Just figured I'd let you guys know that I will be giving a talk on board game design at Indiecade next Saturday. Specifically, it's about how knowledge from video game industry can apply directly to the board game.
Between my background and it being an event primarily for indie video games, it seemed like a fitting topic that I'm actually knowledgeable enough to talk about.
I'm not sure whether they'll be video posted afterwards, but if any of you happen to be at the event I'll see you there.
What topics will you be covering?
I'm actually studying digital game design & ended up here because I made a paper prototype for a 2p pass & play game & went to the local game shop to ask people to play test for me. One of the questions was would they like an online version, single player or pass & play. The main response I got was that they wanted a physical version first & so began my crash course in tabletop.
We are still working on a digital version. It just makes sense to use paper to get the core down & then leverage it for a Boardgame if it is popular & a digital version to extend the revenue opportunities.
McTeddy,
Enjoy the conference and best of luck to you. Don't forget to mention BGDF as a repository of information for "would-be" designers.
Cheers,
Joe
I would like to hear it.
It would be great if you could get it recorded.
We are still working on a digital version. It just makes sense to use paper to get the core down & then leverage it for a Boardgame if it is popular & a digital version to extend the revenue opportunities.
Yep, paper prototypes are an excellent way to test game concepts without wasting time on coding everything.
One thing to be wary of though is not to let the two different versions compete with one another. Board Games have a much higher cost of manufacturing and if there is a cheaper/more convenient app version... it can cut into your revenue badly.
It's why most companies put out the board game and only years later when their boxes are selling out that they release the app.
- - -
As for the recording, I can't make any promises but I'll definitely post it if possible... oh and as long as I don't blow it :)
And yes.... BGDF is already on the final slide as one of the places to start. It's a great community.
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Specifically, I'll be talking about where the two fields overlap and how experience in either can aid you jumping right into the other.
But I'll also be going into depth about 4 major places that run contrary to one another:
- The importance of moment-to-moment interactions when you lack narrative/cut scenes/computer solving speeds/etc
- The ability to revise exponentially faster and how it can impact a design process
- That every physical piece has a tangible cost and directly impacts the bottom line, unlike video games where we can instance and reuse an item a million times.
- The community. Being a smaller field, it's easier and more important to actually interact with players in meaningful ways.
There are aspects of the talk still in works, but that's the basic idea of it.