Don’t Design a Game

I really didn’t know where to start. I knew that I had some ideas that could potentially turn into a game and then I started listening to the Board Game Design Lab (BGDL) podcast with Gabe Barrett. Gabe is a wonderful designer and educator with an obvious passion for games and I was blown away at the insights from his guests. Clearly this was the support I would need to design my first game.

Gabe’s advice?

Don’t.

Designing a game is incredibly difficult. Finding a balance between theme and mechanics while teetering on the precipice of “is this actually any fun” is just about impossible when you’re getting started. There has to be an easier way, right?

Well, according to Gabe there was just way too much to do when it came to building a design from scratch. The task was daunting and overwhelming to someone that had never done it before. However, he didn’t suggest giving up. Instead, he suggested that a first-time designer should dig into something a little easier. Rather than trying to develop a world and a system and the math to make a full game system work from scratch, why not borrow the foundation from someone else?

Gabe offered two potential starting places for a first-time designer. First, you could take a game that already exists and build an expansion for it. Second, you could take a basic game that already exists and reimagine it.

That’s how I came to design snakes and ladders and horseshoes and hand-grenades.