Designing a board game is an exciting but time-intensive journey. How long does it take to bring an idea to life? From prototyping to production, discover the key steps, challenges, and realistic timelines to successfully publish your own game.
Too many newbie independent designers rush into the business of self-publishing a board game with wildly unrealistic expectations. They think it will be easy, fun, and over in a few months. It is fun and potentially very rewarding, but it's never easy and takes lots of time and patience. The truth is that making a boardgame is a complex and tedious process and it takes at best, a year from conceptualization to a shiny game on a shelf.. And this is from someone who has produced more than 50 different games. So, let's unpack how long you can expect things to take in a bit more detail and put some figures into the equation.
How Long Does It Take to Design a Board Game?
Board game design and development is as much hard work as it is fun. To be successful, you'll need creativity, passion and most importantly perseverance. If you have existing training in game design theory and graphic design skills, all the better! This will shorten the amount of time needed. So, how much time does it really take to conceptualize, design and manufacture a boardgame?
There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. So many variables are in play: the complexity of the game, your previous experience, your support network, starting point, available time, and luck. Here is a guide to help you get an idea of the kind of timescales to expect and plan for as you develop your game from idea to prototype to publication and sales.
Estimated Timeline for Designing a Board Game
The following are ballpark figures, but you should consider them to be minimums rather than maximums when you're planning your project and calibrating your expectations. On average, you should allow at least:
1-6 months: Game design and game testing - Finalizing your basic idea to developing your prototype game and playtesting them with target audience.
1 months: Creative direction, artist & manufacturer procurement - Brainstorm the name of the game, the theme and backstory of the game and the art direction on the feel and look of the game. Select an artist and graphic designer and get all the artwork completed. Meanwhile, you'll be writing the content of the rule book and getting that laid out and formatted.
3-6 months: Illustration, graphic design, packaging design, rulebook design - If your artist and graphic designer are not familiar with boardgame projects, there will be a lot of back-and-forth between you, your designer, and your printer to get all the files print-ready.
3 months: Manufacturing and shipping - Once the files are ready and the manufacturing button is pressed, it takes 1 month for the manufacturer to manufacture and assemble the game. If you are manufacturing the game in another country, you will have to arrange shipping and check with your tax laws on implications of tariffs and value added tax. Lastly, you need to have a place to store your games.
So, all told, that's about a year all-in. During that year, you'll also be setting up marketing efforts, making contact with potential distributors, and more. In real terms, once the design process is well underway, you can expect a larger slice of your time to be taken up with networking, community building, and promotion.
Realistically, you could get a simple game—maybe one that only needs printing a box and cards and otherwise uses standard components such as pre-manufactured dice and pawns—completed in less time, maybe six to nine months. But you would still probably be looking at a year overall to get it from an idea in your head to a box on the shelf. My best advice is to plan for a year of design, development, promotion, and marketing to arrive at the point of fulfillment and distribution.
Factors Affecting Development Time
Of course, exactly how long each design and development project takes varies enormously. If this is your first time developing a board game and you must learn everything as you go, maybe allow a little extra time. It can be a steep learning curve and if you make mistakes along the way, you may need to rewind and reset aspects of your project which can take even more time.
Among the factors that can impact your timescale, you may want to think about:
Your Experience – Are you a seasoned game designer or learning as you go? If it's your first rodeo, saddle up for a longer ride.
Your Working Style & Available Time – Are you a highly organized planner or more of a 'creative chaos' type? Juggling a day job, family, and pets that demand attention? Expect delays.
Artist, Designer, and Printer Schedules – They have their own deadlines and priorities, so be prepared to wait in line.
Peak Shipping Periods & Customs Delays – You probably be outsourcing all or parts or your game offshore where your game might be stuck in transit longer than it took to design it. Try to avoid year end festive peak seasons. We have experienced projects where the game is delayed due to COVID, union strikes, long queues at the ports or getting stuck with the custom for months.
You can also factor in any number of other factors personal to you. For example, what about working space, play-testing, and networking? Someone with an established network, a private workshop space in their home, and no family making demands on their time will potentially get things done faster than another person who needs to travel to a hired space or grab time at the kitchen table when everyone else is out.
Prototyping Your Board Game
Something you'll discover sooner or later is just how repetitive the board game design and development process is. You'll need to make and remake, tweak and change everything several times as you go through all the stages of bringing a game to the table. For this reason, don't waste time or money on printing and manufacturing a professional-grade prototype too soon. Use homemade “substitute” prototypes or digital analogs right up to the point that you know that you have a fully functioning game on your hands. Creating the final prototype is more-or-less identical in terms of costs and time needed as making the finished ready-for-sale version. So long as you're still iterating and things are changing, cheap, cheerful, and homemade is not only less expensive but will save you a ton of time.
Cost vs Production Time in Board Game Development
The cost and time required for manufacturing depend on several factors, including game complexity, custom components, and packaging. We have worked with printers in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, and India, with the majority of our games manufactured in China.
Why? Offshore manufacturing, particularly in China, remains the most cost-effective option, even with shipping and packaging costs factored in. Singapore manufacturing, for example, faces challenges due to the lack of readily available standard board game components, as well as restrictions on materials and dimensions.
The trade-off with China manufacturing is the minimum order quantity (MOQ) requirement. Many manufacturers require at least 1,000 copies per order. Some smaller manufacturers may accept 200 to 500 copies, but at a higher per-unit cost. If you’re looking to manufacturing a couple of copies, it might make sense to manufacture locally for the board and box while procuring other parts from e-commerce platforms and assemble them yourself. It might not look as professional as a game from the factories of China, but it will save you time on looking for a reliable factory and deal with shipping and custom. Looking for a reliable factory in China is another level or work that you may not want to go through and selecting a bad factory will give you much more problems and waste more time than you could have saved by manufacturing the games locally.
if you're in, say, the USA, UK, or Europe. You'll need to factor in an extra few weeks onto your usual delivery time. In most cases, it's a worthwhile payoff just so long as you're aware of it in advance and plan for it when calculating your cost/time budget.
Conclusion
So, in summary, we can say that the time you need to allow to design and self-publish a board game could be anything between six months—with experience, a healthy budget, optimism, and luck—to 12 months or more in most cases. If you're completely new to the whole process, it's a good idea to be as generous as you can when allotting time. Remember that the biggest ‘time sinks' are in areas that are less under your direct control, such as supply chains, manufacturing schedules, and delivery. There may be boardgame publishers who offer consultative service to help you smooth out the process and if you do not mind forking out a consultation fee in exchange for time, this may be a good option, especially if you are making your game for the first time and need someone to hold your hands through the process.
About the Author
Xeo Lye is a Singaporean board game designer and co-founder of Capital Gain Studio, a publisher specializing in engaging family games and educational financial literacy tabletop games. With years of experience in the industry, Xeo worked with indie designers, corporations and government agencies to help them bring their boardgame projects to life. He has also worked to design other gamification projects such as role playing games and TV studio game shows. You can find out more about his work at Capital Gains Studio.
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