the game design and you are playtesting with real players, make your prototype as cheap as possible. Especially if you solo playtest.

Not doing so will simply make you lose valuable time. Using generic components saves you a lot of time. You can even use regular cards instead of doing your own custom cards.

I remember once designing a series of heroes. I took a week to balance all their stats, designed their special abilities, and make the cards in black an white and print them. I play tested once, and I needed to scrap the cards because the core of the game simply did not work.

Start making better components when you are sure it is not going to change. Remember that you cannot be entirely sure unless your game is almost complete.

Some times, I don't even design stuff on the computer. I have card board shaped as token and cards. I take a pen and write directly what I want on it. Sometimes it's faster than doing it with a computer.

MarkKreitler
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Joined: 11/12/2008
K.I.S.S.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

That summarizes my biggest breakthrough moment. A lot of newbies approach game design from a "features" standpoint: "I want this, and that, and this other thing, and those, and a few of these, and when I put it together, it'll be AWESOME!"

Er...no it won't, unless you're unbelievably lucky.

Creating a design from a list of features and trying to work backwards to the mechanics is almost always disastrous. You end up with overly complex systems with lots of edge cases that are hard, if not impossible, to balance.

If you're a theme-first guy (like me), try to pick one or two simple mechanics that "feel" like the theme you're creating. Make a simple prototype using just those mechanics. Playtest. Add where you must, cut where you can, and repeat.

If you're a mechanics-first guy (like Knizia, I guess), you probably won't have the KISS problems in the first place. For you folks, I suspect the challenge is finding a theme that fits your mechanics (something even the revered Reiner doesn't pull off every time, so I suspect it's a tough nut to crack).

Once I learned to Keep It Simple, and to start with mechanics and build upward, it got easier to consistently create games that worked.

Piqsid
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Joined: 02/17/2010
Matt Leacock designed

Matt Leacock designed Pandemic, which has won several awards. He was kind enough to post his first prototype of the game to BGG.com http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/303842/pandemic?size=medium
As you can see, he probably spent 10 minutes scribbling out the board and then used a standard deck of playing cards. He says that he actually played that version a few times with his wife. Also available are pictures of his later boards and it looks like he just took a picture of the world from the internet and drew circles and lines on it. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/303843/pandemic?size=medium

Having never been published or gone through the process, I don't know how it works, but I have to believe if your game is good enough to attract a publisher, they probably have contacts with artists who can clean things up for you. I used to spend a lot of time on Artscow trying to get the perfect cards and now I just buy blank business cards and fill them with text and they work just fine. If any of my games turn out to be marketable, I'll hire an artist then.

Traz
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Joined: 04/06/2009
and for something COMPLETELY different...

I just uploaded an image of a set of cards I made for a design I'm working on, here:

http://www.bgdf.com/node/3114

Each of these cards were created by using nothing but FONT CHARACTERS. You know - Wingdings, Dingbats, etc.

Simply choose the character, then by fiddling with the font color and the background color, you can make very pleasing prototype cards that don't take hours of work.

Hope that helps.

Dralius
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Joined: 07/26/2008
They do it

Having seen some of their prototypes I know Knizia, Kramer, & Colovini use clip art and in at least one instance Teuber made figures out of playdough.

Rick-Holzgrafe
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Joined: 07/22/2008
Publishers have artists

Piqsid wrote:
...a publisher, they probably have contacts with artists who can clean things up for you.

Well, no. Most publishers will replace your artwork completely with work from professional artists and illustrators. If you are actually a fine graphic artist and you've designed the perfect artwork for your game, then I'm sure a publisher would be happy to use your own stuff. Dylan Kirk's Genji is an example: he did brilliant artwork for that game. See here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/273382/genji

Dylan (dnjkirk here on BGDF) is a fine artist. But most of us aren't artists, and publishers don't expect us to be. I'm doing an expansion for an existing game and the board I drew is functional but not pretty. The publisher will have a professional illustrator draw the actual board for publication.

My advice: make your prototypes nice enough to be playable. That means: text should be readable, symbols should be clear, cards should be shuffleable, the rules (especially) should be complete and readable. But it doesn't have to be pretty.

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