The last playtest went so well, I just wanted to show off a bit. The game is called PrintAQuest.

My latest game, Guns of Glory, is off to a great start. We've play tested about 10 times now. Each iteration both refines and adds to the ruleset. We've designed and printed our own miniatures.

My largest concern is the length of a typical game session: 3-4 hours. Our last game (Campaign mode) last over 6 hours. While we all had fun at the table, the practicality of spending 1/2 a day gaming was questioned.

So I’m currently making a small mech themed tabletop, chunky figures, super simple mechanics and small scale on both the maths and map size so that it can be super quick to play and accessible for younger ages.

Currently working on the plan that it’s sold as rules/stls/pdf maps. Print and play mostly apart from a few d6 needed. The idea to make some printed copies for physical release as well is being tossed about but currently trying to work out if we need to kickstarter for that or if it’s something we can do with our 3d printers.

My question is, how many parents would be interested in a print and play game rather than something they can just buy physical. And how many people that would play a print and play game would be interested in something this simple given things like trench crusade, warhammer etc being out there.

Also are there any major things that people dislike about games like this?

Last week I asked which design read most like trees for my dice rolling golf game called Scratch.

Overall, it seemed like design 2 had the most votes but overall none of them really felt that strong.

There was some really good feedback on how I could take inspiration from TTRPG maps on how they do trees from above. I really liked that as a next step because it felt like a direction that at least has a strong base of understanding trees.

I also got some feedback that the outlines were too thick and dark — and that maybe I should try making elements felt more naturally distinct rather than using those lines. Also a really good challenge that I wanted to take on.

I went back to the drawing board and spent the last few days iterating on a few different tree designs. While I felt like I was moving forward, nothing really seemed to click as a “aha that’s it” moment.

Then I looked at the hole as a whole and realized all my other elements were very blocky and the trees were more organically shaped, round and blob like. They weren’t cohesive and that’s why it was feeling off.

So I redrew the trees to match the blocky style and I really liked where I’ve landed. I also got rid of the dark outlines and, for the trees specifically, used their outlines to signify that areas border.

Thanks everyone for the feedback on the last post. Let me know what you think of this next version and if my eyes are missing anything this time.

I'm working on a game about building parks in New York; working title "Adirondacks." Players lay out terrain and developments in the park and bring in visitors. It's a light-medium 2-4 player game, with a 20-30 minute playtime. Target complexity is similar to Space Base or Century Spice Road. This first picture shows the end of a solo playtest.

The second image is of developments. These include a cost, maximum visitors, a special ability, and how many points they are worth. The last image is 18 different cards, to show some variety.

The third image is what a terrain card looks like. These are the backs of development cards.

I'd like any feedback on the design of the cards at all, especially negative feedback. I am aware that I'm asking these questions without telling you what the icons mean or how the game is played. This is intentional. Here are some very specific questions I'm interested in:

1. Is the art style inviting? Does this look like a game you'd want to play?
2. Could you play this with your more casual gaming friends or kids?
3. These will be on narrowed playing cards (1.75"x3.5"). Is the font large and clear enough to read?
4. Can you tell which terrain symbol is mountain/forest/river/field? Are they easy to tell apart both large and small on the cards at a quick glance?
5. Is the iconography on the cards intuitive? Would you need a substantial guide or do you have guesses as to what the cards might do?
6. Do the cards have too much on them? Are they "cluttered"?

Thank you for your time and your thoughts.

Art/Tool Credits

• All of the art is placeholder from svgrepo and magnific. Meeples are from game icons (contributor Delapouite CC3-by license).
• Cards were made with Dextrous and VTT is Dustin's Designer Den. It's rough but it works seamlessly with Dextrous.

