Metzler Games

HOW TO DESIGN
YOUR FIRST BOARD GAME
IN JUST 6 WEEKS

Nick Metzler, award-winning game designer of
Jumanji, Hail Hydra, and 35+ other published board games,
will help bring your idea to life in 12 high-value video lessons.

START DESIGNING NOW

If you want to design a FUN board game...

basic tips like "build a prototype" and "playtest it" just won't cut it.

You want to make a game your friends will beg you to play, over and over again. But you don't know where to start. How do you create fun out of thin air?

Here’s an unfortunate truth: 90% of the people who have an idea for a game never even build a prototype. Of the remaining 10%, only a few end up with a game that's actually fun.

But it doesn’t have to be that way...

You can build the game of your dreams AND have it knock your friends' socks off. But to do that, you'll need the theory, tips, tricks, and secrets that only professional game designers know.

And here's the best part: you can get there in just 6 weeks.

So, if you're ready to design your first game, you can get started right now, for free.👇

BUILD YOUR PROTOTYPE THIS WEEKEND FOR FREE!

Get Started Now, For Free 👇

Build Your First Prototype This Weekend

In this FREE 40 minute video, you’ll learn how to create
your first game prototype in just one weekend.
Nick reveals his expert secrets on how to:

👉 Determine your core concept

👉 Build your first prototype

👉 Manage your first playtest

Hey! I'm Nick Metzler

I’ve been designing and building board games since I was 4 years old.

Before I graduated middle school, I had designed over 20 board games, with just cardboard, markers, and some random game pieces that I could find around my house.

When I was 16, I won the Chicago Toy and Game Fair Young Inventor’s Challenge for my first published game, Squashed. This became the flagship game for PlaSmart and had global distribution in 20+ countries for 10 years.

By 22, I became a full-time game designer for Spin Master, bringing over 35 games to market over 6 years, some of which you might’ve played (and hopefully loved)...

Some Games I've Designed:

2017 Battle of the Sexes

2017 Angry Birds Pig Island Smashdown

2017 Beat The Parents

2018 Hail Hydra

2018 Hedbanz Adulting

2019 Wakanda Forever

2019 Harry Potter: Catch the Snitch

2019 The Office: Downsizing

2020 Joker

2020 Love Is Blind Game

2021 Jumanji

2021 MASH: The Game

2021 Left Center Right: Jackpot

2021 Hedbanz Blastoff

2021 Netflix: Trending Now

2021 Curb Your Enthusiasm Game

Being a game designer has been my dream job, ever since I was that 4 year old kid, sitting on my bedroom floor with cardboard and markers. It was a pursuit of passion and I'm thrilled to be in a place where I can share that knowledge to hopefully bring more fun games into this crazy world.

If you have some paper and markers, I can show you how to discover your North Star Experience, and turn that idea into a game that your friends will beg you to play again and again.

DO ANY OF THESE SOUND FAMILIAR?

"I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START"

Don't worry. I've been there too. I find it helps to start with the type of fun you want. Using my North Star experience, Anchor Points, and my Inside The Box Thinking exercises, we'll craft innovative ideas that put your game 40 victory points ahead of your competitors' right from the start. And you won’t just learn how to start building your game, you’ll learn how to finish building your game, too.

"MY GAME ISN'T FUN"

What separates a fun game from just a 'meh' game? This course will teach you what fun actually is, and how many different types of fun there actually are. We'll then craft excellent rules to bring about the type of fun you're after. Once we find the fun, we'll tweak the Core Loop a bit to crank up the 'play again' factor. Suddenly you'll find you have not just a fun game, but an addictive one that captures your attention again and again and again and again and

"MY RULES ARE TOO COMPLICATED"

My favorite. I've been battling this my whole life. We'll go in with a scalpel to retain the best pieces while slicing away any unnecessary junk. Simple games are harder to make than complex ones, and it's all down to how you start the design process. We'll get the structure of the game correct before putting on all the powerups and bonuses. By the end of this course your rules will be simultaneously balanced for fairness and imbalanced for excitement while remaining easy to learn and remember. Too good to be true? No, I've just designed an easy to follow process to make clean rules.

"HOW THE HECK DO I..."

Build a prototype? Find people to play? Refine the game concept? Design the actual game? Have it manufactured, marketed, or sold!? If you've never built a game before, these question can keep you up at night. But, fear not, all this and more will be answered in the course!

