Lonesome Polecat's Guide to Getting a Boardgame Published

March 23, 2009

By David Cuatt

Ever thought of designing and publishing a boardgame? Maybe it seemed too hard, or like something only other people with special talents or connections could do. Not so. This ten step guide is a summary of what I did to get my first boardgame published, and I'm now on my third with Fiery Dragon.

Step1. Find a publisher who makes the kind of games you like. Board Game Geek is a good place to start.

Step 2. Familiarize yourself with that publisher's products so you can tailor your game design accordingly.

Step 3. Write an abstract of your basic game idea and send it with a cover email to the game company.

Step 4A. If your idea isn't accepted, you can either try to come up with a different idea or look for a different publisher.

Step 4B. If your idea is accepted, next you will need to create a prototype of your game, which may include some research and also doing the best you can to make your own gameboard, counters, etc. There are lots of web and software resources to help you with this. Big Huge Lab is one I like for making cards.

Step 5. Next, create your initial draft of rules and any supporting charts, etc.

Step 6. By now you should have a playable version of the game and can do your first rounds of playtesting, refining rules as you go.

Step 7. When you feel the rules are solid enough, you are ready for blind playtesting, which means handing the game over to people who have not played it yet to see if they can understand the rules without your involvement. Further refinement of the rules may result.

Step 8. Once all playtesting is complete and your final versions of all game components are ready, you can send it all to your publisher for approval.

Step 9. In this step comes a variety of actions that are mostly initiated by the publisher: contracts, rewrites, artwork (unless you are providing this too), editing, layouts and finally publication and distribution.

Step 10. Check for reviews and comments both in print media and on websites like Board Game Geek. This will help you in future game designing.

That's about it. For more on my own game designs visit my website, House of Games 2.0.

Comments

[Joanna]

@Lonesome Polecat What?? Get outta town. I was re-reading favorite sections from P&P last night. I do that when I'm stressed. Thanks for the tip!

[lonesome polecat]

@Joanna Did you know there's even a boardgame about Pride and Prejudice?
Yes, you can even play as Elizabeth and Darcy, how cool is that? Here's a link to info about it on boardgamegeek:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/14422

[Karl Francis]

Thanks for offering these accessible steps to publishing. By the way, I played the Army of Ireland and I recoommend it to war gamers.

[tom m]

GOOD ARTICLE it's fun to be aplaytester. tom

[dd]

This game looks great! I had a friend who a boardgame published and he followed the same path. The graphics are really good. I would have never thought of basing my game on Ireland! Best of luck.

[Joanna]

@Kate It's a new project for us. Let's do it! Perhaps we can include herds of horses.

[Kate]

Joanna, you should totally do this!

Dave, you rock. :-)

[Joanna]

I've always wanted to design some sort of travel game where you race around the world after elusive treasure; danger at every turn.