"Make your game so that colorblind people can play it" YESSSS YES YES YES THANK YOU. So many games have pieces that are torture for colorblind people. You don't even have to do things like avoid red and green entirely - just make your colors bright and bold, and don't make red and green your two theme colors.

At #9 right now but one thing I absolutely HATE is putting stickers on tokens/counters/small things. HATE IT!!!!

Loved this episode, just one of the best! Please keep the format, for future shows, by letting everyone go through their own Top 10 list.

I remember a pirate theme card game my friend had. The rule book was in different language...but the French and English rules were basically TWO DIFFERENT GAMES! It totally floored me.

Rewatching older top ten lists. So that's where the divided lists started :)

Come back here every so often for a great hit of DT nostalgia. I still like Dice Tower a lot today but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I truly miss this trio

44:05 Zee: "If you do not understand your game, your game shall be understood by..." Tom: "You're just taking the phrase and turning it around" Love the Mystery Men quote!

I really enjoyed this top ten list!!! For all the people that are contemplating designing their own game... this is a great "How To" guide! or at least a good starting point! Make a good rule book!! Quick overview lists or cheat sheets are really handy as well!

I could watch these every single day and never get bored. Well done fellas.

As a guy that plans to have a game on Kickstarter sometime this year, this has been a tremendous help!

I recently played Ticket to Ride with a colour blind person and one of the issues we came across was not quite knowing how to describe all of the shapes for when they were asking for cards from the dealer. So that'd be another point to make - if people need to talk about colours of cards in the game, make the symbols you use also easily describable.

Great show, best I've seen in a bit - keep it up!

Gentlemen, you are doing a huge service to the gaming community in showing that friendly, well-spoken, clean conversations and fun can be had with modern board games. You guys are just awesome!

Best ever box insert - Lords of Waterdeep. It's amazing everything fits and it's all easy to get out and put away. They nailed it.

Great video, not only for publishing, but also for some of us who have cogs in their heads for making their own board games! Thanks! :D

Also Loved the piece about bad rule books... especially the part about mentioning a VERY IMPORTANT Rule in the side notes or in an example only.... I've played several games where I had to dig, and dig, and read entire pages and pages, and look through tables of contents, and indexes.. and still not find a win condition rule... until reading through pretty much the entire rule book where it's only mentioned once... I HATE THAT! Thanks for making this video... I really enjoyed it!

Another excellent top 10 - please keep 'em coming!

Another great video. You guys should consider doing a Top 10 of the best board game rulebooks.

The only time a box of "air" is acceptable is when they are leaving space for expansions they know are coming. Dixit is a good example of this.

@revimfadli4666

2 жыл бұрын

Also, sleeved cards. They gain a _lot_ of thickness

I dont know what it is about board games and top-10(0) lists, but I just cant get enough of them. Keep it up!

I have to say your videos are great for me as I am working hard to design board games and this is all great information for me.

Really appreciate the reference to my first ccg at 9 years old, the Star Wars CCG

Best. Top. Ten. Ever. Awesome. I related to this collection of wonderful rants on so many levels! As a professional copywriter who loves board games, I am particularly keen on clearly written, engaging rule books. There's no excuse for unclear language or off-putting reams of dull text. I'd LOVE the chance to help write/proofread rule books. Lots of great points here guys, and probably your funniest one too. Love the made-up language section: still laughing at the thought of it.

The box cover of Caylus is actually a shout out to Phillip the Fair in "Les rois maudits" (The Cursed Kings). You can see the actor in the same pose in the first 30 seconds of the first episode.

So... I guess I'll stop designing "Candy Land Dungeon Crawl", gee thanks.

Fantastic thoughts and ideas!! Glad my game in progress doesn't have any of these issues!!! Thmx guys ;)))

You 3 had everything right. Thanks so much, I got home from a bad day at work and you guys made me laugh and have a good time. Keep up the good work you 3 funny guys.

Hey Guys! I loved this review... Im just working on my first game and I'll be certainly heeding your warnings and taking your suggestions very seriously... Things I've noticed while playing games like "Color Blind Gamers" but didnt think of while in the game creation process ... very valuable suggestion! The only suggestion I would give that you guys pretty much mentioned in a passing phrase was about "Play Testing Games" I'm surprised that it wasn't in your top 10 ;)

I know it's pretty selfish of me to say, but these top tens with you three totally don't come out often enough. At least they are long, don't ever shorten them! Thanks again for another great video.

