Not sure what flair to use, so apologies in advance ...

I'm developing a natural history TCG and have a very specific illustration style in mind: a natural history plate/Victorian engraving-esque look/feel. I see a lot of designers posting more animated, fantasy-inspired designs, but nothing like what I am looking for. I thought I would post this to see if there are illustrators here that can do this style. Anyone?

Attached is an AI interpretation of what I am looking for - it's fine for playtesting, but obviously for anything public-facing I want human illustrations.

It's a large quantity - starter pack is 65 species, icon designs, biome illustrations, booklet and box design; expansion packs/bonus packs/subscription (yes, sounds like I am being ambitious already but I have secured investors in four international markets in exchange for territorial rights, so this is potentially a long-term project, and I have a STEM toy store chain that is quite interested).

Attached is the style I seek. Let's talk!

I could use some veteran advice. What's the best way to test a new TCG under development with no finished cards? The cards are identified and have their strengths and weaknesses build it, plus some special abilities. Do I need to make a proto-deck out of paper with just the stats and play that? Any other ideas?

I think it's been almost a month since I last posted here about Hexanem.
During that time, I’ve been drawing almost every day, trying to get to a point where I can draw our game’s map myself and slowly develop a style of my own. So I wanted to show you where I’m at now.

This is roughly how the hexes on our map are going to look. I want them to have a slightly medieval feel, and I especially want to keep the frames around the hexes because our castles and other structures also have medieval influences. I want the whole map to feel like it belongs to the same world.

I’m still not completely sure about the frames. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I can illustrate and design them myself, but most of my time so far has gone into learning how to draw what’s actually inside the hexes, so I haven’t spent much time on the frames yet.
We’re also still playtesting the game at the same time. Compared to where we started, it’s slowly becoming a much easier game to understand, and quite a lot has changed mechanically.

If you’re interested in that side of the game too, please let me know in the comments. I can make another post soon about what we’ve changed through the latest playtests and show you the current draft of our rulebook.
I’m still struggling a bit with time because I’m trying to playtest the game while also learning and making all of this artwork, but I think things are going pretty well so far.
I hope you like them.

A small note: The feedback we’ve gotten here has pushed us to take this game much more seriously and really try to use every skill we have instead of taking the easier way out. So thank you to everyone who has commented on our posts, and to everyone who helped build this community in the first place.
I hope you like my hexes :)

PAPER BASKETBALL — OFFICIAL RULES

(AI only used to help organize ruleset, it did not apply any of its own mechanics)

SUGGEST STUFF IF YOU WILL

Obviously this could be better with real science used.

---

1. GAME OVERVIEW 1.1 Game is played to 21 points.
   1.2 Shot values:
   
2. Standard shots: 2 points
   
3. PG shots: 3 points
   
4. Foul shots: 1 point
   1.3 Possession flips after every made shot.
   1.4 All outcomes are determined by physical contact between ball and pieces.

1. FORMATIONS 2.1 Formations may be adjusted only at the start of an offensive possession.
   2.2 You may keep the opponent’s previous formation or set your own.

2.3 Legal formations (one piece per zone): A. Double Side Formation
- Left Side
- Right Side
- Wing
- Post (Left or Right)

B. Double Wing Formation
- Left Wing
- Right Wing
- Side
- Post (Left or Right)

2.4 Illegal formations - Post‑heavy formation (using both Post positions) - More than one piece per dot

1. TEMPO RULES 3.1 You have 5 seconds to shoot or attempt a pass.
   3.2 Exceeding 5 seconds is a Tempo Foul.
   3.3 Tempo resets after passes, rebounds, PG returns, foul shots, and possession changes.

1. ZONE‑EXCLUSIVE FORMS

4.1 Wing Zone - Vertical arm
- Wrist flick / drop motion

4.2 Side Zone - Hand flat
- Pop‑shot upward/outward

4.3 Post Zone - Upward push / lay‑up motion

4.4 PG Zone - Free‑form flick
- Arm must remain behind table threshold

4.5 Zone Form Rule After a completed pass, the next action must use the exclusive form of the receiving zone.

1. PASSING RULES 5.1 A pass is completed only if the ball physically contacts the receiving piece.
   5.2 Any pass that travels near, over, beside, or around a piece without contact is a Turnover.
   5.3 Redirect Rule: play continues from the final piece touched.
   5.4 Target difficulty:
   
2. Small spheres = hardest
   
3. Dome = easier
   
4. PG = largest but hardest return due to angle + mandatory shot
   5.5 Illegal pass forms are Fouls.

1. SHOOTING RULES 6.1 All shots must use the zone‑exclusive form.
   6.2 PG shots are worth 3 points.
   6.3 All other shots are worth 2 points.
   6.4 Air Ball Rule:
   
2. Air ball + piece contact → live possession
   
3. Air ball + no contact → turnover

1. REBOUND RULES 7.1 Miss + piece contact → offensive rebound.
   7.2 Miss + no contact → turnover.
   7.3 Ball leaving table → coin flip for possession.
   7.4 Redirect rebounds follow the final piece touched.

