Board/Card Game Design Resources

Please add any tabletop game design resources here be they card games, board games, dice games etc.

Design Resources

• Board Game Geek design forum
• Magic Lessons: Designing and Balancing Game Objects Must read!
• Making Magic Archive - Over 400 articles by Wizards of the Coast on making Magic: The Gathering.
• Rarity and Power: Balance in Collectible card games
• Board Game Designers Forum - A bit hard to navigate the main site.
• Google Tech Talk on Board Game Design of Krakow 1325 AD
• Evil Genius VS Spies (created by Eric Raue, feel free to contact him)
• The club has a Steampunk CCG in development.

Prototyping and Supplies

• Recipe cards found at a dollar store are really good for prototyping card games.
• Printable grids including hex, polar, triangle and more.

Learn about existing board games

• BoardGameGeek - The best place to find information about board games
• Board game video reviews
  • The Dice Tower
  • Board Games with Scott
• Craving for a Game - Located in the Surrey Central City Mall
  • Has a free board games night every Thursday
  • The store owner is very knowledgeable about board games and is a great place to research games
  • Offers student discounts on larger purchases
• SFU Boardgame Club - moc.liamg|ufsbulcemagdraob#moc.liamg|ufsbulcemagdraob
  • Meets weekly to play a variety of board games
  • Mostly German style games and rarely games like Monopoly or Risk.

News websites

• http://boardgamenews.com/
• http://www.criticalgamers.com/

Printing and Self Publishing

• You can self publish using the print on demand service http://www.thegamecrafter.com/ but shipping is expensive to Canada currently but this will change soon.
• SFU Document Solutions costs around $22 to print 140 cards on card stock.

Games Worth Looking At

Add your favourite board/card games to the list.

• Dominion - Deck building game
• Citadels - 2-8 player game where players constantly switch between characters with different abilities.
• Settlers of Catan - Trading system which is considered to be a gateway game to get people interested in more sophisticated games.
• No Thanks! - All about pushing your luck.
• Five Crowns - The dynamics change each round even though the rules do not.
• 10 Days in Europe
• Neuroshima Hex - Hex based strategy game with an interesting battle system.
• Magic: The Gathering - The CCG that started everything and has maintained good design for over 17 years.
• Netrunner - Asymmetric card game by the creator of Magic.