{"id":46986,"date":"2022-07-04T03:08:49","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T03:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qinprinting.com\/blog\/?p=2623"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:21:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:21:27","slug":"how-to-make-your-own-board-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qinprinting.com\/blog\/how-to-make-your-own-board-game\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Design Your Own Professional Board Game: A Complete Guide for Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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We take you step-by-step from getting an idea to designing a prototype, testing, printing, and distributing the final product. Whether you need a game for your friends, club, or commerce, we've got your back.<\/p>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"How\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Game Customized by QinPrinting<\/a><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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One thing that all gamers have in common is a lively and original creative imagination. It’s the ability to problem-solve, imagine new possibilities, and ‘think outside the box’\u200a\u2014\u200aoften, literally!\u200a\u2014\u200athat sets gamers apart from the crowd. Most experienced gamers have their reliable old favorites to which they return again and again. Often, there’s also a strong desire to discover something new, innovative, and exciting; a game that gives you the same buzz that got you hooked in the first place.<\/p>

But that game can be hard to find. So, it’s not surprising that sooner or later, a lot of gamers decide to make their own game. As the saying goes, sometimes if you want something to exist, you have to make it yourself.<\/p>

You might want to figure out how to design your own board game<\/strong>\u00a0for the sheer fun and satisfaction of sharing it with your friends, gaming community, or club. Or maybe you’d like to try selling it to a major game manufacturer. Perhaps you’ll strike out on your own commercial adventure as an independent entrepreneur. But whatever your objective, putting together a game that’s everything you dreamed of can be quite a steep learning curve. You’ll need to go through the following key stages to make your own board game:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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  1. Getting and developing the idea<\/li>
  2. Designing the layout, game play, and rules<\/li>
  3. Creating a prototype ready for testing<\/li>
  4. Game testing in live play situations to gather data and feedback<\/li>
  5. Analyzing the results of the play tests<\/li>
  6. Revising, refining, and improving the game based on your analysis<\/li>
  7. Creating a new prototype and retesting<\/li>
  8. Finalizing a full design including board, pieces, die, cards, and other components<\/li>
  9. Printing and manufacturing the final game<\/li><\/ol>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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    It sounds like a lot of work, right? And it is. But it’s also a huge amount of fun, a creative challenge, and a massive satisfaction. Not to mention, if this is part of your game plan\u200a\u2014\u200apun intended!\u200a\u2014\u200aa potential fortune, or at least a lot of kudos, as your game is bought, played, and reviewed by enthusiasts all over the international gaming community. Why not think big? But while you mull over the size, depth, and scope of your ambition, let’s dive in-depth into each step of how to design your own board game from scratch.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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    Getting and developing the idea<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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    Before you can make a board game of your own, you need to have an idea. And not just any old idea, but a good one; an idea that will delight, intrigue, and surprise potential players; to spark their interest and get them keen and curious and ready to play. In many ways, coming up with a good board game idea is like coming up with the idea for a novel or a movie. For most gamers, getting loads of potentially exciting game ideas is not the hard part: it’s sifting through those ideas and refining them until you can put your finger on one and say, “This is it! This is the best<\/em> idea; the idea that will be worth the time and creative energy needed to make it real.”<\/p>

    So, there are three aspects to this part of the process:<\/p>

    1. Generating ideas<\/li>
    2. Selecting ideas<\/li>
    3. Refining ideas<\/li><\/ol>

      We’ll work through each step in more detail now. But a quick word before we dive deep into all of this. Figuring out how to design your own board game is a personal creative process and unless your goals are purely commercial\u200a\u2014\u200ain which case certain norms and standards might be expected\u200a\u2014\u200ano hard-and-fast rules exist. Principles, guidelines, the benefits of other gamer-makers’ past experience, yes. But strict regulations, no.<\/p>

      So, feel free to accept or reject any of the ideas we’re going to look at and run with your own. That said, you don’t want to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Many of the guidelines are worth taking seriously, even if you end up adapting them. The best, most successful, and most enjoyable board games to play are usually unique<\/em> takes on established<\/em> ideas, rather than completely innovative in concept and design.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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      Generating ideas for board games<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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      You may be buzzing with ideas already, or you may be struggling to come up with something that excites you and seems like it has enough going for it to make a great game. Either way, you can’t have too many good ideas! So here are our top tips for generating interesting and unique ideas for fun board games that may be worth developing.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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      1. Play as many games as you can<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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      This one shouldn’t be too hard, right? It might seem super-obvious, but you’d be surprised just how many people want to create a new board game when they’ve never played anything other than the ‘classic’ games like\u00a0Monopoly<\/em>,\u00a0Clue<\/em>,\u00a0Checkers<\/em>, or\u00a0Snakes and Ladders.\u00a0<\/em>The modern gaming scene is so much richer, more complex, and more developed than that. It can involve elements of strategy, role-play, questing, and team play; it can have aspects inspired by video gaming, movies, interactive adventures, and more.<\/p>

      It’s vital to play lots of games and explore the exciting variety of themes, mechanics, styles, and ranges available in the contemporary board gaming scene. That way, you’ll get an idea of what’s popular, what you enjoy most, and a deeper insight into\u00a0what makes a game work<\/em>. It’ll also help you accumulate a lot of knowledge about the ins and outs of board game technologies and methods which you can draw on when designing your own.<\/p>

      We recommend that you join a gaming club or go to your local games night as well as meet up with friends to play. Broaden your experience and cast your net wide. Gaming with others also allows you to gather useful insights into what other gamers like and don’t, and to get feedback on your ideas.<\/p>

