Brand new member, brand new board game designer!

You're not a "Board Game Designer" until you:

A> Self-Publish your own game.

B> Find a Publisher who will manage the production and sales of your game.

Otherwise you are generally considered a "hobbyist" only. We get a lot of new member that come to this forum with one or two ideas, stay for a while, ask questions ... and then they disappear. Never to be heard of again.

I wouldn't want to attach the "Board Game Designer" connotation or title to these individuals because they are not really a part of the Hobby or the Business. They had an idea or two... But never took it to the Final Level which means Production and Retailing.

So just call yourself a "Hobbyist" and are working towards becoming known as a "Board Game Designer". Even prototyping a game doesn't mean you're a "Board Game Designer"... If you would count every member who comes to BGDF with an idea and ... then don't "follow-through" with that idea, they're not "Board Game Designers" just Hobbyists.

And we have members on this board that consider "designing" just a HOBBY too! @X3M (Ramon) for example seems to say that his designing is more of an exploratory pleasure and that it's purely a Hobby. At the moment he is not interested in making a game for public release.

There are others that pitch-in and help people with their ideas too... But that don't generally have designs of their own.

So welcome to BGDF and hopefully this might be the start of your path towards becoming a real "Board Game Designer". Not just an enthusiast.

Cheers!

CHRIS!!

Haven’t we all talked about this information before and yet your still tell people they are NOTHING ( or in your words: not a game designer) unless they work for a company or self published a game.

I’m tired reading you dumping on everyone else dreams, ideas , suggestions and concepts about their game ideas and projects. Oh your teaching other people how it works alright, but your teaching it the wrong way. Stop telling people their not game designers. Published or not.

Be an administrator and teach. Be an administrator and help others learn their craft instead of bullying. We all get it. You spent $10k of your own money but yet you went with a publisher and they tell you to use your money to produce your game and go through Gamecrafter and yet you wait two weeks before your convention comes up and hopefully you can play your game during the convention to see if it works??? This was back in 2016. Remember.

Any one can be anything they want to be. I’m a game designer and I haven’t sold a game. Why, because I don’t have the finances but also I am taking my time to learn my craft as a game designer just like everyone else here at bgdf. I don’t have to rush my game designs out the world. I must admit you do your best. You complain more than anyone here on the site. But you also have your opinions and ideas and suggestions. I am not going to hide by sending you a pm.

How disgusting and rude when someone new comes here to this site being enthusiastic on creating board and card games and yet you send their dreams crashing down. That is not teaching. Oh I get it, you letting everyone before hand that making games is a waste of time, effort, money and patience, and finances and why try doing it anyways??? You have said this many of times. What gives you the right?

@To the new member of BGDF.

Do not be discouraged. Go forth and create your board and card games. Making games is bringing others to your world to share a journey, adventure, suspense, action, abstract, mystery and puzzling clues for your audience.

We get it (the bgdf members) about the risks and challenges of creating and then selling our babies (game projects) to the outside world. It’s scary, but it shouldn’t be.

Apparently Chris and the rest of the so called real game published designers are aloud to say their fill but when it comes to the new beginners or hobbyist as Chris likes to call it, we can’t mention anything unless we published something? Other than asking questions?

By the way? Is it just Questccg the only admin on bgdf? Because it looks like the “other admins” never chime in on any post? I must be wrong here?

Bah, besides the point.

Welcome to the group. There are plenty of great people to talk to. Talk to who ever. I’m just a concerned non game designer as Chris likes to put it but yet I have designed 30 games but not published.

Oh and by the way to the new member of the group. Don’t forget to add your rules to your game some where in your post in the correct forum.

Bows respectively
Stormyknight1976

P.S. Feel free to block my Dymino Monsters post Chris, I’m only observing from what I read and teach and you have done this once before when I posted about my opinions.

You're now a BGDF designer. What does that mean? It's up to you to decide.

As the other administrator have said, the types of posts are usually in some specific categories:

1. I need Help ... because of a mechanic, theme idea, aspect of a design, game names, game review, etc.

2. Here is my latest game I've designed. Mostly Kickstarter announcements to help encourage people to get involved.

3. I need playtesting and/or proof-reading. Sometime the members ignore these threads. They're are popular as PNP's are to our community.

And that's fine... I think BGDF does a good job of helping designers with their ideas and games. We hope newcomers will become a part of the culture and hopefully design something cool!

So feel free to get involved with the other designers and/or start your own topic about what you would like to see be discussed!

Cheers!

You're a game designer if you design a game. It's pretty simple.

You're a game developer if you make a game. Do you need to make 1000 copies and sell them? Shrug.

If you use QuestCCG's metric, then this "Board Game Designers Forum" consists of like a half-dozen active "designers". Dunno what the rest of you folks are doing here :)

It seems a lot of people disagree with Kristopher. Hm..Weird. Maybe take the hint.

Anyways, welcome to BGDF! You will see a lot of arguing here, but we’re mostly friendly. Good luck to you and your games. I hope you make it big one day.

The guy who takes a game and has it Blindly Playtested??? And usually he is either a Freelancer or employed by a Publisher. He also can be working with a Publisher too...

If he is a Freelancer, it's usually because he has a network of groups that he can call upon to do the said "Blind Playtesting".

But again I could be wrong... This is what I was told.

The Publisher is the one who flips the bill... Or the other route is Self-Publishing... But that's only for the experts. Wish I had known about KS when I started designing my first game. Would have know if the game would ba a success or a failure without investing money...

Oh well you live and learn!

Welcome, JDA, and good luck with your game (and any that come after it)!

I'm of the opinion that if you design a game and people play it, you're a game designer, regardless of whether the players comprise you and your best friend, or the entire population of Germany. In fact, if you are in the process of designing a game then you are a game designer too! It's all about the process rather than commercial success (which, I imagine, would be nice!).

There are a lot of very good and experienced game designers out there who don't publish their games in any traditional sense, and don't really want to.

Enjoy the journey of working on your game. It can be hard work and sometimes discouraging, but it can be really rewarding too, whether you get a publishing deal or not.

Go for it!