The White Box Essays

They Say Everyone Has a Game Inside Them

Almost everyone who’s ever played a game has had an idea for how to make it better. To tweak it, improve it, or even build something new from its miniatures, cards, cubes, and concepts. 

We think making games is awesome. We believe it's one of the most challenging, fun, rewarding things you can do. If you’ve ever thought about making a game of your own, we want to help. The White Box Essays is for you.

The White Box Essays contains 25 essays on board and card game design, production, publishing, and marketing. It’s for aspiring professionals, creative young people, and literally anyone who’s ever wanted to build their own game.

If you believe creating games is awesome, The White Box Essays is for you.

Table of Contents

Foreword (by Mike Elliott)
1 Welcome to The White Box
2 Protecting Your Ideas & Why You Don’t Need To
3 Danger! Danger!
4 Story or Mechanics?
5 The Roll of the Die
6 Writing Effective Rules
7 Bits Matter
8 What to Do When You are Worried About Your Game Being Balanced
9 Bang for the Buck
10 Playtesting
11 How To More Than Double Your Game’s Sales
12 Self-Publishing
13 The (Semi-)Magical New Age of Crowdfunding
14 Designing an Effective Game Box
15 The Lies Game Boxes Tell
16 Box Details
17 How to Promote Your Game at a Convention Without Losing Your Shirt
18 What a Sell Sheet Is
19 Six Things You Can Say to End Your Game Pitch
20 How to Network at Conventions
21 How to Get Your Game Into the Marketplace
22 On the Dotted Line
23 Six Board Game Accessibility Fails, and How to Hack Them (by Erin Hawley)
24 Pacing Gameplay: Three-act Structure Just Like God and Aristotle Intended (by Jeff Tidball)
25 The Economics of Game Design and Design of Game Economics (by Jay Little)
In Conclusion
Acknowledgments
About the Author 

Three Filetypes Included

This download of The White Box Essays includes PDF, EPUB, and mobi (Kindle) editions.

The White Box Essays is also available as an audiobook and in a bundle that includes all editions.