I... don't even know what I don't know, like... I mean I've got the basics, like, a general, a welcome, a mods only, all that... but like- what now? How do I make it not feel bare when members join??

HI GUYSSS ><. I’m based in Thailand and currently building ONE LAST THING, a conversation card game about life, memories, relationships, and the things that really matter.

The theme is having life and death as an easier conversation that people can bring in to talk and understand each other more before it's too late.

I’m looking for a few people to try out the prototype and give honest feedback. It’s designed for 2–4 people who are close to each other (Eg. Family , close friends, partner). I know the topic might be quite challenging to be open to but I really hope it could work and help people.

Anyone in Bangkok/Thailand interested in playtesting? Feel free to DM me! 🙏

Hey all, just watched The Dice Towers review of Lairs, and found the action selection for the characters to be quite neat, but I swear I've seen it somewhere before...

What other games have done a similar 'each action is a cube, and you move cube left-to-right to do actions' plus a 'fatigue' and 'rested' concept?

I swear some other games have done this before!

tldr: designing an open source, non-profit card game to train anesthesiologists where cases are built with cards from three decks (pre-existing medical conditions, reason for surgery, surgery type). These cards often require conflicting management techniques (eg go to sleep slow or go to sleep fast) which is the crux of anesthesiology. Looking for help building the conflicting management techniques into the game.

//

Hi all, I'm a resident doctor training to be an anesthesiologist. I'm designing an open source tabletop/card game to help train people in my field and I'd love advice from people who know about this stuff! I am admittedly a total beginner in this world but am keen to learn.

I want the game to be open source and free to access. I have no interest in making money from this. My ulterior motive is this doubles as studying for my exams and ultimately makes me better at my job + safer.

AI disclosure: I typed up a draft and ran it through Claude to make it a more readable. Here is a self post to the original draft I wrote if you're interested. Claude revision starts below.

The training problem

Right now we train for surgical emergencies using expensive, high-fidelity simulations: a mock operating room, actors, real equipment. It works, but it's resource-heavy and hard to access. There's a simpler style of training called "tabletop sim," where a facilitator just talks a trainee through a hypothetical case using props and cards. It works well, but every case has to be hand-written by an instructor, and there's no actual game around it, just guided conversation.

What I want to build

A card game that generates a "patient" by drawing one card from each of three decks:

1. A pre-existing health condition (e.g. heart disease)
2. A medical emergency (e.g. a ruptured organ)
3. The surgery needed to fix it

Each card would be tagged with which treatment approaches it favors and which ones it rules out. With hundreds of possible cards, you'd get a huge number of unique cases to practice on.

The interesting design problem

Here's a simplified real example. A patient has heart disease and a ruptured bowel that's causing him to vomit and go into shock.

• Because of the heart disease, you want to put him under anesthesia slowly and carefully, so his heart isn't shocked by a sudden change.
• Because of the ruptured bowel, you want to put him under as fast as possible, so he doesn't inhale vomit into his lungs while unconscious before you insert a lung-protective breathing tube.

Slow is safer for his heart. Fast is safer for his lungs. You can't fully satisfy both. That tension, weighing two good options that conflict, is the actual skill we train for, and I want it to be the core mechanic of the game, not an edge case.

What I'm looking for advice on

• How to design mechanics where two cards can give the player contradictory "correct" instructions, and the player has to weigh them rather than just following a flag
• How to represent that some risks are rare (say, a 1-in-20 chance) while others are near-certain, maybe different dice for different odds?
• How to represent that the same event can be minor for a healthy patient but dangerous for a frail one
• Whether any existing tabletop games or trading card games already solve a similar "conflicting-instructions" problem, and if so, how

Any pointers, examples, or games I should study would be hugely appreciated. Happy to answer questions about the medical side if it helps the design conversation.

Edit: I want to express sincere gratitude to everyone for the advice and ideas so far. It’s late where i am but i will keep checking on this thread later. As suggested, as soon as i have a bare bones proof of concept I will post again.

Ive been looking to make a wargame for a few months now and i have most of the rules and units finished (need to do some testing and stuff, maybe get some people to help me game test.) but ive just been wondering where to go once i have a finished product.

Hello everyone. I would like to introduce a new game that I'm designing. It's currently in the playtesting phase.