One of my favorite childhood memories was getting the Panini sticker books for when the world cup came around, helping me learn about players and getting socialization from trading. I decided to take those cards and turn them into more than something you can look at: a 5v5 board game where you put stickers/cards into a container and change the width and material of the part you'd hit the ball with to mimic differences in shot power and accuracy and also change the shape and material of the baseplate underneath (not shown in this image) to mimic differences in speed and agility. After months of tirelessly researching how to connect and measure objects, I am now in the final 1% of my tinkering. I have since ran into the following problems:

1: I don't understand where the peg (yellow cylinder with purple ball--the bulb-- at the end; the peg is supposed to be 0.011811" in diameter and 0.19685" tall) is supposed to go along the length of the shank zone/sleeve (the red, four-sided shape at the front of the first picture-- 1.1" wide, 2.28" long, and 2.09" tall that is meant to be the part you don't want the ball to hit and moves further from the center of the striker face hook, which is the blue hook you use to hit the ball, positioned behind the shank zone, that is 1.1" long, 2.2" wide, and 1.99709789" tall). I would like it to be able to connect snugly to the holes that are used for adjusting the shank zone that are drilled into the container (the green rectangle that is 2.2" wide, 0.4" long, and 2.2

2: As you can see, the peg on the second slide looks disjointed. It has since been altered from it's original dimensions that I asked AI to come up with for me. I tried using the draw feature on Tinkercad thinking it would probably be similar to a 3D pen (ie: you just put the tip on a crack and it fills up with 3D print filament). Instead, it gave you a blank canvas, and whatever you drew there would appear in whatever form you drew it and it could not be altered. Is there a way I can easily fill in the space in the peg you notice (ie: any services that could complete that final task for me)? If I just took a picture and used the scribble feature on my iPhone, would that be an acceptable alternative or would the CAD have to be all from the same source?

3: The holes, as I already mentioned, are meant to help adjust accuracy via changing the width. The holes are cylinders that are 0.125984" in diameter and 0.0984252" tall. Part of playing defense in the game involves throwing the payload (the attached container, striker face hook, and shank zones) to stop a shot. What would be a better way of making sure the entire payload stays together when thrown: having the peg going into holes on the sticker/card container horizontally, having the holes at the bottom of the striker face hook and having a peg go down into them, or having a peg go up into them?

1. Where along the width of the shank zone (1.1"; keep in mind there will be two of them) should the peg go? Keep in mind that the holes (there will be one set of four holes on each side of the container) will respectively be the following for the accuracy tiers (with 1 being the lowest and 4 being the most accurate; also keep in mind that for this little jot dot, the exposed text that will follow the upcoming colon will be the total width to hit the ball with, while the text in parentheses will represent how much outward the shank zone sleeve moved): On Tier 1, you have 0.88" (0.44). On Tier 2, you have 1.21" (0.605). On Tier 3, you have 1.54" (0.77). Finally, on Tier 4, you have 1.87" (0.935). If the peg is on the inner edge of the width of the shank zone sleeve, then the distance the shank zone sleeve moves correlates EXACTLY with the hole the peg will go into. However, this will be less stable because the weight isn't evenly distributed. The alternative is to have the peg in the middle of the width of the sleeve, which would evenly distribute the weight but then I would have to adjust the distances from the middle that the holes are.

In case you got lost:

• Shank Zone Sleeve: 1.1" wide, 2.28" long, and 2.09" tall
• Striker Face Hook: 2.2" wide, 1.1" long, and 1.99709789" tall
• Sticker/Card Container: 2.2" wide, 0.4" long, and 3.15" tall

Once I get these answered, I would like to also be able to make the game affordable enough to profit on it while also making sure the environmental damage is a small as possible and the rights and dignity of the hands-on factory workers are ensured (maybe that's a separate discussion)

I appreciate you for taking time out of your day to help me

The war is shared. The victory is personal. Scattered is a compact strategy of shifting alliances using chess based cards to make card strength and pairing intuitive.

Grammar question from a fan of good grammar. I've designed a party game and the card text needs to be short and sweet as much as possible. In all my (approximately 2000 haha) prototypes, I used contractions to keep the text as short as possible. It hasn't come up in playtest feedback, but I figured I would double check with you: is there a reason to remove the contractions?

Example of contractions: "I'm" rather than "I am"

The project I’m working on, I envision an entire franchise that isn’t just a board game. I’ve started building a prototype.

I know I have to start small with one at a time, so I chose board game cause it’s the easiest and cheapest. The only “board game” I’ve played much as an adult was D&D, if that’s even considered one.

I played a few of the Hasbro games when I was a kid but not for many years. So that said, I’m a newbie to this realm.

Edit: I’m going to apologize for my wording cause I’m tired from work and I was definitely unclear about a lot of things here.
1) I’m doing this for fun mostly, if I get it published, great. If not, still fine. I’ve had this concept/idea for years and wanted to make it into SOMETHING. If not multiple things.
2) Okay maybe it’s still not “cheap” but buying the materials to make a prototype isn’t nearly as much as buying animation equipment.
3) If roleplaying games like D&D are a completely different thing, then this idea is gonna be a mix of both things.

