We are at yet another board game convention, recording at CanCon 2016. We take some time to take stock of what we’ve achieved in our game design journeys in 2015 and look ahead to what excites us in 2016.

Kim Brebach – @secretbasegames / secretbasegames.com

Aaron Lim – @ehronlime / theactionpointspodcast.com

Sye Robertson – @syelon / syelon.com

Episode link below or on iTunes, and feel free to send us any feedback at mail@theactionpointspodcast.com (for now). You can also follow us on Twitter as @victorypointers.

Victory Pointers Episode 008 – CanCon, Looking Back at 2015 and Ahead to 2016

What we talked about

2:30 The impact of timing and the lag between designing and publishing games

9:40 Designing with the constraint of an existing IP (Sye’s been working on a board game design tying in to Rule & Make’s Rise to Power)

11:00 Playtesting games at a general board gaming event, managing expectations of prototypes

15:40 Planning ahead and setting output goals for making board game design a career

19:20 Connecting with the board game community and building networks

21:20 Global Game Jam

29:00 The importance of board game communities and conventions for designers

33:30 Good Games Publishing to bring Unfair to Kickstarter in 2016

36:00 Being a game designer vs a game developer

41:10 Learning about global distribution, retail and attending events overseas

43:30 Taking successfully Kickstarted games to retail

49:10 Portal Games announced First Martians; app integration in board games

53:00 Hoping for cross-pollination of board game and video game creators

54:40 Tabletopia and online virtual tables, for playtesting and promotion

56:30 Legacy games and narrative design in board games; meta-Legacy games

Links to what we talked about

• CanCon
• Good Games Publishing
• Art & Graphic Design for Tabletop Games
• Global Game Jam
• Concentric Games (September 2016)
• PAX Australia (4 – 6 November 2016)
• BorderCon (10 – 13 June 2016)
• Looking for Gamers (9 – 10 July 2016)
• MeepleCon (9 – 11 December 2016)
• Malaysian Table Top Game Designers
• Games Laboratory Incubator Playtesting Meetup
• Tabletopia
• VASSAL
• Tabletop Simulator

Games we mentioned

• Monstrous
• Lanterns: The Harvest Festival
• Robots & Rockets
• Rise to Power
• Just Chocolate
• Giant Snail Will Not Prevail
• Unfair
• Camel Up
• First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet
• Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
• XCOM: The Board Game
• Alchemists
• World of Yo-Ho
• Wits & Wagers
• Cards Against Humanity
• Jackbox Party Pack
• Tharsis
• Battlestar Galactica
• A Game of Thrones
• Ophir
• Chronicles: Origins
• Explorers of the North Sea and The North Sea Runesaga
• Guns & Steel

Music: Something Small (Instrumental) by Minden is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. Based on a work at http://needledrop.co