I come from a whole family of gamers, alot of my friends are gamers, I've run a weekly game night once a week for most of the last 20 years playing everything from Ad&D to warhammer to Carcassonne. I've always wanted to design a game. I've had ideas come and go through the years but this last one has what I would call serious merit. I've invested some time in a home version for my group to try, it is finally ready and we will be testing in two weeks. I came to this site because I know nothing of how to get a game to market. I work in engineering and have some basic business knowledge so arranging the pieces to be produced would be easy for me but without the backing of a game company I don't think I could swing the investment to get it to market properly. I might look into kickstarter for this. I am also looking for an artist for a board, cards and other handouts. For now I'm just popping in to say hi and give some background.
Long time gamer going to give the other side a try
Heya Stick!
Well its a pleasure to meet you and sounds as if you should fit quite nicely here :)
Engineering I think is a cool profession - more so that it will (perhaps unwittingly) help you out in your game architecture.
What I would suggest before getting to market (kickstarter with Springboard or perhaps submitting to a publisher) is to read a whole lot of books about game design.
TrueKid recently put a link out to his really handy library of game design info books and what not that would be very highly worth a nose, then I would even go so far as to buy 1 or 2 books on the subject.
Remember man, ANYTHING you read now, you will benefit from FOR EVER. If you make a game now, then in 3 years via your reading and knowledge gatherin' - think "oh shit, I should have done this totally differnetly". So best to skip that step and start with some very grounded basics.
My personal reccomendation would be:
First read this:
I Have No Words and I Must Design
http://www.costik.com/nowords.html
THEN buy and read this:
A Theory of Fun for Game Design
http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Fun-Game-Design/dp/1932111972/ref=sr_1_1?ie...
THEN print this out, and stick it above your computer:
Best advice in game design
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/7372503#7372503
-The first will give a lovely general view of it (not too long either) and get into basic Yes and No's of game design - it will gift you with some nice langauage to keep in your head as well.
-The second will then tell you how to make a game "fun" and the (in depth) processes that get us there. Once you know why somethign is fun, you can very easily gear yourself towards recreating it.
-And the third will, during your design process, remind you to keep within a certian realm. The original was from the old bgdf forums btw - but I posted it over at bgg to spread the word, it has since beem updated a little too.
:)
Hope i've helped man,
sam
I was going to wait to read everything before I replied to your post but I can't. At the stage I am at in this I was struggling, I knew generally what I was struggling with but I couldn't really seperate and categorize exactly what it was and the effect I needed. After reading just the first post I can now do that already. I can't wait to read the other two. Thanks for this info, it seems almost obvious and inherent, but being able to categorize and compartmentalize each aspect of a game and then work towards making a certain part better is going to be so much easier now. Thank you very very much.