How to Design a Game as a Family

By Caralee Howe, Chelsi Gorzelsky, and Tania Dearden, foundry10

Games are an amazing way for families to play, have fun, and laugh together. Games can also teach important skills, like strategic thinking, empathy, and self-regulation. You do not need a huge shelf of games in order to play as a family. A great way to get the whole family involved and invested in your game play is to create your own game!

This guide will guide you to create your own game as a family. Here are the simple steps you will take:

• Play a very simple existing game
• Add rules and modify the game to make it more fun
• Reflect on what worked well and what you would do differently with your own game
• Create your own game
• Brainstorm your own game idea
• Playtest your game to try out new rules
• Change and add rules to make your game more fun
• Play!

Let’s start simple!

Modify an Existing Game: High and Low

Before creating your own game, it’s helpful to think about a simple existing game so that you can learn the basics. To play this game, all you need is one dice or a dice app on your phone.

• Roll a dice together. Everyone takes one turn to roll the dice. Whoever rolls the highest number is the winner. Congratulations! You’ve just played a simple game.
• Next, modify the game. Add a rule to make it more fun. For example, you could have everyone roll twice and take their higher number, or decide that rolling a 1 is an automatic win. The choice is yours, but try out several different rules and decide what combinations you like best.
• Finally, reflect. As a family, discuss: Which rules did you like? What made it fun? What would you change or add to make it even more fun?

Parts of the Game Design

All games have four things that make the game logical and fun. Let’s break this simple game down into each of its parts.

• A game mechanic is how players interact with the game. In this example, the game mechanic is rolling the dice. Other examples include drawing a card, flipping a coin, moving around the board, or collecting points.
• The rules describe how a player can use the game mechanic. The only rule in this game is that players can only roll the dice once.
• A gameplay loop are all of the steps that a player can take during their turn. It is the combination of the game mechanics (what players do) and the rules (why they do it). In this game, each player goes through a gameplay loop when they take their turn to roll the dice. As another example, in a given turn a player may draw a card, play a card, and move a piece. The player does this every turn, thus following through the loop.
• A win condition is how someone wins the game. In this example, the player who rolls the highest number wins. Other examples include reaching the end of the board first or collecting the most points at the end.

Practice & Brainstorming

The easiest way to start designing a new game is by modifying a simple existing game, like you just practiced. Here are some more examples of simple games you can start with. For each game, work together to identify the:

• game mechanics
• rules
• gameplay loop
• win conditions

Brainstorm how you could change each to make the game more fun.

Heads and Tails

Find a coin to flip. Each player takes a turn flipping the coin. Before flipping, the player must guess whether the coin will land heads-up or tails-up. If the player guesses correctly on their turn, they win! This game can also be played with a dice-rolling app using a D2.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Everyone holds one hand in a fist and rests it in the palm of the other hand. Pat your fist in your hand, and say together “Rock, paper, scissors, GO!” On “GO”, everyone chooses a hand shape corresponding to either rock, paper, or scissors. Rock crushes scissors, scissors cut paper, and paper covers rock. This game can have multiple winners!

Highest Card/Lowest Card

With a pack of playing cards or a card drawing app on your phone, shuffle the deck and have everyone draw a card. Whoever draws the highest card wins the round, and whoever draws the lowest card is out. Repeat until there is only one winner left!

Create Your Own Game

As a family, choose a game to start with. Then, add one or more rules or game mechanics to make the game more interesting and exciting. Throughout the entire process, try playtesting your game. (Learn more about playtesting on the next page).

Sometimes it can be hard to come up with ideas for new rules or game mechanics. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Heads and Tails

Let’s modify this game by changing the win condition. With a pencil and paper, keep a scorecard of how many times each player correctly guesses the final position of the coin. The first person to 10 points wins!

Rock, Paper, Fire, River

Let’s modify the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” game with a new game dynamic and add new hand shapes! Hold your hand with your palm up and wiggle your fingers towards the sky to represent Fire. Hold your hand vertically and flat, and wave it like a fish’s tail to represent River. Fire burns paper, paper covers rock, rock blocks the river, and the river puts out fire. “Rock, Paper, Fire, River, GO!”

Highest Card/Lowest Card

Let’s modify this game by adding a rule. The highest card still wins, but twos are special. If a two is drawn, that player can take another card and have a second chance to draw the highest card.

Building your own game design kit

There are all sorts of household items that can be used to make your game!

• Folders and pieces of cardboard can become custom playing boards.
• Dry beans, guitar picks, fridge magnets, Legos, or sticky notes could be used to mark a player’s position on the board.
• Coins, dice, and playing cards can all be used as game mechanics.

Playtesting

The biggest and most important thing to remember when designing a game in any setting is to playtest as early and as often as possible. Every time you add something new: try it out, and talk as a family about how it went. The questions below are good things to ask when playtesting to think about whether a new mechanic, rule, or win condition made things more fun. Adjust accordingly, and then playtest again.

