Rapid Prototyping

Rapid prototyping in board game design is possible using Multideck and Screentop.

I use Multideck for MacOS to build my cards. I was inspired by Elizabeth Hargrave, who has long advocated for us to use these kinds of tools. She used nanDECK on Windows to prototype Wingspan (NY Times) and even used it with her 18-card game, Tussie Mussie (Twitter).

In Screentop, the objects players use are based on variants of components you make ahead of time. The variants use assets, which are usually high-resolution image files.

Thus, making a change to your cards after a playtest can be as simple as updating text in a spreadsheet, exporting an image file from Multideck, and importing it into Screentop.

It means you can get back to playtesting very quickly after finding a mistake.

Playtesting

Last April, I participated in my first Protospiel Online. I was able to make changes each day, and sometimes on the same day, from session to session.

Most of my changes were within the instructions on the 36 cards. Since I had set-up the framework of the game, with the play mat, cards, and dice, I only had to change one image file to make any number of iterative changes to the instructions.

Below is an example of making a change to a card’s instructions using Excel, Multideck, and Screentop in a matter of seconds:

Published on July 9, 2022.