My husband's and my first anniversary recently passed and I wanted to do something along the traditional lines of paper. We're both huge nerds so I decided to make a board game for him.

Everything was designed on Procreate, printed on cardstock, cut and put together by me!

I went waaay too crazy with it, but I'm honestly so proud. There's about 170 cards, one board, and 3d printed pieces (not my stls). Took me about 6 weeks from idea to boxing, I may even clean it up and try to publish it eventually.

We're finally getting to play it tonight, so technically the first play test of many!

Edit: Thanks so much everyone, I can't explain how much the support means to me! I added a comment explaining some of the process if anyone is interested!

An idea of mine to improve the management of the game, with smileys lit up for money, houses and hotels, for the unexpected cards and more

What do you think?

Is it impractical? Yes. Does it make seeing the positions on the track harder? Also yes. But damn does it look cool.

I've been working around 3 years on this project and I feel like it's finally come into its own. Game design is a very rewarding process, and it's been a pleasure talking with people in the industry or people who are genuinely just passionate about board gaming. Let me know what you think below if it captures your attention. And also feel welcome to talk about any game design-related questions, doesn't even have to be about this project, I'm always keen to talk about it :)

Also, here's a link to info on the game if you want to learn more about it -> BABA'S HOUSE

So this is my dining room tonight - usually I bring out the regular box of the game, but this time the board and pieces are all built out of LEGO.

Question to you all: would you try a session like this, or would you always stick to the classic board?

(And yes – it’s not just for the looks! It's fully playable, even though I spent 16 months fiddling around with it until everything was working perfectly fine 🙈)

Hey everyone, I thought I would share one of my latest projects to the community. We love dice towers, but wanted to make something more unique with the castle scene.

I found this idea here and thought it was pretty cool! So I bought a jar and filled it, but I never thought I would be almost completely filled already!

Do you recognize all the games?

Some might not be visible, but I didn’t want to shake it.. yet!

Hey everyone 😊

We make a lot of board game stuff and we fell in love with the war of the ring board game a few months ago and decided to make a 3d printed board for it. This is our second board. We previously made one for Dune Conquest but that wasn’t nearly as detailed. The board is almost done? Still some stuff missing, but we’re very, very close to playing a match on it.

To get ahead of a few things:

• Of course we love lotr, but this is a board game board first and foremost. We know there are some small inconsistencies but there’s no point in making it lore accurate when we then can’t play on it :/ That doesn’t mean everything we did was right! We researched a lot but who knows. But the locations of regions, nations, and borders as well as the names can’t be changed. But feel free to tell me obvious glaring mistakes
• Yes, it took really long to design this :D We started in April and have worked on it a few hours every day since then. We usually did 10-14 hours on the weekend as well.
• Designing is one thing, but this also takes a very long time to build. The board is obviously no one and done print but consists of many tiles which consist of many, many components. Everything is assembled and glued together by hand.
• There are some cosmetic issues. Roads that lead to nothing, a missing tower here, a missing town gate there, stuff like that. I think we caught all of it now and have fixed it in our files but not reprinted the tiles yet.
• For those who know and like the game: Yes, there’s still some stuff missing in my pictures. Especially the markers for towns, fortifications, and strongholds. They are magnetic and can be added to the map at any time (the magnets are already imbedded in the board). We also made alternative tiles for the expansions (e.g. Dale) and there will also be an alternative version for the tower in Orthanc (so we can pop the Saruman mini on top of it :D). The board is bigger than the original. You can see it in one of the pictures that we increased the size, and we also removed some bits from the board (like card areas) to get even more out of the available space.
• Can’t really use this without the board game. It’s just a board, and requires the cards, tokens, etc. to play the game.
• We don’t share or sell the stl files.
• Disclaimer: It was real darn dark in the room so I brightened the pictures up, but that’s it.

Hope you like it 😊 Let me know your thoughts!

My partner wanted to introduce some games into our usual dinner parties, so I thought it might be fun to give everyone a menu to choose from rather than throwing them in the deep end with the full collection.

The group as a whole aren’t board game players as such, so I tried to keep the selections simple and avoided spending too much time explaining each one - instead, keeping it simple and giving the vibes of each in the descriptions.

While they aren’t my usual must-plays to have on the table, each of them seemed like a decent kick-off point for anyone new to the hobby.

