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How long have you been doing this?

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 04:27
theraje
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Joined: 12/31/1969

Hey guys, how's it going? I'm still new here, so to break the proverbial ice, I thought I would start a topic about how long you guys have been designing and creating board games.

Myself, I've been designing games for several years, although they were mostly computer games. A couple weeks ago though, Brykovian (indirectly) nudged me into trying my hand at the board game design gig. It's been really fun so far, and I think this could very well become my new favorite hobby.

So, let's hear your stories!

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 04:52
#1
zaiga
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How long have you been doing this?

Hello theraje, welcome to the board!

I have been designing games for a very long time. I think I designed my first board game when I was around 8 or 9 years old. I remember it well. It was a game where you had to roll dice and move your knight around a landscape gathering artifacts and treasure, fighting foes and robbing your opponents. There was a short cut route leading through the mountains, but there was a particularly nasty monster hiding there! You could move wooden logs to hinder your opponent's movement, and you could travel by train. The anachronism never occured to me until it was pointed out to me by the director of Jumbo, who I called because I was convinced they would want to publish the game!

Another game I designed around that time was a 2-player shoot 'em up in a space setting. You had to blast all the enemy space ship and comets before the music on a tape recorder stopped playing. I had recorded music on my two tone Casio keyboard for this game. There were various levels and they became increasingly harder to complete.

I was hooked on HeroQuest when I was round 14, 15 years old. I made a lot of custom levels and scenarios for that game together with some friends. This led us to playing Dungeons and Dragons, which we played for a few years. Then I got sucked into Magic, which again I played for a few years. I made nationals eventually, but by then I had become fed up with the whole scene that I decided to quit.

By that time I needed a new hobby, so I returned to my old love: board game design, which is what I'm doing for two and a half years now.

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 06:30
#2
theraje
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How long have you been doing this?

Awesome! I was kinda confused about the knights with trains until you explained it... rofl! Still, it sounds really cool!

I remember HeroQuest. I must've been about ten or so when I got it. I never got into D&D (although I played a bit of d20 Modern a few years ago), but Magic... good golly, I could've bought a few new high-end computerboxes for what I spent on those friggin' cards! And I never made it to nationals... :P

Thank you for the welcome... and nice Commander Keen avatar! ;)

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 06:42
#3
Scurra
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How long have you been doing this?

Yup, usual story here too. Made some games as a kid (retooling existing games and random roll-and-movers); discovered D&D when I was about 11 (when the Red and Blue boxes were first published in the UK), spent the next 20-odd years playing anything and everything, and then started designing seriously in the late 90s. So I've probably been "doing this" for around seven years now.
I used to joke that I'd managed to get past the "bad" games period, that I'm now in my "mediocre" period and one day aspire to the "quite good" period.
Well I reckon I probably am in the "quite good" period now, in that people will actually play my games and they seem to have a reasonably good time. So maybe I can start aspiring to the "clearly good enough to be published" stage instead;-))

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 07:02
#4
hpox
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How long have you been doing this?

Welcome theraje,

I started about 5 years ago when a friend brought Civilization for us to play (instead of watching b-movies). I was amazed that a boardgame could have good and clever mechanics.

As a kid I always had ideas for games, but never made concret boardgame like zaiga. But I did make a particularly elaborate labyrinth and also a spaceship game with a tape recorder! How weird.

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 07:33
#5
zaiga
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How long have you been doing this?

hpox wrote:
As a kid I always had ideas for games, but never made concret boardgame like zaiga. But I did make a particularly elaborate labyrinth and also a spaceship game with a tape recorder! How weird.

Really?! Well, it shows that no idea is 100% original ;)

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 07:37
#6
FastLearner
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Joined: 12/31/1969
How long have you been doing this?

Lots of boardgame playing as a kid (a great investment for a poor family), with my first boardgame invention at age 12 or so, a chess game with power lines along the diagonals that provided special qualities to the pieces on those spaces.

Lots of D&D later, with still plenty of boardgaming and a bit of wargaming. Began designing games 3 years ago, and will be submitting to publishers this summer.

-- Matthew

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 09:08
#7
phpbbadmin
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Joined: 04/23/2013
How long have you been doing this?

FastLearner wrote:
Lots of boardgame playing as a kid (a great investment for a poor family), with my first boardgame invention at age 12 or so, a chess game with power lines along the diagonals that provided special qualities to the pieces on those spaces.

Lots of D&D later, with still plenty of boardgaming and a bit of wargaming. Began designing games 3 years ago, and will be submitting to publishers this summer.

