Adventure games often have themes of heroism, exploration, and puzzle-solving. The storyline behind such games often have fantastical elements, and involve the characters in some sort of quest.
Ancient games often have themes or storylines set in the Old World, between 3000 BC (the beginning of the Egyptian dynasties) and AD 476 (the fall of the Western Roman Empire). Some of the themes and imagery found in the most popular Ancient games concerns ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations.
Animals games involve animals as a major component of the theme or gameplay.Animals games often require players to attend to the management or control of animals. Players may even take on the role of an animal (or animals) in the game.
Humor games often have themes and gameplay that provoke laughter and amusement. More specifically, humor games may require players to engage in clowning, comedy, jokes, and/or satire as an objective of the game.
Murder/Mystery games often involve an unsolved murder or murders. A requirement of these games is usually for players to investigate these crimes, and determine the criminal details and/or perpetrator(s).
Educational games have been specifically designed to teach people about a certain subject, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play.
Spies/Secret Agents games often have themes or storylines relating to espionage. Often, players must identify another player who has taken the role of spy or secret agent and attempt to reveal secret information that this player holds. Many of the most popular Spies/Secret Agents games are also categorized under Bluffing and/or Deduction, and as such have an element of hidden information to them.
Fantasy games are those that have themes and scenarios that exist in a fictional world. It is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there can be a great deal of overlap between the three.
Fantasy game elements usually include:
Creatures that are common in fantasy books and comics, such as orcs, trolls, goblins, dragons, etc.
Magic that can be used with units or abilities
Can involve a struggle between good and evil forces.
Farming games encourage players to build and manage farmland for the purposes of growing crops and/or tending to livestock, often to be sold or traded later on.
Science Fiction games often have themes relating to imagined possibilities in the sciences. Such games need not be futuristic; they can be based on an alternative past. (For example, the writings of Jules Verne and the Star Wars saga are set before present time.) Many of the most popular Science Fiction games are set in outer space, and often involve alien races.
Ghost: a disembodied soul, especially : the soul of a dead person believed to be an inhabitant of the unseen world or to appear to the living in bodily likeness (Merriam-Webster)
While the term "hobby board game" is often used to refer to modern board games with a smaller reach than mass market board games, for the purposes of Protospiel Online Bingo, the hobbies theme refers to any game about any activity people enjoy as a pastime.
Industry / Manufacturing games encourage players to build, manage and/or operate tools and machinery in order to manufacture raw materials into goods and products.
This family includes games that relate to romance in the love sense. The sense of an emotional feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.
Medical games have themes related to the science of natural healing. Themes may include surgery, cures, recovery/recuperation/physical therapy, psychiatry, pharmaceutical prescription, and other medicine-related items.
Mythology games are those that often incorporate a thematic narrative that defines how the game world or characters came into existence, specially those related or based on narratives of ancient civilizations of the world.
The storyline in a number of Mythology games usually includes supernatural elements, such as gods, goddesses and demigods, and are sometimes set in a fabled, primordial time, which usually corresponds to a general corpus of folk stories (myths) that used to have some form of religious or sacred nature for the cultures that engendered these stories.
Nautical games involve sailors, ships, and/or maritime navigation as a major component of the theme or gameplay. Most Nautical games require players to effectively control ships as an objective.
Space Exploration games often have themes and storylines relating to travel and adventure in outer space. Often, players must seek and gather resources and territories as objectives of the game.
Many of the popular Space Exploration games are also categorized under Science Fiction.
Pirate games have a main character, theme or storyline of piracy. Some of the most popular themes and imagery in Pirate games concerns treasure hunting, sea robbery, swords and cannons, swashbuckling, and ship racing. Many Pirate games occur in timelines prior to the 20th century.
Games about what's going on in person's mind/heart: identifying/dealing with your emotions, developing good mental habits, metal illness, our emotional reactions to things, character traits etc.
Sports games often have themes or storylines related to the physical activity of sports. The sports represented in the most popular Sports boardgames are football and racing (whether car, boat, bicycle or horse).