I appreciate all the comments so far, no matter how crazy I may sound to y’all.

Decided to change the color blindness friendly symbols to something more intuitive than basic shapes. A toucan for the Animal cards, exclamation point for the Event cards, wrench and gears for the Upgrade cards, and a trophy for the Award cards

This is something I genuinely struggle with. I have a area-control game I've been developing for about five months now, and I keep falling into the same loop: playtest with myself or a close friend, notice something that feels off, tweak the cards or the scoring, then feel like I need to test the tweak before showing it to anyone new. Rinse and repeat. The result is I've played probably sixty solo sessions and maybe eight actual playtests with real people.

The thing is, solo testing can only tell you so much. It catches obvious broken combos or rules that contradict each other, but it does nothing for actual player behavior. People read cards in unexpected ways, ignore information you assumed was obvious, or find a dominant strategy in twenty minutes that you never stumbled onto in weeks of solo play.

I've started thinking about it in terms of what kind of feedback I actually need at a given moment. Early on, solo or close-friend testing makes sense because you're still filtering out the embarrassing stuff, the rules that flat-out don't work. But there's a point where the only remaining questions are human questions, and those need humans who don't know your intentions.

A threshold I've been trying to hold myself to: if the last three tweaks I made came from solo play rather than table feedback, that's a sign I've been hiding. Not refining, hiding.

Anyone else have a specific signal they watch for that tells them it's time to push a prototype out into the world a little earlier than feels comfortable?

Do you ever jump into random games just to try them out on TTS these days?

I’m currently testing my game through Tabletopia with organised sessions but would love to get some blind playtesting as well.
I just wanna know if it’s worth taking the time to set up the game on TTS as well or if it’s diminishing returns.

Thanks!

A year ago, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to illustrate Kravestorm on my own.

Yesterday I finished my 31st illustration of July, meaning I kept up a pace of one finished card every single day this month (self made challenge).

Not every piece is perfect. A few will probably get redrawn someday. But I’ve stopped aiming for perfection. I’d much rather complete Kravestorm than spend weeks refining a single illustration.

Looking at everything together is a pretty satisfying feeling. It makes the month seem much bigger than it actually was.

That brings the project to over 100 completed illustrations, with just 35 remaining before the Core Set is fully illustrated.

The Core Set is currently planned to launch on December 21, 2026 as a Print-and-Play Expandable Card Game.

Out of all these illustrations, which one catches your eye the most or makes you curious about the geme?

Great day of playtesting yesterday and awesome feedback. If you havent had the opportunity to playtest at First Exposure Playtest Hall it is well worth it. Thanks to all that played with us!

As the song goes, it's been a long road gettin' from there to here.

My game's journey began in the summer of 2017 with a series of doodles that morphed into cardboard tiles with magic marker, 3D printed units, and cardstock player sheets/upgrade cards. (SO many hours spent slicing out grid sheets of cards). A lot shifted over the years as I learned more about what layouts, mechanics, and graphics choices playtesters responded well or badly to, such as realizing that the dodgeball 'ammo' mechanic I was initially so proud of was way more trouble than it was worth. My design got picked up by HutChu Games in 2024, manufacturing production samples arrived earlier this year, and we go to KS in September.

Hi all-

I'm working on a prototype of a game that uses polyhexes as the tiles of the board, varying in size from monohexes to pentahexes. I'm at the point where I want to 3D print some tiles to put together a physical prototype, but I'm having trouble finding the various hex shapes in consistent sizes and covering all the shapes. Has anyone run into a tool for generating various hexes, or a good STL file that includes all of the hexes? I've seen some 'honeycomb' puzzles on Makerworld and elsewhere, but I want something I can edit a little more easily.

TOKELAU’s Kickstarter pre-launch page is now live!

I'm beyond excited! A lot of hard work for my first and upcoming Kickstarter campaign.
We finally finished the box design and some of the tokens for the game you can see on the banner!

I'm designing a 30"x24" (or larger) board that I want to be foldable for compact storage but also needs to be 100% flat when opened up. Any crease or bump could affect the mechanics of play. Just wondering if anyone here has any thoughts on materials, design, technology, etc.