-- Matthew

Same story, different white guy. In high school I played stuff like Car Wars, RPGs, Axis and Allies and the ever popular Dungeonquest. At that time we invented a wrestling simulation that we thought was fun. In College I broadened my horizons by playing more RPGs, civilization, Nuclear War, and eventually magic. I played Magic until I discovered its evils. I liked Magic though, and wanted a similar game, minus the evil. It was then that I picked up an $8 game in my local gaming store called Wizwar. It was exactly what I was looking for. It was then that I wanted to design a similar game, only with Thieves instead of wizards. I looked on the internet for like minded people to brainstorm with, didn't find that many, so I decided to start my own site. And here you all are! =)

-Darke

P.S. As with most people, the idea that got me started into designing has been scrapped, at least for the time being.

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 09:46
#8
nosissies
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Joined: 07/26/2008
How long have you been doing this?

Welcome to the forum!

Not so terribly different here. I grew up playing games with family. There was some variety but it mostly centered around traditional card games. At some point (7th grade?) we had to do a project in school that had to do with Odysseus' travels, and so I made a game, which I recall was pretty cool aside from being basically a roll and move, there were little side trips you could take (think Careers) based on the various events (the sirens, the lotus eaters, the cyclops, Scylla & Charybdis etc.) Unfortunatly I'm not sure if it still exists. Fast forward to college, some friends and I start adding rules to uno(like everyone does at some point) then an interesting game played on a tile floor with hershey kisses, using the pattern in the tile. Then several years later (about three and a half years ago) a board game idea "strikes" me (yes this was Othberan which has been metioned here before) and here I am, stuck with this hobby which wants more time than I can give it.

peace,
Tom

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 09:53
#9
OutsideLime
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How long have you been doing this?

I remember making a board-game when I was a little kid... it was a piece of long cardboard folded in half and set so it looked like the jaws of an alligator... the board was a long paper tongue that came out of the "mouth"... players moved along the trail (dice-rolls, no other mechanic or features lol) trying to get into the mouth... I forget why. If a player stepped on a certain space the jaws fell shut and scattered the pawns, ruining the game...

Figured out how to program simple text-adventures on my Vic-20 computer... back when the disk drive was actually a tape deck... Eventually my text adventures exceeded the maximum lines of code the computer was capable of handling... tons and tons of If..then subroutines...my programming skills have since disappeared completely...

Became a camp counsellor in '92 and started inventing adventure games for my campers, sort of a fake D&D. Dungeon crawl stuff. Character sheets and everything. I had a handful of dice that I would roll for effect, but they didn't really mean anything and my main motive was to put the campers into scenarios where they would be forced to cooperate and help each other in order to profit/proceed... The game was called Unity... I am responsible for a whole generation of nerds...tons of games followed...

The Golden Age of Josh, as far as game design goes, which we are in the middle of right now, started about six years ago with a giant-robot arena combat game... Since then it's been accelerating from hobby to obsession to career path....

~Josh

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 11:25
#10
Dralius
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How long have you been doing this?

I am also one of those people who started young, at 8 I was making roll and move games with light and humorous horror themes that looking back were obviously influenced by Scooby Doo.

From there I discovered more strategic games like Risk and they had a great influence on what I was making. Then in 1980 I was introduced to D&D which started me on making dungeon crawls and then almost exclusively to producing several RPG’s, this went on for many years even though I continued to play a variety of table top games(most of the popular titles of the period).

I became serious about producing games for the public in 2002 after my rediscovery of board gaming and euro games. My games are heavy influenced by both my roots in gaming and modern titles.

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 13:43
#11
Anonymous
How long have you been doing this?

My story is fairly similar to a lot of others here -- got started very young as a daydream designer... I'm lucky that my family saved *everything* including all the boardgames I cobbled together as a kid, including my first few efforts around 7 or 8... Simple roll and move affairs.

Professionally, I've been doing this for about 6 years now, getting my first big break with WizKids for boardgame design, and then Eden Studios and Goodman Games for roleplaying games. Now I'm trying to assert myself and use my contacts and friends in the industry to get my own game designs out there, instead of just working on the designs of others.

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 15:47
#12
Pt314
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How long have you been doing this?

Lets see. I have been designing board games, card games, computer games ever since I was a little kid, maybe when I was 6 or 7. None of them were any good for a while.

By the time I was 11, a designed a board game for a school assignment where 3 players play cops, and one player plays as the criminal. I had a board with streets and city blocks. The cops try to catch the criminal, and the criminal trys to escape. I painted 4 pawns, had a custom die with the different traffic signals, The roadblocks were legos, ...

I kept on designing games, when I was first introduced to Magic, and D&D, I then made several fantasy combat card games, which worked out quite well.

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 16:03
#13
Joe_Huber
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Joined: 12/31/1969
How long have you been doing this?