Choices were narrowed down by needing to accommodate five inexperienced players, but I’m pretty happy with the spread on offer overall.

Everything went off without a hitch, and I reckon we may have converted a couple new players that night!

Made with Canva and printed/laminated at home.

About a year ago, many in this forum provided some helpful guidance as I was seeking feedback on gaming tables. I’m happy to report that after months of searching, we located an Amish woodworker in central Wisconsin who specializes in tables specifically. He has made pool and card tables so that was helpful conceptually, but he’d never made anything quite like this. It took a couple visits and several phone chats between my husband and the woodworker to hammer out the specifics, but we are in love with the end result. We’ve been using it for a couple of months now and everything has been just as we dreamed of. Some highlights:

-there is a hidden rail around the entire perimeter with magnets. We had him make custom cup holders, wine holders, and gaming trays (double-sided). We also have different depths of the silver cup inserts to accommodate different height glasses (rocks glass vs pint glass).

-there are 6 outlets around the gaming table, each with two plugs and 2 USB-C inputs. We intentionally made these the size of a standard outlet (he even made custom outlet covers for them) so they are future-proofed to whatever comes after USB-C—we can just swap them out. This part was done by a local electrician the woodworker knows.

-it has inset lighting that is built up into a groove he made for the light strip so that it doesn’t shine in your eyes while playing. Controlled with a remote—can be a solid color or slowly rotate. Also done by the electrician.

-the two ends of the table can be game master stations. There are 6 removable leaves. The table leg base comes off so that we can move it in the future.

-it’s made with hard maple with a warm reddish-brown cherry stain. Table size is 50” x 84”.

-we ended up getting chairs made as well in the same stain—because the back is curved, they are some of the most comfortable chairs I’ve ever sat in.

They do NOT have a website but do have a brick and mortar shop and a telephone—happy to provide it if anyone wants to explore their own custom table. Please DM me if you want the contact info. He really enjoyed making it and I think is interested to do more. Fair warning that it’s in the $10k range just for a table like this, plus delivery.

Growing up, my family and I would play a live auction art board game called Masterpiece all the time. It was an easy, intuitive, and super fun game the likes of which I to this day haven't found. Players would bid on various famous paintings, each with a hidden monetary value which would become known to a player after they purchased it. You could then sell your paintings to the bank or try and auction them off to other players in hopes of making a profit. It was fast-paced and highly interactive, though going back to the game as an adult, there are a few aspects of the game which haven't stood the test of time.

For years I've had ideas bouncing around in my head to improve the game. Two years ago, I began a project to publish my first board game and bring the iconic experience to modern playgroups and families. Through this process, I discovered the unfortunate story of Masterpiece's origin.

In 1969, a highly accomplished artist named Christian Thee pitched his idea for a board game he called ARTIFAX to the Parker Brothers publishing company. His game was rejected, but one year later Parker Brothers released his game under the name Masterpiece, without any mention of his name or payment to him for the idea.

After an 8 year law suit, Christian was awarded $473,000 of compensation for the theft. Parker Brothers made $9 million from Masterpiece in it's first year on the market. Thee's name never appeared on any reprints of the game.

After learning his story, I spent months studying his amazing art and trying to contact his estate to see what I could do to honor his legacy. One month ago, right as I was preparing the Kickstarter of my spiritual successor, Pantheauction, I finally heard back. Christian's associates were ecstatic as I was at the chance to spread awareness of his founding role in the auction board game genre.

Pantheauction now has only 5 days left to reach it's funding goal. If we reach publishing, we will have Christian's name on the front of the box to show appreciation for him inspiring this project and an entire genre of board games.

If you care to learn more about Pantheauction, check out our kickstarter or my playthrough of the game with Paula Deming! We so badly want Christian's work to be known, and to bring such a fun experience to modern board gamers.

I designed and printed this game last month. It's free to download over on makerworld

The general rules are based off scrabble but there's some significant changes, extra special tiles and obviously hexagonal pieces.

I tried to cover all the rules and questions I came up against whilst play testing, but I know there are still rules to refine. I'm far from a professional with board games, and I've certainly never designed my own before!

I have plans for 2 additional special tile types I think would mix it up some more aswell as version 2 of the board.

