I'm curious about any dice PVP games I could play or learn about.

Anything that finds an interesting way to use 6 sided dice.

https://preview.redd.it/v38h4lmrx5yd1.png?width=1654&format=png&auto=webp&s=409adeabc6f147a0f7cfa256b8cb245c852f707b

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Hey all! Looking for some new and inspirational ideas for character abilities in this roguelike deckbuilding game we are currently developing. Cognizant

To preface, each of the 7 characters called Echoes have unique abilities in addition to a 30-card deck that revolve around their abilities. These help to give a greater amount of variability and play style between each character.

I've included two characters with a couple of cards from their specific decks. As stated above I'm looking for some possible different ideas to possibly change or add to the current characters abilities, specifically the ability listed on the player boards, as those are their specials and what makes them unique!

For instance:

Atlus uses primarily Melee based combat and must be at a close range to hit his target, and such he has high damage output, great mobility but lacks armor. His Trigger ability (Unrelenting) Allows him to store up his Trigger Tokens to use to boost the damage output of an attack. He gains them when he defeats an enemy.

Genesis uses long range attacks and has Mid damage output low mobility and decent armor. His Trigger Ability (Ammo Cache) allows him to gain his Trigger Tokens when he chooses not to make an attack that turn, then when he does use an attack card (specified in the attack) he can replay that card for free from the discard zone. This means he can fill up his discard zone with a number of specific attack cards and replay them for free later, or all at once in a huge multi-attack.

More ideas like these would be greatly appreciated! Cognizant is a co-operative roguelike deckbuilder, so abilities need to be strong but balanced between each character as there is a PVP mode that players can play in as they compete against each other.

I also included a symbol key to help break things down a bit more to understand how the game functions.

Any help and ideas would be great, thank you! Let me know if you need more information than what's provided to make suggestions!

Hello, all.

After several days of slogging through Google, ArtStation, Behance, and the other usual methods, I have yet to identify individuals/organizations that have a deeper understanding of branding a tabletop game.

Specifically, I am sourcing a logo that encapsulates the entirety of the theme and art direction. However, I need more than a simple logo that "looks good." Anyone can whip one up in Canva, Photoshop, etc that borrows from these elements.

I'm looking for a branding oriented designer that understands that the logo serves as the foundational visual element that directs the entire aesthetic and thematic cohesion across the game.

It affects the visual tone that informs further art, styles, iconography, overall layout, and its the “frame” against which all thematic elements are displayed, drawing players into the game’s narrative and world.

Have any of you successfully published? Where did you source your Graphic Designers or Branding specialists? Even if you're only an aspiring publisher, if you have a solid referral, I would be glad to look into it.

I appreciate anything you might offer.

Hey guys,

I'm in the midst of designing a game where the players play as action movie heroes and do typical things like fight each other, bad guys, save ppl, and run around the board. Its a dicepool game ala King of Tokyo

The board is made up of hex tiles with different locations with enemy spawns, stat boosters, and loot.

An idea I had was for hexes to contain tokens that the players collected when landing on a space, where collecting a specific set of those tokens would gain VP. Thing is, i'm having trouble with implementing a method for collecting tokens, as i dont know whats to prevent players from staying in the same spot (camping), to farm tokens. How would I establish a workaround/alternative?

Please let me know if you need more details.

TIA!

I've created a game over the past year & change (design, prototyping, playtesting, iterating, repeat, repeat), I hired (payed real money to) a professional designer to make everything look way better, sourced and priced manufacturing, locked down a fulfillment partner and prices, got some trademark and copyright protections, etc ...

I'm still finalizing details towards a Kickstarter (or similar) launch. I'm wondering about legal requirements around things like choking hazard warnings, language laws around packaging in US and Canada (I'm looking at you Quebec), other safety and age labelling, product barcodes, etc.

What are the best resources to learn about or get help with the above details? Thanks.

Hi everyone, I am looking for some inspiration on how to design some illustrations for weapons.

To give a breakdown the illustrations would be placed on cards where the image section would have a frame design that is circular so the art would be 1x1.

Here it a current design i am still working on. each art frame would represent the rarity of the metal type or wood of the weapon, where the dragon would be a golden frame with dragon wings.

https://preview.redd.it/wz2nypysr3yd1.png?width=1248&format=png&auto=webp&s=36e807079c5c2f663c864d7c303f1dea4c9bf951

each weapon has 4 variants: Bronze, Iron, Stronger metal (which has a fantasy name), and Dragon-type so the arts could potentially be consistent but I am still not sure.

I am looking around for ideas on how to make the art mostly on which angle. I see cases where it shows just part of the weapon like the following image where in some cases the weapons are cut.

https://preview.redd.it/4lo429ymr3yd1.png?width=946&format=png&auto=webp&s=a690072f5104e73c6e901694387d1ac8e75e34e4

however, I am really thinking if this may be the best way to do so as my weapons would not look like "overly magical" just simple normal weapons like swords, axes, and shields where only the Dragon weapons would be the best looking so Idk if it makes sense to make their full design or just half of it.

