I received a free copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review

Should tell you first of all that this is more of a manual.
I created my own board game when I was in school which is a lot more fun than you might think, might not be as fashionable nowadays but it is a creative way to entertain yourself [hence the name] and this book proves very handy in detailing the bits and bobs you'll require, with a nice color palette for the illustration, I'd say this is a useful instruction tool for gamers.

A very thorough resource for helping youth create board games. It can be used year around but is especially helpful to keep youth busy during summer vacation.

Make Your Own Board Game fills a fascinating niche in the gaming community. The book describes in detail how to go about creating your own game. Using plain language it focuses on the basic building blocks of designing a game. The focus is mostly on role-playing games but also provides information that would be useful to anyone excited by the idea of creating their own board game. Highly recommended for those who are ready to step beyond playing to creating.

Thanks to Netgalley and Storey Publishing LLc for access to this title.

This is an extremely comprehensive guide to making board games. It is super well-researched, and explains every kind of game mechanic and mechanism. I loved how it used examples from real games to explain concepts. The art in this book was also really phenomenal and got points across well. I think this book would best be used by game designers and players as an encyclopedia rather than a how-to. I found it to be a little dense reading through it cover to cover but think it would be extremely helpful as a reference if I were to design a game.

Thanks to Storey Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC.

I was really impressed with this book.

The book is structured into 3 major parts:
1) What Makes a Game? - Which covers the basics that make up a typical board game, including it's components, rules, and gameplay
2) Mechanics - Which covers the different methods used by the game to play a game such as actions, card usage, role playing, and winning conditions.
3) Game Crafting - This is where the book really shines. Jesse Daniels gives the reader 4 pre-made games that he challenges the reader to customize and change to help learn more about the design method and how these changes affect the gameplay. I wish there were more examples to follow and customize.

My major complaint is that the cover and art suggest a book aimed at a fairly young audience, but much of the writing seems aimed at higher reading level. But that's really a minor quibble. I think it's accessible to readers as young as 10, but I just think it's also perfectly suitable for older teens and young adults (or even full grown adults like myself).

I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about what goes into designing a game. And if you're a an adult, don't be too scared off by the playful artwork. This is a book I think any reader can get value from.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. At times it seemed a bit dry, but the purpose WAS to give one a better understanding of the components of a board game. Don't know that I'd ever try making one of my own, but enjoyed it regardless.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Since tabletop games are still so popular, this book, MAKE YOUR OWN BOARD GAME, will give you the guidance needed to design your own. The author, Jesse Terrance Daniels, is a game design expert and gives detailed insight in to what a good game needs along with many variations that can be incorporated depending on how easy or intriguing you want the game to be.

Each section is very informative yet easy to understand. Every time a game component is introduced it also has a classic game described to show what is meant. For example, Tic Tac Toe is both an example of a (1) multiplayer game of opposition, and (2) a spatial game of positioning. It really helps to understand what is being described.

I was given this e-book by NetGalley and Storey Publishing in exchange for my honest review. I found this book to be very informative, easy to understand, and the imagery all added to the subject wonderfully. I recommend this book to anyone that would like to try making a board game to share with their family and friends. It would also be great for those working with kids to help them learn new skills and have a usable item as the end goal. Would be a great resource for libraries, teachers, youth groups, and anyone that enjoys board games.

A high 5 star rating, for sure!

You can create your own game with help from this book. The writer is a game design expert and he uses his knowledge to help readers create their own games. He is able to clearly help with fundamentals, rules and everything needed to create tabletop board games. He includes original illustrations and provides many examples to help. He gives readers all the skills needed. It is a well-designed and well-written book. If you have thought about creating a game this is a book that can help you create that idea you have had. Make something for families, friends, or even classes. It has the details you need and all the steps are there to help you design your game.

A fun book for rain filled days. Easy to follow and understand. Very well laid out. I think this is a book that would work best in print instead of kindle so you can easily flick through and find the page you’re looking for.

A complete guide to every part of creating your own board game, from the terminology and the concepts within, to the ideas of play, the ways in which different mechanics affect different outcomes, and the way in which the combinations can affect the playability of the game when it's finished.

This is a superb resource for those just starting out on the creation of games, making sure that no part of the creation process is overlooked, and that everything that you need to consider is made clear. In contrast to a number of other books, this presumes that you have no prior experience, either of games themselves in playing, or in the making of them. In turn this can make some of the descriptions needless for those who've been playing for a while and the temptation to skip certain sections is there when you've been playing for a while, but the clear language and good understanding of what makes a game good is present throughout and this would be a worthwhile addition to anyone just starting out on the path to making a new game.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ARC in return for an honest review.

This book is so much fun, and informative at the same time. My daughter is an aspiring board game designer, and she read through this enjoying the great deal of information contained therein. The artwork made the experience even more enjoyable, covering the pages in colorful game related images.

The first portion of the book covers the various types of games that exist and their general properties, game play, game pieces, etc. The next portion gives various types of games encouraging the reader to create their own games using the templates, and general rules provided. The templates are placed in order of difficulty. Overall, this is a fantastic book set to help inspire and support other buddy game makers in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing us the opportunity to review this book.

