New boardgame dev

Hiya Ben!

Pleasure to meet you mate - sounds like you will fit in very well round here :)

Ok so!

1) There is never (voice of experience here) any reason to NOT show people your game ideas. NO ONE will steal your idea. You cannot copyright/patent a game mechanic in any country and as such if somone wanted to "steal" your game, they could do so once you had published it. By telling everyone about your game you benefit tremendously with the collective experience of professionals which you would otherwise be completely devoid of. Also if you were still worried about people stealing your ideas, would it not be better to have thousands of people vouch that you were the inventor of the game and have loads of timestamped threads on loads of internet forums around the world? And wouldn't this also raise awareness and be an entirely valid marketing strategy for your game as well?So first that.

2) http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/322382/game-design-self-publishing-a-res...
-great info about self publishing.
For the long answer, read all the posts contained in the list, for the short answer: Don't self publish. You need to run a business to self publish - if you are running a business: you could run any business; running a business to do with boardgame supply will realistically never make you money and as such, if you are running a business to make money, you should probably do it one of a hundered easier ways.
BUT that is in relation to publishing and marketing the game yourself entirely, basically to become "a publisher". UNLESS - you get involved with kickstarter which is a recent super-trend in indy gaming. We are currently at quite a good time for indy gaming on this front as well, you will still need a distrbutor/publisher like Springboard or similar company but releasing your game through kickstarter is entirely possible :)

That should be some very good information for you to crack on with Ben!

Hope I've helped

tl;dr -tell us what your game is about and what mechanics are you using?

sam

Hiya ben!

Thank you, I am by no means a genius, just been here a while :)

Ok so, you understand what I mean but still want to hide the idea incsse it becomes HUGE (like the beetles example). I would echo what ziplock bag has said, I am sorry to break it to you Ben, but if you tell us a little bit about the game mechanic (just a little bit) I could almost (almost) guarantee you that we would be able to find at least 3 titles that share a concept with your idea. That's just how games design works.

Honestly, I would say that there have been NO entirely new ideas in game design since settlers of catan. And even if you think your idea is new, as just said, we could probably find some examples of it not being.

I would highly reccomend you telling us a little bit about it and how it works so we can give you a list of 10 or so games that share ideas with yours - so you can gain a really broad knowledge of similar game tropes and save yourself re-inventing the wheel.

In keeping with your analogy reguarding the beetles, they were not entirely original you know. Originally a skiffle band they were called "The Silver Beetles" (before the quarry men and the blackjacks) as a tribute to Buddy Holly's band the crickets. Why did they do well? Well they were quite manufactured to mimic the looks and mind set of contemporary germany at the time (thats why they had the trademark "mophead" fowrward brushed hair made famous by german students at the time) Then, with a brilliant musical ear, they rode the waves of a social revolution (That would have happened without them!) and and this from wiki:

"The Beatles' earliest influences include Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Little Richardand Chuck Berry, whose songs they covered more often than any other artist's in performances throughout their career.[...]Of Presley, Lennon said, "Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been Elvis, there would not have been The Beatles".[..] Other early influences include Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers. The Beatles continued to absorb influences long after their initial success, often finding new musical and lyrical avenues by listening to their contemporaries, including Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Byrds and The Beach Boys, whose 1966 album Pet Sounds amazed and inspired McCartney. Martin stated, "Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper wouldn't have happened ... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds"

How bout we rephrase and imagine a little:

Purple Pawn Interview with Ben Mora about his amazing new smash-hit game GAMETITLE:

PP: So ben, tell us about the initial starting of your game, and how it became so famous...

BM: Well PP, even though my little X mechanic, without all this previous influence, and my BGDF contempories, GAMETITLE would have never happened..."

So to be as big as the beetles, you need to ride the waves of a social revolution and you need to be a damned good game designer.

To ride the current social revolution to be famous like the beetles?
I quote myself from my first post: "UNLESS - you get involved with kickstarter which is a recent super-trend in indy gaming. We are currently at quite a good time for indy gaming on this front "

To be a good game designer?
The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.
-Plato