Making a board game for the first time
I always have board game ideas popping up in my brain incessantly during go to work. Over the years, I’ve tried to pick up a topic and discovered that the idea couldn’t be easily completed. I call my friend who had opened a game shop together during our school days, which he later succeeded in building board games. Then, I joined his team, Lunar Gravity as a hobby. I get a lot of interesting experiences from making the first small game called Sheeptopia.
The idea is straightforward, but it’s incredibly difficult to finish. I’m used to working on publishing the game in a digital form and mobile application. I thought making a board game and printing it on paper would be much simpler. I discovered that these two things couldn’t be compared. There are a lot of differences in the steps and methods.
I have realised that before we finish one game, there may be many more projects, or you may finish another project before the first project we intend to do. My friend said it was normal. Now he has about 200 unfinished games in his notebook !!!.
Time to finish a small game and big game. It’s no different. In the middle of the year, I consulted with a friend that we could have a couple of games this year. At the beginning of the game creation process, everything was very smooth. I feel like we can do more games. We have done 70% so fast, but the last part of the rest is taken so long. I feel like this process is never ended. This is not good enough. There is a very high probability that we will not be able to finish one game and have to do another game instead lol.!!!
We decided to create a small game first to catch up on the Thailand Board Game Show 2020 at the end of this year. It seems that we spent months doing a small game. We have no time to do other games at all. The last 30% of the game before it is finished took a lot longer than I thought. We have to test and solve it several times, keep testing and solved it, even though the last week we were still fixing it with the feeling like it is not good enough, it can be better.
The balancing doesn’t guarantee fun. We’ve been drafting characters and editing them, testing them all along. Later playing with real players, we discovered that the popularity ratings have fallen on the characters that we have added on the last week and have no time to test it, people who played the previous version also like the new one that added unbalancing cords.
The player is the last jigsaw to completes the game. Before the Thailand Board Game Show, my friend and I continued to help each other complete the game until late at night. When we finished the craft version, I felt like this was an ok party game; however, the feeling after finish the event at the end of the day was completely different.
The moment that people react to our games, enjoy the game, laughing and read the names of each sheep we came up with. I felt it all seemed very lively, and that’s when I thought this is was the last 10% to complete the game. It is the last process to decide that the game is really complete.
Lastly, thank you to the organizers and all our friends at Thailand Board game Show 2020. Thank you, everyone, for coming to other game designers and us, to give a beneficial suggestion and buy our games. These are very supportive and encouraging for us.
We, the Lunar Gravity team, still have 200 new games !!!!……
…..That could be done only one game next year lol !!!