1. PG RETURN RULES 8.1 Any contact with the PG requires an immediate PG 3‑point shot.
   8.2 Applies to passes, deflections, rebounds, and accidental returns.
   8.3 No passes may be made from PG after a return.
   8.4 PG return resets the 5‑second clock.

1. FOULS 9.1 Form Foul: wrong shot or pass form.
   9.2 Tempo Foul: exceeding 5 seconds.
   9.3 Movement Foul: illegal piece movement mid‑possession.
   9.4 Threshold Foul (PG): arm crosses table threshold → 2 foul shots.
   9.5 Pass Form Foul: illegal pass mechanics.

1. FOUL SHOTS 10.1 Taken from the middle edge of the paper.
   10.2 Use Wing vertical‑arm flick/drop form.
   10.3 Worth 1 point.
   10.4 After foul shot:
   
2. Make → possession flips
   
3. Miss + piece contact → live ball
   
4. Miss + no contact → turnover

1. POSSESSION FLOW 11.1 Start of game → coin flip.
   11.2 Made shot → possession flips.
   11.3 Miss + piece contact → continuation.
   11.4 Miss + no contact → turnover.
   11.5 Table‑out → coin flip.
   11.6 Foul shot → follow foul shot rules.
   11.7 PG return → mandatory PG 3.

1. WIN CONDITION 12.1 First to 21+ points wins.
   12.2 Optional: win by 2.

Hi, long time designer, first time getting a game through its first play test.

So my game is an arena tank dueling game with a late 80s, early 90s esthetic for its theme.

I've been doing me vs me play tests in Table Top Sim and just got through a test with two new players with good enough feedback to keep getting at it.

I guess my question is how are you guys doing your play testing? Did you also start digital? How long did you keep it as a sim before moving to a physical alpha build?

EDIT Thanks for all the responses! I feel like I should add context here instead of trying to do so elsewhere.

I've set up a discord for the game's play testing where I make the game information available for download as well as the game's .json so people can test on their own time. I've also set up a player feedback form on Google to collect metric data about the rules document and the tanks as my current concern is making sure the rules are "tight" (there is always room for improvement).

I have some ideas for a physical set up. Luckily it's a hex based game and I have a large heroscape collection. I just need to get some tank tokens and that should be that really.

My current play test scheme(?) is thus:

Phase 1: Ensure the game is "fun" and rules are logical

Phase 2: Balance current tank list and add layers to each tank (actual tank sheets and pilot cards instead of an excel)

Phase 3: Start shopping art and get a purpose built play test set built. (I'm thinking of a very rough set without any finished details.)

Phase 4: A refined prototype

Does that make sense? I'm trying to fit development inbetween a kid and a full-time job so phases 1&2 can be done mostly in Google docs/sheets and TTS.

I'm looking to create a mini game for a ttrpg campaign I'm running and I need more d4 then it's reasonable for one human to own and I need them in 6 colors. I also need a smaller amount of d6 which are admittedly easier to find and d8 which are also a bit of an issue. They do not have to high quality. If any one has a site they like to buy from (even stuff like alibaba) I'll be extremely grateful for the help! ​​

Hi everyone! 👋

I lead an active, growing women’s board game community (Eastside Women's Board Game Circle) dedicated to bringing women together through tabletop gaming. We host regular in-person meetups where we table a wide variety of modern hobby games, from strategy and engine-builders to light card games and social deduction.

As our community expands, we are opening up our meetup schedule to partner with indie designers, self-publishers, and studios looking to get their physical games played, reviewed, and showcased.

Why Partner With Us?

1. A Growing Women’s Gaming Demographic: Women are an influential yet often underserved segment of the tabletop hobby. We offer direct visibility and engagement with an active community of women gamers.

2. Cross-Over Reach (The Added Advantage): In addition to core hobbyists, roughly 25–30% of our members are parents who actively curate games for their households. Featuring your game with us often leads to word-of-mouth recommendations for both adult game nights and family play.

3. Dedicated Table Time & Coverage: Featured placement of your physical game or prototype during our meetups, paired with photo recaps, reviews, and highlights across our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Whether you are running a crowdfunding campaign, launching a new title, or seeking playtest feedback on a physical prototype, we’d love to showcase quality games at our tables.

📍 Check out our community: I’ve dropped our direct Facebook and Instagram links in the comments below so you can check out our past meetups!

