How or where would one start learning about the board game design process? (Quora answer)

One Page: How or where would one start learning about the board game design process?

(This was an answer to a question on Quora.)

I’ve been asked to answer this question, so I’ll answer despite my personal involvement in the answer.

First, it depends on how you want to learn. The best way to learn game design is through doing it with the help of a mentor. There are many degree programs for game development in colleges and universities, some of them called game design even though most all of them are actually game development with little game design. They are also quite expensive. Unfortunately, in many such curricula there will be no one who knows much about actual game design. Moreover, all of these programs are aimed at video game design, not tabletop game design.

Some people can learn by reading. I doubt that there are many full-time game designers out there who haven’t read at least one book about game design. I have to say that the best single book covering tabletop game design is my book “Game Design: How to Create Video and Tabletop Games, Start to Finish.” While it is first a book about video game design, my approach is that you start learning with tabletop games even if your ultimate goal is video game design. So the book is a sort of “guerrilla” approach for tabletop game design as well. The book is available (very inexpensively) in paperback and electronic form on Amazon and other outlets.

Kobold Press offers a few short books about tabletop game design that are anthologies of contributions from many people. (Keep in mind, Kobold publishes RPG supplements, not board games.) There is also a freely downloadable book called “Tabletop: Analog Game Design” from Carnegie Mellon. It is another anthology (I wrote the leading chapter). The problem with anthologies is that they are very hit and miss, and lack a guiding vision (for lack of a better word), an organization that starts with something and goes toward something and ends with something specific. Instead anthologies tend to jump around from here to there with no particular goal.

There are many game design blogs, including my own, that you can easily find with a Google search. Again these jump around from here to there, naturally.


Some people prefer to learn audiovisually. There is an occasional free MOOC (massively online free classes) at sites that specialize in MOOCs. Most of these will be primarily audiovisual. Of course, they are aimed primarily at video games as well.

My “Game Design” channel on YouTube offers 275+ free videos. While I try to cover both video and tabletop games, as a tabletop designer I do tend to lean in that direction, and some of the videos only apply to tabletop design.

In particular you might want to look at:
“Learning Game Design: the Big Picture” https://youtu.be/XffcT0wVW-4

“7 ways to learn game design”
https://youtu.be/XmgbV0ApVOI

“Introduction to ‘new’ online course "Learning Game Design, Part 1"
https://youtu.be/sy1cj8PemEY

There are many other videos on YouTube, but most are aimed at video game design.

There is purely audio material available online. Tom Vasel’s Boardgame University is one (I am interviewed in #27  http://boardgameuniversity.libsyn.com/). The Ludology podcast is about the whys in board games. There are not many podcasts that actually discuss board game design, as, say, the [Board] Game Designers of North Carolina podcast does.

Finally, I offer a variety of game design (and occasionally other) courses on Udemy.com. The landing page is at https://www.udemy.com/user/drlewispulsipher/. Discounts are offered at pulsiphergames.com. These are more or less the equivalent of (usually short) oral books.

People often say, "play lots of games". You need to KNOW lots of games, however you go about that: playing isn't the most efficient for some people. In fact, there are designers who would design a lot more if they didn't enjoy playing games so much.