Game Design in the Classroom - Part 4 - Developing and Publishing a Game

One of my old design notebooks and some prototypes

This is part 4 of a series. The previous articles are:

• What I learned from making games.
• What others learned from making games.
• A classroom game design challenge.

In this fourth part I will look at how to develop a promising game idea. I’ll also describe two relatively simple ways to make your games available to more people.

First, two notes:

• The process below will probably not be a big part of most class projects. I offer it as recommended reading for the students who think they are on to a good idea. This falls in the “for further exploration” category.
• The tips and questions that follow can apply to games of many types, but my experience is with non-digital games. They were most likely created in a classroom activity, possibly my one-hour game design challenge.

Developing your game idea

My goal here is to help you take your game that a few people (probably you and your friends) have fun with and turn it into something many people will have fun with. Every game is a special case, but here’s a very general series of steps I use and I recommend them to aspiring designers:

1. Clarify your goals. 
2. Play it more, with more people.
3. Identify problems. Based on what you see and hear from the players, what is working and what isn’t? 
4. Make changes to the game to resolve those problems. 
5. Go back to step 2 until the game is working as you intend it to.

Steps 2 - 5 form what is often called an iterative process. It’s vitally important for people in many fields. Computer programmers, writers and designers of anything from cars to coffee cups work through it.

Try something, test it, tweak it, test it again and so on until it does what you want. (You might even recognize similarities to the Scientific Method, as scientists will form, test and revise hypotheses in their work.)

Let's look at these steps for development in more detail.

Clarify your goals
Be sure you know what you’re trying to accomplish with your game. Ask yourself questions such as:

• Why are you making this particular game? Maybe it’s a personal challenge or maybe it’s for a particular group of people. Nail down your motivations.
• Who do you expect will enjoy it? Describe these people. That determines your target audience.
• What will make those people want to play your game?

Actually write those things down so you can return to them as you continue your work.

Play it more, with more people
At first you need to just be sure the game works at all. Try it with close friends.

Some of us even play our games by ourselves at first. Seriously, who wants to waste their friends’ time with a boring game? We will need their help in the future, so let’s not turn them off too quickly!

This process of playing the game while you’re developing it is called playtesting. It is very important and the people you choose to help you are important too. I could write a book about it, so this is just a brief glance at the process. Here are some important tips:

• At first it helps to get opinions from people who play a lot of games, even if they’re not in your target audience. They might have to play just to help, not necessarily to have a fun, entertaining experience.
• Tell your testers what your design goals are. If they’re not in the target audience, they should know that. They have to help you make your game, not necessarily the one they want to play.
• Observe everyone when they play. Look for what’s making your game fun and what’s frustrating the players.
• Ask as many questions of your playtesters as you can get away with. Two of my top suggestions are:
• What were you thinking about or looking forward to as you were waiting for your turn?
• Would you ever play again and if so, what would you do differently?
• Remember to treat your playtesters with respect! They might not always be right, but if they played your game at all, you’ve given them the right to express themselves. Whatever their response is to your game, whether you agree with them or not, you can use the advice and the experience to help you become a better game designer.

Identify problems
If you clarified your design goals like I suggested, then you can define “problems” as anything keeping your game from meeting those goals. Make a list of what is working and what isn’t.

This can be the most frustrating part of game design. Ideas usually do not turn out like we expect and it can be hard to accept. Yes, even after months of work you might end up with so many problems that the best decision is to abandon the idea and work on another.

Be honest about the game at this point. Take a hard look at it and call it like you see it.

Also, give this some time. Usually problems look different when you wait a day or two after a playtest session.

And finally, don’t be afraid to change your design goals. You have to be careful with this because doing it too much will keep you from finishing anything. Still, there are times you’ll discover a promising idea that leads you somewhere you couldn’t have imagined at the start. Leave room for that possibility.

Change the game to resolve the problems
Discovering a great fix to a nagging problem with your game is one of the best rewards of the game design process.

