Does anyone know. . .

[Kester Pelagius]

..if there is software out there to help design and create boards for board games?

All this recent talk (I blame quozl ;) about Monopoly and board games has me wanting to finish Pixies.  Which means creating a board for the game, and I'd like to do something that can be PDFed.

Well, just a thought.

Thanks in advance.



Kind Regards.

[Matt Gwinn]

You can probably do it with any standard graphics program like Photoshop.  You can also use Pagemaker or Quark which convert to PDFpretty easy.

I forsee a problem with a PDF board game though.  Unless the game board will fit on a single sheet of paper you will run into printing problems.  Most printers won't print on the outside 1/4" of the paper which means every page will need to be trimmed before the board can be put together.

,MAtt G.

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings Matt,

You can probably do it with any standard graphics program like Photoshop.  You can also use Pagemaker or Quark which convert to PDFpretty easy.

I forsee a problem with a PDF board game though.  Unless the game board will fit on a single sheet of paper you will run into printing problems.  Most printers won't print on the outside 1/4" of the paper which means every page will need to be trimmed before the board can be put together.

Yeah, I've noticed that.  I have a cover for Crystal Spheres, which I would really like to make FULL page, meaning bleed through to the edges, but in the word processor I'm using it wont let me.  But, hey, the way I am PDFing right now will at least give me a PDF that is 98.889% exactly like the work file I am starting with.

As for the board thing, not quite what I meant.  I am looking for something that will let you make boards, not just like a Monopoly or Pachesi board, but maybe something that will let you start with a blank hex or graph, or maybe import an image and then overlay one, that maybe has some objects that you can move around.  Sort of like the some of the dungeon and map making proggie out there do.

Or something.

Mainly I want something that will let me make individual tiles on the fly so I don't have to do all the felt tipped grunt work to do a mock up with cardboard.  Call me lazy, I suppose.  ;)


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

[J. Backman]

..if there is software out there to help design and create boards for board games?

I suggest trying some of the so-called dungeon mapping tools, which can be used to make almost any kind maps or boards. Most are also free to download and use.

Izandawo is an easy to use mapper, and comes with a nice set of good looking, dungeonesque tiles.

Dungeon Crafter 2 is good too, but I think the tiles that come with the program are a bit small (but you can use your own tiles).

Does this help?

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings,

Does this help?

I'll let you know once I have a gander at them.

And thanks for the links.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

[talysman]

when I was looking for free vector graphics software, I found something called Dia, which is mainly used for flow charts/org charts and stuff like that, but seems like it would be suitable for game board design. here is a page with links to tutorials as well as a link to the win32 binary:

Dia links

Dia is essentially a Visio clone, so if you have access to Visio, you may be able to use that, too.