Tabletop Games Blog · October 20, 2026 · 11 min
Teaching Matters - designing games for the first play (Topic Discussion)
A board game designer can spend years refining a game. They know the game inside out and understand every rule intimately. Yet, when you open a game for the first time, you don't have access to their knowledge. Players have to learn how a game works all by themselves. A game design can be sound, yet it's still difficult to learn and teach. A clear rulebook certainly helps, but often it all begins with the design itself. Following on from my article about dealing with complexity as a board game designer, this article looks at how a good design can help with a game's teach. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/10/20/teaching-matters-designing-games-for-the-first-play-topic-discussion/ Useful Links Peter Hayward 's designer diary for Triangulation : https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/189870/designer-diary-triangulation Costly Complexity – the limits of complexity in board games article: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/10/13/costly-complexity-the-limits-of-complexity-in-board-games-topic-discussion/ Georgios Panagiotidis 's article Technically Correct Is Not the Same as Good : https://lestmyopinions.com/2026/10/05/technically-correct-is-not-the-same-as-good/ Dan Palmer 's article Learning from Board Game Design : https://danpalmer.me/2020-05-18-board-game-design/ Wingspan review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2019/03/16/wingspan/ Justin Bell 's post Please Pass the Combo : https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/191750/please-pass-the-combo Martino Chiacchiera 's designer diary for Koi : https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3548548/designer-diary-pt-1-and-pt2 Aerjen Tamminga 's account of developing Pleasant Dreams : https://cardboardedison.com/blog/2016/10/18/the-process-pleasant-dreams-aerjen-tamminga Music Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot ( https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/ ) Music: Sunday Morning Coffee Produced by Sascha Ende Link: https://ende.app/en/song/13693-sunday-morning-coffee Music: Relaxing Lofi - Ena Produced by Sascha Ende Link: https://ende.app/en/song/12224-relaxing-lofi-ena Support If you want to support this podcast financially, please check out the links below: Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/TabletopGamesBlog Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog Website: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/support/ (Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash)