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Steve Broadfoot
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Joined: 04/25/2017

Good afternoon from sunny Wales where the sheep are in full bloom! My lady and our little girl are out shopping, so I'm lounging in bed with our dog T-Bozzle trying to learn how to be a successful Boardgame Designer.

I've been at this about a year now. It started lst year when a friend and I were discussing how there seemed to be no gateway adventure games like Heroquest about. We talked a lot about how Games Workshop were doing themselves a disservice by not catering to that market and that moved on to a month long discussion about how we would make a new Heroquest type of game. We quickly realized that we were way out of our depth with that project, despite some strong ideas and some decent planning having started. It was just too much for 2 newbies to take on. We'd like to go back to it one day, but not until we have experience and credibility.

During that month I had another idea for a very different game that we both felt was more manageable and started work on that. This ended quickly when Neill started working on combat mechanics and created a separate game just to test them. We found that this game had real potential and have been working on it for about 6 months now. There has been 1 small problem though. Neill is a full time teacher and has limited spare time to dedicate to this project. I went about 3 months without doing anything with it whilst waiting for school holidays to crop up. In that time I developed a dozen potential projects but nothing stood out as something I could really get stuck into, until finally one did, and thid is the game I am currently working on. Neill has taken primary on the other game as it was his project and I have my project which is coming along very nicely indeed.

As Ive been designing my game, Ive spent as much time as possible trying to learn the business aspect of the field, Ive spoken at length with my local game store owner about distribution, pricing and how the whole retail end works, as well as reading interviews and blogs about getting games published and manufactured. I still find myself needing more guidance though as I have no clue what I should do once the game design is finished. I was incredibly thankful yesterday when a Dice Tower video mentioned this site as this is exactly what I need. Once I find my feet here a bit more, I'll start showing/talking about my game in more detail. I'll need to work up to that though as Im still in 'my baby' mode right now.

I look forward to getting to know you all and perhaps meeting up at conventions in the future.

Cheers, Steve.

polyobsessive
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Joined: 12/11/2015
*Quirky reply title*

Hi Steve, welcome to BGDF, and greetings from somewhere in England!

Good luck with the game -- sounds like a big project.

Will you be going to UK Games Expo? I'll be there all three days and will be spending a fair bit of time around the Playtest UK stand. If you didn't know about PTUK, it's a great network for meeting up with other game designers, getting feedback on prototypes, and learning from the experience of others.

- Rob

FrankM
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Joined: 01/27/2017
Hi, Steve!

Steve Broadfoot wrote:
Good afternoon from sunny Wales where the sheep are in full bloom! My lady and our little girl are out shopping, so I'm lounging in bed with our dog T-Bozzle trying to learn how to be a successful Boardgame Designer.

I've been at this about a year now.


That's... a long time to spend in bed with a dog :-)

Very familiar with spare time tied to the school year. Just when holidays come up and you should have time, you find out that you've put off so many other things that you don't have time for the project you wanted.

Best of luck with your "baby"... this is a great place for finding and sharing advice.

JohnBrieger
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Joined: 11/04/2016
Second Rob on Playtest UK

Just wanted to second Rob that you should absolutely try to take advantage of PTUK. It's a really wonderful community, and you'll learn a TON about game design from playing other designer's prototypes and from the feedback they provide you on yours. I will also be at the UKGE so if you can make it, stop by and say hi! Looking forward to hearing more about your game!

-John

Main Playtest UK Site
Meetup Site for Playtest

PS: Hi Rob!

polyobsessive
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Hijacking the thread!

JohnBrieger wrote:
PS: Hi Rob!

Hi John! Hopefully see you soon!

Steve Broadfoot
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Joined: 04/25/2017
Thanks for the greets

Thanks for the greets everybody, I'm definitely at UK expo this year, mu first one. I should be there all 3 days, but I'm going to try and get into the preshow event the day before as well. I gather that is the day to mingle with reps from publishers etc.

ssm
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Joined: 04/06/2017
Welcome. We all have multiple

Welcome. We all have multiple games we are working on. Often one leads to another and back again. The great thing is a game can be put up and taken down 6 months later to be worked on or trashed.
I am working on a war game, a board game, and was working on 3 card games that are now boiling down into 1 card game.

If you haven't seen it, search for tabletopia & you should get a few different sites. They will allow you to make the game in a digital form to play around with if you don't have someone to bounce things off of.

Gabe
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Joined: 09/11/2014
Hey Steve. Welcome to the

Hey Steve. Welcome to the forum! You'll find a lot of great people here.

I was in a very similar place not very long ago, and I was frustrated that it was difficult to find the information I needed.

So, I built this: www.boardgamedesignlab.com

I hope it helps.

You especially might find this section useful: http://www.boardgamedesignlab.com/getting-started/

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