Designing a New Game Is Slow, Messy, and Full of Unexpected Twists, and That's Totally Fine

Very little progress made since my last post.

So why post this instead of waiting until I have progress to share?

Because this is part of the design process.

Sometimes we make a lot of progress and sometimes we don't. We all have competing priorities in our work and life.

Slowing down is not a bad thing when it comes to design. Because it allows us to return to our creation with fresh eyes. And bring new ideas to it.

One reason I have not made much progress on this new game is because I was working on finishing two other board games and a software simulation. An interesting thing I have learned about designing new products is just as you feel like you are getting close to finishing, a lot of new tasks seem to appear. So you end up spending more time at the end than you expected.

But it's all good because some of the thinking I had to do for those other games may find its way to enhance this new game. And, any problems I had to solve with other games are problems I no longer have to solve with this new game.

What's Next?

The gameplay is far enough along that my next step is to do some testing, so I printed these sheets and cards. The sheets represent the gameboard and list each of the main spaces. Very rough, as you can see, but that's all we need to do some quick testing to see how it flows. Stay tuned for the results in my next update.

Catch Up

To catch up on Parts 1,2,3, 4, or 5, find them here.

Share Your Thoughts In the Comments

Am I on track?

Am I missing something?

Do you have any suggestions?

Should I keep posting about this game?

PS: Please only share ideas if you are willing to allow me or anyone following this discussion to use them for free without any obligation. If you contribute an idea that has a significant influence on the design of my game, I will be pleased to gift you a copy of the game.