It is also hard work and it takes time. Like I said about identifying problems, don’t rush. It is tempting to quickly tack on a new rule to fix a problem, but that’s a good way to end up with a design very few people care to learn. Rule sheets turn into mini-books and players often overlook special cases, resulting in mistakes and bad experiences.

Work hard to find simple solutions! 

Repeat playtesting and making changes until the game is done
As you keep testing it and tweaking it, think of this as bringing a fuzzy image into focus. It’s your rough idea becoming a finely tuned, working design.

Here are some things that generally happen in this process as you bring that dream to reality:

• Ideally the changes you make will become less and less drastic. In my experience, at first I might make changes to the whole turn structure or I sometimes change the format entirely. My dice game might be reworked into a card game. Then near the end of the process I might just be changing a few numbers on cards.
• The playtesters you use should change from a few friends to more people you don’t know. In later stages they should mostly be people from your target audience.
• Your cards, board and other components (usually called a prototype) should improve in appearance and playability. At first the cards might be handwritten, but in later stages they should be made with a graphics program. Give more attention to using icons and making the language extremely clear. When a game is nearly complete you don’t want any part of the components to detract from the play experience.
• The rules will progress from a list of things you just tell the players to a well written document that contains everything a player would need to know.

Besides just making the game “work”, you’re trying get to a point we call blind playtesting. Here the rules and prototype are so clear that players can figure out the game on their own. If they can’t, the game isn’t done yet.

And that raises a huge design question. When is a game done? 

Ask many designers and you’ll get many answers. Some say it’s when the game is worth what you’re going to sell it for. Others say it’s done when people want to play again right away.

Ultimately I would say it’s done when the game reaches your design goals. You decide. (But just remember anyone else in the target audience will get the final say by playing or not playing what you made!)

One of my games published through The Game Crafter

Taking it to the world

Once you’ve completed a game, you probably want to get it out to your target audience. This involves publishing and promotion. All the options to consider here could turn into my second book!

I’m going to offer only two suggestions for getting games to the masses. Neither of these will make you rich, but they will certainly get you important experience and increase your opportunities.

Both options would be considered self-publishing. It means you're doing it rather than getting someone else (probably a publishing company) to do it for you.

Self-publishing will require you to take on many jobs such as graphic design, writer, PR manager and webmaster. In other words, you’ll learn a lot more than just how to design a game.

Besides these general directions, I’ll also list some resources at the end if you want to do more research.

Print and Play
With this publishing method you’d make a PDF of your rules and components. You’d post it on your own blog or website or maybe you’d upload it to a game site like Boardgamegeek.com. There, people could download it and decide if they wanted to print it to make their own copy.

You can see some examples of popular print-and-play (PnP) games at this link.

But just making an attractive game and an attractive website or blog to post it on will not get your game played. Plan to promote it.

Look for other people who might play the game and write reviews or comments about it online. Most games take some effort to learn and even to play. In the case of print and play, players also have to through the process of actually making or finding all the components. If a reputable gamer with a following gives your game a positive review it’s more likely others will take the time to do all that.

One last tip--When you ask people to review your game, don’t just send them your link and expect to see a review. Contact them and if they agree to take a look, make a copy for them yourself. Mail it to them and give it some time.
,
Don’t be a pest, but if you don’t hear anything from them in a couple weeks, it’s fine to politely ask if they have any feedback or plans to post something online.

And the second option for publishing is...

Print On Demand services
Years ago it cost so much to set up the printing for a game that it wasn’t worth it to churn out just a few copies. Designers had to pay for at least 1,000 or more copies if they wanted to see a quality, physical version of it or play it with their families. Taking the step to print a game that way was a huge financial risk. Hopeful designers got a big bill to for the job and many ended up with stacks of unsold games in their garages.

Now there are companies that will print just a single copy of your game and it won’t break the bank. So imagine buying a nice copy of your design for yourself and a few for family and friends. If you think others might pay for it, you can even post a link to the print service from your blog or website. People (probably aunts, uncles and maybe your neighbor) could pay for the game that way and you might even make a little money from it.

This process of printing games only as often as they’re ordered is called print on demand and it offers some great benefits. Just be aware that when you order small numbers of games, each one will still be relatively expensive.