Travel games often have gameplay where an objective is to move to and from different geographic locations. As such, Travel games usually employ a map as the main feature of the game board.
Any theme you haven't seen a lot of in the market -- or possibly a common theme mixed with additional theme(s) or setting(s) not usually paired together.
Train games often involve gameplay and imagery related to railroads and rail vehicles. Many of the most popular Train games are set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (although some games, like Lunar Rails, are set in the future).
The 'Visual Arts' Family may be defined as any visual art considered to have been created primarily for aesthetic and intellectual purposes and judged for its beauty and meaningfulness; specifically, painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolor, graphics, textiles, murals, mosaics, theater, dance, film, photography, conceptual art, and architecture.
Any game that features one or many witches or things related to witchcraft such as spells, charms, potions, etc. Witchcraft may be related to a single character or section of the game or define the entire theme.
Zombie games often contain themes and imagery concerning the animated dead. Some of the more popular storylines in Zombie games include apocalyptic themes, horror, and fighting.
Players select from an assortment of Actions in a shared pool. The available Actions are limited in quantity, and once a player has chosen an Action it may not be chosen again.
Each player has a set of Actions available to them, embodied in cards, tokens, or some other affordance. Once performed, they are spent and may not be performed again until retrieved. Action Retrieval typically is itself an Action, or may take an entire turn.
This mechanic requires you to place a bid, usually monetary, on items in an auction of goods in order to enhance your position in the game. These goods allow players future actions or improve a position. The auction consists of taking turns placing bids on a given item until one winner is established, allowing the winner to take control of the item being bid on.
Players fulfill Contracts to earn rewards. These take the form of special goals requiring coordination and planning beyond simply being "first past the post". These can be either public, where all players compete to be the first to complete them, or private, where only the owning player may fulfill them.
Players play cards out of individual decks, seeking to acquire new cards and to play through their decks iteratively, improving them over time through card acquisition.
This category also covers Bag Building, Pool Building, and related mechanisms.
Drafting is a means of distributing cards or other game elements to players through an ordered selection process.
A typical implementation involves each player being dealt the same number of cards. Players then select one card to keep, and pass the rest to their left. This continues until all cards are taken. 7 Wonders implements this type of draft.
An alternative is that only one player is dealt cards, and they take one and pass it until all players have cards. This obviously is strongly biased towards the first player, and needs to be supported thematically and balance-wise. Citadels has this type of draft.
Another type is the open draft, where all options are shown to the players, and they take turns selecting. This is akin to Action Selection or Worker Placement.
Hand management games are games with cards in them that reward players for playing the cards in certain sequences or groups. The optimal sequence/grouping may vary, depending on board position, cards held and cards played by opponents. Managing your hand means gaining the most value out of available cards under given circumstances. Cards often have multiple uses in the game, further obfuscating an "optimal" sequence.
Players must make their next play by matching a feature on the previous play. This is frequently used in shedding games like UNO or Crazy Eights, where number or color/suit need to be matched.
A set of cards in a specific relationship to one another that allows them to be played to a table or scored as a meld. When laying these cards down, the way the cards splay, or overlap one another, may sometimes reveal or conceal certain abilities or attributes.
Players have a special ability that they can use one time per game. These may be unique to them or common to all players. Often players will receive bonus Victory Points if they do not use their one-time abilities during the game.
Players must configure game components in sophisticated patterns in order to score or trigger actions, as would be typical for games in the Puzzle category.
This mechanism usually requires players to pick up an item or good at one location on the playing board and bring it to another location on the playing board. Initial placement of the item can be either predetermined or random. The delivery of the good usually gives the player money to do more actions with. In most cases, there is a game rule or another mechanic that determines where the item needs to go.
Players simultaneously program their movement, and then reveal and execute it. This mechanism tends to promote chaos in a game, and benefits those with good spatial relations.
Typically this is expressed as the winner being the first player to reach the end of a track.
