Help: I have my game design, now what?

Is the game totally playtested by people other than yourself?

The art and the title are catchy, but the gameboard is a little blurry at the current resolution, so I cannot read exactly what each space says. But my general impression based upon the layout and organization of the board, as well as what you have said here, is that this game involves a die, a token for each player, coins and a set of questions which you need to solve. If that is the case, you have invented something that seems a lot like Trivial Pursuit... for kids.

However, I may be totally off in that analogy, so it might help to have a little better understanding of the rules you have written for the game.

With regard to the marketability of your design, I am not an expert in the kids market. But, my impression is that it is very difficult to sell original boardgames to children. Since there are a significant number of canonical children's games already in the market and a huge amount of competition from games which involve a far greater physical and tactile element to gameplay... not to mention the trend toward digital gaming that has consumed the time of kids... I would be surprised to find a huge demand for typical roll and move style games.

The theme also doesn't strike me as something that children would be intrinsically interested in. It is possible that adults would find a game about schoolyard shenanigans and punishment to be funny in an ironic way, but I'm not sure that either school age boys or girls wants to play a game about school. If young adult manga is any guidance, young girls fantasize about what school life is not... so when you see school age girls and boys portrayed in that form of entertainment, it is always juxtaposed by the secret superhero lives that make them special/important.

So, without knowing anything more, I would say spice it up... be imaginative about the context under which kids might find themselves and explore the issues that really excite children. If the game has questions, make them about topics that are interesting to them and give them a variety of ways to transform the board with their answers... not just follow the path and accumulate more points.

Thanks for posting the rules. It helps clarify what you have in mind.

Your design does not appear to give the players much choice. Once all the tokens are gone, they must steal from others. If they land on a detention space, they go to detention for the rest of the game. Both of these things strike me as neither fun nor pedagogically interesting.

You should not ever run out of tokens that players can earn... partly because there's no reason for it but also because I don't think you want to create a situation where players can only steal from others. As is, stealing from others is an advantageous option because you gain AND the other person loses. But, the real problem with stealing in a game is the fact that it makes it so that the game will never end. Whoever has the most tokens will always be the target of theft.

Which brings up the question of limits... a game needs meaningful choices to be interesting but options need constraints to be mitigate the players conflict with each other and lead to an inevitable conclusion. What if each space only let you steal from the player with the matching color? Or, you needed to be on the same space? Also, what if 'stealing' was dangerous because both the thief and the victim get a chance to answer questions and so you might waste your turn trying to steal from someone who defends themselves well?

And, tied into both the decision to steal and who to steal from, detention should not be an automatic ('Go To Jail') effect... unless you want to recreate monopoly. What if players had a choice between two things everytime they landed on a space... they could either do the assignment or be a derelict. Being a derelict may involve things such as stealing, being truent, goofing off, etc... which may come with their own benefits... but the cost of trying to be derelict and failing may be that you land in detention. So... essentially every turn the player can risk going to detention, but doesn't have to... it's really about what choices they make at each stage.

Detention should not be a one way trip. You need to allow players to serve their detention and then return to the game. Otherwise, the game is basically over for them.

Now... as for the game's marketability... as is, this game will not likely be published. But, there are a number of POD shops that will print a gameboard and cards for you for a very reasonable price (<$50/game). So, if you're looking to make this a gift, that may be the best way to go. http://www.thegamecrafter.com/home