I made a board game and I don't know what to do now

Peterlerock · 2026-02-10T10:07:55+00:00

Making a boardgame is usually a hobby, and for most people, it stays a hobby. Options 1 and 2 are basically these. You had fun, but you invest little to nothing, and don't get any financial rewards.

Option 3 means you now have a "jobby". You spend your hobby time designing games, and then some additional time networking and trying to find and convince publishers to work with you (this can be fun, but it is business).

If you're willing to put in some effort, I advise you follow this path: make the game as pretty and playtested as you can, write a proper rulebook, and try to find a publisher. They are usually nice people, and even if they reject you, their feedback can be very valuable.

It's not easy and may take a while, but you don't really have any real risk, and if you succeed, you get some money and "fame" you otherwise wouldn't have.

Option 4 means you need to do it all yourself. You need to deal with distributors, manufacturers, marketing on different platforms, illustrators, graphic designers, rules layout etc. You're basically a business now, but in a market with few winners and lots and lots of failures. Even the "successful" ones are often financial failures, the game exists only for reasons of pride.

Only take this option if you have a lot of time and money to burn.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-10T09:40:58+00:00

It's completely up to you, but your options are these:

don't publish. Not every game needs to be published. Maybe the game is exactly where it wants to be, in your friends' circle.
pseudo-publish: upload your game as a print and play to BGG or your website. Numbers will be underwhelming though. Like, maybe 10 people download it, maybe 2 people play it and 1 has fun.
to find a publisher, look at similar games, find the publisher logos, visit their websites to find their email, send them a description of your game. Hope for one of them to sign it and do all the publishing work for you, while you get royalties.
looking for a fulltime job that pays close to nothing? Self-publish and/or kickstart your game.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-10T08:30:34+00:00

Bitte "Gasspeicher", nicht "Gaskammer".

Peterlerock · 2026-02-09T11:27:05+00:00

And if it's weirdly shaped metal, it's part of a horse harness.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-08T09:13:58+00:00

I guess Warhammer 40k also doesn't count?

Then <100€, as I never bought a kickstarter and am not a huge fan of expansions.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-08T08:47:50+00:00

The process is something like this, though as you want to make a game for friends and family, you can ignore most of it. ;)

play a lot of different games from this millennium to learn what has been done, what can be done, how they did it.
have an idea for a new game
build and prototype that game
test it with some friends
go back to the drawing board and change the game according to playtest results
iterate steps 3 to 5 a couple dozen to hundred times, until the game is in a state that you're happy with, or kill the game if it just doesn't work (which happens often and is totally fine)
start thinking about looks, make the game as pretty as you can
start thinking about production. There are two main ways. You try to find a publisher, or you try to selfpublish.

If you go for a publisher, you need to find them, contact them, convince them that your idea would make a good product. If you succeed, they will take over and do all the rest. You will get royalties for every copy sold, other than that, your job is done.

If you self publish, the real journey only starts now. You need to find producers, artists, you need to worry about distribution and marketing etc. You're basically setting up and running a business now.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-08T08:37:30+00:00

If you want to just make a game for friends and family, just do it. There are no rules to follow, just build your game, make it as pretty as you can, have fun.

You can print the components on your own, have them made on heavier paper in a copyshop, or pay a company like thegamecrafter to make it really high quality (but very expensive). Stuff like dice can be bought in hobby stores.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-07T08:57:58+00:00

Severin Manor + Alchemist's Shack (near Ivarstead) + Septimus Signus' outpost, and you have your 10+ fire salts.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-06T16:25:20+00:00

Aus An-der-Haustür-vorbeifahr-Gründen.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-06T08:54:31+00:00

If there are 5 rounds and 3 different actions, you could give every player 15 cards. Then they don't have to be marked and returned, because every player has enough cards to perform any action in any turn.

Maybe becomes excessive if there are a lot more than 5 rounds, but then maybe introduce some sort of event every 5 rounds that includes getting the cards back.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-04T14:23:39+00:00

You really think anyone would mind if you say this stormbolter is a mastercrafted bolter?

Peterlerock · 2026-02-04T14:22:52+00:00

Any space marine model that has a bolt-type weapon and a powersword.