My recommended service for publishing this way is The Game Crafter. I have used their services for several years now and their site and work have greatly improved over time.

It will take some work to turn your graphics into something that works at their site. For example, when I print my prototypes I usually have 9 - 12 cards on a single page of paper. To make my game at the Game Crafter, every one of the cards has to be on a separate high resolution graphic. Imagine how much work it takes to make individual graphics for a deck of 100 cards!

And as I said, it’s not exactly cheap. It will cost more than if you bought a game with the same number and type of components from a game store. And though the quality is good, it's not quite as good as a professionally published game.

I’m happy to pay the price to get an edition of the game myself or to give as gifts.

If you want to sell your for a profit to others, though, remember you have to put an even higher price on it than you paid. That likely will be more than most people will want to pay.

That is, unless you have a great game and you do some excellent promotion.

Just like the print and play process above, promotion is necessary. The Game Crafter even has a page of suggested reviewers you can contact. Here's an example of a review one of them wrote for me a few years ago.

If a reviewer agrees to look at your game, you’ll have to order one from the site and ship it to them. Yes, it's one more expense and there's no guarantee they'll even like the game.

Wrapping Up
I hope this short summary of game development and publishing makes it clear how much work goes into a good game. I also hope it helps you bring your game to others. Finding that something you made can bring joy to people is a satisfying reward worth the effort.

I compiled a short list of other resources for more information on these concepts.

• How to Make Games - Playtesting -  I created this video a few years ago. You'll see similarities to what I wrote above.
• Playtesting Forum on BGDF - You can learn from the discussion on this forum and possibly find some playtesters for your game too.
• Interview with Scott Almes - Here's a great interview with practical advice from a very successful up and coming game designer.
• Protospiel - Many years ago I helped start this gathering of game designers. It has grown to a larger network around the U.S., so see if anyone is meeting near you.
• UnPub - This is another convention for game designers.
• 10,000 Feet to Publishing a Game - Here's a hard look at what one successful publisher says it takes to make your game. He knows what he's talking about, but he's describing a very professional production.
• An Overview of the Game Design Process - This is an older and more in depth article I wrote about taking a game from concept to reality. A lot has changed when it comes to game publishing since then, but the development ideas still apply.
• Making What's It to Ya? - This is my story, starting with an idea to making a $10 printing investment to ending up in GAMES Magazine's Games 100 to seeing the game go around the world.

And as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, be sure to look at the other ones in the series:

• What I learned from making games.
• What others learned from making games.
• A classroom game design challenge.

Game Design in the Classroom - Part 3 - A Game Design Challenge

Years ago I used to organize an annual convention for game designers. At a few of the events I ran a game design challenge where the participants had to make and play a game in an hour.

I realized this could make a great classroom activity, so I modified the original outline we used. (See my notes below about how the original came about.)

Before linking to the worksheet, I want to point out:

• Part 1 and Part 2 in this series touch on some reasons you might want to use an activity like this.
• Part 4 is for further exploration. In it I address further development and easy ways to publish the game.
• The games we designed were non-digital. Digital games are more difficult to complete quickly unless the number of options are very limited.
• I haven't used this activity in school yet. I intend to, but I'm currently an instructional tech coordinator. One thing I love about this activity is it doesn't use much tech! If I get a chance to try it, I'll add some notes about how it went.

Before you run this activity in class:

• Have a lot of components ready for students to use in their games. They'll probably need markers, note cards, paper, dice and pawns for sure. I used to bring other interesting, small items I'd find at the dollar store. Chips, rubber balls, small stones, party favors, etc., all can spark fun ideas. You can also gut some old games if you have them at home.
• Go over the stages of the activity with the students ahead of time so they won't lose time reading details while the clock is ticking.
• Students should work in groups with three or four per group.
• Decide what class concept you want the game to include. For example, in math you might want them to include something about factors and multiples. In social studies it might be some aspect of a particular time period. Have them write that on the blank at the top of the worksheet.
• Decide on the type of game you want them to make. You could give them a choice, but some limited options helps spark creativity and save time. For example, you might want it to be a card game. You could also give them a specific game to tweak, like Crazy 8's or Pig. 
• You could dictate any of the others choices as well. For example, you might say it has to be about zombies (or can't be about zombies!) or that it must use dice in a particular way.
• In an ideal world, I'd have them play several short games to expose them to more ideas than what they are already familiar with. That could take days, though!