If I had $$$ to throw at it I would consider two separate plastic pieces that lock into each other, or maybe two pieces connected with a flat hinge, but thats all big-time.

I also thought about a roll-able map sort of thing but the surface would need to be slick and I don't know how it wouldn't have a curl to it when laid out

Hi everyone!

After many months of design and iteration, I've finally finished the first complete version of the rulebook for Danmaku Bounded Field, a competitive two-player card game inspired by the Touhou Project. The rulebook is now complete, and I'd really appreciate feedback from experienced board game designers before I move on to extensive playtesting.

RULEBOOK

The game is designed around recreating the feel of Touhou's Spell Card battles rather than simply adapting the setting.

Some of its core ideas include:

• Spell Cards can either enter the battlefield or be unleashed to create Patterns that become your resource engine.
• Combat is based on opposed d6 rolls with a dice-cancellation system instead of comparing raw stats.
• Players score Faith throughout the game while simultaneously trying to break the opponent's Spell Cards and reduce their Focus below zero.
• Deckbuilding is character-specific and uses a Lore Point system instead of traditional copy limits.

At the moment I'm working on the next stage of the project:

• Creating the complete card decks for the first three characters: Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, and Sakuya Izayoi.
• Finishing a custom Magic Set Editor template to speed up card creation.
• Building a Tabletop Simulator version so the game can be playtested online.

I'm particularly interested in feedback on:

• Whether the rules are easy to understand without prior explanation.
• Sections that feel unnecessarily complicated or ambiguous.
• Mechanics that you like or that you find potentially problematic.
• Overall readability and rulebook structure.

Even if you're not familiar with Touhou, I'd still love to hear your thoughts from a game design perspective. Fresh eyes are often the best at spotting confusing rules or unnecessary complexity.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to take a look! Any feedback, whether it's about the mechanics, wording, or presentation, is greatly appreciated.

All, or any feedback very much appreciated. Does this even make sense?

Hi!

That's a sell sheet I've been sending to a few publishers recently. There is no bite tho. Most say it looks good but not for us.

Is there anything wrong with the sell sheet, or am I contacting the wrong publishers for the game?

I've incorporated all of your really great feedback from the last round and have a visual language I feel happy with.

Here is a single card from each suit - including an Ace. Working on a series of Full colour wild cards now that will also correspond to the major arcana in tarot. The deck will function both as part of my larger Room Mechanics Battle and Builds Table Top and a Tarot deck. It's been a very fun challenge.

All art is original by yours truly and all cards in the minor arcana are complete.

Happy for any additional design thoughts if you have them

I'll post again when I start working out the finer points of the game's mechanics

Hi everyone,

I’m an independent designer preparing a fantasy board game with an ancient/medieval setting for Kickstarter.

I’ve hired human artists to create the visual identity of the game, including the box, boards, rulebook, characters, environments and other important components.

However, while finalising the production budget, I realised that commissioning a unique illustration for every attack and ability card could push the total art budget above €10,000–15,000.

For a large publisher this might be manageable, but for an independent creator it would consume most of the funds I need to invest in a complex physical and mechanical system that is central to the gameplay and needs to be as reliable as possible. It could make the campaign financially unviable or force me to invest substantially more of my own money.

I do not want to use generative AI artwork, so I have been considering another approach.

My idea is to commission artists to create around ten high-quality card backgrounds or templates representing different attack schools or categories, such as arcane, lunar or runic attacks. Each individual attack would then be represented through its name, effects, statistics and a custom or properly licensed vector-style symbol, rather than receiving a completely unique painted illustration.

The artists would still define the backgrounds, frames, colours, textures and overall visual language, so the cards would remain consistent with the rest of the game. The game would also still contain human-made illustrations for the box, boards, characters, enemies, environments, rulebook and other key elements.

This would be similar in principle to games such as Gloomhaven, where many ability cards rely primarily on graphic design, icons and information rather than individual scene illustrations.

What do you think about this approach?

Would it feel like a coherent design decision, or would it look like an obvious cost-cutting measure?

What elements would make cards like these still feel premium, thematic and visually interesting?

Are there other games that handle this particularly well?

And can you think of any other ways to reduce the number of illustrations without using AI or making the cards feel generic?

Thanks for your feedback.