This next stage (which can be executed at the same time as the Execution stage) can be pretty hard. But if you want your game to sell, you need to make sure you invest a lot of energy into Graphic Design.

If you are a graphic designer yourself, you’ll be able to do a lot of the work on your own. If you’re not, you should find a friend willing to help you out. This also means sacrificing some of your profits. (Now, if you’re planning on selling this game to a larger company, you can skip this stage, as most companies that buy games, such as Z-Man Games, will probably be doing a lot of the graphic design themselves. But, that’s one of the reasons they are making most of the profit. They take the risk, they make the money.) You should still put some artistic thought into your game, though. You should already know exactly how you want your game to look when you sell the game.

As a Graphic Designer, you might not be doing too much of the art, either. A Graphic Designer on a game takes the art and the game, and makes it presentable. (Builds the templates for cards, game board, rulebook, etc.) So, this means you need art. Where are you going to get that?

Start finding some artists. Hit up some local college art programs for students who want some work that they can add to their portfolio. Make a list of all the art pieces you need, from card art, to turnarounds for the sculpts. (A turnaround is a piece of art that shows a particular character from multiple angles. This piece of art might be re-used in the game, but it is for a sculptor to use to sculpt the little pieces you’ll be using in the game.)

Figure out all the pieces you’ll need, and how much you’re willing to spend on them. Chances are you are not rich yourself, so this also means you’re going to need to come up with some money. You should probably check out Kickstarter, and read the articles on Kickstarter by Gary Sarli. Before you launch that Kickstarter project though, you’ll need to already line up your artists, and come up with an agreement with them on payment, so that your Kickstarter project has those figured added in.

You’re also going to need to figure out how you’re going to print this game. This, unfortunately is knowledge I lack. So start looking around for a place that will print your game, and try to get figures from them, since you’re Kickstarter project will also need those costs listed.

Printing a game is not cheap, nor huge-profit making. But if you don’t make and keep your promises with your artists, you’ll be constantly searching for new artists. Respect and pay your artists, and you’ll start a good, healthy work relationship with them.

This can be a time-consuming stage in the process, but, there are also long lulls, while your artists are working on their art, you’ll be working on the rules, or playtesting your game. But, designing games is not only fun, it’s also hard work. (It will pay off though.)

Be willing to split some of your profits with your artists. But you don’t have to share profits with them forever. You can agree on a “pay cap.” Say you have an artist doing your cover art. You want to pay him $1000 (standard, for a really good piece) but you don’t have a huge budget. Maybe you agree to pay him $500, and then 10% of the profits you make until it hits $1200 (to give them a little extra incentive.) If you game is really successful, and you have multiple printings, then once you’ve paid the artist his total $1200, that 10% you were paying him goes back to you on future print-runs.

Chances are this is the first game you’re designing. So you want to make a big splash with it. Chances are you’re not going to win the Spiel des Jahre (Game of the Year) on your first game, but what you want is for companies to start looking at you, and maybe even offering you more work as a designer. Who knows? You present a good game, you might make enough profit to make another game, and then another, and before you know it you’ll have yourself a game company. Don’t skimp on appearance. A good game sells because it has good art that captures the buyer. Next week we’ll be doing the final Polishing stage.

No, not that kind of execution...

So, you’ve written down your initial Design Document, and you’ve playtested your alpha prototype a couple of times. Now is the time to decide what kind of commitment you want to put into your new game. This stage: the Execution, and the following step, which we’ll talk about next week, can either be done separately, or at the same time. You should plan for this stage to take about 1-3 months. The stage after this, the Graphic Design stage will probably take just as long, which is why you might want to do them both at the same time.

Now that you’ve played your prototype, it iss time to do some more hard brain work. You need to do some heavy rethinking of the obvious problems. How can you fix them? Should you remove those features entirely? After you’ve done this, its time to make one more prototype. This time, be a little more cautious. Use some good pieces from other games. Your goal at this stage is to make sure that your players are not distracted by odd pieces in your game. You want your game to flow smoothly, so that you can see how well the game plays on the table. (When I play a game, whether prototype or finished game, appearance can really hang me up. If the game looks shoddy, I can’t “get into it.” I have to push this urge aside when I play a prototype. And thus, when I make a prototype, I try to make sure my players are playing with a game that already feels finished. If I play a shoddy finished game, I don’t enjoy myself at all, and I judge the designer for not having good vision. Just something to keep in mind.)

