There’s a time in the life of every tabletop gamer in which they have to deal with the legitimate question “What if I can be the one creating something that someone else will be eager to play?”
The love of the craft for board games has fueled the passion of countless hobbyists in recent years. On Kickstarter only, the Tabletop Games category is hosting more than 50,000 projects, and more have followed on other crowdfunding platforms like Gamefound and Indiegogo.
It’s understandable—turning a passion into a profession is a lure that few would refuse to enjoy. However, the implications hidden on the path are multiple and might end up discouraging many board game enthusiasts willing to embark on this journey.
This is why we’ve translated our decade-long experience into a quick digital toolkit on how to become a board game designer.
Key Takeaways
- The fundamental elements required to design a board game
- Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, what’s the best approach?
- Where to look to not stay updated on the board games industry
- How much money do board game designers make
Contents
10 Steps to Become a Board Game Designer
Well-designed games have the power to make the world an extremely interesting place to be. For board gamers, gathering at the table becomes a ritual that carries several expectations, most importantly: having fun.
However, it’s not immediately apparent that the first people who need to have fun are the game designers themselves…
1. Cultivate Your Passion for Games
Ask yourself, to what extent do you love board games?
Understanding your answer to this question is crucial. It will be hard for you to create a board game that others will enjoy if you don’t enjoy playing it first. This is why we recommend exploring your motivations before proceeding any further.
If you’re excited about playing board games: Chances are that you’ve considered the path of designing board games after some great nights spent playing. If this is the case, hang on the excitement. Wait until you’ve had a gaming session you did not enjoy as much to understand whether your vision is well-founded, or it’s a product of short-standing emotions. It would be a pity to have to give up your plan because your motivation will be lacking. Play many times, and try out games with different themes and mechanics to understand the concepts that resonate with you most. Experience is what shapes every board game lover looking to become a designer.
If you’re doing it for profit: Recent estimations forecast the global market for board games to reach over 31 billion in 2030. Despite these numbers, we are confident enough to assure you that wanting to become rich as a fundamental motivation to start creating board games won’t bring you far. What will drive you in the toughest times of your career as a designer won’t be the dream to afford a luxurious life, but a deep passion for creating board games others will love playing.
Now that you’ve clarified your motivations by combining genuine enthusiasm with self-awareness, you’re ready to digest the other notions revealed in this guide.
2. Learn Game Design Fundamentals
Hundreds of years ago, Francis Bacon laid the foundation of the modern scientific groundwork with his quote “Knowledge is power.” Since creating board games can be considered a science itself, knowledge represents one of the principles that aspiring designers will constantly need to foster.
For board game developers it is truly worth knowing where the current trend for board games is headed. This way, they can make more effective decisions to create projects filled with novelty that resonate with the modern audience. This doesn’t mean that all designers should now aim to produce futuristic games, but diverting from the trend assertively is by far better than doing so inadvertently.
To stay updated, you can read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos, enroll in courses and workshops, or follow existing board game designers on social media. Here are some of our recommendations:
- A Theory of Fun for Game Design written by the game designer, Raph Koster, detaches from the typical how-to style of books, giving instead some serious insights into the psychology of crafting games others will enjoy.
- Board Game Design Lab is one of the most long-standing podcasts for aspiring designers. Owned by Gabe Barret, it includes interviews with publishers and industry experts, offering practical tips and insights on game mechanics, design challenges, and the business side of the market.
- Adam in Wales – Board Game Design is a YouTube channel managed by Adam Porter, author of Qwzzle, Pikoko, and other interesting titles. It discusses and explores rulesets and trends of the industry and it provides insightful how-to guides for board game designers.
3. Start Prototyping Your Ideas
Here’s where your love for the craft can move its first steps.
