Why community building is an essential skill needed in board game design.
Note: this is a living article, meaning it will be periodically updated with new ideas and sources.
When it comes to board game design, we all know new games need to be tested, and that takes people who are willing to play your potentially very broken game out of the goodness of their own hearts. But community building can do so much more than that for a designer. We need advice, encouragement, understanding, companionship... The list goes on! I think community building is one of the most valuable skills a board game designer can leverage. Here’s why:
Who is there when nobody else is?
The board game design community is a fascinating niche. All over the world there are independent game designers, authors, and artists wondering about the internet looking for interesting new content. These individual contributors to the board game industry know that getting quality feedback on their work is incredibly valuable. Often, they are willing to share their experiences with others simply because they know how much it would mean to have someone give honest feedback in return. They can emotionally identify with you, the designer.
Simply put, you can access the genuine support from designers who have gone, or are going through, exactly what you are right now, all over the globe, at any time.
Find your community, and your community will always be there.
Yes! And…
You may have heard of the improve comedy concept “Yes And”. The purpose of this tactic is to ensure that no matter what any participant shares, it is accepted with openness and added on to by someone else. It helps keep in mind that each participant is going to have a unique perspective on that idea that can be shared, and each perspective has value.
Take your game concept and float it into the internet. You are going to get a lot of feedback. Good or bad, every person who put effort into giving you a new idea about your game is broadening your perspective and increasing your ability to design an awesome game.
Someone may be able to give you a great idea that perfectly fits your theme. Someone else may warn you against taking a specific action which may turn off a potential customer group. Still another person may offer you encouragement that gives you the confidence to push on with your passion project.
Building a community, and opening you and your project up for feedback, is one of the simplest ways to level up your game with fresh perspectives.
Developing a Growth Mindset
A community will challenge your current mindset which can be very difficult for an individual to do for themselves. Modern psychology on a person’s mindset, which was first developed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, indicates that people can have a “fixed” mindset or a “growth” mindset. A person with a fixed mindset believes that his or her creative abilities or level of intelligence cannot be changed even with time or effort; whereas, someone with a growth mindset believes the opposite. Someone with a growth mindset views failure as an opportunity for learning and improvement.
When it comes to designing a game it can be very very difficult to abandon a mechanic, theme, component or anything that feels like a contributor to the value of the game, even if it is the cause of our game’s failure.
But if something in your game isn’t working, your community will help you identify it and help you brainstorm solutions. All together, the hive mind that is your community has a natural growth mindset. Your community wants to help you design the best game, so that it can purchase the best game. Your community does not have the same emotional attachment to the game as you, the designer, may have. Your community will push you, and your game, to grow to its fullest potential. We can lean on our communities to analyze our games objectively without fear of failure and trust that as a group, good solutions to any problems will come forth.
Board game design is a simple way to practice developing a growth mindset, which we can all use to seek out and create better opportunities in other aspects of our lives.
Your Mission
Designing a great game isn’t easy, and it often takes a lot of time. But each designer chooses to do it for a reason. That reason is your game’s mission and it is a critical component to any game marketing campaign. The mission of your game is a piece of you that your game reflects and contributes to why your game is a unique passion project others should be interested in.
If you are having a hard time articulating your mission, your community will ask you questions about your game that can help you get there. When a community member asks about the feeling you want your ideal customer to have while playing your game, that member is asking about your mission. The question can come in many forms and from many angles. Often, when a reviewer is “confused” about something your game made them feel, you’ve lost some touch with your mission.
If the mission is clear, your community can help make sure everything from the overarching theme to the smallest resource cube helps support that mission.
Check, please!
Let’s say you don’t need a community for any of the previously listed reasons. You are an emotionally robust person who never needs encouragement and you have an amazing team with diverse perspectives who can help make sure your game fulfills your mission. I’ve met those teams and that’s awesome! Here’s the thing though, you and your team do not enough customers make. Your first, and likely most supportive, customers will come right out of your community.
Not every board game lover can or is able to be a game designer, for a variety of reasons. But everyone likes being part of a bigger project. By opening your game up for comment, review, and feedback, you are letting others experience being part of your team. Give your community a chance to be part of the game creation experience, if only in a limited capacity. Give them interesting stories they can bring up when talking to others about your game. I’m not saying you need a viral movement to be successful (far from it, actually!). But I am saying that marketing budgets can be sucked away faster than you would believe, and if you are able to foster a happy community who convert to customers and then help you expand your reach to gain even more customers, your game will be in a great place.
How do I build Community?
Community can be built in a variety of ways and on a variety of platforms! That’s what makes it so powerful. You can find the forum that works best for you and your game, and there will be community there for you. We are always exploring new forums for community, but some of the common locations are:
· Social Media Sites (Check out Board Game Design Lab on Facebook for one of my personal favorites)
· Discord
· BoardGameGeek.com
· Local board game stores
· Universities
· Conventions
Certainly, friends and family will be an important aspect of your community as well. It is way easier to buy your buddies a beer in exchange for playtesting your game with you than it is to round up people on the internet who have never heard of your game before. So take care of your friends and family and help them enjoy being a part of your creative project too.
Finding the people who could become your community isn’t enough. You also need to hook them into your project. To do that, you have to put yourself out there. You need to be authentically yourself in sharing what you are working on to encourage others to be interested in your game, rather than the 4000+ other games being produced. You are the one your community shows up for, and your awesome game is what keeps them with you.
Thank you for reading this piece! I’m always looking for new communities to join, so if you have a game you are working on and you want one or two more members of your community, drop us a line! We’d love to learn more about you and your project.
I am not affiliated with any paid products in this article. If I added a link to a paid product, it is only because I think it is valuable and not because I am making any profit from it.