Lessons from Publishing a Board Game | Calli's Corner
Channel: Unfiltered Gamer
Date: 19/07/2020

My first published board game (co-design credit) is a little unusual - but I learned a lot from that experience and I’d like to share it here on Calli’s Corner - where I share conversational stories, insights and recommendations on board games.

Here’s where you can learn more about MathMINDs Games: South of the Sahara: https://www.mindresearch.org/mathminds-games

A lot of what we did differently during the publishing process stems from coming from the education space and from being a nonprofit. MIND Research Institute’s mission is to ensure all students are mathematically equipped to solve the world’s most challenging problems.  Here’s where you can learn more about the non profit I work for: https://www.mindresearch.org/

Broadly, things that were very different in our board game publishing process:
We put 3 separate games in one box (and really two versions of each), which is more expected for a classroom or school audience than the board game community.
The development and publishing of the game was completely donor funded - we did not crowdfund, which is typical of most indie board game publishers today.
There’s no rule book - instead there’s a story book for each game, in order to make the game more accessible to families who have never played games together before.
Our board game design consisted of ancient strategy games that we modernized and mathematized - which is not a typical theme or mechanic in modern board gaming.

Thank you for watching Calli’s Corner! I hope this was helpful in getting a little insight into nontypical ways to publish a board game, and what I have learned so far. I hope to apply these lessons to my next game, Moonshell: A Mermaid Game, which will be on Kickstarter later this year.

Sign up for updates about Moonshell at http://moonshellgame.com/

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#boardgames #boardgamedesign #boardgamepublishing