Having something concrete to start testing with other players is a fundamental phase in the journey of every aspiring board game designer. Perhaps you’ve already an original blend of themes, rules, and mechanics to test together. If you’re considering using cards as a dominant element of your gameplay, you might benefit from taking a look at our guide on how to design cards for a board game. There, you’ll find many tips and recommendations on the materials to use as well as the software to consider for editing your cards.
That being said, the beauty of the modern board game market is also in its possibility to create a digital prototype, preventing you from spending time and resources otherwise needed to realize tangible components.
Here are some of the programs you can consider for creating a digital prototype of your board game:
- Tabletopia is a highly user-friendly platform where designers can create, prototype, and test board games digitally. It allows you to upload cards, boards, and tokens you designed offline and makes it possible for your game to be tested by remote players.
- Tabletop Simulator (TTS) is more focused on physics, like dice throwing and other dynamics needing 3D game environments. TTS gives you the chance to set up a game from scratch on its interface, giving a sandbox experience for you to manipulate your objects and components.
- Roll20, although used mostly for role-playing games, can be a powerful tool for designing your board game. It allows the upload of images, decks, and virtual boards allowing you to test your project in a digital format.
Whether created physically or digitally, having a prototype will help you navigate the next step to becoming a board game designer: playtesting and iteration.
4. Playtest and Iterate on Your Designs
Did you know that Isaac Childres went through over 1,000 hours of playtesting before publishing his bestseller board game Gloomhaven?
The total playtesting time for most board games usually amounts to one zero less than Gloomhaven’s. However, this data should give you an idea of the efforts needed to refine your gameplay before publishing.
Make sure your prototype is played frequently and in different ways!
Exposing your project to a diverse group of playtesters will provide you with a wide range of feedback, which can help improve your game better in multiple ways—like upgrading your components, your mechanics, and rules to refine your theme.
To ensure you seek constructive feedback, we have provided some inspirations for the questions you can ask your playtesters:
- What did you like about the game?
- What didn’t you like about the game?
- What feature of the game did you appreciate most?
- How balanced was the gameplay for you?
- How would you describe this game to someone else?
- If you could change anything about this game, what would it be?
In the next step, we delve deeper into building a solid community in the industry, which is also a way to attract more testers to play your board game.
5. Build Your Network in the Industry
The modern days of networking require board game designers to familiarize themselves with a unique trifecta: forums, conventions, and social media.
BoardGameGeek (BGG) is by far the most popular hub for game designers, publishers, and enthusiasts. On this network, visitors can participate in discussions and ask for advice from experienced designers. BGG offers a wide database of board games that you can browse for inspiration or curiosity. Moreover, you can always check the section r/boardgames on Reddit.
Protospiel, GenCon, and the UK Games Expo are just some of the conventions available worldwide. Check the events closer to you, and take the chance to meet fellow designers, and playtesters, or even pitch your project to publishers that have an audience close to the topic of your board game.
Finally, remember to use social media to follow other designers and industry experts. YouTube and Pinterest are among the top platforms used by veteran creators to showcase their projects or review titles they’ve tested. Additionally, X remains highly popular for board game designers who share updates and interact with their community.
6. Decide Between Self-Publishing or Pitching
Once your prototype is well refined and your gameplay implemented through assertive playtesting, it will come the time to decide on a tricksome dilemma: should you self-publish or release your game through a publisher?
The answer really depends on the type of project you want to realize but to help your decisions, here are some brief descriptions of what you could expect from both, including the pros and drawbacks.
6.1 Traditional publishing
For this approach, you will most likely start by pitching your game to a publisher (often through a sell sheet, a concise document outlining your game’s highlights). If your pitch impresses, the publisher may request a prototype for playtesting and evaluation. A successful evaluation leads to a contract proposal.
- Pros: access to the publisher’s established audience and infrastructure, facilitating market entry.
- Cons: reduced creative control, longer timelines, and earning a smaller share of sales.
6.2 Self-publishing
Typically achieved through crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, self-publishing requires meticulous planning, including building a prelaunch timeline, executing a marketing campaign, and engaging with potential backers via social media and influencers.
