How to do board game research

Happy new year board gamers :)

I hope you've had a wonderful holiday so far...!

Today I'm going to write you some pointers about how to do board game research..
I'll give you an overview of how I'm doing research - when I'm studying board games of different sorts.

I hope you'll be able to use some of these examples to study your board games in detail.

---

Measures...
No matter how well you may know a board game - no matter how many board games you've seen or played... it always helps you out to measure :)

Write it down - or even better yet, take pictures which include a ruler of some sort.

It'll come in handy when you're doing your own board game prototypes. You might hit the right board measures or square/field measures in first try ;)

Furthermore - having the right measures from the beginning will be a major help when you want to get an estimate on the production cost (finding boxes, prints, figures and so on that fits in).

And of course - everyone who works with graphics knows how important it is to get the measures right so you won't have to go and scale anything afterwards.
 

---

Documentation
I don't think I have to go into any details why taking pictures for documentation is important for your research. I believe it is like than in any kind of research area - so let's move on ;)

Collecting mechanics
It happens all the time - that you find some cool mechanic or feature in a board game... or it's explained to you through some review of a board game.
Here it's important that you write it down, copy links, produce some kind of documentation concerning that specific mechanic.

The problem often is that while you might still remember the specific mechanic, theme or layout when you're building your own prototypes, it might not be of any use if you can't remember the effect nor context it was used in. Make sure you write down as much as possible about the things you like - and why you think it works.
 
Remember
Always get other peoples opinion when you collect data for your research, we're all different - and therefore we look for and appreciate different things in board games.
 

---

Collect and sort (responsibly;)
Make sure you gain the "collector gene" (if you don't already have it)... collect as much as possible.

• Rule-sets
• Brochures
• Estimation forms
• Comparison tables
• Pictures (a lot)
• and so on....
  

I'm sure you know where I'm going with this :)
Just remember to sort everything - so you'll get the most out of your efforts!

That's all for now .... and again - happy new year and happy gaming out there!

---

---