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Making Your Own Board/Card Games?

Posted by michael on from the construction-paper-and-glue dept.

wrinkledshirt writes "I've been growing interested in creating my own set of board games, and I was wondering if people knew of good resources for how to go about doing this? I'd love to know information on good places to get cards printed, manuals printed, plastic pieces manufactured, boards created, that sort of thing. Many companies online offer to do all of these things for you, but I'm considering doing it all separately in order to cut costs. Since I've never done this before, I'm also wondering about sources that'll give you good ideas to consider as well as gameplay pitfalls to avoid. I know google is my friend, but I'm also wondering about people's experiences in trying to do this stuff on their own...?"

13 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Follow the Star Trek method by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. Get a popular show
    2. Have a popular character on the show make up some rules for a game (they don't need to make sense)
    3. Have determined fans make up rules that fit the above specified rules, yet provide some logical game play
    4. You now have your own card game

  2. Try Kinko's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm pretty sure they can print everything you want except a board.

    And if you get your board printed on nice glossy heavy duty paper, that should be hard to make (so long as you know how to spread glue out evenly and thinly).

  3. Play on your own first. by Dlugar · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's really simple to grab together pieces from other board games you have lying around the house, sketch out a quick board on some simple paper, and try playing the game with a few friends. I've done this many times, and it helps you see what sort of game-play is fun and interesting, and what's not really, before you go to the trouble of making a more permanent set of cards/plastic pieces/game board. If you really do come up with a winner you think you can sell, I suppose that's the time you can go looking around for companies to manufacture it for you. And I think at that point you'd be better off going to a game company who knows what they're doing, rather than trying to farm out production to various different individual companies to save a buck, and then try to sell the game yourself.

    But really: a large piece of paper, a collection of plastic pieces from various board games, some dice, and a few cards can provide for many, many hours of fun and entertainment. You're limited only by your imagination.

    Dlugar

    --
    Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
    1. Re:Play on your own first. by aheath · · Score: 5, Informative

      National Public Radio had a 1 hour show about the history of Parker Brothers. Your suggestion sounds very similar to how Parker Brothers was started. "Parker Brothers got its start in the 1880s, when a 16-year-old George Parker, who loved playing games and had a knack for selling, tried to earn a few bucks on a card game he created called Banking. That was the start of Parker Brothers, which gave us Ping Pong, Sorry and Monopoly. Tonight, On Point: How Parker Brothers rose to the top of the game board." The show is available on-line. The guest was "Philip Orbanes, President of Winning Moves Games in Danvers, Massachusetts and author of "The Monopoly Companion." His newest book is "The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit.""

  4. do it yourself! by ghettoreb · · Score: 5, Funny
    ok, looking through recent /. posts:
    • a guy made a USB menorah
    • a guy made a web interface to 4,000 xmas lights and a rotating camera w/ pan & zoom
    • guys are making spacecraft in garages by hand for xprize
    • ??? [and etc]
    And you are telling me you can't print your own manual and make your own little plastic figures? SHAME ON YOU!
  5. Check your phonebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    • It's quite possible you've got a printer in the neighborhood without having realized it. Depending on the type of shop you could get most of your needs met there -- manual, cards, playing board, even the container.
    • For playing pieces, wood adds a touch of class that plastic can't match; check your local craft store and see what kinds of things they've got that you can glue together. You can do just about anything with a source of wood and a Dremel.
    • Another possibility for the playing board is to design your board on the computer and print it to an iron-on transfer, then iron that on to the cardboard. Or you could make a series of stencils you can spray-paint through (one for each color) for mass production.
    • Use dice. They're cheap and plentiful.
    Good luck. This sounds like it could be a rewarding hobby.
    1. Re:Check your phonebook by po8 · · Score: 5, Informative

      As someone who is just putting the finishing touches on the production of a homemade game I have put together for Christmas gifts, I found this topic hilariously timely. I'll second some of parent's ideas.