- Pros: full creative freedom, higher profit margins, and direct community interaction.
- Cons: it demands multiple tasks from the designer, as well as significant time and financial investment.
If you want to know more about the details of both styles, we suggest you take a look at our article on how to get a board game published.
7. Develop Strong Communication Skills
Depending on the approach you choose, you should adopt different communication styles to promote your board game.
After all, publishers are business partners. This requires you to prioritize clarity, professionalism, and persuasiveness to highlight the marketability of your game. When pitching your project to a business, your appeal to the publisher’s existing portfolio is the most important element. This is why you should always ensure you choose to pitch only to publishers whose audience resonates most with the project you’re developing.
On the other hand, self-promotion demands emotional relatability with your audience. You will need to find and convince people to trust your board game provides a fantastic gaming experience. For this reason, using a conversational tone, and compelling storytelling is a better match for a genuine community-oriented communication style.
8. Understand the Business Basics of Game Design
The creative and expressive minds of aspiring designers often fear a type of paperwork that will not require you to create tokens, boards, or cards for your game: bureaucracy.
Yet, it’s only through this red tape that you’ll be able to “stick” your project to society (and players), and prevent potential stakeholders from taking advantage of your creation.
Business basics for board game designers include a few important elements which we have briefly described here:
- Royalties are percentages of revenue paid to you by a publisher for every unit sold of your board game.
- Contracts contain payment terms, intellectual property ownership, timelines, and responsibilities shared between you and your publisher.
- Manufacturing costs are established by the manufacturer mass producing your board game. If you have a publisher, they will take care of this part. Instead, if you self-publish, you should search on the market and get quotes from different manufacturers to balance the quality of your printed game components with affordability.
- Marketing essentials include terms with which you should become familiar if you’re choosing to self-publish your game. Your target audience comprehends the individuals and groups to whom your game appeals. Your content strategy, includes reviews, community engagement, and owned, shared, and paid pieces of media to promote your board game. Budgeting determines the resources you’re able to allocate for promotional materials like advertising on social media platforms or partnerships with influencers.
9. Stay Updated on Industry Trends
As previously mentioned, knowledge and inspiration are what fuel the awareness of every board game designer. Staying updated on industry trends should then become a habit to avoid missing new releases shaping the direction where the modern landscape for board games is heading.
BGG hosts a news section on their forum to track industry updates. Tabletop Gaming News publishes daily content highlighting new games entering the market, whereas The Dice Tower newsletter displays inquisitive reviews of new and existing titles.
However, simply browsing the section for games on Kickstarter will allow you to follow new projects and guess trends that the industry is taking. And if you want to merge your thirst for knowledge with entertainment, Tabletop Simulator has a Twitch channel where you can watch streams of new games being played live!
10. Launch Your First Game!
Provide tips on crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter or connecting with distributors.
Here we are to THE final step. Once here, you can already start calling yourself a board game designer as the show time is really about to start.
If you decide to self-publish your project, then crowdfunding is the way to go.
Build an audience for your pre-launch on social media, mailing lists, and community forums. Remember to keep your potential backers engaged by offering exclusive perks to those willing to trust your project. You can do that by setting up rewards for stretch goals. Unique game components and material in a limited edition are usually great choices to celebrate your early backers.
Your crowdfunding page should always tell a story. This is done through visuals, reward tiers, and one or more videos introducing your board game and showing the actual gameplay. Use your social media to share updates and reach out to influencers and board game reviewers.
When it comes to distribution, you can use all-in-one platforms to also manage connections with your manufacturers, manage storing and shipping logistics as well as international fulfillment options. Examples of these platforms are GamesQuest, ShipBob, and Quartermaster Logistics, most of them having integration options with Kickstarter.
Income Potential for Board Game Designers
As previously mentioned, getting rich has never been the most long-standing motivation driving successful board game designers. However, it would not be possible to cultivate such a career without having a clue first about the numbers you can expect to earn.
