Design & Manufacturing of a

board game
Tunca Zeki Berkkurt, Kene Productions
 Design Procedures
Design of a Dynamical System:

A dynamical system is a system in which a function

describes the time dependence of a point in a
geometrical space.

For our purposes, geometrical space is the game setting.

So what we design is how the players will get their
position on this space, game.
 Design Procedures
Design of a Dynamical System:

Any system can easily be mathematically modelled by using

block diagram algebra. In a board game, as well, we’ll
have a black box(game set up&rules), an input (player
decisions, random events etc.) and an output (victory,
defeat, tie i.e. game results)

Thus this black box will give us the relation between

players’ actions and their results.
 Design Procedures
Design of a Control System:

A system can be designed either as open-loop(bridge) or as

closed loop(poker):
 Design Procedures
Design of a Control System:

An example for a closed loop system (Age of Empires II):

 Design Procedures
Design of a Control System:

An example for a closed loop system (Age of Empires II):

In this diagram, stable is our transfer function which defines

the relation between food and scout cavalry.
 Design Procedures
Design of a Control System:

Thus for this system, our integrated transfer function will be;
 Design Procedures
Design of a Control System:

Let’s comment on this system’s transfer function:

In order to train more scout cavalries we should increase
number of stables, but also we should build more farms
to supply food to these stables, and more town centers to
train villagers who will work on these farms.
Since the villagers who collect the food that is used to train
scout cavalries, are trained with the same resource, there
will be an equilibrium where our cavalry number and
villager number are set.
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- Where/when does it take place?
- Who are the actors? What do they do?
- What are the events and their results?
- How the events and the actors affect each
other?
- How does it end?
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- Where/when does it take place?

This question’s answer will give us our game set up. For
a board game, by answering it, our board will be
designed. For example, a game about the crusades may
have a board including the map of Eastern
Mediterranean coasts including Byzantine Empire,
Kingdom of Jerusalem, Seljuks and Saracens.
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- Where/when does it take place?
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- Who are the actors? What do they do?

The actors of the event will be our players. If there are a

lot of actors, then the main ones could be figured among
them. What do they do in the setting, will give us an idea
about player actions of our game. For example, in Hearts
of Iron PC game, it is possible to choose more than a
hundred countries to play, and players may improve
technology, build infrastructure, train and command
armies, conduct diplomacy or trade resources. These
are player actions.
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- Who are the actors? What do they do?

Triumph and Tragedy of GMT can be devised as the

tabletop analogue of such a game. In T&T, 3 major
powers(or groups) are selected as players.
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- What are the events and their results?

During the story, all the events occured will set our event
deck. In a board game, the events can be triggered by
the players, or drawn randomly, or played consecutively
as a card game. The famous Cold War game, Twilight
Struggle uses this last mechanic to implement event
chronology. These events can be played without using
an event deck, by getting triggered by player actions, as
if it is in Diplomacy.
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- What are the events and their results?
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- How the events and the actors affect each
other?

Relations between player actions and game events are

decisive for design purposes. These relations(transfer
functions) will set the rules of our boardgame (such as “how
to conquer a territory” or “how to trade resources”).
 Gamification of an Historical
Event
- How does it end?

Our story’s final situation will give us a hint about victory

condition(s). In some games, victory conditions may
differ from player to player. For example, in a 2 player
board game about the conquest of Istanbul, the Ottoman
player would try to take the city, while the Byzantine
player would hold it for a fixed time.
Manufacturing of a Board Game
• Game Board & Box
• Cards & Tokens
• Rulebook
• Custom Dice
• Plastic Figures
Manufacturing of a Board Game
Most of the manufacturing is made on the
printing presses. Game board, tokens,
cards, rulebook, and even the box itself
are all produced by printing on hard
papers.
Manufacturing of a Board Game
Manufacturing of a Board Game
Custom Made Dice

Dice material is compressed recycled paper. Standard

die dimension for board games is 16 mm. In Turkey,
there is not any dice supplier and most of the game dice
are imported from PRC.

There are several famous

custom made dice suppliers
in the world.
Manufacturing of a Board Game

Plastic Figures

Eventhough 3D printers have opened a new era on plastic

part manufacturing, they are still not practicle for large
scales. But they are perfect for preparing mold models. In
Turkey, there are many suppliers that can provide injection
molding service, but mold costs are changing between
€ 1000 - 5000
Thank you for your
attention…