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I have been writing my own game from scratch over the last few months. I am not an industry professional but have written a fairly comprehensive system and it is slowly coming together step-by-step.

This said, what sort of milestones/hurdles should I look for, and are there any recommended articles on the subject matter?

I figure its the same for most games

Alpha
Beta
Final polish
Release
Expansions.

I'm sure there are legions of how-too guides. I also suspect that there's an element of things like balance being only done in moderation - ergo that you could balance adjust for years and still never perfect it; so at some point its got to reach that "good enough" stage.

A few thoughts on milestones/stages to consider

1) Proof reading - having others or paid professionals proof read the rules and other written content. This isn't about balance, but clarity. The proof readers don't have to be games, they just have to have a good grasp of the language you've written it in.

2) Alpha Testers - gamers who you know or at least can consider to have a good grasp of general gaming and tactics and thus who can be given copies to test out the rules and provide 3rd party feedback to yourself.

3) More adjusting of rules; more proof reading and more alpha testing.

4) Beta testing - more people on a wider release. Can be commercial or not depending on how you plan to release the game

5) Business studies - note this is a whole topic unto itself, but its only valid if you plan to monetize what you've made. If you don't plan too then you don't have to consider this; if you do though then there's a whole host of things you've got to work out and sort out.

You may consider writing a business case for your game, establishing contact with vendors, getting a business loan, making or buying components (printed materials, boards, widgets, dice, miniatures, phone-app that will doom your game to obscurity, cards, etc), producing a prototype (over and over and over...), getting set up to accept payments, creating a website, finding a distributor, creating a social media presence, filling orders, supporting the game via FAQs, new products, and prize support for any tournaments that show up.

Speaking of, might as well use this as an opportunity to flog my development blog: Titanomachia

There is a product out now called “The White Box”. It’s a game development kit in a box and comes with (what I consider) a good book of essays on game design and publication. I forget the author’s name, but if you just want the essays, I believe the book can be ordered seperately.

On playtesting - one of the best bits of advice I ever got on this subject was don’t run the playtest yourself. Let someone else for the test group do the learning/teaching the game. The less you influence them, the better information you will get from them. When you playtest, be a silent observer. Only answer questions when directly asked, otherwise let your playtesters figure the game out to the best of their ability (as I was told, “Remember you won’t be boxed with your game. Your audience won’t have you sitting with them to make their game go”). Make notes on anything they find unclear or where they get the rules wrong - or the opposite, when they stumble onto unbeatable combos or take the game play in unexpected directions (that might be good for an expansion...).

Hmm...from personal experience I can say there are a couple.

1) Interest from players. This is something you see every single month on Kickstarter. Just because you design something or a world, or a product...doesn't mean other people are going to like it and want to buy it. There are loads of failed Kickstarters for stuff that only the designers thought was cool. This is the unsung hero portion of Kickstarter. Not only are you getting money for investment (and you get free interest off that money!) - you're putting a product out there to determine interest. Some Kickstarters launch with grand hopes and end up with 14 backers, and are pulled halfway through...that alone is telling the designer that the market isn't interested (for any number of reasons). A failed Kickstarter is excellent because it normally saves the company or designer from making a large financial mistake.

2) Run the game at conventions when you have a playable version. See if people play it. See if people (other than your game group and your friends) like it.

3) Decide how you're going to produce it. I went with the solo approach of producing a rules PDF and components are produced through a print-company so I just get a small cut each time someone orders one. It allowed me to do all of the art and production myself without worrying about supply chains or actually producing real amounts of product. It's like training wheels for selling stuff.

4) You'll eventually want a blog, or a website, or a facebook page..and likely all of them (and even more social media platforms if you can stand it).

5) If you ever get a proper product, even just play test copies then you want to find outlets on various YouTube channels willing to play/review it. Magazines are often willing to accept small written articles and some online game news blogs will gladly put up info.

6) Be ready to fail. Games are like restaurants and most of them will fail (how soon, depends on the situation). You're not going to be the next Warhammer 40K, so that's fine. Just be ready for small to mediocre sales unless you get lucky.

7) Some companies exist to help produce game rules, like Osprey and for a while Two Fat Lardies was doing a program to assist game designers. If you think your rules are good and not derivative of another work consider contacting Osprey as they've been putting out loads of rules - some of which I've found to be rather poor, so I don't think the design bar is terribly high. The game must fit in their standard 68-page size book though.

8) The one big hurdle which stopped me from attempting a proper production was money. Just flat broke most of the time, and investing and getting artwork done by artists etc. can be prohibitively expensive. I was lucky enough to hook up with some professional miniatures painters who let me use pictures of their commissions in place of proper art, etc. Even a small game can be crazy expensive to produce if you want anything beyond a PDF. If you can make a good rule set and sell it on PDF you can do quite well, particularly if you price it right ($5.00 a pop, making maybe $3 profit per purchase). Wargames Vault etc. are good for this.

The final hurdle will be the X-factor: a community which likes the game. I'd say my only game I currently sell is a failure, as I've sold perhaps 200 copies over a couple years (luckily this is a hobby of mine and not a business!). The thing which is noticeable though - zero online presence. No one talks about it, no one posts reviews or game reports, no one gets involved on the Facebook page, etc. I run into people who say "Oh yeah, play it all the time", but no one ever bothers talking about it online. If you find a small niche and people get excited about the game and start putting up small forums or really discussing it at length you can do miraculous stuff.

There's no real formula to determine whether it catches on or not. Some games catch on and I find them pretty poor if I'm honest (Frostgrave, at least when released, is a supremely "okay" game which was received with wild support/excitement). All I can say is good luck! It's a challenge but it can be fun if it catches on.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I have been writing my own game from scratch over the last few months. I am not an industry professional but have written a fairly comprehensive system and it is slowly coming together step-by-step.

This said, what sort of milestones/hurdles should I look for, and are there any recommended articles on the subject matter?

There is a Game Design forum on Dakka. There is another Game Design forum on BoardGameGeek. And there are game design blogs. I would steer you there.

I would caution you that modern gaming is (finally!) going streamlined, not comprehensive. I would also caution that any system needs a lot of playtesting to get "right", and this takes longer than you might think. It may also result in a lot of changes to the system, possibly fundamental ones. And that's just getting to the "right" system.

The publishing part is a whole 'nother ball of wax, unless you intend to give your game away for free as a download.