I designed a board game... and it bombed.

This was gold and must've been tough to make. Many thanks Adam. We all think we're thick-skinned and can take criticisms until we actually hear them. Then our hearts sink and it's too easy to get defensive. I really enjoy this channel and wish you all the best.

A fascinating video! Hats off for your ability to be self-critical and learn from the whole experience.

This is so helpful. Many game designers on YouTube focus on their successes, but hearing your truth about a game that flopped was more instructive by far than most of the success stories. Bravo. Your willingness to be brave is of huge benefit to us all.

Many thanks for this video, Adam. It was both inspiring and informative. Your channel is my favorite board game design channel. Keep up the good work. Will search for a copy of your game now just to see how it goes.

Going back to one's earlier creations and criticizing them from a distance is a great exercise :) I did that with a novel I wrote and learned how much I learned since writing it.

You got the game published - I count that as a success. Very good video regarding the whole thing really and the last section on how you felt once it was released. I like the idea that it is experimental in a way

A great retrospective! I loved playtesting Thrown, and remember thoroughly enjoying the wild swings, last minute victories, and epic fails! But in the playtest group the onboarding was done for us... we didn't have to decipher the rules or special cards ourselves, so perhaps had an unrealistically smooth ride.

Thanks Adam. I felt lost because of the feedbacks that I got on my latest board game. Your video helped me to organize my thoughts and to understand what I can do better next time. I wish you a lot of creative ideas and success for your current projects.

This was the first video of yours I’ve seen. I was really impressed. In fact, I just bought the game. I’d never heard of it, and to be honest it didn’t LOOK like a game I’d buy. But I think the concept sounds really cool.

Great video. I'm sure very difficult (and cathartic) for you to make, but extremely useful and insightful for other designers. I appreciate how objectively you put your own game through your review process. Thank you so much for this rare type of insight.

Love this vid. I haven't played Thrown yet personally, but honestly it sounds fun to me. I really appreciate hearing about your experiences in game design.

Hi Adam, just want to echo the comments of other's that this is a really inspiring video and thank you so much for sharing your experience. I'm a new designer and to keep perspective I often look through failed Kickstarters, negative comments on bgg for poorly received games and interviews with the designers etc. This is by far the most honest, accepting and insightful post-mortem I have come across. Love your usual content too!

Thanks for this retrospective review of your own product. This is very helpful. I especially liked the end bit when you mentioned the dice tower review and how it affected you and the product. This part sounds very related as someone who is yet to have their first game published but also loves the DT

I see some broad categories of mechanics * Player control. They give players control. For example, if you want to turn right with your car, you will probably succeed. Make player be able to control the turn. * Randomness and automation/AI. In some areas, you plan, but things do not always go as planned. Or sometimes player has no control of something so automation is needed. For example, the base game of Rebellion automated combat with dice. No player control as player is the strategist only. Others are doing the combat. It is a good use of dice automation. However, players wanted more control and the expansion granted this. Downforce us superior to Formula D. Formula D uses dice to solve car moves that are not random. So it us frustrating to see that something that would not rely on luck in real life, relies on luck in a game. Downforce gives player direct control. * Rock paper scissors. If there is a duel it is the right mechanic. The game What About Baseball uses dice automation for the game, which is very clever. The problem is that contact is the result of a duel between batter and pitcher and the game dice automates it. So the easy fix is to make players do a rock paper scissors move with their hands (or "I cut you choose" mechanic) to solve contact. If batter does not win, roll green die until you get anything but contact. And that easy fix makes it a tremendously exciting game for fans of baseball. This mechanic can be implicit too. In Battletech there is no perfect mech. There is a trade off between speed, firepower and armor. By picking a mech variant there is a rock paper scissors move. * Bookkeeping. Unless bookkeping is intellectually challenging and rich, minimize it. The tabletop Masters of the Universe has bureaucratic bookkeeping to support a generic tactical game. Choosing mechanics poorly leads to failure. And if your game has a level of storytelling, do good writing. People can spot tropes and generic writing. And most important... A game should not have a fixed winning strategy. * In Monopoly, hoard house miniatures, do not buy hotels * In Starship Captains, allocate all resources to play missions. Leave other mechanics for remnant resources. * Star Wars Risk. Focus on attacking bunker. Ignore soace battle and duel between Vader and Luke. Once bunker is down, attack Death Star.

Thanks a lot for making this. Can't have been an easy one to put out.

Such a useful video for those of us working on our first designs. So many great lessons learned and shared here. I suspect every well-known designer and publisher have had these types of flops happen, yet we rarely hear about the lessons they learned from them. Kudos!

Very insightful and heartfelt video! Lots of lessons to learn from this one!

Awesome video! You are going to have some huge games one day no doubt.

This video is a gift to all aspiring designers out there. Thank you for your honesty and candor.

Your sincerity made me to subscribe. And your critical thinking applied to self criticism made me to like the video.