Brad Talton, designer of BattleCon and Pixel Tactics, discusses dueling games. 

Brad has been creating dueling combat games for years and has found incredible success with his company, Level 99 Games.

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I’ve got some exciting announcements for the BGDL:

1) I’m starting a new thing that will hopefully lead to an even greater sense of community. Today, with the incredible help of Chris Perea, a BGDL Discord server has launched which will offer you another way to interact with others in the community and will lead to…

2) BGDL Game Nights. I want to provide opportunities for people (especially those in more isolated locations) to be able to get together and play games. Both published games and prototypes. So, the BGDL is going to start hosting regular game nights through Discord and Tabletop Simulator. The first game night will be May 12th.

3) Giveaway. We’re giving away 2 copies of Tabletop Simulator. All you have to do is fill out this short form and you’ll be entered to win. The form will give us a better idea about what the community wants as far as game nights are concerned.

4) Game design tutorial videos. Chris Perea is putting together regular content to teach you how to do various design related tasks, starting with getting your game setup on Tabletop Simulator. Please subscribe to the BGDL Youtube channel to see all the current and future how-to guides. 

The post Coming Attractions for the BGDL appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Richard Garfield, designer of Magic: The Gathering and a ton of other great games, discusses how to use luck and skill effectively in game design.

Richard belongs on the game design Mount Rushmore and has awesome insight and advice.

The post Luck vs Skill with Richard Garfield appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Jon Mietling, designer of Palm Island, discusses how to effectively design a game with multi-use cards.

Jon ran an incredibly successful Kickstarter for Palm Island which is rather innovative game that focusses solely on multi-use cards as its core mechanism.

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Justin Jacobson, founder of Restoration Games, discusses the process of bringing a game back to life.

Justin’s entire business model is built on taking old games off the shelf and breathing new life into them, and he offers great insight on how to do it. If you’ve got some old games of your own that you shelved for whatever reason, you just might get some ideas on how to bring those back.

The post Bringing Old Designs Back to Life with Justin Jacobson appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Peter Hayward, founder of Jellybean Games, discusses the two types of cooperative games and what makes them work.

Peter plays hundreds of prototypes a year, and he’s noticed some serious issues with the majority of the co-op prototypes he sees.

The post The Two Types of Cooperative Games with Peter Hayward appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Brandon Rollins, designer of Highways & Byways, discusses accessibility in games and ways to make your designs more inclusive.

Brandon is an avid blogger and consistently writes great content to help game designers.

Meeple Like Us accessibility reviews

Color palettes for color blindness

10 Quick Accessibility Wins for Game Developers

And make sure to check out Brandon’s latest Kickstarter campaign HERE.

The post How to Make Your Game More Accessible with Brandon Rollins appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Jerry Hawthorne, designer of Stuffed Fables, discusses story driven games and how to use narrative to create incredible gaming experiences.

Jerry is a long-time veteran of the industry and specializes in games that evoke stories.

The post Story Driven Games with Jerry Hawthorne appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Adam Rehberg, owner of Adam’s Apple Games, discusses the finer details on what makes a box functional, fashionable, and provocative.

For his day job, Adam is a packaging engineer for Target, so he definitely knows what he’s talking about.

If you have box questions for Adam, you can find him on Twitter HERE.

And be sure to check out his 3d sword building game, Swordcrafters, which is on Kickstarter now.

The post Boxes and Packaging that Sell with Adam Rehberg appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Vincent Vergonjeanne, founder of Lucky Duck Games, discusses games that use digital components in their design.

Vincent runs his own video game company and has been quite successful in both the digital space and the board game industry, so he really knows a lot about this topic.

The post Designing Games with Digital Elements with Vincent Vergonjeanne appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Jason Mowery and Chase Williams, designers of The Big Score, discuss the process of co-designing a game.

We talk scheduling, conflict management, and more. Also, you can check out their new game on Kickstarter HERE. (It’s basically Ocean’s 11, the board game.)

The post Working with a Co-Designer with Jason Mowery and Chase Williams appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Petter Olsen, designer of Kill the King, discusses the king of the hill mechanism. (We also might go into propane and propane accessories…)

Petter’s new game hinges on this particular mechanism, so he knows a lot about what makes it work well.​​ You can check out his new game on Kickstarter HERE.

The post The King of the Hill Mechanism with Petter Olsen appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Greg Loring-Albright, designer of Leviathan, discusses the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of micro games. He brings up some great points about designing small games that carry a big experience.

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Jon Gilmour, designer of Dead of Winter, discusses how to design the experiences and themes that people can’t wait to get their hands on. Jon just seems to have an innate ability to design games that go hand in hand with what people are excited about, and he gives me a tour behind the curtain on how he does it.

Jon also goes into a great deal of general design advice. We talk about working on lots of games at the same time, co-designers, going full time in the industry, and more. We cover a lot in this one.

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Today, it’s just me on the podcast, and I’m discussing creativity, time management, and the future of the BGDL.

I’ve learned a lot of really great stuff about the creative process, and I want to share with you some of the things that have been helping me with my game designs.

And then I want to tell you about the fun and exciting things ahead for the BGDL podcast and community.

The post Creativity and the Future of the BGDL with Gabe Barrett appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Alan Emrich, founder of Victory Point Games, discusses how a publisher approaches the development process when taking a game from prototype to store shelf.

Alan has been in the gaming industry for four decades and brings a great deal of experience and insight into this conversation. Both designers and publishers will benefit from what he has to say here.

The post How a Publisher Develops Games with Alan Emrich appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Artyom Nichipurov (Arty for short), designer of Guards of Atlantis: Tabletop MOBA, discusses Tabletopia and gives lots of tips and tricks on how to get your prototype up and running on the system.

Tabletopia can be an extremely useful resource for playtesting, demoing, and pitching your game.

If you need some help with the software, Arty has offered to give you a hand. You can reach him at nichipurov (at) gmail (dot) com.

Also, Arty’s game, Warpgate, just launched on Kickstarter. If you like Euro games and/or space games, check it out HERE.

The post Digital Prototyping on Tabletopia with Artyom Nichipurov appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Don Eskridge, designer of The Resistance, discusses all the ins and outs of creating a social deduction game.

The Resistance is one of the most popular games ever made that lets you lie directly to your friends’ faces, and Don has designed several more of these types of games, so he definitely knows what he’s talking about.

And click HERE to check out Don’s latest social deduction game which is on Kickstarter right now.

The post Designing Social Deduction Games with Don Eskridge appeared first on Board Game Design Lab.

Dustin Schwartz, professional rulebook writer, discusses what makes a great rulebook and lots of tips and tricks on how to put together a ruleset that’s easy to teach and easy to learn.

Dustin wrote 40 rulebooks in 2017 and is looking to write 100 in 2018, so he’s got a TON of experience on what makes a rulebook great.

For a program that makes adding icons to word docs super easy, check out: www.fontawesome.com

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