I would appreciate if anyone could give me any suggestions from other games with cards where weapon art is displayed for better inspiration.

Hey everyone! My name’s Eric, and I’m a TTRPG enthusiast and digital marketer. Last year, I ran a successful Black Friday campaign with Absolute Tabletop, which brought in solid sales and helped boost visibility for some fantastic indie creators. This year, I’m looking to bring together a handful of talented TTRPG creators for a similar holiday bundle.

Here’s the idea:

🔹 What’s in it for you? You contribute a PDF or digital TTRPG content for the bundle (maybe something from the back archive?) and in return you’ll get the emails of everyone who buys the bundle. This means you’re gaining a highly targeted audience who already loves TTRPGs and are likely interested in supporting your work.

🔹 What’s in it for me? I’ll be covering the ad spend, campaign setup, landing page design, and marketing (plus some creative hustle!) to drive sales. I’ll take a portion of the bundle revenue to cover my costs, but beyond that, it’s all about bringing our work to a larger audience.

🔹 Why a bundle? Last year’s campaign proved that people love getting a collection of awesome content for a great price, and creators benefit from pooling audiences. You’ll not only get in front of more eyes but also connect with buyers who actively support the indie TTRPG scene.

🔹 Details: This would be a limited-time bundle offered at a discounted rate for Black Friday. The goal is to make it as low-lift for you as possible—just send over your PDF and any promo materials you’d like included, and I’ll handle the rest. This is NOT designed to generate thousands of dollars, but to make a small profit, gain exposure, and build your marketing list.

If you're interested please comment here or DM me a link to your work! Looking forward to seeing if we can get some magic going this Black Friday! 🧙‍♂️🔥

I am currently working on an adventure game with some role playing mechanics, things that encourage players to engross themselves in the world and make creative decisions.

To describe the mechanic I'm currently thinking about, the party can sometimes encounter "challenges" that require problem solving. The role of narrator rotates around the board, and the narrator is also the "judge" in certain challenge scenarios.

Players have kits that belong in different cetegories with their own themes, like "Blood" or "Wilds", and besides providing attributes, these kits also come with some items. For example, the Wilds "Hunter's Gear" might come with tools like Poison Kit, Bear Trap and Camouflaged Cloak.

The Narrator draws a Wilds challenge card, which can be attempted by any player, but a player with a Wilds kit may gain an additional dice to roll (game uses a dice pool system) if one of the items in their kit can be realistically used to aid with the task. The narrator is the Juror in deciding whether or not this bonus applies.

Essentially, I am hoping to promote creative problem solving and collaborative storytelling similar to DnD. I might even add more to the system that allows players to combine their kits for more collaboration.

What are your thoughts on this idea? Does it seem like it would be fun and prompt some creativity from the players or just seem too forced and arbitrary? Would players just game the system and say "yeah that works" to everything? Would it even matter if that's how they decided to play? I am quite stuck on going through with this idea as it is one of the only things that is extremely player buy-in dependent and cannot simply be measured with numbers.

https://preview.redd.it/j7r7ejiutzxd1.png?width=599&format=png&auto=webp&s=c77b27b5381187b8a2fc02c805f5cbf5c1253d63

I started making my ghost busters ttrpg and i'm open to any criticism.

NOTE 1: this is very bare bones as of now, think of it as a draft 0

NOTE 2: the art on the front cover is AI, i wish i was talented enough to draw it myself but i sadly am not.

without further ado here it is

This week on Board Game Blueprint, we talk about your friendly local game store, and how you can use them as a resource in your game design.

You can watch this weeks video here: https://youtube.com/shorts/3KzULThmU6o?feature=share

The main things I wanted you to take away from the video, is that you can take your game into your own hands, and use your local game store to test, demo, promote and even sell your game. Sometimes you just have to ask, worst thing they can say is no.

This will be even easier if the store already has a local designer section. If they don't have one, see if you can start one!

What kind of relationship do you have as a game designer, with your local game store?

I'm thinking about these two concepts recently in the context of collaborative or semi-collaborative board games, since the lack of them can feel similar in terms of how they manifest as a problem for players, but the actual way of solving these problems (and the problems they introduce by including more of them) are very different.

Particularly games with engine builder mechanics, lack of mechanics that impact both of these focuses can have players feel like they are each playing their own single player game. If you're designing a board game and get this feedback, it's worth steppibg back and seeing if the problem is a lack of collaboration, lack of interaction, or both.

Collaboration mechanics are often great at helping players feel like they have the opportunity to work together, but they also have the risk of having one player appoint themselves the "quarterback" of the table and tell everyone what to do for the most optimal play. Mechanics like players taking turns simultaneously and playing with their hands revealed allow for communication about decisions that they will make at the table, but also introduces the risk of slowing down gameplay, analysis paralysis, and of course the quarter back mechanic i mentioned above.

