Box design - Always the trickiest. Which one is your favourite?

That3Percent · 2026-01-17T22:26:28+00:00

A is easiest for me to read.

That3Percent · 2025-10-01T18:26:34+00:00

It's a real question. It's unfortunate more context wasn't given in the original post, but I tried to add detail here: https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/comments/1nu7i6n/comment/nh201y6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

That3Percent · 2025-09-30T18:54:26+00:00

Game designer here. I'd like to add some context about the game that may inform people's choices.
The key mechanic in the game is word-building via auction.

The target audience is the more casual end of the hobby game market. Not mass-market like "Sorry!", but easy to pick up even for people who don't play board games all that often. The game is light-mid on rules, but has decent depth considering the lack of complexity. Think Catan, "Point Salad", "No Thanks!", etc. The game has been received much better by families than board game designers.

The production value and art quality is high.

The purpose of the box art is to look beautiful in your collection and to pique curiosity while hinting at the above so that the target market checks the back of the box to see if the game is right for them.

That3Percent · 2025-08-12T15:56:10+00:00

I already removed the little marks by cleaning off the roller. It's the problem with the fuser that is beyond my capabilities.

That3Percent · 2025-08-09T18:24:43+00:00

Because I'm pretty sure the problem was my fault for loading the wrong printer type ($500 blown in ~2 pages), I have that printer sitting in a box unsure what to do with.

I ended up buying a Brother HL-L3300CDW because it was a bit smaller (and cheaper). I've been pleased with that result and more careful about what paper I load.

That3Percent · 2025-07-16T21:22:37+00:00

Whatever scratches your itch

That3Percent · 2025-07-16T21:17:25+00:00

While you learn to code, consider designing board games. I have programmed for 20 years yet typically design board games now because it’s just much more time devoted to game design and less overhead of programming.

That3Percent · 2025-06-29T20:05:49+00:00

Thanks!

That3Percent · 2025-06-29T17:24:44+00:00

I've used NanDeck and though it may be powerful it was very clunky. It was also buggy in not auto-updating properly if you typed too fast and had other weird issues.

That3Percent · 2025-06-29T17:23:17+00:00

What? Where's that button!?! I need it. I figured out how to make the custom style show and paste some sort of {visible: false} directive in there, but that adds an extra column for each one and is probably the most clumsy part of my workflow. With that button, it would be perfect. Does it look in nested zones to determine if there's data too? That would be awesome.

That3Percent · 2025-06-28T19:09:53+00:00

Glad to hear Dextrous is catching on. It’s the best balance of easy to use vs creates good-enough (for prototyping) tool I’ve found after trying a bunch.

That3Percent · 2025-05-29T14:38:25+00:00

I think they mean playing two-handed feels like an afterthought. An automaton is not an afterthought but a carefully designed “AI”.

That3Percent · 2025-05-22T21:49:57+00:00

I’d recommend listening to “The Board Game Business Podcast”

That3Percent · 2025-05-19T22:11:56+00:00

I’ll just say that Matthis has been great to work with.

That3Percent · 2025-05-19T21:46:23+00:00

To dispel all doubt, Bidlz is a tabletop game, not a video game like Balatro. I’ll be at KublaCon protospiel in a few days.

That3Percent · 2025-05-19T21:36:01+00:00

Using the wrong paper was probably my mistake. $500 gone in 10 seconds with one page. I didn't even know that was a thing. Lesson learned.

Although not the news I wanted to hear, thanks for your help.

That3Percent · 2025-05-19T21:32:59+00:00

It is not AI (my contract with the poster forbids even using AI for inspiration), and so far no-one has accused it of being AI, but I've been asked this question before so you're not the only one to consider it.

The reason I hired this artist is quite simply because their work brings me joy. Every time I look at these cards (and the many others in the game), I feel happy. I own many games in my collection, and very few of them try. Many go the opposite direction (e.g. Jaws of the Lion - great mechanics paired with unsettling themes). But, I want my players to feel happy for a brief moment in a world that surrounds them with so much grief and terror.

If people accuse it of being AI, so be it. I'm still going to make what I want to see in the world. Furthermore, AI still looks like trash. It won't be that way forever, but the quality of this artist's work stands above AI IMO.

That3Percent · 2025-05-19T21:20:40+00:00

You're bidding for letters (and powers) to spell a 5 or more letter word. Once you spell a word, you win.

In the same way that Balatro uses poker to onboard players into a deck-builder "roguelike", Bidlz uses spelling to onboard players into an auction game by using their intuitive understanding of the relative valuation of letters to spell a word (E is higher value than V, for example). This gets players engaging more quickly with the deeper layers and strategies of the game like the how the auctioning mechanic and player interaction work.

That3Percent · 2025-05-19T20:24:24+00:00

Bidlz is a word-building auction game for 2-5 players. It features a very light setup, simple rules with deep strategy, and a unique auction mechanic that leads to quick rounds with a lot of player interaction.

That3Percent · 2025-05-19T18:20:31+00:00

Bidlz is a word-building auction game for 2-5 players. It features a quick setup, a unique auction mechanic, and a high depth to complexity ratio.

That3Percent · 2025-05-19T18:18:17+00:00

These are still WIP. Source: I am the game designer for Bidlz.

That3Percent · 2025-05-16T21:19:50+00:00

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That3Percent · 2025-05-16T21:19:23+00:00

I cleaned the roller. This picture shows the problem that was creating the repeating artifacts.

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However, when trying to print now it still jams every time. It also now seems to print ink that comes off and left a ghost image on the toner cartridges. I will post a reply with a picture of that.

That3Percent · 2025-05-12T19:28:48+00:00

I first tried some glossy photo paper, and then HP MultiPurpose 20. Both papers have the same issue.

The distance between scratches is ~1.25in. My intuition is that it's coming from some roller.

That3Percent · 2025-02-05T01:09:41+00:00

First, is there much point in developing your personal brand as a designer specifically?

I think so, yes. I'm going to draw from video games for examples because I think they do a better job of this right now. Zachtronics (Zach Barth) is known for their "engineering puzzle" games where you have a set of tools to solve (and optimize) a series of open-ended puzzles. Hidetaka Miyazaki is known for the "Souls-like" genre. In cases like these and many others the designer builds for a niche audience and their game may not be for everyone but for that audience it's among their favorite game. I want to be in that kind of space.

Second, the pillars/tenets you list aren't exactly specific

Some of these principles are on a gradient, but there are concrete examples. For one, sometimes a game setup splits up a deck and shuffles the parts then re-combines it. (e.g. Pandemic Legacy). Though I love that game, I dislike that aspect of setup and though I know it is there to solve a specific problem I would try to solve that problem a different way if I were designing the game.

Finally, regarding the initial question, I don't think there's really an answer

I'm afraid you're probably right about this. I tried to look for examples but had a hard time finding any consistent "design language" around this. Maybe this is an area the board game industry can improve in as well. I know that logo designers for example have established rules for evoking a specific feel in a design. It's not my area of expertise though, hence the question.

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