It can be fun and great for learning to bring other people into your playtesting. Engage your family and friends and get their feedback too. If you and your family are a bit more advanced, try observing others playing your games without intervening, and then see if others have fun too. This can be a great way to develop critical thinking and feedback skills.

Questions to ask about your game:

Designing a game can seem confusing and that is ok! The best way for you and your family to learn is trial and error. Having children take the lead on the project will help them expand their critical thinking, problem solving, and confidence. When they do get stuck, here are some questions you can ask to guide them:

Brainstorming questions

• How should players interact with each other?
• Are all players equal, or do they have different jobs?
• What makes other games you’ve played fun? How could this game be more like that?
• How do you win the game?
• What pieces and type of board do we need? Do we need them at all?

Playtesting questions

• What part was the most fun for you?
• What would you do to make this more fun?
• Were there any times while playing that you were bored? How do we fix that?
• Are the players working together or separately?
• Do we want to get rid of any old rules/mechanics to make room for new ones?
• Is anything confusing while playing? How do we fix that?

More About Games

What makes a game?

Games are a combination of game mechanics (what players do) and the rules (why they do it) that allow players to work towards a goal. Games can happen on a board with pieces, on a table with cards or dice, with any combination of things, or with absolutely nothing at all. Games are a great way to explore learning through play, and game design can dig into even more interesting concepts.

What makes a game fun?

Playing with other people

A lot of the fun comes from who you play with. Good game design enhances and facilitates the fun of playing with others. One thing that is important about games is the way players interact with each other. Games where players are competing with each other can be super fun, but so can games where players are all working together. There are lots of different ways that players can interact in a game, the most important part is thinking through that interaction so it’s clear and fits into your game mechanics.

Strategy

Another thing that makes games fun is the ability to create a strategy around your gameplay. How are you going to win? What are you going to do to outsmart the other players or the game itself? A great way to implement strategies into a game is to have multiple win conditions.

When you have a game where you can strategize and interact with other players in different ways, that opens you up to having multiple play styles (play styles are just the different ways people like to play). Some people like to defend their own spaces, whereas others like to confront opposing players. Or, in collaborative games, people can work together in different ways that fit their personalities and goals. When there’s room for lots of different play styles in a game that makes the game really fun and replayable!

Replayability

Good games can be played multiple times and still be interesting and novel. Sometimes, games can be repetitive, and get old after a while, but having the room for player interaction, strategy, different play styles, and different ways to win all factor into your game’s replayability!

More About Parts of Games

What is a “game mechanic”?

A game mechanic is a tool for players to interact with a game. Examples of common game mechanics are:

• drawing cards
• rolling dice
• flipping coins
• moving around a board
• accumulating points

What is a “game rule”?

The rules of the game control how players interact with the game mechanics. In our High and Low example, rolling the dice is the game mechanic, and the rule is that a player must take turns to roll the dice once.

Adding game mechanics and rules to your game is what makes it exciting and fun! Oftentimes, games are centered around one to three central mechanics. Be careful though, because any more than that can complicate the experience and obscure the fun.

What is a “gameplay loop”?

A gameplay loop encompasses both the game mechanic (what players do) and the rules (why they do it) in a game. In High and Low, our gameplay loop is:

Roll the Dice > Reveal the Number

For another example, in a given turn a player may draw a card, play a card, and move a piece. The player does this every turn, thus following through the loop.

The key thing to remember about any gameplay loop is that players need to be excited to move through it. Loops need to focus on how the mechanics create fun and move players towards the win condition.

What is a “win condition”?

A win condition is how someone wins the game. Whether it’s guessing the coin flip correctly, making it to the finish line first, or earning the most points, there are lots of ways to win games, but the biggest win is family fun!

Resources

These websites are helpful places to learn more about the value of games and how to create your own games as a family:

• What children can learn from tabletop gaming: https://www.fractuslearning.com/what-board-games-teach-children/
• Games and social emotional learning development: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1046878109333793
• Foundry10’s video series on tabletop game design: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxtu9__Anmvk2Ox3qJvh76XAS6_7ql_PE
• Family-friendly questions to guide your game design: https://www.scholastic.com/parents/school-success/learning-toolkit-blog/learning-challenge-kids-design-board-game.html
• Printable board game boards and pieces: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/326088829241807844/?lp=true
• Great tabletop games to play with your child: https://geekandsundry.com/5-tabletop-games-to-sneakily-teach-kids-math-and-problem-solving/
• Online dice roller and card draw tools: https://www.random.org/dice/ https://www.random.org/playing-cards/

Share Your Games With Us!

Once you have created your game, we would love to see it! Tag us on Instagram or Facebook, or email us with your game goals and rules. We can’t wait to see what you have created!

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