@nickbentley
Posts about game design. Director of Game Design at Dolphin Hat Games (Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza), former President of Underdog Games Studio (The Trekking Trilogy), former Director of Online Marketing at North Star Games, former Neuroscientist.
One potential caveat: most rulebooks, imo, aren't written well enough, and those of us involved in writing them have to take responsibility for that. We have the ability to eliminate some situations like this ourselves, if we hold ourselves to a higher standard.
yep
I also suspect that, as the number of tabletop games has grown and players spend less time with each game they encounter, they've become more reliant on proxies to understand what might involve skill. The most obvious proxy is rules complexity, despite its major shortcomings.
"Sometimes, one must explore completely baseless assumptions to learn new things"
Richard Garfield's been explaining how luck & skill are not opposites for well over a decade, but I still encounter designers & players who haven't internalized this lesson. I suspect it's the number one reason people tend to underrate the amount of strategy in lighter games.
YES
The only prescriptive advice I’ll give young designers:
Make games only you could make.
Don’t ask me what I mean by that, cos you either already know - or you’ll figure it out.
same
In today's video I share some insights from judging entries from this year's @cardboardedison.com award, and some tips that you can apply to your own games, whether you enter them in a contest or not!
youtu.be/9_5Wv6CaHKY
🎲✂️
that's awesome!
My favorite hobby game too, and a north star for a bunch ways I think about design. Related: listened to the Think Like A Game Designer interview - nice to listen to someone who understands, respects, and thinks deeply about the art of "mass market" design (which is what I do for a living).
A piece of paper showing a 4x4 grid mostly filled with drawings of buildings. Next to the grid are building names next to polyomino shapes with squares of different colors.
I make games because I love every step of the process—the initial idea, the scrappy first prototype, the first playtest filled with glee and failure and hope.
Here’s my scrappy first prototype of Tiny Towns. [1/6]
hahaha
There are few hot takes I agree with more than this.
- too many hobbyists take rules complexity as a proxy for depth, which it isn't.
- too many hobbyists play simple games, don't understand the strategy but assume they do, and conclude "shallow". It's hubris.
As someone who licenses games from others, I can testify to this. I think I may be less skeptical of ugly prototypes than beautiful ones, because I've noticed a lot of people who make beautiful prototypes have their focus in the wrong place, and aren't focused enough of quality of play.
For designers at the start/early of a game, it’s important to look at prototypes of signed games and really internalize how utterly plain and in-fancy your prototypes can and should be, and still be pitch-ready.
Many prototypes are overdeveloped, when you can save time on preparing your pitch! 🎲✂️
In the last weekish, I've seen a burst of board game design posts here that seem unusually thoughtful and effortful.
I want to encourage more of this.
Imo our communities are only as good as our contributions, and we undervalue how useful a platform like this could be with high care/effort.
🎲✂️
For a long time (and maybe still), Reiner Knizia didn't player other designers' games, in order to deal with this problem.
well said
I studied a bunch of icons from various published board games while preparing a rule book for Cardboard Edison, with a particular focus on Ian O'Toole.
For those who come after, this article captures what I learned 🎲✂️
rossongames.com/icons
#BoardGameDesign
At the nick of time, I finished my @cardboardedison.com Award judging for 2026! 🎲✂️
It's always a pleasure to be trusted with so many games from so many people around the world, and I hope that my feedbacks can help improve those projects.
That said, 6 general tips I can give for next year:
Head and shoulders photo of a man with short brown hair and black rimmed glasses, wearing a white shirt with faint grey/black patterns on. Board game designer Matt Leacock, creator of Pandemic and Daybreak.
Pandemic creator Matt Leacock on fighting for designers’ rights, working with developers effectively and his publisher ‘pet peeves’:
boardgamewire.com/index.php/20...
@mattleacock.bsky.social
I've been thinking about game budgets a lot over the past couple of years. There are big chunks of the tabletop market that are able to support publishers and designers, and mostly I think its because of a combination of strong crowdfunding communities + cheap dev costs (often less than 50k). 🧵
In today's video I go over what I earnt as a full time game designer in 2025, comparing my income over the past few years and how it varies from game to game.
My aim has always been to increase transparency in the industry and help newer designers with what to expect.
youtu.be/avLL2siSmyc
🎲✂️
To be more specific: if your 🎲✂️ game relies on "cards with words," those cards are where the real fun of your game is. If you don't show us those cards in action, we can't see how awesome your game is. (I imagine this applies as much to publishers as to contest judges)
good advice
totally
I SUPER relate to that thought. I love writing and game design for similar reasons, and approach them in similar ways.
me too. my trajectory has been the same as yours.
indeed