Click here to see the Game Design Challenge Document. Feel free to copy and modify it as needed. I'll appreciate it if you include a link to my Game Design page on any copies.

The rough flow of the activity is:

• Create a hook. (5 minutes)
• Make up the rules. (15 minutes)
• Create a playable prototype. (15 minutes)
• Play it. (20 minutes)
• Initial wrap-up (5 minutes)

I have some ideas for an extended follow-up activity and suggestions for further development of the games, but that will be coming in Part 4.

Notes about the original activity:

In about 2002 I came across a reference to a game design challenge in the rules to James Ernest's game The Big Cheese. A challenge like that was a new idea to me, so I contacted him to get more details. I lost the notes what he sent me, but I used them to develop an outline for the activity we ran at the Protospiel 2003 convention.

I worked with my friend James Droscha that year to tweak the directions and to run the activity. We limited the possible games to card games and we required designers to use genies as the theme. (That idea came from James' wife.)

It was a great icebreaker the first night of the convention. After everyone made a game, we went around the room and talked about each one. It was fascinating to see the ideas and to hear what worked and what didn't.

James and I used the same activity a few more times over the years. I'll mention he also lead one hilarious session where we designed a game by committee. I don't think we ended up with anything playable that time, though.

To update this activity for the classroom I simplified the language. Instead of having the teacher pick a theme like we did previously, I changed it to a class concept. 

I'll update the activity based on feedback, so please let me know what you think!

Game Design in the Classroom - Part 2 - What other designers learned from making games

Protospiel game designer convention I helped organize
(quite a few years ago now!)

This is part 2 of a series. The previous articles are:

• What I learned from making games,
• A classroom game design challenge
• Further explorations for developing and publishing your games.

As I mentioned in my first post in this series, I put a survey in a couple board game design forums asking about important lessons learned from making games. I’m grateful to the 20 people who took time to respond! Their responses are all included in the list below.

Remember from the first post that whether or not you are running game design classroom activities, these first two posts are good resources because:

• If you do a game design activity, these lessons should come out loud in clear (right along with the course content). They can help students no matter which path they take in life.
• If you see a student with interest in game design, even if it’s completely unrelated to what’s being done in class, have students read these lists. The ideas in it will provide a good starting point for his or her success.
• These lessons from creative pursuits apply to all of us educators just as much as they do to the students.

Most of these comments below come from designers with experience making non-digital games, but some have worked with computer games. As I hoped, many of their insights apply to design, creative pursuits and even life in general.

Respondents to my survey could provide background information and some links to their work. The only real question I asked was this:

What are 1 - 3 significant things you learned from designing games that can probably be applied to other areas of life (or at least other creative pursuits)?

To show that these designers are at all levels of experience and with various intentions, they were allowed to choose one or more of these categories to describe the scope of their pursuits:

• Hobby
• Seeking publication
• Self-published one or more of my games
• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

I was tempted to add some positive comments to what came back to me, but they speak for themselves. The common themes are evident and important.

Here are the responses I received, with only some minor editing:

Christopher Chung
@FlashForwardCo

• Seeking publication
• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

Game Link:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160851/lanterns-harvest-festival

Lessons learned:

• Always being flexible with solutions to your problems.
• Listen and utilize constructive feedback.
• Network with like-minded people who you can receive help from and vice versa.

