There are a lot of questions here. And there are great resources both online and in print to help you with some of them. But when we were starting out, it was tough to find info on how to make a board game prototype or how to make a card game prototype. So, we thought we’d capture some of the ways we’ve done it to make things easier for those starting out.

In this post, we’ll cover a quick intro to prototyping and testing since they go hand in hand. Later, we’ll look at this in more depth and we’ll look at how to mock up a card game and game board. Many board games include cards so it’s good to learn how to make both even if you mainly want to focus on board games…

It’s rare that you can make a game that won’t need changes from the first concept.

Knowing how to prototype or mock-up your own games is important. Why? Because it’s always best to iron out “bugs” in your game when it’s cheap and easy to make changes. It’s rare (read: near impossible) that you can make a game that won’t need changes from the first concept. Changes become more expensive—and take longer—the further along you are in the process. Once someone else is making expensive prototypes for you, it’s no longer cheap or easy to make changes. So DIY (do it yourself) pays off—a lot—in the beginning.

Back to the Beginning

Let’s assume that you’ve already got your initial board game/card game idea thought out and are ready to move on to mocking up an early prototype. Before you begin prototyping, it’s always helpful to have thought about your game at a high level and make sure you have at least your basic ideas captured. For that, use sticky notes, blank paper, graph paper, drawing materials, flowchart or “mindmapping” software, a spreadsheet…anything that’s good at letting you brain dump ideas and information and (this is key), letting you change both later. Most of these tools are cheap or free.

Also, remember that prototyping can also be a great tool for sparking new creative ideas, or improving them. So don’t always wait to start on mockups until you think your idea is 100% perfect, or you’ll never get started.

And Beyond

In our next post, we’ll talk about why to make a prototype. Hint: protos aren’t important for the reasons that many new game designers think.

Names are important for games today. A name says a lot about a product, and can instill a sense of fun. For example, the name “Flibbix” comes from the words “Flip,” “Blend,” and “Mix.” These describe how you make a board game (or build a board game board) with Flibbix. Plus, we think the name’s kinda fun to say.

But some games are named for historical reasons. For example, American “Football” has a funny name, considering a foot only touches the ball a few times a game. It turns out that the game is a decedent of Rugby (or officially: “Rugby Football”), where you actually do use your feet on the ball…hence the shortened name “Football.” I guess they couldn’t call it “Handball,” since that name’s already taken. International “Football”—called “Soccer” in the US—seems to fit the name better since that game is still mostly about feet.

Back on topic, today we’re really not here to talk about names, but games. No matter what kind of football you prefer, there’s a classic indoor game that’s a blast to play. It’s especially a great game for those times when you don’t have any other games around: all you need is a piece of paper, a table, and a partner to play. Plus it’s a DIY (Do It Yourself) game. And we love DIY. By the way, you can mix this into your Flibbix game. Land on a Custom Tile and you can have a Finger Football shootout to see who gets to move ahead 8 spaces.

For those who haven’t played before, Finger Football is loosely based on the idea of American Football. The funny thing is that “Finger Football” is an even more mixed-up name, since there’s no foot or ball in the game at all. It’s a blast, though.

How to play:

Items needed:
- 1 piece of paper. US letter-size paper (8.5″ x 11″) works fine. A4 paper likely works as well.
- A rectangular table

Number of players: 2

How to Make a Finger Football:

Follow the steps in the images below to make your own Finger Football:

Playing for a Touch Down:

1. Flick or slide the Finger Football across the table towards your opponent’s end of the table. The goal is to get it all the way to their end of the table so that it’s sticking slightly over the edge of the table without falling off.
2. If you’re able to get the Finger Football to go slightly off the opponent’s end of the table, without falling off, you score a “Touchdown” (6 points). You can now try for a Field Goal.
3. If you slide it off their end of the the table, they can try for a field goal (see below) and get 3 points for making a field goal.
4. If you don’t slide it far enough (so it’s on the table, but not hanging off), then the other player “receives possession” and it’s their turn to take a shot for a touch down….from wherever the football is located.
5. If the football goes off of the sides of the table, it’s out of bounds, and the other player can go for a touch down from the point where it went off the table… or straight across the table from that point.

