Unfortunately both of these events are now cancelled due to the mandatory closure of Meeple Mayhem. We apologise for the inconvenience but hope to bring you all of the things below at another time. On behalf of all the Birmingham Board Game Designers I would like to wish you all the best at this difficult... Continue Reading →

We'd like to announce a special event on the 20th of February. Tyler Lipchen from Panda Game Manufacturing (the company behind our recent Jam) is sharing some insights with us: How does a prototype become a product? What digital tools help it along the way? How does my game receive the finish it deserves? The... Continue Reading →

They're the most important (or only) component in many games: randomisable, concealable, invertible, portable, rotatable, categorisable and packed with information. I've yet to design a game which utilises this potential: my mechanics rely solely on the number of cards in a player's hand. Why have I allowed this to happen? I mostly work with area... Continue Reading →

There are few things harder than compressing the entirety of human history into a video game, and one of them is compressing it into a board game. An example of this is A New Dawn, the latest board game adaptation of the epic Civilization series. In order to meet the Ultimate Challenge, the designers had made... Continue Reading →

At this year's UK Games Expo (UKGE) I, for the first time, booked a stand in the trade hall to demo my board game prototype. I had a great time and would like to share the things I learnt in this article. The advice is aimed at indie game designers like myself who are thinking about having... Continue Reading →

This is the story of how a small group of board game designers became a key part of their local gaming community. It all started in June 2016 at the UK Games Expo’s Playtest UK zone. Several of us had taken our prototypes there to be tested, and were keen to join a Birmingham branch of... Continue Reading →

I have always been frustrated by traditional portrayals of magic. Why, exactly, should waving a stick and shouting a few words in Latin produce a defined, predictable effect? If there’s some power flowing through the world, and I’m able to use it, why can’t I produce any effect I like? This seemed like a good... Continue Reading →

Designer James Baillie first published this article on his online community Exilian. I’ve been modding and designing computer and tabletop games for years in various forms, and whilst I’m certainly an amateur at both arts I thought it’d be interesting to share some of my thoughts on just one or two ideas of how these areas... Continue Reading →