Clark Rodeffer

• Hobby
• Self-published one or more of my games
• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

Lessons learned:

• RULES WRITING -- Use 2nd person imperative active voice present tense to tell the players what they need to do to play the game. With this simple step, improve your writing related to almost all areas of instruction, whether it's at the top of a worksheet for school, professional development, recipes, whatever. I came late to this advice.
• ERGONOMICS MATTER -- Some players like to hold cards spread the opposite way others do, so card indices that can be read from both sides makes a big difference. Some players have difficulty distinguishing colors, so using a secondary characteristic such as pattern or shape, is very helpful. A few (more than about seven is probably too many) simple, clear icons to prompt players are helpful, especially if they already have common meanings that match those within the game. These ergonomic principles apply to developing technical manuals, making warning signs and signals, and user interfaces.
• TEST, TEST, TEST -- It's obvious that test playing a game to find potential problems is essential. In the same way, proofreading, testing recipes, and testing instruction manuals are all essential parts of making a product the best it can be.

Dave Armstrong

• Seeking publication

Lessons learned:

• Keep the vision pure. Feature creep can ruin any project. Stay focused.
• Build the function and perfect that before you get hung up on design.
• Pay attention to what people love about your project and build on that because it is the most important thing to your users.

James Hron

• Hobby
• Seeking publication

Lessons learned:

• Motivation and engagement in a classroom. I actually just gave a presentation at a conference in Chicago about how games can increase motivation and engagement for students in the classroom. In fact, games are already motivating and engaging students in their free time. So using game design focused around a unit can be a very effective way to shake things up in the classroom. While gaming in the classroom certainly isn't for everyone, it's another tool teachers can use to engage their students.
• Teaching. Believe it or not, learning about game design and designing my own games has improved my ability to educate students. Now, the area in which it improved my ability to educate is fairly narrow. It didn't help me with my ability to manage students or write curriculum or communicate more effectively with families in the community. But it did help me improve explanations of complex topics. Often times learning is all about connections. Connecting something students already know about to learn a new idea, and connecting that to another new situation. I have spent about 1.5 years designing games on the side, and I have seen an improvement in my ability to take a complex idea, break it down to parts a student can understand and connect to, and build it back up to that complex, original idea.
• This may be a cop-out answer, but I learned about myself. In March of 2014, I was looking for a particular game, and couldn't find it. I didn't know it at a time, but I was looking for a hex and counter game similar to Space Empires 4x, with a fantasy theme that was less balanced that created stories like Dwarf Fortress. I decided during that week, after a long time of searching, to just start making one. I've been working on that game (and many others) since then, and all of that work in non-professional game design has taught me about my personal tastes, and what I look for out of entertainment. I am now much more in tune with what I search for when I go to the local game store. I am immediately drawn to certain games due to their theme, or certain mechanics, or the feel they give when I play them. Designing games has had a very strong side effect for me, which has been self-discovery. Now I understand not only that I am indeed having fun, but why I am having fun and how I can have more of it.

Oliver
@oliverkiley

• Seeking publication
• Self-published one or more of my games
• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

Blog:
www.big-game-theory.com

Lessons learned:

• Testing hypotheses. You design something and then playtest it to see if it works as predicted/intended.
• Setting goals. You need to set clear goals for what your game wants to accomplish, and then stay focused on it.
• Accepting criticism. This is huge. Being able to accept and process constructive criticism without getting defensive is a big life skill. 

Brandon
@waywardstrategist

• Seeking publication

Current projects:
http://waywardstrategist.com/2015/04/15/my-first-sc2-arcade-project-remnants/
http://waywardstrategist.com/2015/04/17/remnants-mod-faction-lore/

Website:
http://waywardstrategist.com/

Lessons learned:

• Game design has a large component of time and project management. Making project documents, producing materials that allow for collaboration towards a common goal with minimal rework... Game design should be viewed with just as much seriousness as creating ad campaigns or any other software.
• Game design has a large component of public speaking and presentation involved. All the ideas in the world are nothing if you cannot effectively communicate a) why they're good ideas b) why you are excited about them and c) why potential publishers should be excited about them

Rob Harper
@harperrob

• Hobby
• Seeking publication

Blog:
http://firsttakesomedice.blogspot.co.uk/

Lessons learned:

• Fail faster. The sooner you get testing a game, the sooner you can find problems, throw out games that have no potential, and move on to something better.
• Ideas are worthless without development. I can dream of games in general that seem like a good idea, but until I turn it into something tangible, even if it is incomplete, it is just an idea, and nobody will be interested.
• Criticism is good. I *want* people to find problems with my game and tell me about them, so I can make the game as good as it can be. If people only tell me things that I think I want to hear, I can never improve either myself or my game.

