Workshops
Learn game design from an award-winning and published designer.
Workshops tailored to your needs and the participants
Whether you’re interested in stimulating some creativity amongst friends or a team building exercise, a board game workshop is a great way to work together to make something amazing.
Each workshop is carefully tailored to your needs, your locations, and your participants.
The goal is to have participants learn about what makes a game fun, work together in teams to make their own games. and enable them to work with plenty of components.
Workshops for kids, teens, or adults
Workshops can be tailored based on the participants’ age, previous experience in game design, and amount of time for the workshop. I’ve done workshops for kids in schools, for adults in a cafe, and so on.
Workshops can start with a lecture or discussion to get participants primed for the creativity they’ll need to make their own board games.
Participants will form teams that will work together to brainstorm and make their game.
A typical workshop
My workshops can be tailored to almost any size and any age, from kids to adults. No previous design knowledge is assumed or required. These are just general guidelines, of course - they can be tweaked or changed to suit.
Set some expectations that we’re here to have fun, learn, take notes, brainstorm, play games, etc.
A chance to chat about games in general - what is a game, what makes games fun, how have games evolved from Monopoly and Ludo to Catan and Codenames?
Talk about the design / iterative loop and how it’s similar to the scientific method - theorize, test, iterate
Start with a published game or two to warm up our brains. Change one rule to see what happens
Quick break
Time to make a game! I’ll break out my bags / boxes of pieces and give everyone a theme.
Participants break up into groups and brainstorm game ideas that fit that theme
Get into the design loop - play, draw or write out some cards, and test
Playtest, brainstorm, refine, etc. for the rest of our time
Near the end of the time, I’ll ask one person from each group to present their game to the rest of the group.
As the session ends, I’ll encourage people to continue working on their game, exchange contact info with their group if appropriate, etc.
Real world or online?
Real world is usually better for younger participants or workshops for 3 or more people. I travel to you anywhere in the UK.
Online workshops If we’re doing an online workshop, participants will be asked to use components from nearby, or for a small fee I can mail you a ‘designer care package’ full of board game components ahead of the workshop.
About me
I’m Chris Backe (rhymes with hockey). I’m originally from the Chicago area and currently live in Birmingham, England. I’ve been making games since 2016, self-publishing print-and-play games since 2022, and been full-time in the board game industry since 2021. More about me here.
Materials provided
This is my Samsonite checked-bag full of components. It weighs about 20 kilograms, and it has a bit of everything. I don’t always lug the full case around - depending on the workshop I might have a different bag. The goal is the same either way: give participants a bunch of pieces to play with.
Just provide the space and the participants, and I’ll take it from there. I bring plenty of game design components, paper, etc. If you have additional materials helpful for crafting (scissors, tape), they will be useful.
Pricing
Pricing naturally depends on the length of the workshop, whether it’s delivered in-person or online, and so on. If the workshop is delivered in-person, it’ll include traveling expenses.
Previous clients and testimonials
Isaac Grillo, game designer
Working with Chris Backe has been an absolute game-changer (pun intended) for the progress of my inaugural card game Standoff. From the beginning, he provided invaluable insights covering every aspect of game development. His attention to detail and availability to answer questions surpassed my expectations and caused many processes to occur smoothly. At every turn, he helped address my needs and ideas and found ways to get me to reflect on other areas and questions I hadn’t originally considered, showcasing once again his expertise and creativity.
Luke Daughtry, Game Designer of Standoff by Enter the Box Games
“We just hired Chris Backe to consult with us before we start pitching our game to publishers and it was a big help. Chris gave us a lot of helpful advice on focusing our materials more toward what publishers actually want to see. I just wanted to give him a shout out. Highly recommended!”
Brett Trout, game designer
“...your meeting was extremely insightful and proved to give me tons of helpful pointers making my journey as a developer much more clear. I feel like I dodged bullets and got refined direction from you!”
Ryan K., game designer
“Chris has a wide breadth of game knowledge and an excellent eye for quality game mechanics. He was very comprehensive with me on the feedback he gave. He’s extremely easy to work with and I was glad I got a chance to have help me on my game.”
Taylor Hayward, designer of ‘Dawn’
“I think direction was the real value. Actions I can take, are always more helpful than ideas. “Define the high level look of the game-play, and focus on creating a polishing introduction scenario experience.” In my situation, with where my head was at before, that advice was incredibly helpful.”
Jason Terry, game designer
Chris Backe helped us develop our game Mⱥhr during the past year and it is fair to say that without his expertise we would not have brought the game to the state it is in: fully developed, playtested and ready for production. Would we recommend Chris to other game designers? Hell yeah! And we will hire him again for our next project.
Benjamin Effer, designer of Mⱥhr