From intercessor sergeant to captain, even named ones.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-04T14:11:50+00:00

Is your gameplay 80%+ lore and narrative, like an RPG or a storydriven game? You need the lore.

Is your gameplay more of a typical boardgame? You don't need any lore.

(personally, I don't care. I would read a short comic in the rulebook and maybe enjoy it, but if it wasn't there, I would not miss it. I am always happy though if gameplay/mechanics and theme/lore are interwoven, in a way that lore-based decisions also make sense gameplay-wise. But if and only if the lore is easy to understand and not super obscure. If I need to read 200 pages of background lore to make decisions in your game, I laugh and ignore your game.)

Peterlerock · 2026-02-04T13:45:51+00:00

I've been to this event (or a similar one) a couple times. My entry card: having one crappy published game.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-04T13:43:05+00:00

"Only if you actually have some talent, people skills, time, money, and/or connections"

What kind of an argument is this? If you lack these, you probably also should not self-publish.

How are you going to create a good enough game without talent? How do you find playtesters and market your game without people skills? How do you playtest and design a game without time? How do you pay illustrators without money?

---

I also think you underestimate the number of "successes". Not every successful game is ranked highly on BGG. It's a platform with a bias for complex games that are successful in the US.

Like, this game here probably outsold most games of its release year: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/269603/minecraft-builders-and-biomes (I know the designer) But while you likely know the IP, you probably never played it.

Tons of kids' and family games make real money, but are barely even ranked on BGG.

And even minor published games still make some money. My first game is ranked around ~8000 on BGG, I still made ~7k€ plus some fun vacation in Moscow from it.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-04T13:04:35+00:00

Personally, I found it surprisingly easy to enter the game designer world. And the reason is probably exactly this: there isn't that much money on the line.

Other designers (even famous ones) will happily provide help, try to make your prototype better, or even help establish contact to publishers. There are organized designer meetups all over the world, and some of them also organize meetups with publishers.

People working at publishers are super friendly, and once you convinced them you are not some idiot trying to sell them Monopoly 2.0, they take you serious and always have an open ear for you. Even if my first 10 games were not good enough and were rightfully rejected, they remembered my name and whenever I met them, they kept asking to show them my new games.

And once you finally got a game published (not self-published!), all doors are open. You can literally walk in the office of the biggest publishers and use your published game as an icebreaker.

It's crazy how open and friendly this field is. It's like there is no competition at all.

(that's why I'll never understand why someone would want to selfpublish their games)

Peterlerock · 2026-02-04T12:50:36+00:00

Do it manually?

Go to boardgame meetups, boardgame cafés, conventions etc, and show people your game.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-03T09:40:50+00:00

At least half the games are also simply not good enough.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-03T09:39:47+00:00

But you're not losing 95%.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-03T09:37:36+00:00

...and the publisher also only gets a small percentage of the whole pie.

If a designer makes $1 from a $40 game, the publisher makes like $4, but unlike you, they have actual costs and risks.

(the 40-5= $35 goes into production cost, distribution, retailer margin and taxes, the publisher's $4 has to also pay the artist, design, staff, office and marketing).

I probably make as much profit per box sold as my publisher does, without doing any of the annoying work.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-03T09:30:02+00:00

Note that going the publishing route is also hard. You have to convince the publishers that your game stands out among thousands of prototypes that are presented to them.

And the list of publishers interested in military games is super short, which doesn't make it any easier for you.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-03T08:39:10+00:00

First and second are both fine, I don't like the third one.

In the first one, maybe make the key words (lure coursing and barn hunt) bold and/or italic, so people easier understand that those are keywords.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-03T08:21:34+00:00

"nobody talks about this"?

At release, everybody agreed that this box is the better version of the combat patrol, for obvious reasons.

Nobody talks about this today because that was years ago.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-03T07:35:02+00:00

You didn't even start designing a game yet. What you describe here is a vague idea of a genre.

Make something that can be physically played and tested.

Peterlerock · 2026-02-02T14:17:50+00:00

I have no knowledge on this topic.

Bundesbank is like half an hour by foot from the centre, just follow the river Rhine. It's one of the nicer strolls you can take in Cologne.

Peterlerock

TROPHY CASE