However, if there is any type of fixed goal, this also qualifies as a Race mechanism. Catan is an example, where players are racing to reach 10 points.
The game is developed using paper and pen to mark and save responses or attributes that, at the end of the game, are used to score points and determine the winner.
A game that merely keeps track of score on a sheet of paper does not use a paper-and-pencil mechanism.
The available Actions are represented as pie wedges in a circle. Each player has one or more tokens on Rondel’s wedges. On their turn, they may move their token around the Rondel and perform the Action indicated by the wedge where they stop. It is typically more costly to move further around the Rondel.
The game involves the development of connected routes and nodes, often represented as routes between destinations. This is differentiated from Connections in that it provides some in-game effect beyond merely scoring, such as the ability to trigger actions, or requiring maintenance costs.
A game in which players play until reaching a stopping condition, then record scores, reset the game, and play one or more additional rounds. The game concludes after some number of rounds, and the cumulative score is calculated to determine a winner.
In Secret Unit Deployment games, some (or all) pieces enter the board in secret, and only the player controlling certain playing pieces has perfect information about the nature (or even the whereabouts) of those pieces. Other players will not know where those pieces are located on the board, or they may know where pieces are, but not know the details (such as strength or type) of these pieces. This mechanic is often used in wargames to simulate "fog of war".
The primary goal of a set collection mechanism is to encourage a player to collect a set of items. For example, players collect and harvest different types of beans in Bohnanza, and they collect Monuments in Ra.
There is a target number required to succeed at some test. A random number is generated (by card draw, die roll, etc.), which is compared to the target. If it meets or exceeds the target, the action succeeds.
Commodity Speculation is a subcategory of Betting and Bluffing, in which in-game money is bet on different commodities in hope that that particular commodity will become the most valuable as the game progresses. Often the values of the commodities are continually changing throughout the game, and the players buy and sell the commodities to make money off of their investment.
Commodity Speculation includes both Investment games in which players have some indirect control over asset values, but have a hard time hurting others without hurting themselves; and Collusion games, in which players have huge direct control in manipulating asset values, forcing players to help others and manage shifting alliances.
In Tableau Building games, each player has a visible personal array or tableau of components (cards, tiles, player boards, etc.) which they purposefully build or manipulate throughout the game by spending actions and/or resources (including opportunity costs) and which determines the quality, quantity, and/or variety of actions to which they have access throughout the game.
The array is not merely a place to store resources, to plan out actions, to store a puzzle which must be manipulated, or something that impacts VP's. It impacts the quality, quantity, and/or variety of actions which are accessible to a player. This means that some games may include an array or a tableau but not really be a tableau building game.
During the course of the game, new Actions become available to specific players, or existing Actions are improved. These are often themed as Technologies, but do not need to be.
Sometimes this is expressed as a Tree, where gaining one Tech unlocks multiple other Techs. Or it can be a track, where advancing along the track unlocks upgraded or new Actions.
Tile Placement games feature placing a piece to score VPs or trigger abilities, often based on adjacent pieces or pieces in the same group/cluster, and keying off non-spatial properties like color, "feature completion", cluster size etc.
A classic example is Carcassonne, where a player randomly draws a tile and place it next to other tiles and has a chance to place a meeple on the tile just played.
Players play cards from their hand to the table in a series of rounds, or “tricks” which are each evaluated separately to determine a winner and to apply other potential effects.
The most common way to win a trick is by having the card with highest value of the suit that was led, but many classical card games use the "trump" system (where the certain cards, usually those of a designated suit, will win the trick if they are played.) Occasionally there is a round of bidding to determine this trump suit.
In many trick taking games (though not all), players are required to "follow suit", i.e. play a card of the same suit as was led if they have one. If they do not have a matching card, they must play another card from their hand.
In this Turn Order mechanism, there is a linear “Time Track” with many spaces. Each player has a marker on the track, which indicates where they are “in time.” Markers farther on the track are further forward in time.
