Anyone can make a board game if they have the proper supplies and some imagination. In this article, we will give you tips on how to make a board game that is both fun and entertaining. All you need is some cardboard, a printer, scissors, glue, and a good imagination!
If your goal is to become a great game writer, this is an easy way to start practising. Read our tips to become an expert in no time!
1. What you will need
First, gather all of your materials. You will need to have some cardboard at home or you can buy it from the store. A printer would be helpful in this situation, because then you can keep everything organized when writing out what each piece represents. Scissors are a must unless you want an extremely flawed game board. Finally, you need something to glue your pieces of cardboard together and some imagination.
2. How to make the board game
Now it’s time to start creating. First, you need a board in which your game is going to take place on. The grid of the board should be about four squares by four squares. You can make it any size that you prefer but keep in mind that bigger boards with more rows and columns give players an advantage over smaller boards. Don’t make things too small if you have bad eyesight like yours truly!
3. Tips for making a good, entertaining board game
Now that you’ve made the board, it’s time to write something down. It can be a race, a battle of wits, or many other things. Just think about what your goal is for this game and write that down on a piece of paper. Here are a few examples:
- A paper airplane race from one side of the room to the other.
- A race with wooden blocks. The player that gets their block first wins!
- A game where you try to find a lost treasure and then return it to your home base (a good board for this would be on a boat or submarine). Make sure that there is some way that they can lose too. A race is a good board for this, but you could make it a counting game too!
Once you have finished writing out what your goal is and the rules to the game, you can start making your pieces of cardboard. Think about what each piece represents and draw them on some paper first so that it’s easier to design each piece later. A good tip is drawing simple, easy to recognize shapes as pieces of the board so that people can tell what they are from a distance.
4. Writing the instructions
Now for your most important job: writing the instructions! The rules should be short and concise, but detailed enough that someone who has never seen a game like this before can understand. Here are some tips for this part of the process:
Use pictures, not words. After all, your pieces are just squares or rectangles of cardboard, so they’re fairly self-explanatory!
Write down what each piece represents first. If you’re writing instructions for a race game, it should say something like, “This is the first place piece” or “The dog’s bone is the finish line”.
Write down where all of your pieces are supposed to go on the board. If possible, draw arrows coming out of each piece that point to where it should be placed. This will help people understand which direction they’re supposed to go if it’s a board game where the pieces move.
5. Several advanced gameplay mechanics
If you want to take your game to the next level, there are a few gameplay mechanics that you can add. The first is pieces representing different characters or teams. These pieces should line up in order from 1-4 and then in the next row they should be 5-8 and so on and so forth in case you want to add more teams later. This is useful for games like Snakes and Ladders or Candyland, where each player represents a character on the board.
Another advanced feature is making cards to use as spinners on your game’s spinner board (cards can be made into spinners by folding them in half length-wise then cutting off the top part that forms a V-shape when cut). Make sure to write down what each picture means when you make them so that your players know.
In the end, it’s up to you how complex your board game is going to be. These tips should help get you started on making a fun and entertaining board game to engage your players!
6. The conclusion
So you’ve made your game board, written your instructions, drew your pieces and lines on paper, and have everything printed out! Go ahead and glue it all together with some quick-drying glue. Make sure that each piece is in the right spot on the board too ! Then sit down with your friends or family and start playing! If you decide to make more spinners, draw them on paper beforehand. If you want to make a new rule for the game, write it down first so that everyone knows what the new rule is if they forget it during the game.
And there you have it! A great board game that people will be playing for hours! I hope you enjoyed this article and thanks for reading.