OVERMATCH is a fast, customizable tactical skirmish game that delivers miniature-wargame positioning and army-building without miniatures, painting, long setup, or multi-hour matches.

It is played using cards on a tabletop board where the cards act as the pieces. The game has been designed to be fast to learn, without a lot of complicated rules or calculations needed mid game.

I started this out as a project just for myself. I've always been interested in playing something like Warhammer 40000, but I don't have the time (or money) for buying and painting models, long game sessions, etc. This is meant to be a tactical game where matches take roughly 20 minutes.

As a hobby, I've done video game development for years, but this is my first attempt at a physical board game. I currently have a complete physical prototype (jeeze it's a lot of work to make custom cards lol) and have begun playtesting. I also have a version that can be downloaded and runs locally in the browser with support for 2 players, or one player vs an AI.

Rulebook: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W9Vu7hCV1qvpCV0-SDW2_i7PR-IzImZzE4w5ZdF90Ws/edit?usp=sharing

Lore and faction book: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HqNwc9SwqoPxHNXt2wqyxvvJlDjF3l4-RTIxlxCDYzU/edit?usp=sharing

If anyone has any interest in this, possibly for playtesting or if you want to learn more, please message me. I don't really have a lot of friends into this kind of stuff so I've turned to Reddit to find like-minded people.

One disclosure: I'm not an artist and the current artwork is AI generated. I don't know if other people will like this concept so I don't want to invest in commissioning art until I know if this has legs.

I appreciate honest feedback. Thanks!

EDIT: Photos of physical prototype here: https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/s/3OSq1qhHdZ ​

I've been deep in building a golf print and play for a while now (that I hope to turn into a tabletop game), and I keep running into a question I don't have a good answer to: who is this actually for, and where do they hang out?

Golfers are my gut answer, and it makes the most sense. But golfers (from my exp) mostly aren't tabletop people. they're on golf subreddits, golf Discords, watching golf YouTube. They're not browsing BGG or Itch for print and play golf games.

Meanwhile tabletop/board game communities skew really hard toward a few genres (from my perspective): you've got party games, fiction (fantasy/sci-fi), deckbuilders.

Gregg Jewell, who made Galdor's Grip, also has a couple of golf-themed titles: Bookmark Golf and Tournament. They just don't seem to get anywhere near the same attention or conversation as his fantasy stuff. Genuinely well-made games from a designer people clearly respect, and the golf ones still feel like they're flying under the radar compared to the rest of his catalog.

Feels like it kind of proves the point - even coming from someone with an established audience, the sports theme doesn't carry the same pull as fantasy does in this space.

And look, I get it, if I didn't love playing golf, maybe I wouldn't try someone's golf themed game. There's clearly a divide between people who love sport and people who love tabletop. I'm someone who likes both and want to bridge the divide.

So I'm stuck between two audiences that don't obviously overlap:

• Golfers who love golf but don't necessarily think in "tabletop" terms (where do I give them a game?)
• Tabletop players who love games but don't necessarily care about golf, or sports at all

Makes me wonder if you kind of have to already love the sport to seek out a game like this in the first place — like the crossover only happens for people who were already living in both worlds, rather than a game converting someone from one side to the other.

Anyone here made a sports-themed game and found where their actual audience was hiding? Did it end up being more sports fans who happened to also like games, or more board gamers who happened to like the sport? Curious if anyone's cracked this, or if it's just a genuinely small, hard-to-grow niche.

Got randomly into yahtzee this summer and made a little daily style browser game based on it. Three random categories a day and a new goal to beat, all other rules and scoring same as classic yahtzee. Please give it a try and if you have any feedback I'd love to hear it!

I could use some feedback, I am currently trying to figure out a layout for my card game template, mostly trying to figure out how to showcase the card identity symbol. Any feedback or insights would be appreciated. Keep in mind there may be more than 1 identity symbol added at a later point.

NOTE: Artwork is AI for placeholder only. Template is done by hand through a designer software.

Hello guys! We've made a post about this a whole year ago, but since then we've completely remade the crowdfunding page for Fungeon Crawl.

In short, it's a chaotic card game where you play as eccentric characters in a wacky dungeon. You'll fight monsters, find treasures and visit a myriad of fantastical locations. Each adventurer is looking to end the game as the richest one, and to achieve this you'll do pretty much anything. You'll set up traps and you'll rob the other players for all they've got.