How Much Do Board Game Designers Make?
When defining the income that board game designers make, it comes naturally differentiating the sub-types of professional figures embedded in the industry.
1) Independent designers have contracts with one or more publishers and they’re paid through royalties. These are usually ranging in between 5% to 10% of the wholesale price of each unit sold of your game (which is typically around 35%-50% of the retail price). Depending on the annual printing volumes, independent designers can expect to earn less than $10,000 or above $100,000 for mass-market successes.
Example: Your board game is sold in the stores for $40. You can expect the wholesale price to be around $15 to $20. With an 8% royalty, you would earn between $1.2 to $1.6 per game sold.
2) In-house designers, unlike the previous category, are hired by publishers. Their salaries depend on multiple factors like experience, location, and type of company. The perks of this position are in the security of a regular income and benefits like health insurance and retirement plans.
3) Self-publishing designers have probably the most volatile range of income, but they’re earning the most profit from the units they sell. Their revenue highly depends on the selling price they set, the production costs, and the fees from shipping and distribution. These types of designers usually have an upfront budget to cover the costs of marketing and communication campaigns. However, crowdfunding helps self-publishing designers reduce financial risks. The range for income can be quite broad, with many successful campaigns earning above $30,000 from backers, and some blockbusters reaching 6 or 7 figures!
Example: On April 2024, Amy and Dusty raised $558,038 on Kickstarter from 6,532 backers for their self-published board game La Fleur. You can read their case study here.
Common Challenges Aspiring Designers Face
This guide would not be complete without some strategies to overcome the challenges you can expect to find as a board game designer.
Overcoming Creative Blocks
When creating a board game feels too overwhelming as an achievement: Break your plan into smaller tasks instead of approaching it as a whole. Focus separately on mechanics, themes, components, etc…You’ll be impressed by how far you can go with little consistent steps.
When it feels too lonely: remember you don’t have to do this all alone. Consider finding collaborators to help you with some tasks. Look for communities online, and join events to connect with like-minded enthusiasts.
When you’re stuck on a creative block: step away and take a break. A good way to refresh your ideas is by engaging in unrelated activities. Some studies highlight how creativity flourishes when we work out. Even taking a good walk can help us find spontaneous insights!
Final Thoughts
We hope this guide helped you acknowledge how to become a board game designer and understand the nuances of this profession.
Creating board games and having them published can be the greatest achievement for someone who deeply loves the genre. This is especially true if you’re willing to surf the modern trend of crowdfunding, as having your board game trusted directly by those who will play it is a satisfaction that has no equal.
Our creators at LaunchBoom raised $330K on average in 2023 (12 times more than the average game on Kickstarter). There is no secret sauce behind our numbers, but spending over ten years learning the hard way has taught us one thing or two about how this game works.
This is why we encourage every aspiring board game creator with a vision to talk with us about it, and potentially turn it into the next blockbuster.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Does It Take to Become a Board Game Designer?
Becoming a board game designer requires a blend of creativity, communication, and business acumen. Designers must have a passion for games and a deep understanding of gameplay mechanics, themes, and player engagement. Creativity is essential for crafting unique and enjoyable experiences, while communication skills are crucial for pitching ideas to publishers or building a community for self-published games. Ultimately, business acumen ensures designers navigate royalties, contracts, manufacturing costs, and marketing strategies effectively.
How Do I Design My Own Board Game?
Designing your own board game involves several key steps especially: prototyping, playtesting, and upgrading your design. Start by creating a prototype that combines themes, mechanics, and rules. Use physical materials like cards and tokens or digital tools like Tabletopia or Tabletop Simulator to experiment cost-effectively. Test your prototype extensively with a diverse group of players and gather assertive feedback on the gameplay, style, and core mechanics. Once polished, decide whether you’ll self-publish your board game through crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, or pitch to publishers.