AMEN!!! on the standard sized boxes. Honestly, if a game doesnt store well on my shelves, it either gets put were it gets forgotten about or is the first for re-sale, not matter how good it plays. I have tons of others that play great in standard boxes. It's to the point were I wont even buy a game if it's got and odd shape/size that wont shelf well. VERY important for organizing games.

One of the best things Ankh-Morpork did was include a FAQ section at the back of the rulebook. That, and include cardboard money.

As an English-speaking man living in a German-speaking country, multilingual rulebooks are my life. Get your grubby hands off them, Mr. Healey.

I have one they didn't mention that I really hate. "I can't find the rulebook on your website!!" I believe that I'm not the only one who wants to read the rules before I buy a game, especially if it's an expensive one. Also, I sleeve all my games that comes with cards, and I think it's important to include space for we who sleeves. So that the would fit with or without sleeves.

@Sam The extra copies of rules in each language might add to the mark-up costs but the extra handling at package time to select the correct version also adds to mark-up costs

That's hilarious. When you guys mentioned a boring box cover. I was thinking of Caylus. And there it is!

these are my favorite of your videos, more top 10s!

I've got a tip for dice tower :P If you're having a shot with summary of the points given and the text takes about half of the screen size, then center that text. I don't care if I'll miss a part of unique lightning bolt nr. 7 in the background. Or at least don't change text position. Fun video though :).

I really liked this list. It's my favorite since the co-op list. Sam and Zee's stuff made a lot of sense to me, while a lot of Tom's didn't as much. I wouldn't freak out that much over tie-breakers and deciding who the starting player is. Just decide for yourself. I'd expand on Sam's point about illustrations in the rulebook by saying that I love examples to accompany rules, but a lot of times they don't have these. I learn by example, so doing things myself or reading these is very helpful.

In building off Zee's #2, I think they need to make appropriate finger indents for pieces so you can get them out. I HATE when you get a box with an indent for the pieces and the only way to get them out is to flip the whole thing over and get them to fall out, or have to squeeze them out in the case of molded insert spaces.

Love the show. I think it becomes more hilarious for every episode.

Agreed, either landmarks or a reference guide goes a long way to keeping the game moving, rather than taking a 5-10 minute break to reread the entire rule book.

about rulebooks, I'd like to add - please add a sidebar with 'landmarks'. I mean, sometimes I just want to recall something simple and it's hard to find. like, how many cards in starting hand, how much money, action lists etc... Some rulebooks do it perfectly [caylos for example] and I'd love to see more of that.

Now that I've played more games, I find I REALLY agree with Sam's #8. I've played too many card games where card placement matters, but the most you get is just a picture in the rules. If where things are matters that much, at LEAST give me some paper matts or something, you can even throw little reference sheets on those to make that part of the game easier too, but do SOMETHING more than just a board. Even a game I love as much as Sentinels of the Multiverse could be improved from some small play sheets for laying out my ongoing cards and stuff. When that game really gets going, you'd be shocked how many things end up getting messed up, including remembering which is the discard pile if those ended up being face down, and now every deck is about half used and is the same size as the discard pile. Just throw some cardboard sheets or something in the top of the box with some basic layout spots.

Absolutely right. I was super pissed when I bought the Cthulhu LCG base and didn't find 3 of each.

Great to hear it is not just me. I thought something wrong with my browser or PC, or something..

The Caylus box is awesome. As are the boxes of games like Macao and Troyes. I don't know why I think so, but they look... Somewhat sophisticated :)

Another thank you to Tom Vasel for the color blind mention! This has been an issue for me since the first time I played Axis and Allies sooooo many years ago. Never could tell thedifference

The biggest thing with rules/faq's was Mimring's and Q9's line of sight from Heroscape. That had to be settled on heroscapers. That always gave me problems when playing with new players.

Really enjoy the top tens.

Duly noted gentlemen!!! I think having a layman being able to read the rule book and teach the game to others is the most important thing in the box!

I'm going to make a game and send it to you this video has inspired me thank you

I know right? I was totally taking notes there

Am a bit split on the netrunner terminology, On one hand it helps with the theme once you know the terms but on the other hand it increases the learning curve and keeps new players away from a really good game.