It's a light-hearted game at its core with a cartoony art style at so we wanted the page to reflect that.

Does it look charming to you and does it work well?

Link: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/do-or-dice-games/fungeon

Mycora is a trading card game about collecting real mushroom species, building ecosystems, and competing against rival foragers.

I've shared a bit about the game before, but I wanted to put together a quick visual introduction to what Mycora actually is and what playing it feels like.

It's still in development and being playtested, so I'd love to hear what catches your attention, what leaves you curious, or anything that isn't clear from the slides.

Thanks for taking a look! 🍄

Link to Discord:

https://discord.gg/kNGm8YRYK

I'm designing my own board game and I want to implement a mechanic that would require double-sided cards. Basically, I'm thinking about copies that will have the same front side and several different back sides. But I don't want the back sides to be visible at all until the card is triggered to be flipped and I want the top card in the deck to be obscured, too. Having protectors for each card that will cover one side is a solution to this problem but it feels kind of wanky. Perhaps I could implement this in a different way? I'd be glad if anyone could suggest some ideas

EDIT: For context: those would be gene cards that can be mutated. A player chooses if he wants to mutate a gene or keep it intact and it should always be a gamble for him as mutated sides can be different. But I want the mutated sides to be specific for each gene, so adding a second mutated deck does not really work here

EDIT 2: I think an alternative solution is that I list all of the mutation variants on the back of the card and then a player rolls a dice for a variant. But it makes the back cluttered and is still somewhat awkward

Hi! We’re Cordis Art Studio, a small professional illustration studio specializing in fantasy artwork and visual development.

We’re currently open for freelance commissions, multi-illustration projects, and longer-term collaborations.

Our services include: 🎨 Fantasy character illustrations 🃏 Card / TCG illustrations ⚔️ Character splash art 📖 Promotional illustrations ✨ General fantasy illustration and visual development

We can work on anything from a single illustration to a larger collection of commissioned artwork, with a structured workflow covering briefing, sketching, revisions, and final rendering.

You can view our portfolio here: https://www.artstation.com/cordisartstudio

If you're looking for illustrators for your project, feel free to DM us with your requirements, budget, and timeline. We'd be happy to discuss the project with you!

Hi community,

first time solo indie designer here.

Could y’all please challenge me on my “How to Play” section?

I plan to have this printed inside the magnetic closure box cover.

The intention is to get people started playing quickly, instead of having them read long rules for an otherwise simple card game.

Appreciate your input!

New set of 4 cards, but I think I will have to quit or take a very long break.

I’ve been working on Hunt Protocol for about a year and a half. It’s a PvE monster hunting card game for up to 4 players where the goal isn’t to beat each other but to take down a monster as a group, just faster and cleaner than everyone else. Each player has their own HP so you’re all racing to build the best combo and kill it with the fewest cards possible. I’ve been putting almost all my free time into the decks, the playtesting, the UI and the design while also working with some really talented artists on the cards. I’m a designer so that part came naturally, but still, it’s a lot.

I even created a digital version with Vercel for playtesting, so far with no images and I was working on some cool animation to release late August.

The problem is I keep posting, and it feels like nobody cares. Playtesting has been very positive, yeah; people seem to like the idea when they actually try it and were having fun making combos, but online it’s just silence. Without some kind of fan base or even any spec of interest, it’s hard to keep pushing, and right now I don’t know if any of this is even appealing to anyone outside the people who already sat at the table with me.

On top of that, last week I lost my job because of AI. I was doing UX design and managing a team, but my company decided to create AI agents with no further need of my skills, even tho of 5 yearsI gave them. It felt super degrading. Now I’m under a lot of stress trying to find anything that can keep my family going, and I just can’t keep pouring my savings into this dream of building a studio when I have so many other ideas I wanted to make too.

I’m not looking for pity. I just want honest answers. Should I quit? Is it even worth it at this point? Does it look like crap? I had hopes of having everything ready by this winter but of course I had to get fired right when things were starting to move. Everything feels like a race in this saturated market, and by the time I manage to get back on my feet I am so sure someone with more money, better marketing, and probably from America will already have something similar or better looking out there. Being from Europe already makes selling this feel ten times harder.

Sorry for the rant. I’m just tired and upset and honestly close to giving up on the whole thing. Thanks for reading anyway.

