Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers

Chapter ThreeCreating Tabletop Games

Introduction

Matt Leacock, designer of the award-winning Pandemic tabletop game, advises aspiring game designers to, ‘Find a spark, Keep it simple, Keep it raw, Find the core game’ (Leacock, ‘Cooperation and Engagement,’ 2008). That advice describes this chapter’s lessons in a nutshell.

The learning objectives for this chapter are:

1. Examine ways of generating ideas for games.
2. Ease into game designing by modifying existing games.
3. Understand what constitutes a core mechanic and a game pillar.

Divided by a Common Language

The tabletop and video game industries have a number of terms that they bestow with meanings that are just different enough to cause confusion.

In a video game company, “game development” ...