• Over 20 Games Published

  • 10+ Years Of Teaching Game Design At Vancouver Film School

  • Over 230,000 Copies Sold

About The Course

If you’ve ever wanted to design and create your own board game that generates royalties on a recurring basis then we’ll guarantee to help you create your very first board game from home AND get it ready to pitch to a board game publisher within just 6 months by implementing our “Inspiration to Publication” system without any previous experience needed...

Meet Your Instructor

Jay Cormier

Jay owns and operates Off the Page Games as well as Fail Faster. In addition to teaching game design for over 8 years at the Vancouver Film School, Jay also has over 15 years of experience as a training designer for a large international retailer. He has spoken on panels at numerous board game events like GenCon, SHUX, and FanEXPO. Jay also created the Pitch Project, which connected new designers to over 40 publishers.
Jay has designed over 20 published games including Junk Art, In the Hall of the Mountain King, Scooby-Doo: Escape from the Haunted Mansion and more. He has also created numerous escape rooms for corporate training companies.

The syllabus

5 Chapters · 39 Lessons

Course 1

What Kind of Game Designer Are You?

  • Why, How, and When are you Motivated?

  • How Versatility Helps Designers

  • Your tools and how to navigate the course

Course 2

Introduction to Game Design

  • Game Terminology and Theory

  • Designing Your Roll and Write Game

  • Prototyping and Playtesting

  • Rules Writing and Final Playtests

Course 3

Advanced Game Design

  • Goal of Successful Game Design

  • Decisions: Bad vs. Good Kinds of Decisions

  • Mechanics: Movement, Attack, Gather and Build, Explore, Gain Information

  • Different Levers of Uncertainty and How to Use Them

  • How to Properly Use Feedback Loops

  • When and How to Reward and Punish

  • How to Use Goals to Get Your Players to Play the Game You Designed

  • How to Use Simple Design Concepts to Communicate to Your Players

  • What is Flow and Fiero and How Do We Tap Into It?

  • What is a Game Arc and how do you create it?

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  • How does the Game End and How Does That Impact How You Play?

  • Balance! How to Get Your Game Balanced

Course 4

Pitching to a Publisher

  • Self-Publish or Pitching to a Publisher: Which one is for you?

  • Prepare Your Sales Sheet

  • Prepare Your Pitch

  • How to find Publishers Looking for Games

  • How to Make Conventions Productive as a Designer

  • How to Pitch to a Publisher

  • Exclusivity and Follow Up

  • Contracts! What To Do and What To NOT Do!

Start your journey as a board game designer today!

Create your game, get in front of a publisher and start collecting royalties...

FAQ

  • Do I have to have designed a game already?

    No - you can participate with zero experience and we’ll walk you through the entire process! If you do have experience, that’s fine too - we’re there to help guide you to your next goal in your game design journey.

  • Will there be deadlines?

    If you are part of the Ultimate Designer Course, then yes, you will have deadlines to ensure we meet our goal of getting your game ready to pitch to a publisher within 6 months. If you are not part of the Ultimate Designer Course, then there are no deadlines and you can work at your own pace (though a lot of times a deadline can be really motivating!)

  • Is this live or pre-recorded?

    All the courses are pre-recorded, but the Ultimate Designer Course has weekly group sessions that are live that are invaluable to get assistance and direction from a professional game designer. You also get a 1 on 1 session with Jay to review or pitch your game, which is a live session.

  • What if I want to cancel?

    If you want to cancel your session at any time because you’re not satisfied with the results, we’ll give you a full refund.

  • Can I bring a game that I’ve already started to design into the Ultimate Designer Course?

    Maybe. There are some limitations and restrictions to allow us to get a game made within 6 months, so if your game is too big and falls outside of our guidelines then we’ll ask you to start with a new idea, like everyone else.

  • Will I get my game published by being part of the Ultimate Designer Course?

    Maybe! We promise to get your game ready to pitch and we will get you in front of at least 1 publisher so you can pitch it. Obviously we can’t promise that they’ll publish it - but the relationship you will get just from pitching to a publisher is how all game designers start - even if it’s a rejection.

  • How much time a week is the Ultimate Designer Course?

    It will vary depending on the week, and depending on how complicated your game is. Expect to spend 2-7 hours per week on this course, with viewing the courses and doing your assignments. Most of your assignments are designing and testing your game! The bottleneck will be in playtesting, so you will need to ensure you can get your game tested at least once per week. Good news: We can help you with finding playtesters!

  • How can I get my game playtested?

    We have a community page and a Discord server where you can share your game and request playtesters. And, of course, you can playtest other people’s games as well. If you’re part of the Ultimate Designer Course, we’ll have a specific time every week dedicated to playtesting each others’ games. We can’t please all time zones unfortunately, but nothing’s stopping you from setting up another playtest time using our Discord server!