      Keep notes on the games you play and the ideas they inspire. You can write them down in a physical pocket book, store them on your phone or tablet, or use a voice recorder. But we think pen and paper are the best for this as you can write and scribble and draw much more freely than with even the best note-taking apps. There’s also a lot of scientific evidence that ‘multi-sensory’ and ‘tactile’ note taking leads to better concentration and creativity. It can also be a good idea to take photographs of boards and other elements to remind you of the layouts and mechanics later.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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      2. Think about what's missing<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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      As you explore the world of board gaming, always ask yourself what’s missing. What themes and ideas haven’t been captured in a good board game yet? Is there a group of people that aren’t represented well in game worlds and could your game change that? What about more interactive or multi-session games? Games that have flexible rules, perhaps, invented and adjusted by the players themselves? Or how about games for solo play, or board games adapted for teams or large groups?<\/p>

      While you’ll want your game to be enough like other games that it’s recognizable and doesn’t take a year’s study to understand the rules and objectives, your quest for something that’s also original and unique will come from asking questions and looking for what may be missing, as much as from taking careful notes of what’s already out there and working well.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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      3. Look beyond gaming for inspiration<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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      While you’ll need a thorough understanding of popular\u200a\u2014\u200aand not so popular\u200a\u2014\u200aboard games, it’s a good idea to look to other realms and genres for sparks of inspiration, too. Read books, watch movies, see live shows, listen to music, check out exhibitions, art galleries, and museums, explore sites of historical interest, get involved in sports. Any and all cultural activities will not only enrich your life but will trigger all kinds of cross-fertilized creative inspirations that could find expression in an idea for a board game.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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      4. Flights of fancy<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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      One of the reasons we love games so much is that they offer us\u200a\u2014\u200alike all the arts\u200a\u2014\u200aan opportunity not only for fun and entertainment but also the chance to experiment with the impossible; to stretch the boundaries of reality out into the infinities of the imagination.<\/p>

      So, when you’re coming up with ideas for your board game, let your imagination fly. Let your players become astronauts venturing into the farthest reaches of outer space; or aliens invading Earth. How about dragons protecting their hoard of gold from marauding pirates? Or marauding pirates trying to steal a hoard of gold from dragons? Or both!<\/p>

      You could tip the usual good-guys-bad-guys paradigm on its head and have the players try to rob a bank, or steal and collect famous works of art from galleries around the world such as MOMA, Le Louvre, or The Tate. They could be rats trying to get as much cheese from the castle stores as they can, always with the threat of the cook’s chopper to contend with.<\/p>

      You could mash-up different genres, as Anthony Fankhauser and Rafael Jordan did when they wrote the TV show,\u00a0Cowboys vs Dinosaurs\u00a0<\/em>or as Michael Crichton did, first with the novel and then the movie,\u00a0West World.\u00a0<\/em>Why not introduce time travel into a detective game, shape-shifting into a racing game, aliens in a medieval fantasy setting? In short, vicariously living out impossible lives is one of the most fun aspects of any game play: so, release the eagle of your mind and let it soar on the outstretched wings of imagination!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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      5. Play, \"What if?\"<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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      A great way to get ideas for games is to ask yourself the question, “What if?” It’s a technique that writers often use to get ideas for stories, too. You can use it to come up with completely new ideas or to reinvent old ones.<\/p>

      So, for example, you might be playing the classic board game,\u00a0Clue<\/em>, and you might ask yourself, “What if the murderer wasn’t only still alive on the board, but had the chance\u00a0to kill again<\/em>?” Answering that question could lead to a new, more complex, edgy, and challenging detective game than the traditional version. Or maybe you’ve just read Neil Gaiman’s\u00a0American Gods<\/em>\u00a0or you’re a fan of Rick Riordan’s\u00a0Percy Jackman<\/em>\u00a0series. You might ask yourself, “What if the old gods and goddesses of world mythology were real and still alive today?” Answering that question could lead to a whole new game concept to take the world by storm.<\/p>

      Whatever game you’re playing, wherever you are, whoever you’re with, whatever experience you’re having, ask yourself, “What if\u2026?” And don’t forget to keep a note of your answers in your notebook, along with any sketches that may come to you for board layouts, pieces, cards, and the rest. Exploring all the possibilities\u200a\u2014\u200ahowever improbable some of them may seem\u200a\u2014\u200ais all part of the fun of working out how to design your own board game.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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      6. Information and education<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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      While all board games should be fun, they needn’t be entirely trivial. In fact, one of the most popular games of all time that claims to be trivial\u200a\u2014\u200aTrivial Pursuit\u200a\u2014\u200a<\/em>is actually very educational! There’s no reason why, if you have specialist knowledge or good research skills, and you’re passionate about a particular subject, you shouldn’t make a board game that’s both fun\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>informative or educational.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

      You could come up with games based on traditional subjects like history, biology, geography, math, physics, literature, and more. Or a game could be based on a hobby, a sport, or something like bird watching, travel, or collecting. Games based on finance, politics, entrepreneurial endeavors, and the world of work might be used in training and education in businesses and schools. Why not? And obviously, there’s a big market in educational games for kids, which help support numeracy and literacy in fun and exciting ways.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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      Selecting ideas for board games<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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      Once you’ve got a good stock of ideas under your belt\u200a\u2014\u200aor ideally in your notebook!\u200a\u2014\u200athen it’s time to sift through them, test them, and narrow them down to a short list before you finally choose one to take to the next stage. That doesn’t mean that the others won’t still have value\u200a\u2014\u200aand might be made into games down the line\u200a\u2014\u200aso don’t throw anything away. Still, let’s take a detailed look at how to whittle the list down in the fastest, most fun, and creative way possible.<\/p>

      To get started, go through all your ideas and organize them. Can you group them together in like categories? For example, quest games, race games, cooperative games, solo games, team games, points games, etc. Next, think about the mechanics of the game ideas and group them again.<\/p>