Interactivity mechanics, in comparison, are often great at creating natural conflict between players, but not always in healthy ways. Mechanics like player agnostic upgrades, shared tableaus, drafting, and counter effects all help to create more interactivity, but this can lead to players feeling frustrated if there is too much disruption to their plans that they feel they no longer have control over how they get to play the game. One of the most extreme examples of this are the "untap, draw, pass" Blue decks in Magic: the Gathering, which are known for countering all the cards their opponent plays during their opponents turn and stopping them being able to execute their strategy. In competitive engine building games, hate drafting and space blocking are examples where players can limit the choice of others around the table.

What are some more mechanics that increase/decrease collaboration and interactivity respectively? What are some of your favorites to see in games, and what are some examples where they felt heavy handed or executed particularly well?

Hi everyone!

I'm conducting a scientific experiment on a game. Long story short, I've designed a game based on the psychological research on happiness and I'm now conducting a research study, measuring players' happiness before and after playing.

The goal is to make the first (to my knowledge) game that is scientifically proven to make people happier.

Now, the game itself is a simple, light-hearted (at least on the surface) mass-market game. Since English is not my first language, I need a little help with the name. I want something catchy and memorable.

Does "Happy Haven" sound too cheesy? Some alternatives are Feliz or Felicidad (happy and happiness in Spanish). Any other suggestions are more than welcome! Thanks so much!

Alright so me and one of my buddies are working on a risk like game, what do we do about showing enemy troops? It kind of feels unfair and takes away some stealth aspects

My friends are interested in my ideas but are reluctant to agree to some extensive testing, or really any testing at all. I was hoping if anyone knew of any subreddits or Discord servers where I could "promote" my game and acquire playtesters. (If it helps, the game I am designing is a Tabletop Miniatures Wargame)

A while back, I was developing a game prototype and used Inkscape to design and generate printable cards. This process quickly became tedious, as each change in design required manually updating every card. To streamline it, I created a simple JavaScript script that used a CSV file and JSON data to automatically build the cards, significantly improving my workflow.

Later, while learning VueJS, I combined my script with a Vue-based project. I aimed to create a more organized tool that could serve as both a portfolio piece and a resource for the game dev community.

After some time (it took me way too long to finish it), I released the first version, which you can try out here: Vitral Game Card Templating.

No JavaScript or programming experience is needed! I made the entire tool to be the most user-friendly possible. But you can also make the card using only a text editor.

I also really appreciate feedback, since I want to keep improve this tool.

I know many of these questions get asked all the time, many of us, myself included, seem to fall into game development without knowing the ins and outs. My question is, have any of you had any experience designing a board game, advertising/marketing, crowdfunding, and fulfillment?

We, FanCrafted Ltd, are wrapping up our first year developing our board game Three Kobolds in a Trench Coat. We're nearing the end of our initial playtesting phase, which has taken us to board game cafés, a college that teaches game development, and conventions around the UK, including the UK Games Expo and AireCon. We have had great feedback from our playtesters, and are only receiving positive feedback, or possible additions to be added.

As we head into the next stage, we’re planning to produce a small batch of demo copies to distribute to cafés across the UK so we can reach out to a wider audience.

We’ve spoken to several manufacturers and received quotes for an initial run of 10 copies. However, beyond this, we're a bit unsure about the next steps.

Our artist is delivering new character art each month, and we've commissioned some additional pieces for future marketing. We already have our box art designed to market the game. I’m handling the graphic design and card layouts myself, and starting to edit the cards into their final versions.

When it comes to marketing, though, we’re still trying to figure out our strategy. We’ve set up a simple Google Sites webpage to gather emails for our mailing list and hope to launch a full website next year.

We are looking to launch a crowdfunding page in late 2025 (if things go well) or early 2026.

If anyone has insights or advice on where we should go from here, especially in marketing, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks so much in advance!

Massively chuffed with how these turned out, went for a combination of plain component shots, game in play, and then creative, to try and have something for utility as well as advertising. I know it's a bit beyond the design part of gaming, but I'm so happy with these I wanted to share them with some fellow designers. Hope you like them

https://preview.redd.it/2apbjxcc9qxd1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=474f22cbb7e5e17d8b10f83b26c8998a9fa9248c

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https://preview.redd.it/mtc3a9dc9qxd1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc3b9ef57e25ba932346f12baa198e03c32b194f

https://preview.redd.it/61lesccc9qxd1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d140d9043df78feb33ec82681781e5a9e53439a

https://preview.redd.it/61dox9dc9qxd1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b3aa07c7dee89f1c9b231abbe6cc292b45937e3

https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/1geyrn0/does_any_game_have_a_combat_system_as_technical/