The player with the marker lowest on the track (furthest “back in time”) takes the next action. Different actions have different costs in time. The player’s marker is advanced a number of spaces according to the cost of the selected action. Then, the next lowest marker on the track takes an action.
It is possible that the same player takes multiple turns in a row.
More precisely referred to as "action drafting", this mechanism requires players to select individual actions from a set of actions available to all players. Players generally select actions one-at-a-time and in turn order. There is usually a limit on the number of times a single action may be taken. Once that limit for an action is reached, it typically either becomes more expensive to take again or can no longer be taken for the remainder of the round. As such, not all actions can be taken by all players in a given round, and action "blocking" occurs. If the game is structured in rounds, then all actions are usually refreshed at the start or end of each round so that they become available again.
Each prototype posted to #looking-for-a-game includes a list of quick-reference info on the game. If the Players line requests a player range of 2-2, the game meets this Bingo square requirement.
An example list of quick-reference info in a #looking-for-a-game post
eXplore the map with units, revealing the territory's terrain or something significant hidden within the territory; what is revealed will affect the game now and/or later.
eXpand the size of the owned area by claiming territories on the map; gaining or losing territories will affect the game.
eXploit the owned territories by improving them, gaining something, and using it to increase your units and/or power; those 3 things--improve, gain, & use--can happen in any order.
eXterminate other players from the game using units that can be lost; it does not have to be likely that a player can be eliminated from the game, just possible.
If it is impossible to eliminate a player from the game, but everything else (including combat) is just like a 4X, the game is known as a 3.5X.
The four Xes do not have to happen separately, they can be folded together and happen at the same time. However, all four Xes will happen in a 4X game.
This refers to the type of gamer most likely to be interested in this game based on its complexity level.
Each prototype posted to #looking-for-a-game includes a list of quick-reference info on the game. Check the Audience item in this list to compare it against this Bingo square requirement.
An example list of quick-reference info in a #looking-for-a-game post
Card Games often use cards as its sole or central component. There are stand-alone card games, in which all the cards necessary for gameplay are purchased at once. There are also Collectible Card Games (CCGs), where players purchase starter and "booster" packs in an effort to compile a more and more powerful deck of cards to compete with.
Cozy games are relaxed, pleasant games meant to be fun, perhaps a little competitive, but mostly nice. They have gentle themes and engaging presentation.
Deduction games are those that require players to form conclusions based on available premises. These games are quite varied, including several different types of logical reasoning.
This refers to the amount of development progress the designer feels they have made on the game or how close to finished they feel it is.
Each prototype posted to #looking-for-a-game includes a list of quick-reference info on the game. Check the Dev Status item in this list to compare it against this Bingo square requirement.
An example list of quick-reference info in a #looking-for-a-game post
Economic games encourage players to develop and manage a system of production, distribution, trade, and/or consumption of goods. The games usually simulate a market in some way. The term is often used interchangeably with resource management games.
Though not all eurogames are European and not all of them are board games, they share a set of similar characteristics. A game doesn't need to meet all of these to be considered a Euro, but the more of these qualities it has, the more likely it will fall in that bucket.
Player conflict is indirect and usually involves competition over resources or points.
There is very little randomness or luck. When there is randomness, it's more likely to be input randomness (where the player has a limited range of choices to make after a random draw, roll, or pull) rather than output randomness (where the random outcome defines a single option, success/failure).
The focus is more on the mechanics than the theme.
There are multiple viable paths to accumulating points and/or winning.
The free center square: you can mark this one off for the first game you playtest for someone else during the convention weekend. Or, if the first one you playtest for someone else is perfect for another square, you may choose to use this center square for a game you playtest for someone who is testing that prototype for the first time this weekend. (They'll likely add the 🦄 as a reaction to their #looking-for-a-game post if this is the case.)
The "First Playtest of the Weekend" 🦄 applied as a reaction under a #looking-for-a-game post
These games have a "campaign mode" where the game and/or characters change over time, such that the results of one game may influence future plays. Expansions should be added here instead of the base game if they provide the campaign mode and the base game did not.