OK, I seem to be all by myself here - while I tried a game design or two as a child, they weren't serious (or any good); I was amused to find one at my parent's house a couple of years back.

It was decades before I tried game design again. I really started designing games shortly before I turned 30, and didn't design anything vaguely successful (even toward the modest requirements I set for success) until I was 32.

Joe

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 18:27
#14
Anonymous
How long have you been doing this?

I didn't really do much game design when I was younger, except my freinds and I did hobble together some existing RPG rules (Star Frontiers and The Marvel Super Heroes) and made games based on a few of our favorite animated series, Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers and M.A.S.K.
My first serious board game experience besides some Monopoly and Sorry! was Dungeon the Board game designed by Michael Gray. I loved this game and played it alot.
I discovered HeroQuest in college(I studied Animation) and played only a little. After college I played ALOT of Risk with my best friend, and some Axis and Allies and Samurai Swords.
A few years ago I discovered boardgamegeek.com, knowing there had to be more out there. When I started to learn about and play German board games everything changed for me. I also learned of the term "paper protoyping" at the Game Developer's Conference around the same time, and got my hands on a book called Game Design Workshop which takes you step-by-step through the process of designing a game. I have since started designing 4 games, 2 have made it to the play test phase, but nothing I'm really happy with yet. I do dream to publish some of my titles one day.

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 20:12
#15
Shrike
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Joined: 08/26/2010
How long have you been doing this?

Quote:
OK, I seem to be all by myself here

Don't worry, you're not alone at all. =) I didn't design anything as a kid, that I remember that is. I actually didn't do much gaming at all until I was 22, some D&D before that in high school, but not really even that much of that. I got sucked into the Battletech board game in '94 and then Magic got me in early '95. I started my first design in '96 after playing Lunch Money while I was in Korea, it was a derivative of LM that used the Worms computer game as a theme. I actually didn't do anything but lightly mess with that design until after the 2003 Kubla Con design contest. From there I've done 4 more card games (2 of which have been politely rejected) and I'm working on 3 board games, including the proposal for Z-man that I just sent (co designed w/ my on again off again partner from Detroit) SO, there you go, 33, now completely addicted to making games.... who knows, someday maybe it'll be more than a hobby, but if not, that's ok too.

Shrike

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Wed, 07/13/2005 - 23:05
#16
larienna
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How long have you been doing this?

I have always been facinated by games. There was many kind of games involved :

----- New game Ideas -----
Some time I made a new simple game from scratch on a lined paper sheet but I only played them with myself. I don't think I started to make new game with some rules below the age of 10. Below this age, games where much like a toy, so I was just keeping being facinated and was trying new things. I remember making a simple football game on a grid, making a strategy game on a small grid map that had also an extra map for each city ( horible ).

----- Video Games -----
When I was in high school, I wanted to become a video game programmer. So I was much focussing my game ideas on video games. It is a few years later that I tried to convert some VG ideas to board games and even try to make board games. I remember making the maps of an RPG VG that looked like Final fantasy. You where supposed to be an ninja and find team mates under way. I also remember making all the plans of a space shooter, list of all power ups, monster with HP movement pattern and attack pattern.

It is also when I was near 18 that I played MTG, so it opened a lot of new concepts in my mind. And I have not started to play specialised games until this time. This is why I am a bit late.

----- Evolution or modification -----
changing an already existing game or making a new one that looked like another one, but better, was, I think, my favorite past time. I also did this with video game. For example, I am sure that I have made some level maps for "legend of zelda". I remember changing the movement of all chess pieces, making a football version of chess,

--- RPG ---
I have learned about role playing games when I was around 12 to 14 years old. I have put a lot of work on a dozens of various RPG system, that were somewhat all bad. I also rememeber making schematic for "reader is the hero" books. And I successfully made a simple one as a video game ( text only ).

RPG Worlds When I was around 18 years old, I made my first RPG world which looked like something serious, other worlds being ridiculous.

Unfortunately, all the papers about all these games and RPG are lost ( I would have loved to see them again). The only thing remaining might be what I have beem designing for the last 8 years and my RPG world which currently have no use to me.

Now that I have made a lot of video game programming, I am 28 and I think that Board games is a good alternative, it is much more easier to make. "It is more simple to teach how to play a game to humans than to a computer". If I do make a video game, i'll make only one and I'll quit. But for now, I stick to boardgames.

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Thu, 07/14/2005 - 05:18
#17
theraje
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How long have you been doing this?

Wow! I love your stories, everyone! Seems like for most, making games has been a life-long process. I feel at home here. :)

Larienna, you remind me a lot of someone I used to work with on a video game project a few years ago. She is also from Quebec. ^^

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Wed, 07/20/2005 - 11:13
#18
larienna
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How long have you been doing this?

