Board Game Designers Forum

For anyone new to the industry hopefully I can help a little bit. This is for people who want to produce the game them selves. This will not really help someone who is planning to just make a prototype and send to a publisher.

First and foremost you will need a game to produce. Once you have at least made the game using what you can I would spread the word around and at least have some game testers try it out and give you some input. This will definitely help you with the final product. Put the feelers out there to see how people respond to the game to see if it is something you can actually market. The last thing you want is to make this pretty big investment and not be able to sell the game.

Second you will want to make a plan on how you would actually sell the game that you are about to make. There are several forums around to help you find the best way to market and sell you game.

Third you will need to find a game manufacture. I personally have used www.customboardgames.com and they were very helpful and efficient. They also had the best pricing that I could find. Once you choose a custom board game manufacture you should have all of your artwork done and ready to go and know every piece, all the sizes of the board, box and playing cards. Do you need timers, spinners, dice etc. This is all the information the board game manufacture will need to produce a proper quote for you. Some companies will have an actual game organizer for you to work from which makes it a little easier. The best format for the art to be in is Illustrator EPS this will give you the best possible outcome. Most manufactures will take nothing less so you might as well do it right the first time.

Making your own board game can be a huge investment for most of us so if you need financial help the best Idea would be to get some investors on board to help unload the initial cost. The initial layout can be big but I would suggest buying a larger number a games at LEAST 5,000 to make it worth your time and give you a way better ROI. You may be shelling out $30,000 but if you sell the games for $25 you just made yourself $95,000 PROFIT. Not to bad if you ask me, of course that depends on the deal you have with the investors.

Also if you are not the best at artwork and have noone to help you many board game manufactures will design the game for you the way you want it. Most charge anywhere from $50 - $150 an hour. I know www.customboardgames.com has several design packages instead of paying by the hour so they can probably help you out.

Once everything is into the manufacture get out there and start marketing the game, get pre-orders, try and get distribution and the rest is up to you!. Good luck hopefully some of this information will help with the order of things you should be doing.

I have also created a playing card game and used www.customplayingcardss.com they have amazing quality and were also very pleasant to work with.