Cardboard Edison

Board game designers: Our 2026 reports on publishing contracts are out! Industry standards to know before signing: 💵 Part 1: advances, credit, creative control 🎲 Part 2: royalties, designer copies, promotion 🌏 Part 3: co-publishing, extra royalties, rights reversion cardboardedison.com/reports

The latest installment in our series on board game publishing contracts is out now! We've been running these reports for more than 10 years, and this report focuses on how the process of signing a game has changed over the years! cardboardedison.com/reports

When deciding on software to prototype cards for your game, what features do you care about? Data merge? Export options? Other things? 🎲✂️

Got a game you wanna show off? I'd love to hear about it. For the first time ever, I'm opening up game design submissions for Coin Flip Games! coinflip.games/submit-a-game

When deciding on software to prototype cards for your game, what features do you care about? Data merge? Export options? Other things? 🎲✂️

This site lets board game designers set up feedback forms and solicit responses from playtesters

How to make your crowdfunding campaign page easy for potential backers to understand—plus a free graphic design template you can modify for your own use

Alright procrastinators, now's your time to shine

Today is the LAST DAY for Designer Badges! We limit the dates they are on sale so we have time prepare all our printed materials for the convention itself. Buy your Designer Badge before MIDNIGHT! www.protoconbc.ca

How to make the most of board game conventions as a designer

This article looks at how a good design can help with a game's teach. Written: tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/10/20/t... Audio: open.spotify.com/episode/3LLg... (Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash) #boardgames #design #rulebooks

New GameTek! The unexpected side of expectation value. gametek.substack.com/p/horse-race...

Submissions for the 2027 In-Hand Game Design Contest on BoardGameGeek for games that can be played without a table are open through January 1

Designed in the DMV runs events around the DC-MD-VA region to connect tabletop game designers with players and enthusiasts. Want to get involved? Join our Discord! discord.gg/25zX87unF

Mini Discus prototype v8: added some flourishes and finally figured out a simple way of doing the ramp! A little more work & then we’ll start production for Indie Games Night Market at PAX Unplugged! cardboardedison.com/discus

Three publishers discuss how they find and serve customers, manage overhead, plan for growth, and more

It may not be that the game is unfun—here are some common reasons a publisher might reject a game they’re pitched

A deep dive into magnetism and the many ways magnets are used in games: thespiel.net/node/1415 Heard while prototyping our own magnetic game, Mini Discus! cardboardedison.com/discus

Dextrous is hosting the Mini Roguelike Hand-builder game design competition. Deadline is November 21. Prizes include subscriptions to Dextrous and other services, meeting time with industry professionals & more. www.dextrous.com.au/blog/competi...

I've updated my list of designers selling their games at the Indie Games Night Market at PAX Unplugged with the new folks of 2026 including @practicalpeng.bsky.social @tricktaking.bsky.social @jamiesabriel.bsky.social @nnoa.bsky.social @mandashafer.bsky.social and more! If I missed you, let me know.

Announcing the newest peer-reviewed series for Carnegie Mellon University Press: games! This week during @meaningfulplay.bsky.social, we're launching our first-ever CFG (call for games) for Promptuary, a playable anthology. www.cmu.edu/university-p... #boardgames #tabletopgaming #stayanalog

A second CMU enters the academic game publishing arena!

It's #CraftWednesday! Do you have a game-related crafting project in progress? It could be a prototype, print and play, upgrading the components of a favourite game, making an accessory or even something larger like a table or games room. Share a picture and join in! Please RP!

These Games Are Not For Sale celebrates artful games made for the sake of it. This one-day festival inside PAX Unplugged will spotlight games that money can’t buy. Come experience games, not buy them: 🚫🪙🚫🪙🚫 🎲✂️ 🪙🚫🪙🚫🪙 🗺️ Pennsylvania Convention Center 📍 Terrace Ballroom 🗓️ Saturday, Dec 5 🕙 10am-10pm

Things are getting pretty meta tonight: prototyping our magnetic game while listening to a podcast about magnetic games… It’s Mini Discus, our game for Indie Games Night Market: cardboardedison.com/discus

Meet Our Sponsors! Returning for 2026 is failfaster.ca ! Fail Faster wants to help game designers make better games by providing them knowledge and structure about how games are made and how they are tested.