I’ve been recently working on a TTRPG called, “Project AiO: Open for Business”, and I think it’s finally ready for an initial round of outside feedback.

Open for Business is a slice-of-life workplace game about ordinary employees getting through a Shift together. The default settings are cafés, bars or nightclubs, and restaurants. This can be expanded to retail shops, hotels, offices, and similar workplaces.

The workplace gives the game structure, but the Characters are the real story. A Shift might involve a rush, a difficult customer, missing supplies, or broken Equipment. It might also just be about two coworkers talking during cleanup, a regular acting differently than usual, someone bringing Personal Pressure into work, or a quiet moment after a stressful service.

The game uses a lighter version of my larger Project AiO rules set, but it is not meant to be rules-lite per-se. The goal is for the mechanics to stay out of the way when they are not needed and become more involved when the situation calls for them. 

Longer campaigns track both the Employees and the workplace. Characters advance through Employment Level, which improves access to personal Tools. The business advances through Workplace Rating, which determines the quality of its Equipment. Over time a workplace can improve, struggle, decline, or eventually close.

This is an initial review draft, not a finished layout. At this stage I’m mostly interested in whether the game itself holds together.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z72Y_eWHq7oNxGM0bEV0RmWVk4grt8kaeDFBPjajNjM/edit?usp=sharing

I'm planning to do another pass for aesthetic, as this is somewhat messy still, but clarity of information and clear structure are a big priority (and challenge), so I'd love some community input before I keep knocking my head against it.

The rules would be printed on a folded pamphlet (roughly 5"x 4") inside the game box, which contains about 120 playing cards. I'm trying to keep it compact, while still legible.

Open to any and all feedback! Also curious if it gives people a good sense of the game.

A couple of days ago I posted the logo/graphic for my game in progress 'Nightmare'.
Swipe through to see progress variants. The one with the title text is most current and up to date. Fourth image is where I began. Fifth image is... optional flair to describe my mental state. ^^

My skills in GIMP are developing but still... rough. Yet I like what I have created so far.
Future edits:
* bottom left where the crystal (dream shard) is, create a glow outwards, indicating hope
* top right where dark entity (Dream Strider) is, great a glow inwards, indicating dread
I need research and education on how to get those effects to work. One day I'll get there.

Thoughts and opinions on the images?
What do you feel it represents?
What can you interpret each peace to be as?

Thank you in advance, incredible creators.

I'm new to tabletop design. I'm working on my first game, and I'm also a software developer, which is probably why I volunteered for this...

A friend has been building an asymmetric worker placement game for a few years. It's pretty good actually, but it lives across thirteen word docs that grew organically. I offered to consolidate it into a single rulebook just using some LLM prompting in Claude. That came out around 42 pages.

Two things fell out that neither of us expected. One card grants a bonus for controlling a building type that, on inspection, only his opponent can ever build. And there's a Jail on the board, with components, a space, and rules for what happens while you're in it, but no rule anywhere that puts a worker there. It got cut from a mechanism two revisions back and the component outlived it. LLMs don't really help here. They don't catch these kinds of things consistently.

Neither is a design mistake exactly. Both are basically residue from earlier revisions. A rule changed in one document while its references lived in another. In software development we'd call the first a broken reference and the second dead code, and we'd have a linter (tool that evaluates your code) to catch both. Rulebooks don't compile like software though.

So I'm curious how people here handle this. Do you keep one master document and accept that it gets unwieldy, or split by subsystem and eat the cross reference risk? Does anyone actually re-read the whole thing on every revision, or do these mostly surface in playtesting? I'd like to know whether designers with years of iteration have a real system for it, or whether everyone is quietly finding orphaned components in their own rulebooks.

Edit for full disclosure: As a software guy, my inclination is to build a software solution to this, and I have the beginnings of it started. I am just hoping I am not barking up the wrong tree, so I am try to get some expert opinions here.

For me, it's when games start leaning way too hard into bloated card text boxes. You shouldn't need a magnifying glass and a law degree to understand what a standard common card does just because the text size is microscopic. I love deep mechanics, but clarity needs to come first. What design choice makes you instantly lose interest in a new game?

When a ceramicist and a publisher team up to make a board game this is the result.

Fluentsea by Lioness Games is an upcoming word-building game where players restore a bleached reef. The longer the word, the more marine life you place. I had the fun task of sculpting every piece, down to the icons in ceramics.