I’m going to offer some advice to new game designers here. It’s based purely on my own experience, and other veteran designers may disagree with me, but I strongly suspect most will back me up here (I’ve actually written about several who I know would agree in previous posts). The advice is applicable to tabletop game designers and trading card game designers alike, and it’s something I’m practicing right now on multiple projects.

Get yourself a design/development partner.

I’m sure there are plenty of arguments for having more than two designers on the project, but I’ve found that in the early stages, a team of two feels best. You’ve got somebody to sanity check with and help keep things rolling, but not too many cooks in the kitchen.

I covered this a little more broadly last week (in a post, by the way, that has absolutely blown up by the usual metrics of this blog) in the context of working with an experienced development team. The games I’m currently designing are operating on a much smaller scale, but the same philosophy applies: no man is an island, and unless you’re designing solo games aimed exclusively at yourself, at some point you’ll need another set of eyes to look at your design and provide experienced, useful feedback. Might as well find a trusted partner early in the process.

I’ve got two different TCGs in the design phase on my plate. In both cases, there are two designers guiding the growth and refinement of the idea. In the long run, it’ll be great to have two designers involved just because of the sheer volume of work that goes into making a TCG (if you’ve never done it before, imagine the scope, then multiply it by at least two), but there are plenty of other benefits before we even get there.

In one project, I’m happily the “second”, as my long-time friend — another very experienced game designer — came up with the idea, built his first structural card set and physical prototype, and then later asked me to ride shotgun with him. While I’ve designed a number of cards for the game, my primary contributions so far have been more on the testing and development side. I am the second set of eyes that helps assess when cards are too strong or weak, when mechanics are fun or confusing, and when the whole thing seems to be humming cohesively. I’m also the “tech” guy at this stage, building and maintaining our digital playtesting space on Tabletop simulator.

In addition to providing sound feedback and being a second set of hands to pilot decks in playtests, there’s been another less obvious impact of my involvement in the game design. We meet regularly, usually twice a week, to look at the game, make edits, playtest, spitball solutions to rough spots, and so on. And while all of those things are obvious and vital for progress in game design, it’s the regular meetings that can be tough to stick with when you’re flying solo. By bringing me on as a partner in the process, my friend committed to and locked in a consistent pace for making forward movement. In game design — especially in indie game design, when there’s no publisher with a project manager and set production schedule involved — momentum can be one of the hardest elements to control and maintain. Knowing you have a constant partner to help keep that ball moving down the field can make an enormous difference.

The other TCG on my desk has worked slightly differently so far. For that one, everything began with a client who had created an IP, commissioned art assets based on it for another project, and saw an opportunity to expand the use of that art. He sought out advice and partners through someone very well connected in the industry, and that person pointed the client to me and another Seattle-area game designer, Dave. Dave’s the guy who recommended Component Studio to me (Also covered in a previous post), and he’s also worked professionally on a number of other trading card games. At risk of coming off as arrogant, the advice the client got from our mutual friend was excellent, and the client did well to bring two seasoned game designers onto the project.

From the beginning of this assignment, Dave and I have been able to offer a lot of point-counterpoint things for the client to consider. We both have a deep knowledge of the history and landscape of TCGs and similar game models. Early on, I asked the client if he’d considered the more buy-the-whole-game-at-once Living Card Game model as an alternative to the collectible model of a TCG. Dave, it turns out, had once written his own piece comparing and contrasting the two game types, and offered a really nuanced explanation of why he saw the collectable model as the more viable one for this project. The client chose to continue with the goal of creating a TCG, and I was glad there was a well-reasoned conversation that informed that decision.

Since then, Dave and I have each created our own models for a game structure, and we’ve played both of them together as a duo and with the client. The two models are pretty different, but both very good, and with equal chances of satisfying the needs of the client and the anticipated audience. There are very distinct places in those two games though where each of us has influenced the evolution of the game.

My first model was built around a central process that didn’t do a great job of pacing itself. Dave was able to look at it and quickly give sound advice on how he felt I could iron out some of the issues. In that same workshopping meeting, I got to play Dave’s game. It was very good, but I saw a central element that felt like it was missing something. It took only a few minutes for us to zero in on a solution.

Not only were we each able to help tune and improve the other’s game, both of those solutions seem to have pulled some direct influence from what was working well in the other game. Both games have begun to converge towards a shared feature that makes both feel really good for the client’s IP and vision. I have complete confidence that when we start showing the two games off side-by-side to folks outside our circle, whichever model we settle on moving forward with will be great, and will probably adopt even more of the other game in further development.

And while all of this has been about TCG design partnerships so far, I can point to plenty of places where it’s all been every bit as applicable in tabletop board game design as well.

From late July through the first week of November, I was working on a contract with a pretty well-known publisher who needed a developer that could help move a game design from one of their in-house designers moving toward the finish line. I had a lot of experience designing and developing that kind of game before, and knew the potential audience well. I’d also managed playtests for that sort of game, and had a slate of methods and tools ready to go. The designer had plenty of experience themself playing similar games, but was short on bandwidth for handling development and overseeing playtests.

I was able to shore up the parts that the designer couldn’t commit full time and attention to. I dug into data and analytics to identify places where the “math” of the game could be improved. I served as the designer’s sounding board as we made edits. In short, I was a compass that helped keep the designer moving towards his goals for the game. In the end, we’d both tell you that we learned each other’s patterns and preferences well in that time, and look forward to the eventual announcement and release of that game. (It’s really good, in my opinion and that of many, many playtesters.)

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One last “plus” to having a design partner: creating a new game can be very exciting. You’ll constantly want to geek out about the coolest new elements of the project and the direction it’s heading in. When your partnership is good, the other designer will want to too, I guarantee it, and you’ll have someone right there who can double up that thrill with you.

Never underestimate the psychological benefits of having a co-pilot on the journey.

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