Playing for a Field Goal

1. You or your opponent should hold your thumbs and index fingers in the shape of an “L” and a backwards “L” so that the index fingers point at each other and thumbs point up. It should look the bottom corners of a picture frame. That’s the field goal.
2. You or your opponent hold the Finger Football so one point of the triangle is resting on the table, one held by a finger on top, and the third points towards the field goal.
3. Try to “flick” the Finger Football between (through or above) the field goal posts
4. Made it? Add an extra point to your touchdown.

Goal of the Game

There aren’t strict rules about how many points it takes to win the game. Pick a target number of points before you begin playing. Maybe 40 is a good number for you, or 60.

Or just play as long as you have time, and see who has the most points at the end.

That’s it! Have fun.

This is the third in our series of how to make a board game. While you can use some of these concepts to make your own board game out of cardboard or paper, making a game with Flibbix is easier and gives you a lot more opportunity to change and “tweak” things later. This makes it easier to experiment and make a board game that works well and is really fun to play.

In our first post, we covered making or building a game board with Flibbix tiles. In our second post, we talked about making rules for your board game. Here, we look at using cards in your board game.

Flibbix comes with 40 cards that you can use with your board game. You can use all, or just some, of the cards to change how your game plays. There are different types of cards that are used for (you guessed it) different things:

Even more cool are Flibbix Custom Cards™. These can be anything you want. They could be an action like one of those above, or anything you can imagine. Just put your “action” for the card on your rule sheet before beginning your game:

Here are some that people came up with in games we played recently:

If you want to create cards for your own custom board game, you might want to try experimenting with Flibbix and Custom Cards first. It gives you a chance to try out your creations. We love being creative and making fun stuff. We think Flibbix is the easiest and best way for most people to make their own games, but you can also try making board game cards out of paper or blank business card templates from an office supply store, too.

The important thing is having fun, playing with others, and getting a chance to be creative.

In our next post, we’ll look at game play.

In our last post, we looked at making a game board with Flibbix, the first in our series of how to make a board game. In this post, we’ll look at making rules.

With Flibbix, you can easily make your own board game rules, even if it’s your first time. The How to Play sheet and Game Guide that come with Flibbix will get you going right away, but here’s how it works if haven’t had a chance to play yet.

If you try making a board game from scratch (by drawing on paper or cardboard, for example), it can be pretty difficult to design a game board and make rules. Flibbix gives you tools to easily “build” your own board game. Rather than start from scratch, you have building blocks to make your game board and rules. This lets you make a game easily—and one that’s different every time you play—while sparing you from the more difficult parts of the game design process.

Now, we love designing games from scratch, too, and would encourage everyone to try it, but Flibbix makes it possible for everyone (ages 7 and up, that is) to do it quickly and easily. And to make a game that’s a lot more dynamic than traditional “static” board games. It’s a lot less work, and a lot more fun.

Making your own rules

Flibbix comes with Make your own Rules™ sheets. These let you make rules for your game quickly and easily…mostly by checking off boxes on the rule sheet. There are a few places you can write in rules or actions, too. But, for your first few games, just write in a simple action, like Move Ahead 5, and later try more elaborate rules or actions.

So, who makes the rules? The best way is to have all the players in the game agree on what rules they want, and choose one person to fill out the rule sheet. But, you can also have one person build the game board, and another choose rules. Next game, switch. It’s really up to you. On a side note, having players (especially kids) make and agree on rules before they play a game really cuts down on arguments over rules later. That’s something really unique about Flibbix.

What’s on the Rule Sheet?

This is a look at each section of the Flibbix Make your own Rules sheets, so you can understand what each one does.

1st Player Is…

Here you choose who goes first when playing your game. If you want, you can “spin” instead of rolling by using yourself as a spinner. The Human Spinner™ card shows you how.

Play Order is…

Here you choose the play order for the game. For example, does it go from youngest to oldest or clockwise?

Opponent on Card/Tile Means…

Some cards or tiles in the game mention an “Opponent.” For example, Switch with Opponent, or Zap Opponent Back 5. This rule is to choose who that is. Is it the “Opponent” in the lead? Or does the person that drew the card or landed on the tile get to choose?

Landing on Another Player…

Does anything special happen when two players land on the same space? You get to decide.