Once you’ve done this, and you’ve playtested the game a few more times, you’re going to take a break from playtesting, sit back, and really assess the game. Fix any additional problems, and make another prototype. Also, write up a set of rules as best as you can. (This will take practice, and you’ll be re-writing it several times.) At this point you will probably want to start planning out art and such, but I’ll cover that step next week. An important note though, if you do the Execution stage and the Graphic Design stage at different times, you’ll save some re-design work later on. (Since once you start figuring out final piece counts and art, you are likely to have to cut some of them.)

Now you’ve written some rules out, and modified your prototype to better match those rules. You need to make a second, and maybe even a third copy of the prototype. Find some friends, or groups of friends who are willing to playtest your game. (It’s even better to find a couple of groups of friends out of town, from college, or somewhere else, so you can mail them your prototype.) This way, those groups of friends will have lots of hard questions for you. You won’t be able to watch their game play out, and you can’t hold their hands during the playtest. This way, the hardest questions will be raised, and you can make sure that the next version of the rules reflect those problems.

Now, you don’t HAVE to make prototypes for each of your playtest groups. And in fact, once you do give them a prototype any changes will have to be implemented by them. But it’s a common courtesy to at least provide them with a playtest prototype. After-all, they are playtesting for no pay. (Though you should promise the group a minimum of one copy of the game once its complete.)

Have each group playtest the game 3-4 times. In between games they can ask a few questions, but what you really need from them is to type up a play-by-play document, and afterthoughts. You need them to be brutal and honest, but you also need them to defend their findings.

You can even disregard some of their comments, so long as you take what they are saying relatively serious. I’ll cover this in a future article. Just understand that some gamers (surprise) are sore losers, and may take it out on your design with criticism.

After you get their feedback, make the changes you need to, and then send them (by email) the changes. Have them introduce one new player into their group, so you have a fresh set of eyes on the game, and have them go through another round of playtests.

You might have to wash-rinse-repeat this stage a few times, until you feel you’re ready, but you will also need to decide when to stop. There may be a few things you’ll want to keep fiddling with, but you might also be just fiddling. Hold back those urges, and know, you’re very close to completing your game.

Game Design is a really fun process. It pushes your imagination and creativity, and it gives you a chance to make something that is for your own pleasure, and hopefully others.

The first step is coming up with an idea. Most games don’t get past this point, because you can often tell when the idea was something that needed to be put on the back burner until later, or while working on one idea, you may be sparked with a new, better idea.

The first thing you want to do is start writing down your idea. Write down everything you want you game to do, what you want it to be about, what games it is similar to, and so on. Mull it over, and write down some more.

You can spend as long as you need on this. But honestly, 40 to 80 hours is probably the max you want to spend. It’s important at this point write up your Design Document.

The Design Document is a two page summary of all the great things your game will include. An elevator speech, to keep on file, and keep on file. This design document will probably change, but you’ll nee it when you start shopping your game around.

The last step in the Idea step is the alpha prototype. You don’t really want to spend more than a day or two making this. You need to just throw together a prototype with what little you’ve written for rules, on the cheapest possible budget.

Play your prototype. Something will work, other things really wont, and other things will be really awful. Now that you’ve done this though, you’ll know if your game is good, or if its time to go back to the drawing board. From this initial playtest, you can make obvious modifications, and start the really hard work. Don’t throw away your prototype. You might even want to play it a couple more changes afterwards.

Next week we’ll discuss the next step: Execution, where we’ll continue the design process and prepare our game for full-blown playtesting.

Hello all, this is Monday’s Hero, known to some as Andrew, known to others as Dice Monkey’s (Mark’s) brother.