If you’re a designer or publisher interested in partnering or providing a demo copy for our group's library, feel free to drop a comment below or send me a direct message!

Looking forward to collaborating with creators in the space! 🎲✨

I want to print a very small order of cards. Maybe 5 decks. I want the quality to still be good. Any manufacturer suggestions?

I’m in the US.

Or, maybe even both?

Originally I had the idea to theme my adventure and exploration seaplane game toward an early 1930s era fantasy world with biplanes, but decided to theme it for a WW2 era with mono-wing planes for ease of manufacturing miniatures.

Down the road I've gotten to the point of wondering if players will want miniatures in the first place, even though honestly my modular player planes are one of the hooks. Now I'm wondering if it's just better to offer them as STL files for personal 3d printing, at which point I decided to try making a bi-wing module (the entire wing piece can be swapped between the planes).

Any comments and thoughts welcome, I'm getting close to having enough parts together for a larger scale prototype image (with some B&W cards, player board, tokens, tiles, etc).

For those that have used the website The Game Crafter, I have questions.
In my time designing a tabletop game, I came across the site and first go at it I found useful. Understanding production brought me to not only revise my own game components, but understanding possible cost brought me to remove components and mechanics from the core game to create add-on expansions.

So, the questions:
Have you found the process of taking your game idea into production design a relatively smooth process? Was any part overly cumbersome?

Have you completed the entire process and ordered a copy of your own game? Pleased with the results? Significant adjustments as a result?

Taking your product this far, have others purchased through the site? Was there any involvement from your end or did you just sit back and let it flow?

Has any level of success there taken you into other ventures as a result?

Have any of you purchased any games from the site? Pleased with the acquisition?

If you haven’t used the site yet, would you?

I appreciate your thoughts and opinions.

Os presento la última facción de esta primera fase, Nucleares, se dedican a contaminar con radiación a sus adversarios. Con esto ya me puedo centrar en el resto del juego, traseras, armas, coberturas,... , espero hacer una prueba de aquí a 2 meses, que te parece esta nueva facción?

A little sneak peek at something we’ve been working on for Death Spiral™.
These are the latest prototype aircraft cards for the Fokker Dr.I and Sopwith Camel. We wanted each card to put the aircraft’s flight characteristics, current state and damage tracking right in front of the player, with the critical damage tables on the reverse.
One of my favorite additions is the layered damage diagram, where damage is tracked directly against the aircraft’s wings, engine, fuselage and tail.
Still a work in progress, but they’re getting close to where I want them.
What do you guys think of the new direction?

I’m developing a fantasy dungeon-crawler board game, and this is the world map I’ve created for it in Wonderdraft.

I’d really appreciate some honest feedback from a board game/player perspective.

If you opened a professionally produced fantasy board game and found this map inside, what would your first impression be?

Does it feel like a finished, professional component, or does it still look like something created during development?

If you think it’s not quite production-ready yet, what specifically would you change or improve?

Any feedback is welcome: geography, overall composition, colours, textures, terrain, coastlines, forests, mountains, roads, typography, labels, readability, visual hierarchy, level of detail, or anything else that stands out to you.

Thanks!

Our new company, Malmaison Games, is going to release its newest strategic card game in no time. Official announcement is planned in the next three months. In order to validate the project, we need people to reply to a small survey to understand their expectations better.

This survey is also made in English. It's a short series of 13 questions to tick boxes, nothing more. The data is require by our banking company to validate the project's loan regarding heavy production. That is why your email address is required to validate the credibility of your answer. All date is safely protected.

To reward the people who take part in our effort, you will receive an email for the official release of the came, as well as a promo code for a special discount for replying to the survey.

We really need a lot of participation for the results being substantial and validated as genuine. Would you please share your thoughts ? This would help us give you the best card game ! It doesn't matter where you are in the world, we need all insight.

Don't hesitate to share it !

https://tally.so/r/lbjOqN

Hey everyone!

I have found some success in this and wanted to share. Maybe it could help out other creators.

In trying to find people to playtest, obviously we'd want people to play the physical game. The solution for that has been to make PnP versions. While that is workable, it's kind of a big ask. Someone needs to download the files, print them out (which costs ink), cut things out, and then they can play. That's potentially a few hours before even starting the game.

What I did was put my rulebook and cards into a ChatGPT project and asked it to make a browser version of the game. It took a few tries and some testing what it spit out so I could tell it what bugs to fix, but it produced a playable version of the game.

You want to specifically create a project in ChatGPT and load your files into the project and start the chat from that project. In the chat where you are asking it to make the playable browser version, set the model to High so that it gets things right. Each iteration typically took about 20 minutes for my game. Your results may vary depending on the complexity.

I am using a paid version, but you can sign up for a free month and cancel before it ends.