Games where any number of players can achieve their goals or win. They are typically structured such that players are able to individually pursue goals without being ranked against each other. That would mean a shared tie would usually not be enough on its own unless those ties were mechanically encouraged and enabled. List is in no particular order.
Party games are games that encourage social interaction. They generally have easy setups and simple rules, and they can accommodate large groups of people and play in a short amount of time.
The play time can refer to the estimated time listed under "Test" on the line for Time in the #looking-for-a-game post, or, if you keep your eye on the start and end times of your play session, the actual time it took to play the game before going into feedback.
Each prototype posted to #looking-for-a-game includes a list of quick-reference info on the game. Check the Time item in this list to compare it against this Bingo square requirement.
An example list of quick-reference info in a #looking-for-a-game post
Publication Path refers to the way the designer is planning to bring the game to market -- manufacture and sell it themselves, license the idea to a publisher, or even skip bringing it to market at all.
Each prototype posted to #looking-for-a-game includes a list of quick-reference info on the game. Check the Publication Path item in this list to compare it against this Bingo square requirement.
An example list of quick-reference info in a #looking-for-a-game post
Puzzle games are those in which the players are trying to solve a puzzle. Many Puzzle games require players to use problem solving, pattern recognition, organization and/or sequencing to reach their objectives.
Some board games incorporate elements of role playing. It can be that players control a character that improves over time. It can also be a game that encourages or inspires Storytelling. This mechanic can be viewed as an extension of Variable Player Powers.
Simulation is not a specific mechanism, but more of a property of a game and its mechanisms. Simulation games attempt to create a realistic model of actual events or situations. Often, but not always, this means that some aspects of the situation is worked out in detail.
It's possible for a simulation to simulate hypothetical or fictional events—as long as there is enough information to create a model that would be realistic in that situation.
Solo / Solitaire games allow a single player to play against the game. Even if a game can be played at higher player counts, if it offers a solitaire mode, it qualifies for this Bingo square.
In storytelling games, players are provided with conceptual, written, or pictorial stimuli which must be incorporated into a story of the players' creation. Once Upon a Time uses a selection of words while Rory's Story Cubes include ambiguous symbols. Some games like Snake Oil prompt players to pitch a product, which frequently takes the form of a brief story or vignette.
Other storytelling games include titles such as Tales of the Arabian Nights and Above and Below, game designs in which players don't create their own stories, but instead experience a story from the inside as one of the participants. Games along those lines might present players with a particular narrative situation, after which the player will make a choice that affects which end to the narrative is told — with the results of this narrative affecting the player's standing in the game.
A strategy game is a game in which the players' decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome. Strategy games often require decision tree analysis, or probabilistic estimation in the case of games with chance elements. Strategy games include abstract games, with artificial rules and little or no theme, and simulations (including wargames), with rules designed to emulate and reproduce a real or fictional scenario.
Competitive maneuvers that directly attack an opponent's progress toward victory, but do not directly eliminate any characters or components representing the opponent. Such mechanics include stealing, nullifying, or force-discarding of an opponents resources, actions, or abilities. A take-that maneuver often results in a dramatic change in the players' position of power over a relatively short period of time.
In team-based games, teams of players compete with one another to obtain victory. There are a variety of possible team structures, including symmetrical teams like 2v2 and 3v3, multiple sides like 2v2v2, and even One vs. All.
This type of game often features player to player direct conflict (with the chance of elimination), dice rolling, and plastic miniatures.
A Thematic Game is usually created around its main dramatic theme, which its rules and mechanics aim to depict. Themes typically involve fighting or good-versus-evil conflicts with heroes and villains. Science fiction and fantasy themes are common.
This is contrasted with Strategy Games, also known as "Eurogames." Eurogames are usually built around an elegant set of mechanics, with a more general theme (e.g. Power Grid or Agricola). Themes tend to invoke more everyday events such as trading and building.