I spent as a year at Fantasy Flight Games as a Creative Content Developer, which pretty much means I did whatever people put in front of me, from writing fiction for the games, playtesting, theorizing with other game designers, and doing some game design too.

Among the games I worked on were the new Shogunate faction for Tannhäuser, some other Tannhäuser expansions, the Print-on-Demand expansions for Death Angel, and the most recently announced expansion for Runewars, Banners of War.

I spent two years before I started work at Fantasy Flight Games learning what I could about game design, but learned a heck of a lot more once I worked for FFG for a year. Now I have the information I need to strike out on my own and become a freelance game designer. I’m working on a few projects now, which you’ll no doubt hear all about here at Dice Monkey in the following months and years.

Those are my credentials. More importantly though, I want to share with you stuff you may not know about game design in this series.

I’m not going to be revealing any big secrets, or sharing the special key to success (who can truly know what that is?) I’m here to tell you that the game design process does not take nearly as long as you think it does. In fact, you could easily have a game started today and have it ready to see the light of day six months from now, and on shelves three months after that. What it really takes is not only the age old adage “practice, practice, practice” but it takes determination, and time investment.

I’ll be getting into the meat of the process in the next blog. Until then, you’re going to need a few things.

-Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite (ISBN:9781584505808)

This book is an absolute must. I picked it up around 2 years ago, and it has provided me with countless ideas for games. It is technically aimed at computer game designers, but it is my opinion that this is because there is not a big enough market to market toward board game designers. The premise is a semester and a half of lessons to go through, learning the theories behind each type of game, from area control, to casino games. At the end of each chapter you are given some idea seeds to design a board game relating to the chapter you’ve read.  (With Borders closing, you better go get your order in, and you might get it for cheaper with the coupons no doubt headed your way.)

-Sketchbook

I got into the habit of using non-lined sketchbooks in college, because I drew my own stuff and took notes in class on the same page. It takes practice to fill one of these up, but having lots of paper to write down every little idea you have is important.

-Pencil

A given.

That’s all you’re going to need for now. Until next week, start thinking of ideas for games. It doesn’t matter how complicated they are. We’ll simplify them later on. I’ll cover the idea, and what it means to prepare a design document, and then we’ll move on from there toward execution.

Monday out.

There’s a guy at work, Emmanuel, who came up to my desk one day and asked about my Captain America statue. He’s got a thick Puerto Rican accent, that, after you spend a few minutes talking to him, you are able to fully ignore and understand him. He hadn’t spoken to me much before this, but he was wondering if I was into comics.

Before I knew it, I was loaning him the Wolverine Origin graphic novel, as well as the Marvel Civil War.

Finally, I decided to broach the subject of gaming.

I told him about Heroclix, and he seemed genuinely interested. We talked about him coming over (he only lives a couple of minutes from me), and finally, after three weeks of talking, he came over on Wednesday night.

I gave him a tour, including showing him my shelf of RPGs. He was very interested in giving it a try.

We sat down for the game. I had pulled out my Streets of Mayhem board from World Works Games, which I glued pieced of it onto a piece of foamcore board. I actually have two pieces which go side-by-side, but with a small game, we just played with the one board.

He chose to go with an X-Men team consisting of Weapon X (Wolverine just after escaping from the experiment), Beast, Dazzler and two Shadowcats.

I went with the Young Avengers, so chose Hawkeye, Patriot, Stature, Iron Lad, and a cop to fill out the ranks.

The game progressed pretty quickly. He picked up the rules really quick, and we both fell into a very specific pattern of rolling. Nearly every time I rolled to hit, I’d roll doubles, causing knockback, but every time he had a roll that could save him from damage, he’d make it! There were a few rounds, back-to-back where I’d hit with doubles, knocking him back, only to have him roll a 6 on a needed roll of 5 or 6.

Stature, the giant you see in the image, picked up a lamppost, and began marching around swinging it. He didn’t like seeing the huge model with a big piece of metal, so he spent a lot of time trying to knock her down, but she took very little damage in the fight.

It was a close match, but in the end, I won.

