Blog Archives

The Difference between QA and Playtesting in Games

11/23/2021

It has only come to light recently in my discussions with other developers, as well as tutors at my University, that when I say I playtested Food Time Battle in Space for six months, or that I’ve been playtesting Space Game for three months now, that I’m just plain wrong.

If we look back at the development of FTBS, it took me roughly about a month to work out all the kinks, and make sure that the game is playable and enjoyable. Due to the game being so tightly designed yet very asymmetric (I only had 12 cards to work with for each player to create and balance that asymmetry) it then took me five months to balance the game. To break that down more simply, development on FTBS was split into:

1 Month Playtesting
5 Months Quality Assurance (QA)

This blog post is going to briefly cover the key difference between the two, as well as discuss what your aims should likely be whilst in these two different phases of development.

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The Advantages of Making Board Games (that isn't money).

11/18/2021

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I have been selling games for four years now and I have never made any money. I’ve generated income to pay for manufacturing, distribution, conventions and marketing material. I have even generated enough income to support five amazing and talented freelancers at various points in time over the last four years of my board game development journey. Still, my board game development company has yet to turn a profit.

Now I’m not saying that you can’t make money from board games, or even that I can’t make money from board games, I’m sure that I will in the next couple of years just due to compounding effects. However, the point is that this is coming from the perspective of someone who has been working flat out full time for the last four years, developing three games and growing a business from the ground up, and hasn’t been rewarded monetarily for their efforts.

Here’s 5 reasons why you should definitely make board games:

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Should you set a release date for your Kickstarter?

11/15/2021

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Consider a mindset change, that’s the first thing you should think about before continuing with this post.

I’ve now run five tabletop Kickstarters, three of which succeeded. The form of my crowdfunding history has gone like this: fail, success, fail, success, success, meaning that my most recent crowdfunding campaign, Langskip, didn’t need to be relaunched, whilst the first two did. This should hopefully suggest to you some sort of learning experience that I have gone through regarding Kickstarter campaigns.

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Input Randomness vs Output Randomness

11/10/2021

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Input randomness vs output randomness. What is it? Why is it important? Which one do you pick? This blog post will answer these three questions as briefly as possible using my game development knowledge.

What is it?
Input randomness and output randomness both describe the flow of randomness with a particular mechanic.

Input randomness is when something random happens, and then a player can choose what to do with the information after the fact. An example of this is when you draw three cards from a deck, and you can choose which one to keep; the three cards you get to choose from were selected randomness, but now once you pick one of those three cards, the outcome of that choice is guaranteed.
Output randomness is when the player does something, and the outcome of that is random. An example of this is when you choose to attack a monster, and you roll dice after making that decision to see whether or not you were successful.

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Is it worth taking an unfinished game to conventions?

11/2/2021

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This blog post will discuss my experiences with taking my unfinished board games to conventions over the last couple of years and briefly mention my observations when watching others do the same.

You may be one of those who struggle with showing someone something you have worked very hard on unless you think it is 100% finished, polished and perfect. And that's fine. However, today I am here to try and give you an abundance of reasons why you might want to reconsider your strategy when making games.

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Author

Hello, my name is Niall Crabtree, and this is my comprehensive blog showcasing all of my game development
endeavors and successes, as well as essays on game design.

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