How to create your own board game - Interview with Kazakhstani board game designer

Game description 

“Alluring Treasure” is a treasure hunt game where one player acts as the seeker and the others are the trappers trying to catch the seeker and take the gold from him. At the beginning of the game, everyone is given a unique artifact that grants certain bonuses. These artifacts can be sold, stolen, and resold, just like in real life. The main goal is to accumulate 50,000 gold coins.

Kazinform News Agency correspondent asked the game designer of the Kazakhstani game, Almaz Yeleuov, a few questions as part of a Q&A session about the creation of board games and what inspired him.

What board game was the inspiration behind Alluring Treasure?

It's probably the board game “Evo”. In “Evo”, players control dinosaurs to earn points by breeding. However, the game had balance issues when players teamed up against one player. In Alluring Treasure, we tried to take this into account and balanced the game mechanics so that no one can team up against one player 100% of the time.

What advice would you give to aspiring board game designers?

First, it's very hard without a team. I'm not saying it's impossible, I think one person can do everything, but I'll tell you that it's incredibly difficult to create a game alone. So, look for a team, friends, like-minded people, those who will support you, who will go with you from the beginning to the end and will not be afraid of difficulties.

Also, the main rule of game designers is to give the game to beta testing. Let the players “break” your game, point out the weaknesses. We, for example, changed a lot of things after beta testing.

Could you tell us about interesting moments in the process of creating the game?

My greatest pleasure comes from watching people play the game. Their vivid emotions, their attempts to spoil each other's plans or, on the contrary, to help, always bring me joy.