One Piece of Advice from Designers & Publishers

I might as well follow up with some of the other answers I've gotten from designers. Keep in mind, if I don't have quotes, it's not a direct quote.

- Martin Wallace:
Persistence. This isn't going to be easy and it's not always going to be fun. You need to be able to get up and work on that game even if you don't feel like it.

- Reiner Knizia:
Always do your own thing. Never copy someone else, never pretend to be someone else. Just do your own thing.

- Mike Selinker:
"Find other designers to work with, and mesh their best ideas with yours."

And a related:

"Do hard work all the time, and it'll happen."

- Volko Ruhnke

"Don't fall in love too quickly. Even with a more complex game, you are simplifying and streamlining wherever you can (or should be), in addition to all the balancing, modulating, and bracketing that I mentioned. Some designers will tend to blow off playtesters who second-guess the Great Design. Don't do that."

These two comments can sometimes be contradictory. After all, if your prototype is too polished, it often makes you inflexible in changing anything.

You want to pitch something that can give the publisher a vision for how it could look, but in my experience (mostly in Europe), they are looking at the mechanics first, and an overly-polished prototype is a good sign you are a newly! (I know, I've been there:-). Publsihers have their own people to do product design.

PLAYTESTING is much more important then product design! See photos of Uwe Rosenberg's prototypes for good examples.

Yeah, I understand that many playtesters--especially those who do not usually test prototypes--are more interested if the game looks finished. And I think there might even be a difference in the U.S. market, where publishers might also like it that way. But you can make a "polished" prototype using simple clipart desktop publishing.

For the record, I like to make my prototypes look nice, and sometimes it even inspires my design. From the beginning of New Amsterdam, for example, I used an image of an antique map I found for the board, which made the game very attractive to publishers. I also laminate my playing cards, although I've often used card sleeves instead, as I can change things on the cards much more quickly. I also spray-mount my game boards so that they have some thickness to them (some people I know stick to thick paper).

There is a middle ground, and I'm always willing to toss out stuff I've spent time on and make new components if I need to make changes. But keep in mind that, even what you consider a "late stage prototype" may not even be close to being finished!

Newby designers I've playtested for, however, spend even more time on their stuff, and although they look gorgeous, all the artwork actually gets in the way of playing the game. Their graphics are beautiful but not readable. So while that "wow factor" might get people to sit down at your table, the difficulty in figuring out how to play the game will quickly turn them off.

So you can spend time on graphic design, but be prepared to throw most of it out and do it all again, if necessary. And make sure that it's readable and playable more than it is pretty (designing the right icons and symbols can be more beneficial than character art).