This week we learnt some more about how to design rules, along with other components of board games.
When it comes to board games or card games there is a lot more to think about then what you would first, well, think. I for one was shocked at the amount of detail. Having been selling lots of card games and board games, it is a real eye opener to red about the design process that goes into everything from the game pieces to the way that the games name is displayed on all sides of the box.
Components
Components are those things that make games much more enjoyable for the player. This includes everything from
- the height of the pieces,
- size of the playing pieces on the board
- to the shape and colour
that makes each piece distinguishable from each other.
From board games to card games, these, although are not 'essential', make the players experience much easier and lot more enjoyable. In an article by Greg Aleknevicus, which you can read here, Aleknevicus make reference to a game called, 'Schotten-Totten' , each card has the same image on it but the suits are distinguished by colour. This is a poor design, due to a lot of the population dealing with some way, shape, or form of colour blindness, so all the cards begin to look the same colour. It is also harder for the regular player to quickly distinguish the suit.
Another point that Aleknevicus make in his article is about indices and icons on game pieces.
These are used in a lot of different games such as Darkon, where there are vortex pieces and also gold pieces. In this game Darkon, these two pieces look very similar so it is very common that a player will pick up one piece thinking it is another.
This can be avoided by making pieces different sizes, having very different colours or very distinguishable designs.
The Box
This part of the article was very interesting to me, having spent the past 11 months of my career trying to display different boxes, from Lego, to board games like chess and monopoly and also many, MANY, decks of cards.
Listing the name of the game on the side of the box is essential. This catches the consumers eye as they are walking towards or by, drawing them to pickup the box and investigate. This also helps the retailer to have a display of these boxes, especially around Christmas time. Having the name displayed on the side allows us to stack up these games in piles and they are still recognisable.
Back of the box pictures are also important. This is what the player will go to when trying to learn how to play the game, usually without reading the rules first. This photo should always be of actual events from the game as well as enticing, so the player will want to well, play the game.
Rules
This is one of thee most important parts to designing any game. The rules from your game must be stated clearly and easy for all players to understand. They should state what can happen in any situation, like what to do in the event of tie, what to do if a player runs out of money or cards or when the cards should be reshuffled.
Using examples is always an effective way to explain a rule hat may otherwise be hard to understand.
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Other things to include in your game are, a list of all components - including all game pieces. This allows the player to easily determine what pieces they may be missing-, some extra pieces if possible or a service where the player may be able to buy extras, such as counters or refile sheets.
It is also a good idea to support your game online, with a FAQ page for players to find out information, if they do come across a situation that they are not sure how to play. Although most board games do not have official FQA pages, there are many forums and blogs, like this Monopoly FAQ page for example.
I really enjoyed learning about this type of game development this week, I has changed how I will look at board games for the foreseeable future.
Signing off
-AK
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