Board Game Design

I've been interested in Board Game Design for quite some time. 

My first 'big idea' was to design a card game based on Chess. A game that had the traditional feel of a playing card deck, but completely novel gameplay.

The result was "Check - The Chess Card Game".

I developed the gameplay with the help of my brother, and did all the product design and artwork myself. The satisfaction of seeing an idea fully formed into a product was second to none!

After getting support and encouragement from my inaugural game design, I came up with other ideas.

One I could not let go of was a modern game based on property development in the modern world. I realized that people make profits from renovating, or flipping, properties, and I formulated an idea to create "That Flipping Property Game".

I wanted the game to follow the design principles of modern 'Euro Games'. The game should be playable in under two hours, there was to be no player elimination, and the luck element was to be limited. I wanted everyone to have a fun gameplay experience whether they won the game or not.

About the same time I started connecting with other game developers, and we formed a group called "The Game Artisans of Canada". Together we tried to help make each others' games better. In 2010, my game was entered for the Canadian Board Game Design awards and came second.

Through connections with the group, my game got the attention of Hasbro, who thought that my game could be a modern sister game to the classic Monopoly. They asked me to redesign my game using the Monopoly theme, and "Monopoly Renovations" was born.

However, getting the attention of Hasbro and getting the game accepted and published were two different challenges. The game had to go through several groups within the company to be selected for publishing. After two years of evaluation, the company decided that their consumers weren't ready to learn a brand new game with new rules and sent the prototype back.