Reporting for duty at @cardboardedison.com HQ for some 2026 judging!

Can't wait to see what y'all submitted this year!

Truly exhausted by this timeline where I see vagueposting about something that happened and then I look to see what happened and it's far worse than anything I could have possibly imagined.

I know this website has a lot of room for improvement, but one thing I continually appreciate is the fact that I can enter a string of words, flip a switch, and then never have to see them again.

Episode 258 - Interview with Heather Newton YouTube video by Board Game Blitz Podcast

Today’s episode is an interview with Heather from @protospielo.bsky.social ! I also talk about Escape Comics: The Alien Ship (an escape room mixed with comic book on Kickstarter now)
youtu.be/W03TjiTgILk?...

Saving this for the day when I inevitably need to know how to do this.

Thanks! Hoping to do a small print run at the end of this year unless a publisher picks it up. The best place to stay tuned for now is just following along on Bluesky.

I would guess most designers are thinking about UX even if they aren't calling it that.

What likely IS true for you is that you're designing games with the intention of a person playing them. I think it's really important to consider how you welcome that person.

You're responsible for giving your game a voice. I think it's worthwhile to consider what that means as soon as you can.

The caveat to all of this is I'm a graphic designer. The effort it takes me to iterate on elaborate prototypes is relatively minimal. That's the main reason I recommend most designers don't work this way.

I do it because it's easy, fun, and helpful for me. That might not be true for you.

My prototypes also have a distinct look because I reuse my color palette for every game I make. I'll also reuse card templates, icons, textures, and symbols.

I have a whole look library to pull from so I can focus on the unique design problems of a game and skip the stuff I've already solved.

A closeup of two cards from Pax Playground. The cards have a simple color coded texture, minimal iconography, and language that explains what the cards do.

Look at what I'm using for placeholder art in Pax Playground. It's color coded dots. There no figures. No action. No story.

Guess how many people brought it up at Unpub Festival? None. The story of the game tells itself through the things you do. The things you do are informed by the onboarding.

Generally speaking, I agree with conventional wisdom on this. Fancy art is unnecessary. AI generated assets are useless and unethical. But I do think you can communicate a lot in an early prototype through immediately readable visual design.

I do a TON of solo testing before I publicly playtest a game because I want to start testing onboarding in the first test. This means my early prototypes often look more polished than conventional wisdom would recommend. I want my games to feel extremely welcoming right away.

I believe one of the biggest barriers hobbyist games have to new players is onboarding. The rulebook is a big part of this, but it's also how your game is presenting itself. How does it communicate the storytelling and systems through its UI? How does your game say "Hello?"

I should preface this with a the usual disclaimer that this is the process I use. There's no one true way to design a board game. This might not be the right process for you, and I'm only sharing this because I think there's some compelling things to consider even if you don't follow what I do 1:1.

First of all, feedback like this from one of the designer friends I admire the most means the world. So thank you, Marceline!

Second, this feels like a great opportunity for a lil chat on why my prototypes look like they do.

If you're curious, follow along for a 🎲✂️ thread:

Thank you! It's certainly not on "How to Teach" levels of production, but it does the job!

It's on Screentop, but I still need to update a few things post-Unpub Fest and upload the rulebook. Once that's ready, I can make it available for folks to check out!

Thanks so much! It's been testing really well and folks seem to enjoy it!

Thank you! I'm hopefully aiming for a PAXU Night Market release unless it gets scooped up before that happens!

Of course! 💛
Players are new kids at the playground trying to fit in by having the same preferences in toys as the kids who are already there.

I'm basically trying to distill the player dynamics and mechanisms of Pax games into a non-historical and non-violent 20 minute pocket game.

A 3D rendering of Pax Playground. A selection of colorful cards are laid out to create a map of a playground. Some actions cards are laid out around the map. Red, yellow, and blue cubes are placed on top of the map.

Me:
There's no need to be making 3D renders of Pax Playground right now. You should be working on applying for jobs.

Also me:

I won't be at PAX East, but some of my favorite people in the tabletop world will be!

Swing by the Unpub area, playtest some in-development games, and tell the staff I sent you! 💛

Great news! Following feedback from Unpub, it's now possible to encounter up to 10 bears. Dreams do come true.

Also shoutout to the continually amazing @unpub.org team. This was my first year working the event as a board member and I'm so proud to be a part of this organization. It's a joy and honor to be working with you all!

I also tried a far too brief run of Naming Lil Guys by @hejhog7.bsky.social. It does what it says on the box. You're just naming lil guys. It's delightful. 10/10

A few standouts I played were Sneaky Squirrels by Joe Kell and Threed by @rollplusfun.bsky.social. Sneaky Squirrels is a tactical risk assessment and memory game. Threed is a wonderfully brain burning trick taker/sliding image puzzle. Both were incredibly clever. I can't stop thinking about them.

@lunarpunk.games ran playtests of Camp Charmwood. I'm so proud of where this game is going. Matthew and Xoe are doing incredible development work and I'm so grateful for all the love they've put into it. It sounds like playtests went extremely well.

I mostly focused on Oar Deal and Pax Playground and got amazing feedback on both.

Playground is feeling way closer to done than I expected. I'm going back and forth on if I want to pitch this or release it as a night market game. I'm just not really sure if there's a publisher who would want it.

It's taken a few days to ease back in from #UnpubFestival. It was a huge weekend, and based on what I'm hearing it sounds like y'all had a great time as well!

Here's a little recap from my end: 🧵