Resonance in Board Games

What makes board game themes resonate with players? 

Resonance is a quality of sound signified by the depth and reverberation of tone. In music, resonance is created by the shape and clarity of the tone, not just the volume. How do designers get their themes to reverberate across the hobby? By adding depth, shape, and clarity to their themes. 

The opposite of resonance is muddiness. Themes that lack clarity can create confusion, both of rules and narrative. While games should create puzzlement, they should not create confusion. By examining our themes in detail, we can clearly express what the intended game experience is supposed to be. 

Common qualities of resonant games are 1) theme and mechanics that align, 2) use of theme to explain the why of game play, 3) themes that are relatable to players on an emotional level, and 4) themes that fill a void in the market. I’m going to focus on the two middle qualities: using theme to explain 'why' and relating to players on an emotional level. Aligning theme and mechanics will be discussed as part of that, but I won’t be looking in depth at specific mechanics in this post. Also, I think if a theme resonates it will naturally seem to fill a void in the market, so you shouldn’t put the cart before the horse: work on your theme first, and the market will sort itself out. 

I have developed a short list of tools to tweak themes to help them resonate better by making them more relatable to players and by adjusting mechanics to make the rules and mechanisms more relatable to the theme. These tools are not the only ways to achieve resonance, but I think they are a good place to start. 

But first, I am going to pivot and discuss theatre for a bit. In 1570, literary critic Lodovico Castelvetro codified the three neoclassical unities of theatre: unity of action, unity of time, and unity of place. In sixteenth century Italy, this meant a play must have a single plot, one location, and take place in a 24 hour period. The idea was that the audience needed a clear grounding in the events of a play in order to follow what was happening. Theatre has largely moved away from this stringent formulation, but this is a good starting place for looking at game themes. I have borrowed the unities for my list of tools for resonance and added one more. My list of tools for building resonant theming is plot, location, time, and character. 

Note: You don’t need all of the things I’m going to suggest. Many times you may find you only need one or two to give your design the spark it needs to hook players. Also, this won’t be a comprehensive list of how to use these tools, just some broad ideas that should make the tools easier to remember. 

Let’s start with plot. The most impactful design choice you can make is to have the game objective and narrative or theme align. How you win the game should feel similar to how a character succeeds in the narrative. For example, in Sheriff of Nottingham the characters goals of making money at the market are closely aligned to the players goals of making the most points because most of the points are analogous to money the character has made. 

Game actions should help further the narrative arc, not just game objectives. This means that the actions players take should not just be thematic, they should feel important to the story. Every location in Tokaido makes sense to the narrative; none of them are naked mechanics poking through. A game like Space Base, on the other hand, is almost all naked mechanics with a lightly thematic setting. Space Base's mechanics may be better than Tokaido's, but the game isn't as emotionally resonant. 

Another way to add resonance through plot is to ground your story in a ‘universal’ experience. People like what they can relate to. This experience should provide the emotional impetus of the game, but you can layer whimsy on top of it. The movie My Neighbor Totoro is an excellent example of a whimsical setting that is still deeply grounded in the emotional reality of the real world. Adding depth to themes means adding layers of meaning and subtext, not simply a more detailed world. Ideas like friendship, sacrifice, and revenge add resonance. Made-up words and endless fantasy creatures do not. 

One way to avoid muddiness is by clearly indicating the location of the game-narrative. Stories are more accessible if listeners know ‘where’ events are taking place. This can be done through game board illustration, character movement, and game ‘physics’. Illustrations help remind players of the scene ‘around’ them. Character movement helps reinforce distances and topography. Tokaido gives the impression of a journey because the characters are moving across the board even though the 'map' is abstract. Game mechanics that incorporate physics like gravity help make the game feel more real, such as in Walking in Burano. Even components can provide a sense of location like the conveyor belts in Sushi Roll. It’s important to note that you don’t need a ton of detail to achieve the desired effect. A few details added very intentionally was all the aforementioned games needed to create a greater sense of location.

Another way to orient players within your game is to provide a sense of the timescale of the narrative (i.e. epochs, real time, seasons, etc.). Advancement of gameplay should align with the timescale you are using. Be aware that different scales produce different experiences. For example, a condensed time frame makes the action more immediate which adds excitement to a game. Civilization games lack that sense of immediacy. Does the game take place in one day? Does a round? A turn? Would adding what time of year a game occurs change your game in a meaningful way? One thing that made Viticulture stand out when it was published was how it used seasons to give a rhythm to the mechanics.