Dr. Wictz
@drwictz

• Hobby
• Seeking publication

Games:
http://drwictzboardgames.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_9.html

Blog:
http://drwictzboardgames.blogspot.com/

Lessons learned:

• Understand the following: math, economics, and political science
• To succeed you need to do as much for others as they do for you
• If you do not take the initiative to make/do something, it does not happen

Lewis Pulsipher
@lewpuls

• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

Games:
pulsiphergames.com

Game design YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LewGameDesign

Blog:
http://pulsiphergamedesign.blogspot.com/

Lessons learned:
Not sure *I* learned anything in particular, but game design could teach the following:

• Most people don't like the same things you like, or act the way you act, or think the way you think.
• Creativity doesn't "just happen", you have to work at it.
• Actions are far more important than intentions.

Kevin G. Nunn
@kgnunn

• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

Game Link:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/2212/kevin-g-nunn

Blog:
Kevingnunn.com

Lessons learned:

• The power of rewriting - good ideas start out as bad ideas that are iteratively reworked into good ones.
• The power of perseverance - you can be rejected dozens of times, it often only takes a single yes to be successful.
• The majority of people around you want to help you succeed. Welcome and encourage their help. 

Justin Blaske
@_jblaske or @five24labs

• Seeking publication
• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

Games:
http://www.five24labs.com/
http://gamesalute.com/Area1851

Blog:
http://www.five24labs.com/

Lessons learned:

• Have a plan! - Set out a list of everything you want to accomplish
• Set Constraints - Give yourself limits, limits really help with creativity and they help to keep you focused.
• Stay Passionate - Passion keeps us going even when we don't feel like it, if you're really passionate about something, you're more likely to finish.

Jack Poon
@creativecoveGS

• Hobby
• Seeking publication
• Self-published one or more of my games
• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

Blog about current project:
creativecovegames.com

Lessons learned:

• All of design is making a positive user experience. I designed 3D printers before going into game design. All of my work focused on hitting specifications and numbers. Jumping into game design was a drastic change at first but then I realized that specifications were just a small part of the whole. Those specifications eventually created a specific user experience.
• Designing games is like trying to hit a moving target. I'd like to make everybody happy but that is an extremely difficult task. Some players may like to be very competitive and other players will like to have some cooperation. Once in the hands of the players, the game cannot change but it can be constructed in such a way that everybody can have fun.
• The weakest element is always going to stand out far more than all the other elements, even the ones that work brilliantly. Getting the story, aesthetics, mechanics and technology to all work well together has been the biggest challenge but also the most fun and rewarding as a designer. 

Marc

• Hobby
• Seeking publication

Lessons learned:

• Graphic design (from card layouts)
• Statistics & probability
• Diligence (Stick with it!! Making games isn't always easy or fun.)

Graham Allen
@F3thermoore, @Tesseract_games

• Seeking publication

Lessons learned:

• Business and time management. This is especially true if you plan on attempting to get published either self or by licensing.
• Communication/technical writing. Rules writing is very similar to technical manual writing. I am an Engineer, so this is actually a reverse application for me since I already did that at work, but it is something that people generally wouldn't think of as something they are learning.
• Conflict resolution. Playtesters will say stuff that hurts your feelings. You have to learn not to be an ass about it. 'Nuff said.

Teylad Martin
faratlantis on BGG

• Seeking publication

Game site:
http://personalitycafe.com/mafia/447818-mafia-lxi-perc-house-mafia-ii-sign-ups.html

Lessons learned:

• Anything can be a game; don't limit yourself to thinking in what you have seen done before.
• Think about what does the world need more of in terms of jobs? A lot of my early career aspirations came of what I saw or enjoyed through playing games. So if we could gets kids or students more interested in a field of study early on in life, then maybe we'd have more people to fill x position in future generations.
• When designing a game, I like to imagine myself in every role, and then from there make sure that I'm having fun or enjoying myself throughout the entire game. I play, design, and mod mafia games online. The people playing the game will know or feel how much effort you put into the game. Basically, if you aren't enjoying your game design, how do you aspect the players or customers of your game to enjoy it as well?

