Your Turn! The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design will turn YOU into a tabletop game designer!

For immediate release

Introducing Your Turn! The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design, the newest book by game designer Scott Rogers (Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design)

 
Published by Wiley, Your Turn! is the intuitive and fun guide to designing tabletop game for both novices and experienced professionals.

Are you ready to master the art of designing, prototyping, and testing tabletop game? Your Turn! guides you through the process from idea to execution. Create SIX original tabletop games to play or sell. Unleash your creativity and conquer the industry with YOUR captivating game designs.

Unlock the wealth of knowledge within Your Turn! Master game mechanisms, theories, and history to become a tabletop gaming expert. Elevate YOUR designs and create unforgettable experiences with this invaluable resource by your side. Love playing games? It's YOUR TURN! to make them.

Your Turn! The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design can be found at the following e-tailers and wherever books are sold:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Wiley.com

Author Scott Rogers has been a professional game designer for thirty years, designing such games as Rayguns and Rocketships, ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo, Marvel Villianous and has been seen on the History Channel and in the 2020 documentary Gamemaster. He is the author of the best-selling book Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design and has taught at USC's prestigious school of Interactive Media and the New York Film Academy... and now he's ready to teach YOU!

Can you ESCAPE FROM ROTTER MANSION?

Earlier this summer, I set myself a goal: to design a small run board game that had two professionally manufactured components. Up until this point I had never produced my own game, only having games created by publishers.

 

When I started, all I knew is that I wanted to make a game about a haunted house and it used dice.

I limited the production size to 10 games and charged $60 apiece for the game. I “sold out” in a half hour.

I set to work designing, having a fondness for push-your-luck dice games like Farkle and Zombie Dice; games that my family like to play.

 

The breakthrough came when I realized the Haunted House should be sideways not vertical. It evolved into a game where the players raced to exit the house before a ghost trapped them inside.

 

My family and friends playtested the game many times and realized something was missing. Adjustments to the rules were made and a mode where players found and lost treasure was added.

 

Now onto the production! Meeples were found overseas at a German wholesaler. Dice were bought from Chessex on Amazon. Coins were bought from an online shop. 

 

 

After looking at Meeple Source and a few other retailers, I realized that I wanted a custom-made meeple for the ghost meeple. I contacted a half-dozen manufacturers but ultimately went with Panda Games Manufacturing. They were great to work with and I was pleased with the results. 

 

 

I also wanted a cloth game map which I ordered through Contrado who was amazingly fast! Highly recommended!

 

I wanted to do something special for the box, but wooden ones were outside my budget so I gussied up a black cardboard box with a black velvet “coffin liner”. The lid holds a surprise for the owners, glow-in-the-dark ghosts!

 

 

The name of the game - ESCAPE FROM ROTTER MANSION - comes from my family’s original name, which was changed at the turn of the 20th century. 

 

The whole game was autographed and numbered in silver ink. And I managed to ship it off before my Halloween deadline. One buyer even received it on the holiday!

 

I think it turned out great. I had a lot of fun making this limited run game and will probably make another in the near future!