One of the best ways to tap into players' emotions is through character. Character goals should align with game objectives. Special powers should signal what a character desires or their strengths/weaknesses. Characters with narrative motivated goals and obstacles that are provided by game mechanics will seem more like real people. 

Individuals make more sympathetic characters/avatars than entities or corporations or factions. Games like Terraforming Mars don't interest me on a thematic level because players play as corporations. However, games with unrelated individuals are less resonant than games that give characters relationships. Relationships add depth and drive home meaning. I have already written about this, though so I won't dwell on it here.  

My favorite game that uses all four tools to great effect is the video game Untitled Goose Game. However, I believe that Tokaido is underserved in the hobby community when it is judged solely by its mechanics. Tokaido uses each of the tools I listed and creates a very resonant game that is very accessible to new gamers. Would a better game do everything Tokaido does well but also have more variety in gameplay? Sure. But if you want a single game to study how to add resonance without a Gloomhaven sized box, that game is Tokaido. Look at the theme: you play a person (character) traveling (plot) across Japan (location) for vacation (time). Helpfully, condensing the tools for resonance into a one sentence description is a good formulation for a hook. 

Resonant games have depth of theme, clarity of narrative, and a strong shape of mechanics that provide scaffolding for the theme. Plot, location, time, and character are tools you can use to create that depth, clarity, and shape. 

Good Criticism of Game Design

I love quality criticism. I started watching reviews of games to learn about games I don't have the time or money to play, but I follow a number of reviewers simply because I enjoy the quality of their criticism. Good playtesters give me the same feeling as good reviewers with one exception: now the high quality critique means I have work to do making my game better. When playtesting for specific feedback, one playtester who understands the core of your game and wants to see the gameplay match the potential of the design is worth more than a hundred playtesters who think your game is fun. I don't always love receiving criticism, but I do love a good critique. 

In my Design Practicum series, I have looked at each game a little differently. The purpose of that series is to illustrate how the design principles I write about in my other posts can be deployed when analyzing published games. In other words, I want a record in this blog of how I think about actual games and not only about game design principles. In my most recent practicum, a look at Monopoly, I made a list of criteria in order to organize my thoughts about the game. In this post, I wanted to look at that list of criteria and why I think good criticism incorporates all the categories on the list. 

Here's the list: quality, quantity, composition, dynamics, meta, and innovation. I didn't discuss innovation in my Monopoly post because what was innovative about the game now falls under history and not innovation. This list contains what I think should be covered by in-depth reviews of published games. Obviously, prototypes should not be judged by their art or components in the same fashion. But I do think that playtesters who understand the purpose of quality criticism become better playtesters. 

Games are a form of entertainment that cost money. I think it is perfectly reasonable to begin a critique with the quality of a game. Quality should encompass components, but also writing, editing, art, graphics, and even packaging. Each part impacts the experience of the game. And on the whole, I think the hobby- reviewers, designers, and consumers- are aware that all of these elements matter. 

Quantity comes after quality because quantity includes price point, and you cannot talk about pricing until you've established whether the game's quality should command a high or low price. Quantity also includes size of components and packaging, game length, number of players, number of components. Basically, anything with a number attached to it. These numbers matter in comparison to the price point but also in comparison to the average size of a dining room table or a Kallax shelf. In other words, is the physical existence of the game an impediment to its playability? 

Composition is where we intersect most with the principles of design: unity, emphasis, scale, balance, rhythm, and mood. All of these principles are elements of composition. In addition, composition looks at how components, rules, mechanics, and theme interact and align, how their quality and quantity affect the experience of play, and whether any simple changes could have reduced friction between these elements for players. I don't expect reviewers to use the same language I do, but good critiques should cover the totality of game composition, not just if the mechanics work. 

I include players' reaction to gameplay in dynamics as well as emergent strategies and players' interactions with each other. Also in this category is whether a game feels competitive throughout, whether it fits the weight it's marketed as (family, gateway, strategy, etc), and whether the game will continue to be interesting over multiple plays. Composition is about a game's relationship with itself; dynamics is about a game's relationship with the players. 

