How to Design Your First Game: a Behind the Scenes Account of the Creation of BamBoom

Part-1 introduction

Hi. My name is Nate and I have been making a card game for the past two years. This post is both a devlog on how I started working on a card game and how you can make a game of your own. I want this to be helpful to other young game designers. In addition to working on my own games, I also coach students at my school on how to make a game. 

Not a fan of reading? You can also watch this as a video if you want. Got it? Good, cause we're starting now. 

Ok, that's cool and all but how do I start making a game? Well, to start you need an idea.

Wow, shocking I know.

It doesn’t have to be a finished idea. Some of my ideas are just a few words, or a rough sketch. The important thing is to get it down.

What are you waiting for? Write down a rough version of your idea. Do you have it now? No, yes? 

If you don't maybe bookmark this page and come back to it when you're done. If you’re reading  without wanting to design a game of your own, then why are you here? Please tell me — I'm curious. Anyway now we’re on to part 2: what to do once you have an idea for your game.

Part-2 BamBoom: What to do once you have an idea for your game.

In this devlog I will share my experience as a game designer creating my first game to give you an idea of what to expect when you work on your own game. 

So BamBoom! Well it started when I was lying in bed trying to sleep, my mind thinking of anything to keep me distracted from the absolute nothing going on. I ended up thinking about what if i made a game like Exploding Kittens and Unstable Unicorns and I ended up with BamBoom. 

So like three months later on March 2nd 2022, I realised this idea wasn’t going away so I actually started working on it. I put everything I could think of into a document. It was not much but it was a start.

Here is what was on my original document:

Yes it was that crude (and you’ll notice it had a different name — more on that later!) But using this doc, I made the first prototype. This one was never played because I noticed a lot of problems with the game. These problems were not just with the cards. It was with the core mechanic meaning I had to practically redesign the whole game.  

So what was that problem? That’s not so simple to explain. In fact, that’s going to need an entire devlog of its own! 

Part-3 Where do we go from here? : What to do after you’ve scrapped a major game element.

So we literally scraped the core of the game. What are we going to do now?

I told you that I was working on BamBOOM for the past two years so you should know that this is not the end of this project. Now let's start again, pretty much from scratch.

What can we keep from the first prototype?

The name for one  the theme for two and four of the six card types.

Ok we have what's salvageable but how do we continue without a core mechanic?

It’s simple — make a new one or don't have a core mechanic at this stage of the design. You may just end up with one or more core mechanics mid-design.

 Okay, to take BamBoom as an example, after the mess that was prototype one, I worked for a month to get a new mechanical identity for the game and made a new prototype. This prototype was never printed due to the fact that Julie joined me on this project. She has taken the role of producer focusing on making the game good or something crazy like that.

With a new team member on board and an okayish idea of what the game will be, we made the first prototype that was played. We are five months into this and we only just playtested. I have no clue why it took me this long to play test this lovely mess of a game. My advice: play test early and often.

Part-4 that's all folks 

Now we’re at the end. You may be wondering why? 

Why did you make this devlog?

Well mostly to build an audience that is willing to back BamBoom when it is live on Kickstarter. It turns out that designing games isn’t enough. You actually have to tell people about them too!

But in addition to that, I made this video to help people get started making something. It does not need to be a tabletop game, it doesn't even have to be a game, just make something do something creative and who knows maybe you'll be the one to make a video like this. 

Goodbye and hopefully you will be back if i make anything like this again.

If you have any questions about game design or BamBoom specifically, you can ask me them via the contact form on our website. To stay up to date with future videos and devlogs, and to find out when the BamBoom Kickstarter launches, sign up to our newsletter. You’ll even hear about Scuppered — my second game!