Designing my own board game

These days, I’ve been thinking about ideas for designing my own board game which I will put towards my games design portfolio. I have admit it’s been quite a challenge for me as it requires different way of thinking/approach from what I’m used to with writing up design documents, figuring out core mechanics and how these mechanics will fill into theme of the game, game’s controls, art style, interface and hud design, etc. I’ve wrote many design documents and enjoy the whole process of it thinking about every piece of the puzzle in detail putting the jigsaw puzzle together to create a description of your game product.

You are probably thinking “If you can write up/design games via game documents surely you have no problem to come up with simple linear board game design?” I can think of many ideas for board games but are any of them “fun” or “compelling”? Sadly not, well a one or two could be “fun” out of the dozen. I believe the problem is the way I come up with ideals/designs for games as I’m creative person who naturally just comes up with ideas out of nowhere from things that I’ve experienced personally thinking of themes, mood, scenarios, etc for a game then develop the gameplay mechanics around that theme/ideal (artistic organic process). Whereas with a board game, you have placed down the rules before you think beyond with themes and moods, etc. the thinking process required has to be clean and exact whereas my usual thinking is free reign creating elements around the core of that creative theme. Doing this exercise has expanded my thinking and the way I personally think/develop my games ideas.

To be honest I wouldn’t even consider this exercise without reading an article by “Brenda Brathwaite” who is game designer who has worked in the industry since 1981 and has shipped 22 commercial titles (certainly makes my track record within the industry seem lame). This article is about game design portfolios and what they should contain which I find really useful and interesting as it’s something that is rarely revealed or spoke about. She made a point that games are games despite their source/background and a portfolio should demonstrate your passion and understanding of gameplay creating “fun” and doing this exercise I can see what she is getting at. You should read, it is very inspirational:

http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/hello-world/

The lesson I learnt from this exercise is a designer requires an understanding for what elements of the game is fun or engages the player? An example, with “Halo” and “Gears of war” the fun obviously lies with killing someone but what really engages the player (keeps them playing and learning) is the constant need to outsmart your enemy for survival due to tough difficult conditions to kill the enemy. That is another factor which makes it fun that requires a lot of skill to be able outsmart player (especially really good one) who expects the typical tactic of sneaking behind with a shotgun. To me, (I know this may sound like far-fetched comment for some) “Gears of war” and “Halo” are like shooter interpretations of “Chess” as the “fun” is created from the same bases of outsmarting their opponent via using heavy use of tactics although you could debate that your ability of aiming/shooting outweighs the use of tactics but that’s another matter.

That’s the job as a games designer, basically understanding where the “fun” lays and how to keep it remaining so. This is where designing a board game can help develop an understanding of this element which is so simple but yet so important to core of any game. As a board game has fewer elements to think about and consider, you can purely focus developing the skill of creating “Fun”. For any wannabe game designer (like myself) who are reading this, I truly recommend designing a board game, its great exercise to do as I’ve certainly learned a lot of it and after many long brainstorming sessions, I’ve finally come up with something pretty cool and hopefully be able to show you something really soon.

Thanks for reading!

Jonesy