Meta-critique is the most underrepresented criteria in reviews that I see. Meta looks at how the game relates to the world outside of the game. This category looks at trends in game design and publishing, initiatives to grow the hobby, and the ethics around what sort of stories we tell in games. This category includes discussion of colonialism, diverse representation, and appropriation, as well as overused themes or mechanics, accessibility, and distribution models. My favorite reviewers are those that sprinkle in a healthy dose of meta to their reviews. This is the category that elevates a book review to literary criticism or a movie review to a masterclass in film studies. Games need this level of criticism to help legitimize the art form. I fully admit that not every review needs to look this deeply at a game. Most reviews are about helping consumers choose how to spend their money. But we need this level of critique as well. Higher level critique serves to educate the most engaged consumers and also holds designers and publishers accountable for the cultural impacts of their games. As a designer, I both want and need high quality critique from playtesters, publishers, and reviewers in order to become aware of my blind spots to my own designs. Currently, the games that get this level of critique are games that are complex, expensive, popular, or some combination of the three. There has been a recent push to review smaller, cheaper games this year in as much depth as the heavier games, which I hope continues. I believe that broadening and deepening critique of games will require a shift in how publishers and consumers think of games, not just reviewers. The number one thing I would like to see is designer's notes in every (or most every) game. By putting forward the idea that all hobby games are worthy of considering on a deeper level, publishers would effectively invite reviewers and consumers to consider their games as the art form that they are. 

I list innovation last because the hook of a game should always appear in the conclusion. Innovation covers whatever feels fresh or new about a game. Innovation is always a hook and most hooks feel innovative (whether they historically are or not). This category includes themes, mechanics, components, etc, but also dynamics, story-telling, and overall experience. Perfecting any aspect of a game can be considered innovative, even if you aren't inventing something whole cloth. Put another way, doing something for the first time and doing something well for the first time are both innovative. Let's stop pretending popular games aren't innovative because they didn't invent their mechanics. The first game to make a mechanic fun (or thematic) is just as innovative as the game that debuted the mechanic. Both are difficult design challenges and should be celebrated. 

Game design is art and criticism of art is necessary in order to one day write an accurate history of a particular art form. Good criticism educates consumers and holds designers and publishers accountable for their design choices. Good criticism leads to better games, a healthy hobby, and a future where board games (and other game genres) are accepted as the art they are. 

How to Creatively Reset Your Brain

 What is a creative reset? This is a tool for replenishing creative engery, not a tool to become more creative. It's what you need to do to avoid burnout or when faced with burnout. If you're feeling apathetic toward your projects or have developed a sense of loathing at the thought of being creative (especially on a schedule), you probably need to reset creatively. A creative reset is a break that allows you to rest and refill your creativity tank. 

How do you reset? In order to truly reset, you have to take a break from being creative on demand. So, during your reset time, you cannot work on any creative projects. Avoid thinking about them as well. Give your brain permission to rest. Resting is hard in our overstimulating world, so if you can you should avoid screens during your reset. At minimum, avoid social media. Do chores; do work; read a book; play a board game you're already familiar with. Do these things instead of looking at your phone, computer, or television screen. Listen to music if you have to have background noise. Take walks. Walking without a focus on exercise is a good way to let your brain relax. The ideal place to walk is somewhere quiet with lots of trees, but just walking a minimum of twenty minutes anywhere can work. 

If you have an idea, write it down to get it out of your brain, but avoid developing it during your reset. 

How long is the reset? The minimum for a full reset is three days. I have read reports from various places that that is how long it takes people going camping/off the grid to shift their mode of thinking away from being constantly plugged in to a more restful state. If you're already burned out, you made need longer. Ideally, a long weekend away in a cabin in the woods would tick all of the reset boxes. But I find that by forcing myself to reset in my usual environment that I am better able to regulate my behavior after the reset than if I just got back from vacation. Plus, a creative reset allows me time to do chores, contributing to lower stress in general. 

Remember, three days is for if you are approaching burnout and need a full reset. A week or more might be needed if you're already at burnout. Another, possibly healthier approach if you aren't near burnout is to pick a day of the week (yes, every week) where you focus on aspects of your life other than your creative projects. If you are a freelancer, this may involve explaining to people that you don't work on Tuesday afternoons or Sunday mornings (to pick an example from my freelancing days) if you don't want to wall off a full day. 