He had a great time, and wants to build a Brotherhood of Mutants team. I think we’ll be getting together again soon.

Yesterday was a great day for gaming. I’m in Minneapolis on business, and only had one appointment, an hour long meeting at 4:30. My brother works in Minneapolis for Fantasy Flight Games, as does his wife, so it was only natural in my visit, I’d be subjected to a plethora of games.

I headed over to his place at about 10, where I had breakfast, then we took my sister-in-law over to her job and dropped her off. My brother then took me over to a game store known as “The Source”.

It’s the biggest game store I’ve ever seen, with tons upon tons of RPG books, paints, minis, board & card games, statues and comics. I think I spent about an hour just wandering the store, looking at everything.

They have all kinds of popular RPGs, as well as some really obscure ones. I was impressed as to their selection of Savage Worlds products, including multiple third-party publishers of SW games. They also had Burning Empires, the Sci-Fi version of Burning Wheel (and Mouse Guard) and it took a lot of will power to pull myself away.

After that, we headed back to my brother’s place, where we played a quick game of Small World. I got decimated pretty badly, but by then it was time to have lunch with my sister-in-law. We picked her up, and went to the park, where my brother taught me how to play Warhammer Invasion, Fantasy Flight’s new Living Card Game. It was surprisingly easy to learn and play, and before I knew it, I was playing like a pro (using my sister-in-law’s deck, of course.)

After that, we headed back to the apartment where we hung out for a while, before I left for my meeting.

After the meeting, I headed back to the apartment, where we had dinner, then over to their friends’ house, two of whom also work at FFG. I got to sit in on and play in Warhammer Fantasy RP. I had put together a character before hand, a human gambler known as Tristan Two-Coins (Ten-Coins to the ladies…) who was better lucky than actually good. He was dirt poor and down on his luck, but managed to turn that luck around by using his weighted dice to gamble with my brother’s character, fleecing him of 100 shiny silver coins without getting caught cheating.

We soon witnessed a hanging, and later that night, the tavern was attacked by Zombies. Tristan did his part, striking down one of the four abominations. The heroes were in the middle of a greater plot involving a mysterious stone they had uncovered, but my character was less interested in what the stone was, and more interested in finding out why a zombie had just tried to eat him. He got out of the fight without a scratch, and managed to make friends with the town’s surgeon.

I think I definitely got a handle on the game mechanics, as well.

After the game, we went back to the apartment and wrapped up a quick game of 3-person Small World, then I headed back.

Things I got today: the Winds of Magic Supplement for Warhammer Fantasy RP, and my brother found my old MTG Elf deck I’ve been missing for years.

It was a good day, and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Tonight, after work, I’ll be heading over to the FFG Retail Center and play some games. This is a good week for gaming!

Yes, that’s right! We’re going to tell you exactly where we’ll be!

(Note there are a lot of board games here. We actually play a lot of board games here at home, so we’re happy to get out there and play some we’ve never tried before.)

Let’s start with Friday, our first day there. We’re assuming I’m going to be able to get that Friday off work to drive down.

FRIDAY

11:00: “I’m Wil Wheaton, and I’m a Gamer“: We’re going to go see my “Wil Save” himself, Bridget’s old pen pal. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to talk to him.

12:00: Mouse Guard: Winter 1152: This is my Mouse Guard game I’ll be running. If you’re interested, contact me on Twitter. My handle is @markmeredith. This will run for a couple of hours.

3:00: Warhammer Fantasy RP 3e: This is the Warhammer game I’ll be running. Again, if you’re interested, etc. We’ve already got a few people interested.

And that’s it for my scheduled stuff. Bridget and I are going to go on a date that night, since we don’t have much time to when we’ve got the munchkin in tow. That evening, we’ll be milling about, so if you’re interested in hanging out, I’ll be on Twitter all weekend.

SATURDAY

10:00: Guillotine: We’re excited to play some Guillotine, one of our favorite card games.