Thematic Games are sometimes called Experience Games or "Ameritrash" games (meaning "American-style boardgames"). The latter name can be controversial, but is generally embraced by long-time lovers of the genre and is not considered derogatory.
Games with no win state, but instead outcomes or moments players may pursue. This could mean that no victory is described at all, or that various outcomes are described without assigning value to one more than another. List is in no particular order.
Wargames are games that depict military actions. Wargames are set in a variety of timelines, from the Ancient period to present conflicts and even in the future. Thematically, Wargames cover everything from actions between small units on a very small board to larger, extremely detailed conflicts and even global-scale wars. Although most Wargames are based on historical situations, there are Wargames based on fantasy or science fiction, as well as Wargames based on hypothetical but historically-based situations (e.g., nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the USA). Probably the most popular period for Wargames is World War II, followed by the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War. However, Wargames cover a vast range of conflicts, and if you are interested in a particular war you are quite likely to be able to find a game that covers it in some way.
Word games often require players to competitively use their knowledge of language. Language knowledge in Word games is often focused on spelling and definitions.
The classic Meeple shaped like a person first seen in Carcassonne. Although various shaped board game pieces are often called "Meeples," for the purposes of this Bingo square, we are looking for the classic shape.
This may be a physical item used in a video chat game or a digital representation in the designer's chosen virtual tabletop.
One or more standard 6-sided dice are used in some capacity to build the prototype. They may have the standard 1-6 pips (dots) or custom symbols on their faces.
This may be a physical item used in a video chat game or a digital representation in the designer's chosen virtual tabletop.
The surface of the table in the designer's chosen virtual tabletop has a custom graphic in place of the standard table design. It could be purely for decoration or a stand-in for a custom player mat.
Some virtual tabletop tools allow for buttons that run scripts to perform actions like dealing cards, cleaning up and resetting between rounds, or sometimes even calculating scores.
Cards are one of the most versatile and common components used in tabletop games. Any component made of cardstock (or intended to be in the eventual final physical version of a virtual prototype) you can pull into a deck, shuffle, deal, and/or hold in a secret hand qualifies as a card.
If a prototype you play leaves you thinking "Ah, that made things easier for me as a player," "Wow, I wonder how they got the tool to do that?" or something similar, it qualifies for this Bingo square.
The components are designed to help colorblind players distinguish game pieces by either using colors that look distinct even through colorblindness or by using symbols/patterns in addition to colors.
A square in 3D! They can be any size, opaque or transparent, a flat color, or textured/decorated.
This is not to be confused with the 6-Sided Die/Dice component. If it has meaningful, differentiated symbols on its 6 faces, it's considered a die, whether or not the game requires rolling it.
This may be a physical item used in a video chat game or a digital representation in the designer's chosen virtual tabletop.
A portable surface laid out for playing a game and on which players place and/or move counters or other pieces.
This may be a physical item used in a video chat game or a digital representation in the designer's chosen virtual tabletop. If in a virtual game, the board must be a separate piece from the table.
If something about a digital prototype you play gets you excited to make a new prototype or updating one of your existing digital prototypes to use a similar technique the designer used to make their game, it qualifies for this Bingo square.
Components with a front and back side such as tiles, cards, chips, tokens, etc. may allow some players to look at information other players don't have access to. If a prototype involves different players at the table having access to different information, it qualifies for this Bingo square.
Any two game pieces that combine to make something larger fit this description. This shape of the outer edges could fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces or the art along straight edges of 2 parts could combine to show a complete shape or image. Modular game boards or maps also fit this description.
An image that represents an area of land and/or sea showing physical features. This is most often on a central game board, but it could also be depicted on cards or other pieces. Smaller pieces may also be laid out side by side to create a map with a variable layout.
A game board made up of multiple pieces that can be arranged into many possible combinations. The placement of the board pieces are often (but not always) finalized during game setup.
When a tabletop game uses more than one type of card, each type usually has a different back. If these sets of cards are placed in stacks based on their matching backs, the game uses multiple decks.