Just thought I'd share!

Link to Buy ($39.99): https://www.craftthecrown.com

Board Game Geek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/469254/craft-the-crown

Craft the Crown is an economic strategy game where players must craft their way to a fortune. Players can draw any one of 56 unique crafting recipes, which they can only play if they own the required ingredients.

Each turn, players can take as many actions as they'd like:

• Craft new Elements, Tools (one-time use disrupters) or Sites (passive upgrades) from other Elements
• Buy or sell from a shared Market
• Use Tools to help yourself or disrupt others
• Discard cards you don't want, or reserve them for later
• Trade or negotiate tactics with other players

Players must balance short-term gains against long-term strategy. With hidden hands, shifting economies, and player-driven deals, adaptability is key. Will you be the first to amass 50 Gold, or will you forge the Crown to win instantly?

-----

This has been so fun to make over the past year. What started out as sort of a combination between Catan & Monopoly has grown to become something completely different and immensely satisfying to build and play. I've made a ton of online games and puzzles before, but it feels so good to have finally been able to make something physical. I've learned a lot throughout the manufacturing process and would be happy to answer any questions for people thinking about making their own game.

This is a limited first edition test run of 1,000 boxes only. I decided not to go the kickstarter route because I wanted to focus deeply on perfecting the mechanics of the game as opposed to making things like reach goals. I'm actively looking for feedback and an artist to bring some life to the project before moving forward with full distribution (if I even think it's good enough for that). I hope people enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it!

Hey everyone! The game is in Russian, but I still wanted to share my work with someone! 😁

I drew all of these during my work shifts, so I had to stick to a single color.

The most frustrating part? By the time I finished drawing them, I realized the game's mechanics weren't very good at all.

Oh well. Time to try something new!

Now I'm thinking of turning this into something more like Warcraft: building and upgrading structures on a shared map, commanding mercenary squads, and expanding your kingdom by capturing locations and gathering resources.

It's a pretty big change of direction, but that's part of the process, I guess!

This table was tough, as it was my second major woodworking project. First was the built-in, and I wanted them to match. I used AI to help me get an idea for what I wanted, used SketchUp to draft it, then asked a buddy cabinet maker for tips. He described it as a big picture frame... Lol. Wood was red oak and painted pine and the game surface material is a polyester micro suede material with a foam underlayment. It makes sliding and picking up cards easy. Wife requested cupholders, so I made those too. I'm not done yet, still need to go to Tandy leather and get a big side of leather for the table topper that I'll dye, stitch and glue down.

I’m creating the worst board game possible for my board game obsessed best friend. He hates strictly luck based games. So obviously I’m making a luck based game in an obnoxious box that won’t fit nicely on his shelf, maybe a perfect sphere or top heavy Gömböc?

Now is your time to unleash your evil genius. What game mechanics drove you crazy? What drove you nuts when playing a game? What made you put a game on a shelf to never be played again?

I have a 3D printer, disposable income, and too much time on my hands. Help me create the ultimate monstrosity!!

ETA:

You all are hilarious! Here is what I’ve seen so far:

• Random elimination of the player two seats to the left; but you can’t leave because you can get pulled back in, obviously with minuscule odds.

• What’s better than losing a turn? Losing two turns!

• First player is determined by whose parents have been/were married the longest, multiplied by how many children they have, multiplied by their age differential, all divided by 3.7. Dice roles are used to determine turn order, every other round.

• Dice with random symbols.. but repeating on different dice with different values.

• Incorporate an unnecessary annoying “your, you’re, you are, you ‘ are, ur, u r” mechanic from keep talking and nobody explodes.

• Changing victory conditions

• Unnecessary math

• Off balance miniatures

• Off cut and pre bent cards

• Resource collection that allows you to buy cards to make the game worse

• Cards with QR codes with ads is hilarious

• Card that allows you to instantly win, second place.

• Inconsistent art, font, size

• Circular reference rule book with grammar good

• Changing seats and hands

• Tons of little pieces with no bags.

• Tons of little pieces on the board? Doesn’t matter, take a picture and turn the board over for act 2. Obviously replacing the pieces where there originally were in act 1.

• Constant required taxi quests like needing transport 5 things from one side of the map to another to continue, but you can only carry one at a time.