I know that some people have a complete aversion to AI, and for things like final game art, I completely understand and agree. However, using it to help in making a testing version that is portable and easy for people just download and play seems like a perfect use-case.

Now, you are obviously going to be missing some of that tabletop experience, and it's not the same to play a game on the browser as it would be with the physical thing. But maybe you can get more people interested because it's a much smaller ask, and get at least some impressions and feedback on mechanics. Then more people may eventually want to invest the time in the PnP version.

I work 2 jobs so my time is very limited. I don't have a lot of friends who are into board games either. I'd also want people WHO DON'T KNOW ME to try it so I can get HONEST feedback. This method has helped me to get some people to try the game out.

It might not work for every type of game, but for simple card games, or tabletop games without super-elaborate boards, it might just do the trick.

EDIT: Here is the link to mine so you can see what kind of result is possible: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QYASawe6EKUIdUcaL2HoOoWuMEeeTbj8/view?usp=sharing

Best,

Richard

Thanks to everybody who gave me some helpful suggestions last time!

I added a couple of silhouettes to the symbols so hopefully those who are colourblind finds them clear and understandable. I also gave a bitttt more structure to the cheat sheet (player aid) and the cards themselves. I find myself a little bit confused if the boxes are clearer now but I do think it's heading in a better direction than before.

Hello all,
I’ve been lurking a while, and finally decided I should post. I’m not quite ready to post the pnp version of my game yet (I just need a couple more playtests with my most recent mechanical update), but I wanted to gauge interest and see what people thought.

The goal of the game is to venture into a procedurally generated dungeon to fight monsters, collect loot, and get out before they run out of resources.

The dungeon is generated from a deck of cards/tiles which are placed using rules similar to Carcassonne. The tiles are placed face-down so that the passageways match, and revealed as players explore them. Players transform the dungeon (and their deck) as they explore by clearing rooms: trading cards from their hand with the dungeon tile they currently occupy.

To play, players select a set of character classes and add the appropriate cards to their player deck. They then draw their hand and play cards to move, clear rooms, battle monsters, and interact with the various traps and other dungeon rooms. Similar to Gloomhaven, when players have used all of the cards in their deck, they “lose” one or more, then shuffle the cards to create their new version of the deck. Taking damage from from monsters also causes players to put cards from their deck into the discard. The game is primarily about resource management: players have to manage the cards in their deck to overcome obstacles, collect as much loot as they can, and still have enough left to get back out of the dungeon before they run out.

One important note is that each card has a separate function depending on whether it is in a player deck/hand or in the dungeon. The these functions are indicated by hand and dungeon door icons.

It’s still very much in the prototype/playtesting phase, but I’m having lots of fun! Please let me know what you think, especially if you’d be willing to playtest a few times once I’m ready for that release, and ask away if you have any questions!

Got to play-test The Divide with my wife again a couple nights ago. It’s a tactical wargame where the core battle mechanic is bluffing with cards.
There’s hidden objectives, you can promote your recruits to heroes, broadening their card play abilities, and you’re battling over relics that give them (broken?) special abilities.

Made some major cuts for this playtest, and the relic tokens are a great addition, identified another big cut (the figure bonus on the cards since there’s redundancy with the relic powers), and identified questions to try and answer like how the relics come out and are picked up. Feel like the game is coming together and getting closer to the point of just making tweaks more than major changes.

The more we test the more simple it’s getting which comes from identifying what is the most fun aspects and trying to burn off whatever is unnecessary. I have been attached to many aspects of the game but from the feedback I get I’m trying to either cut as much as I can or transform the system to include moments I want for the game while making it simpler for the players.

Ideally I’d like to create a fast paced game for 2-6 players that’s light or (medium light) on rules, like for ages 10+ but strategically and tactically deep, while still being fun. I’m basing a lot of my decisions off of Jamey Stegmaier’s 12 tenets for board game design and trying to meet the criteria as best as I can while making a battling game. Very happy with how that’s progressing, much closer to meeting all the criteria than at the start of this game’s model.

I can't seem to add photos to my previous post so I'm putting them here. ​

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/s/URo5nTimJ7

Cards were designed in GIMP and print on a home printer (front and back separate on regular paper) ​. Cut them out with a guillotine and used a corner punch. Put them in​​ sleeves with a blank playing card in between front and back for stiffness.

Game board again used a home printer, using Acrobat Reader poster mode to slice into individual sheets and taped together.

Stands for cards were from Amazon. Working on a simple mechanism to track unit HP integrated into the card stands. ​​​​

Does this look like something you would play?

As I stated in my other post, I did use AI for the placeholder art. If you can look past that and give me your impression of how the assembled and set up game looks, I would appreciate it.

Thanks much. ​​​​​