Unfortunately, even if my avatar is a "she", I am a "He", but I would be glad to meet her (^_^) ( just kidding)

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Wed, 07/20/2005 - 14:37
#19
theraje
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How long have you been doing this?

Larienna wrote:
Unfortunately, even if my avatar is a "she", I am a "He", but I would be glad to meet her (^_^) ( just kidding)

Hehe, whoops! :P

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Wed, 07/20/2005 - 15:01
#20
OutsideLime
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How long have you been doing this?

Larienna is a GUY?

~Josh

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Wed, 07/20/2005 - 22:34
#21
Anonymous
But...

Josh,

You are really a mechanized battle machine, right?!?

Ben

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Wed, 07/20/2005 - 22:47
#22
FastLearner
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Joined: 12/31/1969
How long have you been doing this?

LOL!

Of course, I do live in South Park, Colorado, and am poorly animated, but I'm not sure everyone matches their avatar. I've heard rumor that DarkeHorse is, in fact, a human being.

-- Matthew

PS: Nice dental work!

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Thu, 07/21/2005 - 11:32
#23
Scurra
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How long have you been doing this?

And I'm a motley-on-a-stick. So no change there.

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Thu, 07/21/2005 - 11:54
#24
OutsideLime
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Joined: 12/31/1969
How long have you been doing this?

Ha ha.

~Josh

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Thu, 07/21/2005 - 16:10
#25
Anonymous
How long have you been doing this?

I also started in PC games.

My first PC game release (actually a mod) was Christmas of 2002.

Since then, I've been working on various things, and am about to release my first CCG on August 5th.
www.terality.net

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Thu, 07/21/2005 - 20:42
#26
theraje
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How long have you been doing this?

I'd make a funny comment about how my avatar is me, but... sadly... it is. It's a picture I drew of myself about 3-4 years ago. *rolls eyes*

Hey Walked, I read about the Open Customizable Card Game system you were talking about in one of the subforums here... awesome idea, btw. A friend of mine told me about doing something similar a while back. Maybe you two should get together! ^.^

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Mon, 08/01/2005 - 13:37
#27
Anonymous
How I started

Loved Video games when I was younger. I started drawing mazes.
After drawing mazes for two full years I though of my favorite game called GAUNTLET. At the age of 14 I started drawing up mazes on white graph paper sheets. I then colored in the necessary squares (walls) for the character to run through.

After 2 full years I finally finished a top view 13 1/3 foot long board game. During the stages of doing the game I didnt even know how far I would get except for finishing it. There were days that where it got so tedious of coloring in the walls and other surrounding arounds I almost stopped production. But I kept seeing it so visualy. Eating, Sleeping, Drinking, walking, talking, It wouldnt go away (lol) I knew how it would look like before I even colored in the walls. It was so amazing. I get into my work way to seriously. But that is what makes designing so addictive.

I have been told and also read in many game websites that if you wanted to start drawing , designing, or programming anything you need to start small. For instants, Ping Pong for programming starters. For card games or board games start small as well. Don't do something you wouldn't be able to do. Learn all you can .... BLAH BLAH BLAH..... That is all find and true. But if you as the main core designer, or programmer do what you know or start on something you can handle.

I commend any one who starts young as we all have done.
During the production phase my first game, I drew up my very own video games system. Concerns, Layouts, diagrams the works. After I was 19 I went down to NISI (NATIONAL INVENTION SERVICES INCORPORATED) which was located in Costa Mesa California. My father took me down there. The director of the company and I talked about the designs yadda yadda yadda.

Everything went okay except for this. And I heard my father through the door. This is my father speaking loudly " How can my son do this, if he can't do math. Its rediculous. " The Director was backing me up. Saying" You don't need to know something If you know it can work. He has everything pretty down well." But my father was not convinced. He even yelled at me on the way back to his house. Oh well. That is too bad now lol. I know my math and I am making a difference for myself and my future. I never gave up either. Kept working in secrecy.

Found out the next time we went back the N.I.S.I. company wanted 10,000 dollars for the mechanics of the start up and 1,000 dollars for the paper work. My soon to be ex helped me out and she said it was a money scam. Which worked out fine anyways.

After that the years kept coming and going, but I also enjoyed the games I was playing and decided to design sequels and prequels. Even though I never sent them out It was exciting to design something that could of been. Its okay M father once again came into the picture and through out everything I had done in the years I was in and out of the house. Luckily I had saved the numerous other designs I had completed.

SOrry for such a ramble message. I enjoy game designing. I won't stop.

I also do game designs from job experience or other game ideas, animation movies, books, or from history.

Keep up the termendous work though. And good luck to everyone with their projects.

See you all in the future of gaming.

BullDOg

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