Kolby Reddish

• Seeking publication

Lesson learned:

• It requires a lot of focus. I spent over a year of work on a single game design. For some people working on the same project for that long is too difficult.

Yeo Keng Leong & Christina

• Self-published one or more of my games

Games and business:
www.startingplayer.com

Geeklist about lessons learned in the first game design:
https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/169153/lessons-learnt-first-time-board-game-designer

Lessons learned:
From Yeo Keng:

• Proper planning
• Patience
• I cannot please everyone.

From Christina:

• Be patient and persevere in what one believe in
• During our game design, we often find that certain ideas may sound good but do not work out well after playtesting. The process to adjust the balance of the game took a long time and we have to remain very patient and playtest the design until it is to our satisfaction. The important thing is not to give up in what you wish to achieve.

Jon Moffat

• Seeking publication
• Self-published one or more of my games
• Other publishers have published one or more of my games

Games:
http://stonecirclegames.com/games/horrible-hex/

Lesson learned:

• Accept criticism.

Gil Hova
@gillhova

• Self-published one or more of my games
• Other publishers have published one or more of my games
• Games and Blog: http://gil.hova.net/

Lessons learned:

• Embrace failure. As I saw on a t-shirt the other day, "Failure is the tuition you pay for success." Take the pain. Turn it into a better outcome.
• Ideas aren't as important as execution. Don't overvalue your idea. Don't wait for the perfect idea to start. Just start.
• Learn your limitations and work around them. A person who doesn't think they have any limitations is about to discover their biggest limitation. A person who knows their limitations effectively has none.
• You can't do it alone. Accept and/or pay for help whenever you are able to.

Caroline Berg

Page at Boardgame Geek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/22287/caroline-berg

Lessons learned:

When I was in school for my degree in Game Art and Design, I had a wonderful design class with one of the guys who worked for Wizards of the Coast. Some of the advice he gave was just awesome, like this: 

When you are creating a game, write down all the ideas you'd like to have in your game. Make a list. Look at that list. Then select 1/3rd of the ideas. And that is all. Don't add more. Those ideas are more than enough to keep you busy. You can keep the other 2/3rds for games later. But don't add them into your current game.

On a related note: one of the things that can kill a game is feature creep. Feature creep is when you keep adding more and more features to a game, taking longer and longer to balance everything. In the end you have a game that does a little of everything, but nothing well.

So my advice: stick with a few solid ideas and run with them, you will be much happier with the end result.

These links or resources were suggested by some of the designers above:

• The art of game design: A book of lenses by Jesse Schell
• kickstarterlessons.com
• A brief crash course in game design
• Game Design Forum at Boardgamegeek.com - Most responses above were a result of a post I made in this forum.
• Board Game University
• 12 Questions on Game Design

If you liked this post, here are others you might find useful:

• Game Design in the Classroom - Part 1
• How to Make Games of Any Type Using My Game Design Template 
• How to Make Games (Part 1) 
• How to Make Games (Part 2) 
• 8 Things I Emphasize in Game Design Lessons 

Game Design in the Classroom - Part 1 - What I learned

An early handmade version of my game What's It To Ya?

This is the first in a series. The second is about what others learned from making games. It can be found here. You can find the rest of the series and other articles I've written on game design in the classroom on this page.

I saw an article recently about game design activities for the classroom. It sounded like a great project that students would enjoy. The final product was a non-digital game, so it didn't require programming experience. Right away it reminded me of similar design challenges I've used that I could modify for the classroom, but something was missing in the article.

I couldn’t find much in it about the educational value of game design. Sure, the kids love it, but what are they learning? I even did some searches for lessons learned from making games, but it’s tricky finding anything. Most sites promise lessons about game design.