Zee's #1 and example about not caring about bees is exactly how I feel about wingspan.

The point is though that the board would technically be optional, but it would help people set up and feel like they got more for their money.

ALWAYS include translations when they are available. Including the extra sheets of paper would only cost few cents. I would actually decrease significantly the cost of production if it allows to print less different version. Rules are sometimes clearer in other language. In every country, not everyone speak the dominant local language. The more important aspect : it makes imports/export much more easier for us games

There should be a top ten list on best rulebooks.

Thank you for talking about the color-blind problem. I am color-blind and I have to memorize a lot of information of where pieces are and it gets tiring.

The multiple language rulebooks in a single box may seem like it increases cost, but it usually always results in a lower cost overall. This is because they can do a single print/production run, rather than separate production runs for each language. This is a bit of an oversimplification, I know... but it's done this way to keep overall costs down. Yes, there may be ways to not put those extra languages in every box, but this would ultimately not amount to an appreciable discount on the game

Great episode, very funny and informative

I get that multiple language rulebooks are easy for shipping, but.. many games have just EN and they still sell hot, because they are good games and people don't care it's only EN. Some shops even do they own translations and print it for you or email. I remember that 7 Wonders had maybe 5 of them in the box. Wow. Agree on a tie breaker thing ;)

Sam and I are on the same wave length. I think Zee and Toms' ideas are more industry feasible, but Sam's ideas closely mirrored my personal peeves and the order in which I would rank them.

OMG! THANK YOU! Im color blind :)

There seems to be a lot of rage in the tower this episode. Seriously good points being made. I have personally had a lot of problems with the rules in Twilight Imperium and the WoW board game. On that note I'd like to see a top 10 super board games (games that take 3+ hours).

Check out the original board for Bar-Lev: The Yom-Kippur War of 1973. Electric blue water and neon orange land!

Actually they delay release dates sometimes to, in Canada they delay releases to put french booklets in for video games.

"Put your imaginations back to work..." amazing

I totally agree about the flavor. And Netrunner is such a well-flavored card game in my opinion. I can see the difficulty in learning/teaching the game with having such divergent terminology.

A few more tips: 1. More board games for large groups (10 players +). 2. Keep it simple! Games are supposed to be fun, not complex. 3. MORE BOARD GAMES FOR LARGE GROUPS! 4. Language independence, no text (most of my students don't speak a word of English) 5. Simple iconography 6. More educational themes (e.g. World War 1 & 2, Geography, Economics, etc) 7. Simple scoring system, no score pads. 8. Small boxes.

One thing I hate about inserts is where they will have cards and the finger space only goes a quarter to half way down the space meaning you can't grab all the cards and are stuck trying to fish out the other cards with the cards you did manage to get out or using some other thing to get at them.

agree with the colour blind aspect i have zombicide and i cannot tell where the orange finishes and the red starts in the xp bar, if they had flipped the yellow and orange round it would have been better for me at least.

This list is helpful, but Colour blind friendly game --- BRILLIANT! I never would have thought of that - that was really helpful. I don't know anyone who is colour blind so that never would have come into my mind.

35:15 was the funniest to me. MAKE IT DEEP ENOUGH!

Loved the video! My friends and I are developing and producing several games, our first one is almost ready for editing. Fortuitously for us, we work in a print company, so we can produce virtually everything ourselves, EXCEPT BOXES. I know you guys went on and on about boxes, but when we looked into them, they were going to be ridiculously expensive. There has to be a normal avenue people go to get their game boxes, right? Any suggestions?

I play Netrunner and still get confused when people talk about HQ vs. R&D. This usually happens when I'm not playing though (ie reading about it, listening to people talk about it). And yeah Netrunner and Star Wars have diagrams for how to set up the game but if they drew a board with those boundaries, etc you'd find you can outgrow them. The Jinteki shell game would outgrow any board you could design. The game I appreciate having a board for is Thunderstone Advance.

good video guys, love the 'tips' videos

Smash Up was horrific for this. It had no way of keeping score, no way of tracking minion's power or how close a base was to breaking. It could use a digital version if it hasn't already.

@salmonblox

8 жыл бұрын

+Mr E Very much agree. This game would have benefitted immensely from more integrated score-tracking methods. On Wil Wheaton's TableTop show, they played with bases that had damage trackers around the outer edge, I have no idea why those haven't been mass produced. Fans were going nuts over 'em.