I not only enjoyed this book and learned a lot but I am now in the prototype testing stages of my own board game thanks to it.
It covers every game mechanic I can think of, tones of ideas...the only downside I can think of is being overwhelmed with ideas for games after reading this.
Highly recommended for gamers, crafters, and people even mildly interested in game mechanics.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

As a child,I tried to make many board games. They were great amateur meses of confusion. This book would have been great for me. It's full of fun and useful information.

This book is a very comprehensive and detailed guide to creating your own game. It goes over all the things needed to make a good game, and how to get started. It uses examples of existing games to help illustrate points, and does this well. It is all written in a fairly easy way, and so I think this is definitely something creative children would also enjoy.

The art in the book is very cute, and makes the whole book so much fun. The art is to the point and helps illustrate the topics well.

I enjoyed this, but at times it talked about simple things too much for me personally. I do think this is very good for children and people who know very little about games, so it's not a flaw in the book, but more something that I personally didn't like as much.

I loved this book and would give it as a gift reason why because the book was amazing. I rated five stars because I enjoyed it and want others to read it. My thoughts on the book are that I would definitely buy this book for myself.

This book is a great in-depth book that allows you to flex your creative muscles and make your own board game. The details and illustrations make the reading experience fun and easy to follow along with. As a person who has always wanted to make their own board games, this book has been helpful in finding those starting points and how to further refine the gameplay. As you can create a basic board game with little thought, but understanding the fundamentals of game design and how things should be tied together to create an enthralling game loop are important.

I have already added this book to a purchase cart, and I wish the publish date would be pushed up, as it's an ideal topic for library summer programming. As it is, It has inspired me to plan using the book with our board game club as a challenge to expand their scope. The book does a great job of breaking games down into their components and making the structure more accessible.

This book is all about understanding boargames to help anyone create their own. This book did a great job of breaking down various game elements in a digestible way without it being overwhelming. Surprisingly, this book also offered a new way to look at commonplace game play. I particularly liked the illustrations and the pro/con list.

I have always loved playing strategy board games. There are so many cool new games that keep getting made. So when I saw this was an ARC I could request, I did exactly that.

This books gives an overview of all sorts of game mechanics that are often used and sometimes altered to make things a little more spicy. The game mechanics are organized into little boxes, which makes it easy to differentiate between different mechanics.

I have noticed similar things from game to game, but I never knew what they were called. Now I have names for all those cool mechanics. And now I know how they function, and how they are often varied to create unique games.

There are really pretty illustrations all over the book. Everything from classic games to little game pieces were hand drawn, which was really nice. It gave life to all the mechanics.

The back of the book has 4 game examples which you can play as is or customize. They’re not all perfect, which is fine because they’re meant to be frameworks anyways.

I did have two minor issues with this book.

Sometimes, after one game mechanic is explained, it links you to another page with a similar mechanic, or a mechanic often used in conjunction with the one just described. Unfortunately, this ARC had all the page numbers missing. It just had “Flip to page # for more info.” There was a pound/hashtag/sharp instead of page numbers. Also, the index in the back was blank. I really wanted to be able to use these features, but they were not yet completed in the ARC. I know ARCs are often not completely polished, but still.

The second issue I have is that this book barely ever mentions modern games. Games like Rock Paper Scissors, Go, and Checkers are explained in great detail, while other popular games like Catan and 7 Wonders are mentioned in passing. The book references the games in the back of the book more than it references modern strategy board games. I kid you not, the brief mentions of Catan and 7 Wonders (which only happen once each) are the only modern game references.

I wish at the end of each game mechanic there was a small list of games featuring that mechanic. For example, at the end of the section about variating the turn order, it could say:

Games that feature this mechanic: Parks, Uno, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Uker

This would allow me to know what popular games feature this mechanic, so I could go play them and get a feel for how they work. It’s like when writing a book, you need to read other books of the same genre. When designing a game, you should play lots of games with the mechanics you want to use.

I wonder if copyright had anything to do with this? But wouldn’t that only cover including pictures of the games or explaining the game in detail? The author was clearly able to include the names Catan and 7 Wonders, so why couldn’t they also include other game names in passing?

If these two things had been included, I’d definitely have given this book 5 stars. This is the only book I can find which explains how to make a board game. I hope other game designers see this and make their own books like this. I’ve often seen books in libraries about how to do magic tricks, or how to draw, but this is new. It makes sense, because strategy board games are relatively new.

Overall, this was really helpful. I’ll definitely be using this to help me design a couple games to play with my family. I’ve always wanted to design a game, and now I feel a lot more confident I can do that.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc of Make Your Own Board Game by Jesse Terrence Daniels.

I think while a bit overwhelming to just read that this is a great book that delivers lots of information to those who might be looking to make their own games. Going through the pieces, development and more of how to create a game there are lots of examples and other useful information in this book.
I think this book would be a great addition to any classroom or library or enthusiastic board game players shelves.