So before I write a post about my own classroom game design activity, I’ll start with a few lessons that I learned from designing games.

An improved version from a few years later

I’ve been making games as a serious hobby for about twenty years now. Some have been published and played around the world. Looking back, I have learned far more valuable lessons from making those games than I have in many classes I’ve paid for.

I brainstormed a list of lessons in no time. I won't give you a table correlating these lessons to Common Core State Standards, but these are important lessons for success in far more areas than just game design. They’re usually not taught explicitly in school. I can see they would be useful for any teacher in at least three ways:

• If a teacher does assign a game design activity, the requirements of the project must include the course content standards.  These other ideas I list below should also come out in the lesson, though, because they can help students no matter which path they take in life.
• If a student shows interest in game design, even if it’s completely unrelated to what’s being done in class, have students read my series of blog posts. The ideas in it will provide a good starting point for his or her success.
• These concepts are behind much of what I do when training teachers. These lessons apply to all of us educators just as much as they do to the students.

One last note: Before finalizing my list, I realized it also would be great to bring in input from other designers. I posted a short survey on a couple forums. I will post the responses I received in a second part of this series. (Part 2 is here.)

Knowing I’d ultimately have a lot of input from others, I shortened my list and just spoke to some general topics.

Here are just four valuable lessons I learned from making games.

How to be heard above the noise - Gaining attention for my work taught me the important lesson of how to stand out in a good way. Proper use of social media, directing language and images for a target audience and paying attention to feedback are all crucial for success in today’s world.

Technology skills - I was a math teacher when I started making games. I had no idea that by playing around with graphics programs, web 2.0 tools and website design on the weekends would open doors for me to do rewarding work with educational technology. Sometimes I was frustrated because I felt I had to do so much of the design and publishing process myself to realize my goals. Now I’m thankful for all those skills I developed.

Creative problem solving - I’ve already written much about the importance of this. It makes a great foundation for all of what we are doing in school.

Bringing an idea to reality - I write a lot about “teaching like an artist”. Most of what I have experienced as an artist has come from my work with games. It’s that process of having a dream, working hard to make it real and then sharing it with others.

• When I talk about inspiration in the classroom, it’s because I have seen:
• how much dreams matter
• the benefits of working on them to the end
• they can be contagious

The final edition of What's It to Ya?

I’ve found all students dream big. They also love it when we remind them their dreams matter. The sad thing is most will never learn how to take a big dream from start to finish.

That skill (or combination of many skills) is vital if we want people to live interesting lives and reach their potential, yet it’s not something we teach explicitly in school very often. Living (and learning) like an artist is pure work at times, so we have to encourage and remind students that the payoff is better than just existing off the dreams of others.

As I said, in my next post in this series I will include lessons other game designers have learned.

If you liked this post, here are others you might find useful:

• How to Make Games of Any Type Using My Game Design Template 
• How to Make Games (Part 1) 
• How to Make Games (Part 2) 
• 8 Things I Emphasize in Game Design Lessons 

Reminding Students that Dreams Matter

I had a great opportunity to help with some music projects in a lower elementary Music class the past six weeks. We wrapped things up with a music video project about dreams.

I talked to the class briefly about why dreams matter to me. I told them how I had two big dreams as a teenager. I wanted to have a band and I wanted to make movies.

Both dreams came true, sort of. They didn't reach the scale I had envisioned some 30 years ago, but I do get to play music with my kids in church every week in our worship band and I get to make videos with students on my job.

So dreams definitely matter! I assured them their dreams might look different as they grow older, but the dreams in their mind now are there for a reason.

For the project the teacher and I had the students draw pictures of their dreams. I asked my daughter (16 years old) to write a simple chorus about dreams for the young students. I took her lyrics, fleshed out a couple lines and added the music.

We taught the song to the students and recorded them singing. I used GarageBand to add the rest of the arrangement and I edited everything together with Corel VideoStudio.

If you want to use the song, here are the notes and chords.

Here is the full video we finished with one class. I worked with them for three class periods and spent a good amount of time during the weekend putting this together.