design a board game

I’m thinking I want to make a board game for my husband for Valentine’s Day. He loves board games so even though this is the cheesiest idea ever, I think I’m going to do it. I’d call it “our LIFE together” and style it after the game of LIFE. The board would journey through our relationship—from the park where we first met, to graduating together, to when we broke up after high school, to moving in together, then onto his proposal, then our wedding, etc. I’m going to make little popups alongside the trail, too. Which means I’d probably have to make it on a clean pizza box or something 3D. And when you land on the box of when we move in together, it’s going to be shaped like a door. You have to open the door and it’ll tell you what that space means.

I have so many ideas! I’ve got eight years of material to use. Some boxes are going to have you draw a LIFE card, which are the funnest part (I think). Kind of like memory lane, they’ll remind us of some memory we have together. Like one would say:

.2004.
S hires a barbershop
quartet to come to school
and sing to L during
one of her classes…
MOVE FORWARD
2 SPACES

And stuff like that. And some would be “bad” memories, like when I tried to scare him off when we first started dating. I told him my dad was a total asshole who would hate his guts. Hehe. Those kind would have you move back a space or two.

I’m super excited. I just can’t figure out where it would end…maybe a sunset, like us “walking off into the sunset”? Or maybe a bowl of cherries…or a little bird’s nest filled with hearts, like us going back to our “Love Nest”? Oh, those are too cheesy!

I know it’s early to start V-Day, but I have a month off from school and I want to use it for something.

I decided to make my own board game. It was a pretty fun project. The hardest part was coming up with an idea that worked and making up the rules. I’ve playtested it a few times and it is actually pretty fun to play. I doubt I’ll ever do anything with it besides play with a few friends, but it makes me feel really great to see how well it turned out.

The key for me on this project was being able to create the design in photoshop (although if you don’t have photoshop I hear gimp, a free alternative, is great). I looked into companies that would make a board for me but the pricing just wasn’t feasible for me. Maybe there is someone out there who can do it for a good price, but I couldn’t find them. I found a tutorial on how to make a board which really worked great.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Folding-Game-Board/

It is obviously homemade but still looks well-crafted. I also looked into sites that will make custom dice and found a couple. It is a little pricey but within the realm of possibility. If anyone is interested I can find the sites that looked promising. But if you are just making it for fun with friends in family taping some small images to the dice works fine. I was worried it would cause issues with rolling but it really didn’t.

So here are the board and dice that I made. Actually there are a lot more dice. 12 for 2 players. Without going into a lot of detail, or posting the rules, the game is called Elemental, and uses the theme of the four elements. You have to fill each of the rings with your pieces. The first person to fill them all gets to attack the other player and try to win. Placing and removing pieces is based on dice battles.

This was a great project. My advice is work out the game in advance, keep it simple, mock it up and try playing it. Adjust it so that the gameplay is fun and then work on getting it made. I’m a little bit of a hypocrite because that’s 100% not how I made mine. I had the board firmly in my head first and then worked up a game to fit it. Which worked, but doesn’t seem like a good strategy. :) Most of all, have fun.

I’m working a bit on a board game based on the Great Locomotive chase during the American Civil war.