[#026] UKGE, making a great game, and more

Welcome to your weekly dose of board game design!

Yep, this one’s one day late. Let’s call this one the UK Games Expo edition - held last Friday to Sunday. This post will be short and sweet, but I’ll be writing a longer blog post about it later this week.

Something I learned about game design this week

Going to a con? Take notes. Whatever size notebook it is, take notes. If all you have are index cards and scrap paper in your pocket, take notes. Prefer your phone? Take notes. Run out of note-taking paper? Use the back of one of your sell sheets.

But what if we’re at a bar just shooting the breeze? Take notes.

Yes, you’ll feel like a dork.

No, no one else will be doing it.

When you’re back home (assuming you can read your own handwriting), you’ll be able to remember what you spoke about, whether they were cool ideas or you now know who to contact about what.

This week's tip

What does it take to make a design go from ‘good’ to ‘great’?

This was one question I asked myself while walking around UKGE. Going to a con is an opportunity to take stock of the games around you, after all. You can safely infer anything being sold at discount is sold at a discount for a reason, but I digress.

It helps to start with ‘what makes for a great game?’

I’ll note this is a very different question from ‘what makes for a best-selling game?’ or ‘how do I make some hype for my game?’

While I don’t care for much of his advice, Robert Kiyosaki told a story about his answer to a question: ‘how do I become a great writer?’. He mentioned his book was a ‘best-seller’, emphasizing how ‘best seller’ does not necessarily mean ‘best writer’. Cards Against Humanity has sold plenty of copies, as just one example.

What do you think makes for a great game? Hit ‘reply’ to share - I read all responses =)

I’d submit that a great game ticks many, if not all, of these boxes:

• The theme and mechanics are tightly connected

• The experience is unique and stands out from other board games

• There’s something that makes it truly stand out - it might be the theme, a really cool mechanic, a component (whether it’s great quality or gimmicky, it’s fair game), the way everything’s done / organized.

• It has many interesting decisions and lots of player interaction.

• It lasts long enough to feel like a complete game, but makes you want to play again.

Good games are all around you - you’ll see plenty of them at cons, stores, and on your own shelves. Great games go further, though… and to be honest, these days, there are plenty of good games being pitched to publishers these days.

So, let’s talk about UKGE.

It was during the People’s Choice awards on Sunday afternoon when the announcement came out: over 32,000 unique visitors made their way to UKGE. Even with the extra space afforded by using more of hall 3, it felt fairly crowded through the event, especially on Saturday afternoon.

My main focus was pitching and networking - not as many pitches as I’d like to have had, but there were a few reasons for that:

• On one level, the realities of Brexit mean there were fewer non-British publishers making their way to the Birmingham-based con.

• In at least a couple of cases, the publisher was there to sell games, but the person / team responsible for looking at games wasn’t there. (I made a note to stop by and see what they’re working on.)

• I’ve been here in the UK for over a year now - I’m a local now! I’m no longer a digital nomad moving around, and I’ve had the privilege to join some amazing gaming communities. As such, some of the local publishers are folks I can reach out to whenever. No need to wait for a con (or feel pressured to pitch a game before it’s ready).

What's coming up this week

• Catch up from UKGE

• Client work

• Make new version of a game so my co-designer can playtest it

• Get ready for a vacation to Seoul, South Korea

Random picture of the week

Found at the Isle of Cats booth, just in case you’re not a human and needed to leave your human somewhere.

Thanks for reading!

I’m going to be on holiday the next couple of weeks - see you soon =)

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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!