If any of these problems sound familiar and you're ready to solve them, this course is for you.

CHECKOUT THE COURSE OUTLINE

COURSE OVERVIEW

LESSON 1

Fun, Games, and Your North Star

There's so many types of fun and games out there, I'll help you go from an ambiguous "I want to make a game" to a specific creative direction in record time. We'll take what we've learned to pinpoint your North Star experience using an emotional lens. Rich ideas for your very first game will flow like crazy.

LESSON 2

The 7 Pillars of Game Design

Knowledge is power! These 7 pillars make up EVERY game in existence. Once you know them you'll never go back. We'll use these to begin shaping your game and player experience in a stable yet innovative way.

LESSON 3

Starting with Game Mechanics vs Theme

Meet our 2 Super-Tools of Game Design: the Wand of Creation, and the Scroll of Archimedes. Using these 2 tools you'll paint a beautiful and rich theme while architecting new strategies and mechanisms. But which will you choose to design with first? I'll help you decide...

LESSON 4

Key Concept: The Core Loop

Using my Inside The Box brainstorming exercise, we'll plot key Anchor Points to develop our Core Loop - the main play pattern that makes the game move forward. This is a whopping 80-minute lesson that'll get in the nitty gritty of top-tier Core Loop creation.

LESSON 5

How to Build Your First Prototype

It's time to put pen to paper to construct a really bad prototype. The fun part is playing it against yourself. Rapid improvement in the design will follow once you ask yourself the questions contained in this lesson's Workbook.

LESSON 6

Feature the Fun

Craft a spectacular hook that makes everyone WANT to play. You'll use this brief marketing lesson to learn how to describe your game in a fast and memorable way, which will become a key part of your messaging in the product and rules.

LESSON 7

Advanced Game Design Techniques -
Rule Asymmetry and Bonus Powers

This is my favorite part, we'll add a ton of variety into your game to keep players coming back for more. These advanced game design techniques will spark all sorts of strategies and synergies! I'll show you how to implement them without making things unwieldy.

LESSON 8

Playtest Your Prototype with Friends

Time to show your game to other people! *gasp* But first we'll make sure your 2nd prototype is ready to rock. Instructions on how to run your playtest along with a big list of questions you should ask your playtesters awaits you in this lesson.

LESSON 9

5 Case Studies on Design Decisions

Join me in a deep dive, where we'll deconstruct the aesthetics and design of 5 specific games. I'll show you the details that create impressions and how to art-direct your own aesthetics for your product.

LESSON 10

How to Blind Playtest your Final Prototype

Your 3rd playtest is around the corner, so we'll cover everything you'll need to complete your final prototype. You'll run your first Blind Playtest, and of course, the Workbook will come with even more playtest questions.

LESSON 11

The Finishing Touches

Polish and finalize the physical components of your game - like the box, instructions, and game pieces - transforming it into a market-ready product.

LESSON 12

Going to Production

Learn what *actually* happens inside the big game companies, and your options for getting your game to market. We'll cover licensing, publishing, manufacturing, and costing, among a variety of other topics. You'll even get links to service providers included in your Workbook if you're looking to bring your game to market.

FREE BONUS LESSON!

How to Launch a Game on Kickstarter

Running a Kickstarter is more than just having a good idea. I studied Kickstarter daily for 2 years while at Spin Master - I know a thing or two about what makes them tick. These secrets will be yours for free, as a bonus lesson in the course.

ENROLL NOW AND GET INSTANT ACCESS TO THE FULL COURSE

Here’s what’s included:

✅ 12 In-Depth Video Lessons

✅ 10 Hours of Expert content, condensed from a Lifetime of Game Design

✅ Bonus Lesson: How to Launch a Game on Kickstarter

✅ Bonus Lesson 2: How to Build Your First Prototype This Weekend

✅ Text transcripts of every lesson

✅ Detailed 70-page Course Workbook with printable worksheets that you'll actually use

✅ Invaluable Playtesting Questions for your playtesters

✅ Lifetime access to all the course content

✅ Access from any device with an internet connection

✅ Get all future course updates, refreshed lessons, and additional bonus content FREE

HOW TO DESIGNYOUR FIRST BOARD GAME IN JUST 6 WEEKS