      About a year ago, friends and I put together a bunch of copies of an out-of-print board game. We built a mat-board board with a color-printed playfield glued on, made mat-board pieces, got wooden men from the craft store and painted them. A lot of work, but it was a lot of fun, and the results were quite nice. Some recommendations:

      • Craft punches, available at your local craft store, are quite useful.
      • Felt is also quite useful and easy to come by at craft or fabric stores. Pieces that move on a gameboard need felt bottoms.
      • Mat board is the basic board-making material for the hobbyist.
      • Rubber cement is a good glue for this work.
      • Seal things with a coat of oil-based varethane so they don't stain.
      • Parts like sand timers and dice are readily available at game stores.

      For my latest game, an original design, I just needed a Pinochle deck, some Poker chips, and the rules. Much easier to build. Recommendations on game design:

      • Understand some basic game theory, or find a friend who does. Game balance is hard.
      • Don't make the rules too complicated. Everyone loves games they can just pick up and play for the first time.
      • Don't confuse the paint (i.e. the flavor text and pictures, the game setting, etc.) with the game itself. A good setting can be fun, but it has to overlay a game that is good in its own right.
      • There is usually some kind of balance between luck and skill. Some people won't play pure skill games. Almost no one will play pure luck games, except for money.
      • Playtest, playtest, playtest.

      Above all, have fun.

  6. A good source for basic game pieces is... by Biljrat · · Score: 5, Informative

    find your local (if you have one) school teacher supply store. They have all kinds of game tokens, dice, spinners & what-have-yous. A good paper store is handy for getting the game board backing.

    I print the game boards on multiple sheets on a colour printer, glue them to the backing and then laminate them a the local copy station.

    This works for simple board games for her grade 1-3 students. Should work fine for your prototyping stages. Custom plastic is going to cost you, though. You might want to look into paperboard cut outs if you want to make and distribute it yourself.

    --
    http://nwbagpipes.com/
  7. Use whatever... by Cenotaph · · Score: 5, Informative

    One of the guys I work with does game design as a hobby. (Joe Huber, first published game Scream Machine by Jolly Roger Games) He buys poker decks in bulk from BJs and prints out stickers that cover the face of the cards. If the game uses a board, he usually just hand draws one on card stock. He's also purchased parts from the local science museum or used parts from widely available board games, i.e. money/markers from Monopoly, etc.

    It should be noted that these are prototypes and he's usually not making more than one copy of these games.

    --
    "You can put a man through school,
    But you cannot make him think."
    Ben Harper
  8. Pitfalls: by Razzak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Watch for the following pitfalls:

    Parts of the game are worthless.
    There are ways to do the opposite of what you're supposed to and benefit from it.
    If the game includes secrets, there need to be tools to encourage players to keep them.
    The game shouldn't "elminate" players slowly. Yes, I know monopoly does this, but those that are eliminated usually leave/sleep/watch tv and I think that's why games like Pictionary, Scattegories, or Trivial Pursuit are more popular.
    Different, but not revolutionary. Just like most video games, you're better off doing a variation of something most people are familiar with than something new and/or complex.
    You need to be able to sit down, read the rules, and understand the game in under 5 minutes.

    Good luck.

  9. game inventor's guidbook by Adolphus · · Score: 5, Informative

    at amazon -- great book on the game industry, pointers at publishers and a few do-it-yourself tips...

  10. Some info. by EvilMal · · Score: 5, Informative

    My dad owns a one man game company and his web site has a page about this.

    Here.

    His games have made it into Games Magazine's top 100 games list more than once, so he might have some reasonable advice. :]

  11. hexagonal chess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I came up with the idea (long ago), of a three player chess game based on a board of hexagons instead of squares. I even tried to market it through one of those invention marketing companies (waste of good money.) Then I joined the Air Force and got stationed, of all places, at the Pentagon. One of the first things I did was hop on the Metrorail to Crystal City and do a patent search of chess games based on hexagons instead of squares... I found at least twenty design patents for such games. And since the WWW has come into existence I've found at least 20 more such games. So much for my idea. =P

    Turns out, creating a chess game based on hexagons instead of squares that has the same "flavor" as regular chess is no easy task at all. I am still trying to find the right combination of boards/piece arrangements.