How to Make a Game for Kids (& Family Game Night)

What if, instead of pulling that same dusty board game off the shelf, you made your own?

This family game night, you’re not just playing something new and fun... you’re creating a new game together! From picking the goal to building the board and testing your rules, you’ll get to invent a totally original game of your own. 

1. Define Your Game's Core

Wait! Before you build cards or design a game board, start by thinking about how your game works. This is the crux; the foundation. Here are the must-have ingredients:

A) The game's goal

What are game players trying to do? Reach the finish line? Collect the most treasure? Build a farm? Make sure the goal is clear and exciting. Think about replayability, too. For example, your goal could be the first player to collect 5 rare gems wins!

B) Win (and lose) conditions

How does someone achieve victory? Can they lose? Maybe players get eliminated or run out of turns. For example, If your monster runs out of health points, you're out of the game!

Again, these are the building blocks of every great game. Once you've got these figured out, the rest - cards, dice, boards - will fall into place.

Quick Example: Outlandia

Let’s say you’re making an adventure game called Outlandia. Here’s how you might fill in your answers:

Goal: Work together to complete 4 quests and defeat the final boss.

Win Condition: Finish all quests and defeat the boss.

Lose Condition: All players lose if anyone’s health reaches 0.

On Your Turn: Roll dice to explore, fight enemies, or complete puzzles. The Game Master guides the story.

Brainstorm the Idea

Time to let your imagination run wild! Sit down with your family or team and start tossing out ideas—no idea is too silly or strange.

Talk it out: What kind of game sounds fun? Do you want it to be about monsters, space, farming, treasure hunting, or something totally new?

Write down every idea: Make a big list. More ideas = more fun options to choose from.

Circle your favorites: Everyone can circle one or two ideas they like the most.

Pick the winner: Talk it out and agree on the one idea your team is most excited to build.

Tip: If you're torn between two ideas, see if you can combine them into something new!

Need Ideas? Try One of These!

If your team is stuck, here are some fun game themes to get your creativity flowing:

Battle Deck Showdown: A fast-paced trading card game. Build your deck, boost your stats, and duel your opponents.

Dice Duel: Roll the dice to attack, defend, and outlast your enemies in this luck-and-strategy battle game.

Monster Ranch: Catch and raise adorable (or spooky!) monsters. Train them and use their powers to win challenges.

Quest Quest (yes, two quests!): A tabletop RPG where players complete quests, collect treasures, and defeat puzzles and enemies. You’ll need a Game Master!

Farm Frenzy: Work together to collect resources and build the best farm before time runs out.

Want to mix two ideas together? How about Monster Ranch meets Farm Frenzy: build a farm and raise monsters!

Game Components

Now that you have a team and know what your game is generally about, it's time to start coming up with what your game looks like! But before you can decide on the look, you must choose what components your game will have.

Components are all the parts that make up your game, including any game pieces, tokens, cards, boards, etc.

Here are some examples of components you may need for your game:

• Cards
• Dice
• Board
• Tokens
• Player pawns

With your team, make a list of the components you'll need for your game, then decide how you'll make those. Going back to the example ideas above, here are some components you may need:

Prototyping with Thumbnails

Now that you’ve mapped out your components, it’s time to prototype, starting with quick, low-detail drawings called thumbnails.

Thumbnails are small, rough sketches that give you a fast way to plan the layout and look of your game pieces before creating polished versions. Think of this as your test run—rapid, flexible, and focused on function, not perfection.

Why Thumbnails Matter

• They help you visualize your ideas quickly.
• They let your "game design team" compare different layouts or styles.
• They keep you from overcommitting to an idea too early.

How to Thumbnail Effectively

• Keep them small: Use boxes no larger than a sticky note. This forces simplicity and speeds up iteration.
• Sketch fast: Don’t spend more than 2–3 minutes on each one.
• Distribute tasks: If your game has cards, a board, and tokens, assign one person to sketch each.
• Compare and choose: Once everyone has a few sketches, share your ideas and vote on which versions to develop further.

Prototype Designs

At this point, you can get as detailed as you want, but my suggestion? Wait until you know if you like the game or not before spending too much time creating it. Treating it as a prototype, you can create pretty much anything needed for any game with paper. 

Cards are used in almost every game, and can easily be made by cutting out card-sized pieces of paper. To ensure your card shapes are roughly the same size, you'll fold paper and then cut them into shapes. Each piece of paper can fit ~9 cards. Depending on how many cards you need for your game, you'll add more sheets of paper to your materials list.

If you need a game board, tape four pieces of paper together to form a square. You can decide how big you want your board to be, but in this example, it will use 4 sheets of paper.

Tokens and counters that are needed to keep track of points and values in the game can be made with crumpled up pieces of paper. You can also cut out shapes (like with the cards) to create tokens. 

For player pawns or any pieces that stand up, you'll want to create some kind of stand for the piece so it can stand up or fold the paper in a way that it stands. In this example, it will be a flat character drawn on a piece of paper that's held up by folding the piece of paper.

Make sure you measure these against your board to ensure they'll fit on the spaces you made.

Play/Playtest

Your game is coming together with components and rules. But before you polish and finish all of your components, you must playtest.

• Playtesting means trying out your game from the player’s perspective to ensure it's balanced and working as intended.
• It's important to make sure your game is working, or if it isn't, note what should change to make it more fun!
• Professional AAA game studios have entire teams dedicated to playtesting their projects to ensure they work.

It's rare that an idea works the very first time, so it's important to playtest often and iterate on those ideas so they can continue to improve.

To start, gather your team so you can playtest what your family has so far!

1. Gather your team, game components, and a pencil and paper.
2. Set up your game, dealing cards and setting up components as you planned.
3. Play through the game and take notes along the way on areas that didn't work and areas that did.
4. Once you've finished, gather your team and discuss what went right and what could be improved.
5. Make updates to your game, then hold another playtest session.

You Did It—Now Keep Going!

You’ve just designed, built, and tested your very own game—how cool is that?

Whether it’s a wild card battle, a treasure-hunting board game, or a farm full of monster chickens, you took your idea and turned it into something real. That’s what great creators do.

But don’t stop here!

• Try adding new rules or expansion packs.
• Challenge other family members to play.
• Design a totally different game using what you learned.

Game design is all about experimenting, problem-solving, and making something fun from scratch. And the best part? There’s no limit to what you can create next. Need more inspiration?

Best Brain Games for Kids
Cool Roblox Math Games
What Makes Video Games Fun?

Now go play—and keep inventing!