12:58...laughing my arse out...haha keep the good work!

#9 Kingdom Builder. They could have had a lot more board layouts available, but they decided that everyone should instead get lots of scoreboards... that you only need one of.

Tom... MTG, I used a cribbage board, or a death counter (just being stylish)... Sam, I get you... "Memoir 44" is like that... I don't read French. I understand, BUT... it is very confusing. I understand the problem with double sided counters... some war games... "Memoir 44" is like that... though I understand why they double up... the mass of counters might be overwhelming... Zee was right about the board issue. Sometimes the board is too dark (Operation Tannhauser), and sometimes the board does not support larger battles ... scale... pieces are too large for the board... you know what I mean (I hope)...I agree with Tom about paper money... that bugged me in older Axis and Allies...

I think more (all) publishers should include turn order flowchart cards or cardboard inserts, or at least print one on the back page of the rulebook so players could run through their first few games with a better understanding of what to do next.

I always remove inserts. This is my thing I guess. It feels way better without, I don't know why. There are some exceptions surely like Quarriors for example. But generally I don't have inserts for about 90% of my games.

@KingOfShadeEmpire

7 жыл бұрын

I ditch them too - albeit I sleeve my cards, so the insert can rarely accommodate the cards anyway, but you won't see me crying over that.

This list is great! Laughing so much.

Watching sam: "You know what really grinds my gears, America? You, America."

Don't stop. For some reason me and my friends in college always played Candy Land and always talked about what more could be done with it.

Hey Tom...which is the functionality of the egg-box above Zee? :D

ARMY OF ONE!!!!! Great vid guys

I can agree with Sam strongly on one thing. Theme is so important for me. And even if its the best game ever... come on a farming game? Will not hit my table. Its hard to find a really really good game you really wanna buy.

Just click the farming box in an advanced search for board game categories at BGG.com, and see how many you get. I was thinking more about recent usage of the farming theme, but there are A LOT of farming games out there...go figure.

We hit that "rulebook" entry and the first thing I thought of was the recent mess with Lord of the Rings Dicebuilding game from WizKids. New rulebook is now available on their site, but apparently the first was so bad that it required a new rulebook. It would have been worth delaying the game for a month to get a better rulebook shipped with the game. Instead, people need to know to hit the website for a better rulebook. :(

Money tokens of last will is awesome. thick and functional!

Wrt the 'don't use non-standard boxes', what if the box needs to be slightly bigger to accommodate all the pieces/parts?

Top Ten Top Ten Episodes of The Dice Tower's Top Ten Lists!

Indeed. Board gamers are known for importing, and language requirements can be difficult. I have a few German games that never received an international release, and sometimes they don't include translated rules, so it makes importing prohibitively difficult, even if I'm already willing to have it shipped from Germany. Having multiple languages in the first edition solves this barrier. That said, I agree that having the translations in the SAME rulebook is annoying. Separate rulebooks, please.

My biggest pet peeve is one that Zee said about having to go elsewhere for the rules. That is such a slap in the face to every gamer you are marketing your game to in depriving us of the rules when we open the box. I agree with the other things mentioned about the rules books, to which I want to add that "What if this happens?" or "Can I do this?" situations are not spelled out in the rules, which forces on the spot house rules that usually screws over a player in that decision. Not cool.

I've had a few games that had unuseable peices in them and a note that says they where a mistake and shouldent be in there and are to be thrown away. Why take the time to print up a slip that says that?!?!?! why not just take the peices out?!?!? I've had a few games like that now. Agricola came with 15 white chips that where to be thrown away, Alcatraz came with a few that where instructed to be thrown away. This one gets to me!!

Sam's rant about big box card games that don't even include a board has to be in reference to Netrunner, right? In which case, I agree. The tableau of each player is really complex - especially the Corporation - and boards would have been phenomenal. Hence the reason so many players designed their own playmats.

If you want great quality play fantasy flight games, every component is perfect, the rulebook is perfect, the boxes are big, but the price is very high.

Netrunner's ice has landscape and portrait oriented text on the SAME card, let alone same deck.

If I'm not mistaken, the Back to the Future Card game says the player who most recently watched Back to the Future goes first.