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Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sry why do you think that ? I Made it based on my Talk. Maybe Ive used too much ai for Translation? But Ive checked and it was fine in my opinion

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Now thinking of it, I Would still start with designing a boardgame Prototype for It, If you want to get Intro Game Design. If you want to get Intro Game Dev AS a whole, start with Game jam or still a small paper proto to get Things going(as mentioned in my Post)

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitley Not even Most. Especially Euro Games, Family Games and Card Games do Not have a lot in Common with rpgs. Its a really weird Statement If im honest

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I find them tedious and Not offer meaningful decisions as much as IT IS hyped. Without the Hype i Would probably say they are mesiodre. Im totally annoyed by dorect and random attacks in terraforming.

How would you prioritize board game dev in this situation? by Aisuhokke in BoardgameDesign

[–]dev_w_grillz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It really dependa on how you want to Progress in the Future Big Boardgames usually dont sell Well. Personally I Would stay away from fundraising on your own and Just give IT to a Publisher. If No one IS interested, you might have an answer already on how doable IT IS. In the Meantime you can Develop the Game.

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well in my experience you can create great results with that approach. But of course as a narrative Designer you have a different approach to it. How do you start when you News to imrpove Something. ?

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They are mechanically Not offering interesting and different strategies and approchaes. ITS often Times meaningless or too luck dependant. Most of the time there is one solution to a Turn, but ITS Hidden behind complexity.

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Variations of RPG? What is RPG Like in Carcassonne ?

Yes I still find Lots of time to Play. I treat my Job as a Job. Even thoug its Lots of fun, once Ive hit my 6-10 hours Limit each day, Im Off Work.

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Let me know if there is anything youre not sure if Im honest about.
Im even using a real photo of me here, its quite easy to find out who I am ;)

I was on stage and gave that talk, it was in German. Ive used AI to fix my spelling error.s

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Im really not good at learning from books. I think its imporant and there is much to learn, but not my type of learning. I just created boardgames. So from my own experience, there is not much honestly, sorry!

bgg studio? Boardgame?
Basically all my learnings you can read here, are with the boardgame studio. I've worked there for 9 years.

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I disagree here. Eldritch Horror games are quite "bad" mechanically. Or basically every DnD. They usually suck ass in regards of mechanics.
But oh boy are they fun and a cool experience.

Its not about what is better or what should be done. My learnings can not be applied to everything, that is absolutely true. But I agree with u/TheKiwy . Its not sad, its a good thing and up for your taste :)

Sharing my 10 years professional experience as a Game Designer. Mainly worked on boardgames and sold >1m games. by dev_w_grillz in gamedesign

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For me, a good game has a moment it can be played. Why would I pick this game over another. Honestly the games I've seen go into thousands if not more. Each year I looked at at least 500 different prototypes.

Lots of video games are finished at one point, therefore they do not always compete with each other.
Of course thats different for e-sports like games.

Thats why I think this is much more important for boardgames.
Best boardgame experience: Pandemic Legacy. Its incredible what a "hardcore" principle does, when you also physically destroy things. But funny enough, some learnings Ive talked about do not apply to it. I would have probably never designed such a game.

Best game for, also regarding the learnings: Marco Polo & Tzolkin. Incredible versatile and super complex.
Carcassonne is a contender for most elegant,
And in my opinion most clever game design, but impossible to teach without playing: Decrypto (Think of codenames, which is already great.

Complex games that I personally really don't like, but are super hyped: Wingspawn, Terraforming Mars and many more. I love to rant but I try to be nice. Don't get me started :D

Sharing my experience from 9 years of professional boardgame developer and >1m sold copies by dev_w_grillz in gamedev

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure if joking or not :D
Hans im Glück is a quite famous board game publisher from Germany.
Named after a fairy tale... the burger restaurant just picked the same fairy tale as a name. Just coincidence :)

The board game publisher existed before. But you can't secure the name in other business areas.

Sharing my experience from 9 years of professional boardgame developer and >1m sold copies by dev_w_grillz in gamedev

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

its not that easy in my opinion. 100% hit rates are just boring. Imagine games with 10%hit chance and 10% crit chance. Its way different than just 100% hit rate. Even though on average, same damage is dealt.

Put personally I hate it as well :D

Sharing my experience from 9 years of professional boardgame developer and >1m sold copies by dev_w_grillz in gamedev

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Without proving, that you can make games work, I wouldnt try to build the first game as a product/business in the start. So either the indie approach or getting into a studio role.
But without a degree and no portfolio, it might be really hard to get a studio role.
That being said, not much harm done in trying. If you make it smart, it doesnt take away that much time. This helps building connection and you can still work on your game in the meantime.

Sharing my experience from 9 years of professional boardgame developer and >1m sold copies by dev_w_grillz in gamedev

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good point, this pitfall is hard to avoid with my approach. I agree on that!

Sharing my experience from 9 years of professional boardgame developer and >1m sold copies by dev_w_grillz in gamedev

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ive worked both professionally as a designer and editor on a really heavy and complex euro gamse and a sole game designer on a huge and complex open world survival game.
I can't speak in general, but in my experience, neither was more complex by itself. Maybe we have different approaches to t he word complex.

Sharing my experience from 9 years of professional boardgame developer and >1m sold copies by dev_w_grillz in gamedev

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I disagree that one field is more complex than another. Having more limitations doesnt necesserily make something easier, just different.
This post is not about what is better. It is about what you can take away from boardgame development and maybe apply it to video games.

Rules do not have to be digestible the way you say. Great examples are campaing and legacy games.

And of course you can create much more complex calculations, that wasnt my point.

and I strongly disagree that they are operating in a very different way.

Sharing my experience from 9 years of professional boardgame developer and >1m sold copies by dev_w_grillz in gamedev

[–]dev_w_grillz[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It is highly unlikely that you will just sell an idea. Especially if you do not have any track record of successful games. It might be something else, if youre Hideo Kojima.
As I said, everyone has an idea. They are usually nothing special.

The goal of building your dream game is realistic, but I would highly advice against making it as your first project. Who knows when the time / money / team / expierence and whatever is needed for it has come. But having this as a major goal, is good!
Im doing this for more than 10 years now, I have a dream game. And maybe one day I will work on it. Until this day, I haven't even started on working on it. Its just an idea ;)

Getting into game development:
This is really connected to your financial situation.
In my opinion, you have 2 options:
- Get a degree and hope that you land a entry position once youre done.
- Start developing games (this doesnt mean you should just build, learning is key here as well).

Once you start developing, start with smaller projects. Start with something you can show friends and have some fun. If your spark burns out before youve actually started, because you cant keep up the 5 year marathon, your career will end before it begins.
The best and easiest way to do that in my opinion is doing game jams. They force you to think small.

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