Resurrecting Old Projects

Many people reading this will be at the start of their board game design careers. I know this, because most designers quit the hobby relatively quickly. Almost everyone is a beginner.

Some people stick with it, however.

They've been through the first-game epic monstrosity phase. They've been through multiple failed and abandoned projects. They might have a published game, or some small success. They have a career to look back on. They can now clearly see the mistakes they made, that everyone seemingly has to go through.

I'm in this position.

As I write this, I'm working on my 25th game. However, it will be only my third publishable game.

I look back on my board game design career, and there are half-made games, failed ideas, and prototypes, that I still want to make work.

What's the sensible approach to such projects?

Resurrecting projects

Proper game design takes a huge amount of time. Time spent resurrecting an old project is time taken away from a new, potentially-great project.

When I look back at my past projects, I have games at all stages of completion. Some were even completed games that were proposed to publishers, and rejected.

As a rule of thumb, it will take far more work to resurrect a project (even one that was thought to be completed) than it took to get the project to that point.

I did 41 revisions on my pirate game. I tried to get it published, but couldn't. I moved onto other things. That game had a great core, but I couldn't execute on it. Years later, people would ask me what happened to my pirate game. I eventually decided to resume work on it. It's a great game now. It took another 215 revisions to complete.

If I'm going to resurrect an old project, I want to consider all the following:

• Was there a good reason why I stopped this project? There shouldn't be.
• Did the game actually work? If not, start again.
• How long ago did I last work on this game? Don't go back to an abandoned project within five years. The longer you wait, the better. Your skill and perspective will have advanced significantly. You'll also have more abandoned games to choose from. But, what if you haven't been designing for five years? Then don't resurrect anything.
• Was there ever really a market for this game? If the game was too big, or its mechanics have become dated, or the theme was ill-conceived, it's better to just let the game sit on your shelf.

Resurrecting a project also means you're stuck with old design choices, that you might not make now.

Resurrecting ideas

Some things I resurrect are not games — they are themes, mechanics, or game ideas. When I resurrect such things, I do it as an entirely new project. I never resume where I left off.

Starting a new project is fun, which is very important for motivation. Fixing a broken game is a slog. If I just continue where I left off, I'll run into the same problems again. Better to start again, and take a new route.

Don't resurrect

Don't resurrect games. You already failed at the task once, and now you're trying again.

I've failed multiple times to make a game work. And I've done that many times.

Once you've made twenty games, then go back and resurrect the absolute best one or two. Early on, just keep trying out new ideas, and learning. You're not a good enough designer yet, and there's lots of stuff you just can't do.

As my game design career progresses, I'm less sentimental. The list of projects I'm intending to resurrect keeps getting smaller. Realistically, I'll always be drawn to making new things. Eventually, one or two pet projects will be resurrected. Also, the longer I wait, the better I get at game design, and the greater the chance that the resurrected game will be successful.

If you resurrect a game, it should be an amazing one. There were all kinds of good ideas I tried. Good is not good enough.