When any type of cards dealt to players are placed face up on the table in view of all other players, this is called open hands. Some games may have different types of cards with one type delt to an open hand and another type kept secret.
A printed game surface on which individual players place their own pieces, cards, dice or other game parts.
This is not to be confused with the Reference Card component, which serves only as a rules reference without interacting with game pieces.
This may be a physical item used in a video chat game or a digital representation in the designer's chosen virtual tabletop. If in a virtual game, the board must be a separate piece from the table.
Some digital tabletops offer menus where designers can add written rules for player reference and/or provide a link to a pdf of the rules. In more rare cases you may find a component with flappable pages on a digital tabletop.
A game board on which the pieces move along a line or loop of increasing numbers to help count the points players have earned. This tracking may happen during the game, at the end of the game, or a mixture of both.
This may be a physical item used in a video chat game or a digital representation in the designer's chosen virtual tabletop.
A small, double-sided piece often made of something a few mm thick like cardboard, wood, or acrylic (or intended to be in the final physical version of a digital prototype) used to keep track of resources, points, actions, currency, etc.
The starting game state varies from game to game, through changes to shared game components like the map, and/or changes to starting player set-ups, resources, objectives, etc.
If a digital prototype allows you to draw with a mouse or stylus or to enter your own information into the play surface using your keyboard, it qualifies for this Bingo square.
Casual:
This game expects players to focus more on social interaction than strategy and/or takes under 45 minutes to play in full, including the rules teach.
Medium:
This game involves some strategy and takes 45-90 minutes to play, with no more than 15-20 minutes of that time spent on the rules teach.
Heavy:
This game focuses on strategy and takes 90 minutes or more to play, with 20 minutes or more of that time spent on the rules teach.
Development Status
New:
This is more of an idea to workshop than a game.
Middling:
You have playtested the prototype before, but you expect it to still have bugs.
Nearing Completion:
You know the game works but are trying minor adjustments.
Final Testing:
This will feel pretty close to playing a published game, but you’re still taking feedback.
Publication Path
Self Publishing
The game creator(s) will handle marketing, sales, distribution, and all other logistics of bringing the game to market.
Looking for a Publisher
The game creator(s) are looking for someone to partner with them to handle some or all of the process of bringing the game to market.
Under Contract with a Publisher
The game creator(s) have found a company or individual who will partner with them to handle some or all of the process of bringing the game to market. The publisher and designer might be the same person, but, beyond the self publishing option, a game that is “with a publisher” will publish under a brand that publishes for a variety of designers.
No Plans to Publish
The game creator(s) will not make this game available for sale to the public. The fun of creating and playing the game is all the reward they need.
Publication Method
Crowdfunding
The publisher will produce the game after a large group of people have paid in advance. Crowdfunding platforms include Kickstarter, Crowd Sales through The Game Crafter, Gamefound, Indiegogo, etc.
Retail Distribution
The publisher will distribute the game to retailers such as friendly local games stores (FLGS), Target, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Cool Stuff Inc., etc.
Print on Demand
Also known as POD. The manufacturer can print one copy at a time so that the seller doesn’t need to carry inventory. Popular POD services include The Game Crafter, Drive Thru Cards/RPG, and Board Games Maker.
Another Publishing Method
Other methods may include handmade games, print and play or monthly subscription games, creating a seller account on an online marketplace like Amazon or Etsy, and/or selling from your own website — or anything else the publisher can dream up!
Crowdfunding Status
Planning Stage
The campaign is not yet open for backer pledges. Interested players may be able to follow the project on social media and/or via email updates.
Late Stage
The campaign is either open for backer pledges or has recently finished funding. The publisher is making final tweaks to the product before sending final files to the manufacturer.
Rework Stage
A crowdfunding campaign launched in the past did not meet its funding goal or was cancelled before the campaign ended. The publisher plans to launch a new campaign using lessons learned from past campaign(s).
None
There is no plan for a crowdfunding campaign at this time.