“I play games to relax” “I play games to be challenged” “I play games to socialise” “I play games to flex” “I play games to study” “I play games to test boundaries” ALL VALID

Unpub Festival 2027 badges and tables go on-sale tomorrow (10/14) at noon eastern! More info: https://f.mtr.cool/uxzmhpd9mm

Complexity in board games: what it adds and what it costs, via @tabletopgamesblog.com

Ready to print version 7 of Mini Discus! Will this be the one that makes it to Indie Games Night Market??? cardboardedison.com/discus

Making board games not for publishers or crowdfunding, but just for the fun of it

It's Saturday! AMA time. Ask me anything about publishing and design. Also gonna play @necromolds.bsky.social, fix a latch, and attend a local comic book convention today. And then board games!

Working on a new series about what makes for good game experiences. I'll be looking at genres, components, whatever, but I want to start with rulebooks. What to you makes a good rulebook. What makes for a bad one?

Tabletop Testing & Game Night! 30 October Vrijdag 30 oktober is de volgende spel(test)avond. Een weekje eerder dan gewoonlijk. En het wordt een bijzondere avond, want we combineren het met een spelletjes avond waar ook al uitgegeven spellen gespeeld kunnen worden. Kom lang om te spelen, neem een…

I'm looking for a textbook for the Board Game Design class I'll be teaching this spring. The class will be a combo of both game design majors and students who presumably have no experience in game dev. The contenders are Building Blocks of Game Design & Game Design Workshop. Am I missing an option?

Basics of probability theory for game designers: dice, betting, balance, and more

The goal of rulebooks and why they’re more than just technical manuals

Co-design! Do you think game designers should be more similar in their approaches OR more different/complementary in order to successfully co-design? 🎲✂️

If you're a tabletop game designer anywhere in the DC-MD-VA region, join us! discord.gg/HAyvyWAfv

Shooting down common myths among new board game designers about having your idea stolen—and the realistic things you can do to protect your ideas

In this article, I want to look at neoprene's environmental cost across its full lifecycle. Written: tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/10/06/p... Audio: open.spotify.com/episode/5USp... (Photo by Susan Flynn on Unsplash) #boardgames #neoprene #sustainability #environment #recycling

Ticket sales for the Cannes Festival International des Jeux 2027 start tomorrow October 6th at 9am CEST. This event will have various activities for board game authors like the Nuits du Off.

An important component for our Indie Games Night Market game Mini Discus: discuses! cardboardedison.com/discus

My most innovative designs have never been published. Junior game designers often massively overvalue innovation. I was no exception. I have designed at least seven "entire new genre" type of games. I think maybe two of them are any good.

Neat to see our board game licensing infographics on Board Game Beat!

A short video about what the play time listed on a board game box means and how publishers arrive at that number

For its latest 18-Card Challenge, Button Shy is seeking 18-card games that convey the sense of fear. Deadline is November 30. Prizes include $100 cash and publication consideration.

Morning you all! Let's do an AMA today. Ask me about anything from publishing to design.

Zack Strebeck of Legal Moves Law Firm is putting on a free workshop: 🗓️ Thu Oct 15 🕗 8pm ET "I'm putting a full game publishing agreement on screen and marking it up live. For each problem clause, I'll explain what it does to you and what I'd ask the publisher to change." speedrun.legal/teardown/

Submissions for the 2026 Roll & Write Game Design Contest on BoardGameGeek are open through December 1. Prizes include GeekGold.

Seeking opinions! Which aesthetic do you prefer for Mini Discus, our Indie Games Night Market game: top or bottom? (Assume the layout is the same either way.) cardboardedison.com/discus