Postal services around the world that use birds as logos. One of my favorite poster graphics I've made! 🐦✉️
Hey board gamers - your feelings an opinions about games are being turned into slop.
There's a channel called Board Game Critique. All their videos are clearly made with AI. They fess up to this, but they claim that they write their own scripts.
I cannot definitively prove that they don't, but 1/x
I listened twice to the end of this piece about Fela Kuti's use of counterpoint and its influence on Brian Eno and David Byrne. Fascinating musically but also Byrne talking about its influence on him personally makes me think about games... 🧵1/
That sounds really lovely! I really miss that feeling from the very early days of starting to design…need to reconnect with it somehow!
This week's video was a bit tough to make, reflecting on a few things that have happened in the last few weeks in the wider board game design community. Hopefully some folks find it useful.
youtu.be/y3P0gg8dBrs
🎲✂️
“It’s crazy how it has grown globally”: unpublished board game design award Cardboard Edison unveils new finalists as entries more than double since 2020:
boardgamewire.com/index.php/20...
@cardboardedison.com
I absolutely have to remember this!
GDC is coming up, which means it’s almost time for #WhatAGameDevLooksLike! Every year this lights up my socials and it’s such a lovely and celebratory time full of belonging and joy. And every year I keep getting reminded of how much we need it as things in the industry get worse lol
Yes, it just shows the limitations of a format like this - and a reminder that even a game that doesn't do well in a competition can still be published and be sucessful!
In today's video I share some insights from judging entries from this year's @cardboardedison.com award, and some tips that you can apply to your own games, whether you enter them in a contest or not!
youtu.be/9_5Wv6CaHKY
🎲✂️
Q-Workshop, known for their dice products, has released 17 Harry Potter products seemingly overnight and no prior announcement
DO NOT PURCHASE PRODUCTS FROM Q-WORKSHOP
Don’t support those who support megalomaniac transphobes by any means necessary 🎲✂️
For me - and I suspect most tabletop game designers 🎲✂️ - it's not about money or notoriety. It's about a making entertaining experiences for people who *really* get what you are doing.
This review is just a delight. Punchy, quick, and insightful, not to mention flattering. Thank you so much Alex!
Expedition 33 shares a foundational principle with modern board games, and it's one of my favorite things about it.
In virtually every board game I've played, something pushes the players to perform a different action from turn to turn to keep the game interesting. 🎲✂️ 🧵(1/5)
Announcing Walkable City - a 2-4 player coop game published by Fowers Games and designed by me!
Build out public infrastructure as different modes of transit - Waling, Biking, Bus & Light Rail - get denizens where they want to go. Follow the project below!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/fow...
Looks like I'm falling down the Jetlag: The Game rabbit hole...expect some game design commentary in approximately 6 months when I am done watching all the seasons :p
I started a new design and have a playable version and clear next steps—I'm going to walk through my process here 🎲✂️
Step 1: Quick brainstorming in a digital note. Core gameplay is that each player creates runs of cards in front of them to play "ability" cards, which are also points. ~1 hour.
I so feel the exhaustion from being the one in at least 50% of my relationship with publishers having to keep up communication, or have to drag out a response with 3+ emails. It is very tiring.
Something I've been mulling over lately is the level of self-advocacy needed as a game designer.
There is no guarantee that publishers will notice your awesome work. None at all.
In a perfect world that might happen, but in reality publishers will just choose from the games sent to them.
For designers at the start/early of a game, it’s important to look at prototypes of signed games and really internalize how utterly plain and in-fancy your prototypes can and should be, and still be pitch-ready.
Many prototypes are overdeveloped, when you can save time on preparing your pitch! 🎲✂️
I make games because I love every step of the process—the initial idea, the scrappy first prototype, the first playtest filled with glee and failure and hope.
Here’s my scrappy first prototype of Tiny Towns. [1/6]
I think a lot board gamers underestimate the depth of light games and overestimate the depth of heavy games. More moving parts does not necessarily mean a game has more strategy. It often just means there's more noisiness obscuring the impact of your decisions.
I studied a bunch of icons from various published board games while preparing a rule book for Cardboard Edison, with a particular focus on Ian O'Toole.
For those who come after, this article captures what I learned 🎲✂️
rossongames.com/icons
#BoardGameDesign
At the nick of time, I finished my @cardboardedison.com Award judging for 2026! 🎲✂️
It's always a pleasure to be trusted with so many games from so many people around the world, and I hope that my feedbacks can help improve those projects.
That said, 6 general tips I can give for next year:
Thanks Jackson :)
In today's video I go over what I earnt as a full time game designer in 2025, comparing my income over the past few years and how it varies from game to game.
My aim has always been to increase transparency in the industry and help newer designers with what to expect.
youtu.be/avLL2siSmyc
🎲✂️
I've been thinking about game budgets a lot over the past couple of years. There are big chunks of the tabletop market that are able to support publishers and designers, and mostly I think its because of a combination of strong crowdfunding communities + cheap dev costs (often less than 50k). 🧵
That's a really interesting insight! I'm trying to impart interesting and useful knowledge on Youtube, but also want to improve how I'm doing it - but yes its hard to find other Youtube education channels that share this aim.
I completely get that folks should be compensated for their knowledge, it just seems profoundly icky to me in the instance it is set up in this space.
Pandemic creator Matt Leacock on fighting for designers’ rights, working with developers effectively and his publisher ‘pet peeves’:
boardgamewire.com/index.php/20...
@mattleacock.bsky.social
Does the world of Youtube education feel a lot like a Pyramid scheme? The moment any creator in the space gets a bit of traction, they immediately launch a course to teach others. Often these are so expensive the only way for those who get the course is to then set up courses themselves! And so on.