On “Jump to” Color Space…

There are a few special color space tiles in the game, and tiles or cards that let you jump directly to those spaces. There may be more than one of those same color spaces in your game board design. If so, which Red Space tile do you jump to when you land on Jump to Red Space?

To Win:

Ever been a few spaces from the Finish in a game, rolled a six, but couldn’t win because the rules call for an exact roll? If you like that, check “Exact Roll Required on Finish.” Otherwise, choose “Exact Roll or Higher…” and you can win on any roll that gets you to Finish—even if you roll higher than the number of spaces between you and Finish.

Actions for Custom Tile™ and Custom Card™

Choose what happens when someone lands on a Custom Tile or draws a Custom Card. Use a favorite from the board, like Tile Swap. Or make up any actions you and the other players like. Here are a few ideas:

Custom Rule™:

If you like, you can make up one custom game rule on your Make your own Rules sheet. Put it in the “Custom Rule” section. Here are a few ideas:

 
You can find example Make your own Rules sheets and rule ideas on the Flibbix Rule Roundup page. You can also check out our last post “How to Make a Board Game: Part One – Make a Game Board” In our next post, we’ll look at Flibbix cards.

Ever wondered how to make a board game? It’s easier than you think to make a game, or build a board game. All you need is Flibbix™ and a sense of fun. You could also try making a game by drawing on paper or cardboard, but it’s tough to make one that plays well. You’re also stuck with one design and won’t be able to “tweak” or improve game play since it’s set in stone (well, drawn on paper).

Flibbix is a better option for most people. It’s easier, more flexible, and a lot more fun. If you’re looking for a super quick intro, the How to Play Flibbix page shows you in a few seconds how to build and play your own board game.

The Game Guide and How to Play sheet that come with Flibbix are great "how-to" resources, but for those who don’t yet have Flibbix, here’s more detail on how you make your own game. We’ll start with building your own custom game board and will follow up with later posts on making rules and playing.

Building your game board…

Flibbix tiles are big and easy to use. Each tile has two magnets embedded inside. Magnets are injection molded inside tile inserts, and tiles are sonic-welded for extra safety.

Just put two tiles near each other so the red and green sides of the tiles are near each other and tiles will pull together and connect with a satisfying "snap."

How do I design my own game board? Well, you can just experiment with Flibbix since you can always rearrange your game board tiles later, but it’s also fun to plan out your game while you’re building it. You probably don’t want to put a Move Ahead 5 tile five behind a Move Back 5 tile, or you’ll end up getting players stuck.

Tiles are double-sided, so you get to choose which side to face up. Do you like to have lots of tiles that move players forward (like Fast Lane™, Move Ahead, Extra Turn), slow things down (Slow Lane™, Move Back, Lose a Turn), or a mixture? Usually, tiles have opposite actions on opposite sides of the tile, like Extra Turn on the opposite side of Lose a Turn, or Move Ahead vs. Move Back.

There are tiles that let you mix up the game board while you’re playing (Tile Swap™, Tile Flip™, Super Swap™, Super Flip™). Some tiles move you from place to place (Switch with Opponent, Jump to Red, Jump to Green). Some tiles let you draw Flibbix cards, and there’s even a Custom Tile™, which can be whatever you want it to be. More on that next week

You can choose the shape of your game, too…a rectangle, zig zag, letter-shape, straight line…whatever you want. There are ideas on the Board Blender page. Build a game board on the floor, a table, wherever.

You can turn the direction of your game left or right using turn tiles. Just flip over a turn tile to choose which way it sends game play.

Basically, it’s super easy to build your first board game with Flibbix, and it only takes a few minutes. Over time, you’ll learn fun tricks to make your games more challenging, exciting, or crazy. Every player (and group of players) is different, so you’ll end up with games that are as unique as the mix of people playing the game.

So, who makes the game? Usually, all of the players collaborate on building a game board the way they like, but you can designate one "builder" if you prefer. You can also deal out tiles to all players (like playing cards) and let people take turns placing the tiles they’ve been given. Or, to make things more random, you can shuffle and stack tiles, and place them in the order they’re drawn. There are as many ways to build Flibbix game boards as there are possible Flibbix game board designs.

In our next post, we cover rules. Making your own Flibbix rules is as easy as building your own game board, thanks to the Flibbix Make your own Rules™ sheets.