2:00: Ticket to Ride with Europa 1912 Expansion: Bridget’s never played, so we’ll be using this to occupy our time until…

4:00: GM’s Jam: I’ll be on this panel with Zach from RPG Blog II and a few others. We’ll be talking about RPGs and how to be a better GM.

6:00: Atlantis: This is a board game we’ll be playing. Neither of us have played, and we’re interested in seeing how it turns out.

8:00: Media Meet & Greet: We’ll be here to chat with anyone about blogging and podcasting. We really look forward to seeing all the RPG Bloggers there!

After that, we’re pretty much free! I’ll have my phone synched with Twitter to get any @’s.

SUNDAY

Sunday we’ve only got two events planned.

10:00: Hey, That’s My Fish: This is another board game we’ve been interested in playing.

12:00: The Adventurers: This game by AEG looks pretty awesome.

And beyond that, we’ll be free for other activities.

We’re looking at hitting up some other events in our free time: Tower of Gygax, WotC’s Lair of the Dread Witch, Dark Sun, some free painting, perhaps one of the HirstArts seminars, and the MechWarrior Simulators.

I look forward to seeing a lot of people there, including some game designers and the guys from Fear the Boot. And getting some interviews and an episode recorded for RPG Circus, of course.

If there are any events we’re missing that are going to be big, let us know! If you want us to play in your games, let us know!

Last night, I went over to Unique Gifts and Games for their weekly board game night.

I played Small World for the first time, with a couple of cool guys.

For those who don’t know, Small World is a board game in which you play a series of fantasy races trying to carve out a civilization for themselves on a map that’s a little too small for everyone to fit. As such, once you’ve reached the point where you can’t expand any further, your race goes into decline, and you get a new race.

As I was playing, I realized how perfect the game would be for designing a world’s history for your RPG.

Now, with Small World, some stuff doesn’t make sense when you pair up powers and races. I played my civilizations as a race of flying giants, another as heroic ghouls, then as spirit ratmen. But if you were to pair up races based on your world’s actual races (such as hill giants or heroic humans) you could actually have a pretty cool world-building exercise.

I highly recommend Small World. It was a fun and fantastic game, even if I came in dead last.

One of the guys I played with told me he’d read the blog. Hi! I’m sorry, but I can’t remember your name. I’m interested in getting together for more gaming sometime with your wife and yourself, and my wife and me. Leave me a comment if you’re out there!

We’ve had a couple of bites from people interested in joining a new group, but haven’t actually met face-to-face, so in the meantime, Bridget and I have begun trying roleplaying without roleplaying.

What do I mean?

An example of Runebound in play

I mean that I pulled out Runebound the other night and we marched around the lands of Terrinoth, which is the world of Descent, Runbound and Runewars, adventuring and fighting all manner of monsters.

In the game, each person plays a character that can be found in Descent, but instead of dealing with all the players in one dungeon, each hero is their own adventuring party, battling monsters throughout the land and gaining allies and treasure. The normal game would take a few hours, but we basically just played until we were ready to go to bed, playing for about an hour or so.

Doing so, we realized it felt like an actual night of gaming, with no set goal in mind, just going around and fighting monsters and getting loot.

We plan on sitting down and playing a little bit more soon, and this time, save our character’s upgrades and locations so we can come back to them anytime. It’ll be like actual roleplaying…

Sort of.

A while back I spoke about injecting RP to your war games, and now the idea comes full circle. What about combining RPGs with war games? How would that work out? Considering RPGs sprung from war games, so it’s a natural progression.

Imagine a campaign where war had begun to spread across the land, and you wanted to simulate the progress of the war. You could simply progress the war as you see fit (your prerogative as a game master), or you could make a game of it. What if you used a map of your world and played one round of Risk on it each Month in-game? Or used Games Workshop’s Mighty Empires? If playing A Song of Ice and Fire, you could use the Game of Thrones board game by Fantasy Flight Games.

Moving down to a more tactical scale, why not use Warhammer 40k to determine battles when playing a game of Dark Heresy? Or Flames of War when playing a World War II game?

Just a few ideas I’ve been kicking around.

What do you think? Do you think it would work?