Don't curtail your reset if you start to feel better halfway thru. Fully commit to a timeframe and stick to it. Exhaustion is only a symptom. You'll know your tank is truly refilled when you get back to your projects eager to work and feel the ideas starting to bubble up again. 

The most important part: You have to give yourself permission to take a break from the thing (creativity) that is exhausting you. During these times, you will have to remind yourself that your job for today is to refill your tank. Most of a reset is just taking pressure off your self to always be turned 'on' creatively. Tell yourself it's ok to be 'off.'

If you're skeptical, give it a try. It's just three days. 

Mechanics Roundup: Acquisition (Cards)

I use action categories to help me plug in mechanisms around my core idea in order to flesh out a game and make it functional. Most often, I have idea for what players will do with components once they acquire them. It's the acquisition of resources that trips me up. Recently, while yet again testing different ways to acquire cards, I started a list of every way I could think of to acquire cards. Maybe it will help someone else as well. 

Card Acquisition

• Drafting: 
• pick-and-pass (ex: LRL; snake draft)
• from a pool, any card is free (flushable, sometimes)
• from a pool, cards slide down, place resources to skip a card
• I Cut; You Choose (hidden information, sometimes)
• Coloretto-style draw-or-draft
• Market:
• random pool (flushable, usually)
• from a pool, cards slide down to get cheaper
• from a pool, "I price; You Choose"
• complete information, all cards used
• complete information, market grows as cards are unlocked
• Personal player cards
• personal deck (pairs with a market for deck building; reset mechanism, sometimes)
• personal hand (reset mechanism, frequently)
• Drawing off a shared deck
• dealing a hand, all players get same number of cards (pairs with most things)
• draw n cards blind, into hand or otherwise 
• discard to draw
• pay to draw
• draw from discard pile
• search deck/discard pile
• Auctions/bidding (see BGG for types)
• Exchange between players
• trading
• negotiation/bribery
• Fulfill requirements
• turn in resources to get a card
• spend cards to get a card
• fail to fulfill requirements (ex: having cards is bad)
• Take an action
• action selection list ("take a card")
• worker placement/rondel (put a pawn on a card space)
• move token a number of spaces (land on a card space)
• forego an action to take a card instead
• Mancala-style set collection to claim cards
• Defeat other players in a contest
• trick-taking
• rock, paper, scissors
• other conflict resolution mechanisms
• Inherit cards from eliminated players
• Take that (steal a card from another player; included for completeness)
• Dexterity

Common traits to pair with card acquisition

• flushing 
• blind/open
• reset/ reclaim discards
• following (take the same action at a lower power)
• real-time
• race to complete/ "be the first"
• push your luck
• simultaneous
• variable costs

Obviously, I'm bound to be missing some. But I find having a list to go over when I'm stuck is helpful. 

Edit: This is something of a living list that I will add to as I think of things.             

Board Game Titles: A completely unscientific overview

It seems that every board game designer is on a quest for the perfect board game title. Design forums are filled with daily polls and requests for what title sounds best. Some days it feels like a good title is the holy grail of game design. In this post, I want to take a look at some common title formations and some tips for better title writing. NB: I'm largely ignoring anything subtitle related. 

Coming in at the top of the list is the well-beloved Adjective Noun. Seen in examples like Space Base, Star Realms, and Spirit Island, Adjective Noun titles are pithy and work well in conjunction with alliteration and/or rhyme.  This is my go-to title formation. Sometimes you can get away with adding an adjective or adverb, like Great Western Trail or Too Many Bones, but don't get carried away. Simple is better. 

A close second is Noun Preposition Object. This formation is for when Adjective Noun sounds too clunky. Examples include Sheriff of Nottingham, Mansions of Madness, and A Feast for Odin. The most common subtype here is "Character of/from Place." Garphill Games regularly combines this category with the first category to get "Noun Preposition Adjective Noun," such as in Paladins of the West Kingdom (or Chaos in the Old World by Eric Lang).  A reverse of the Garphill subtype would be A Few Acres of Snow or This War of Mine. Either can be a catchy formation, but I'd keep it pithy unless you're Shem Phillips. 

A similar formation is Verb Preposition Object. Examples include Roll For It!, Race for the Galaxy, Roll to the Top! There aren't a ton of these outside of "Roll..." titles, so there's room for innovation here. But I'd be careful to keep it pithy and tied to gameplay. 

Then there is the Noun and Noun formation. Popularized by Dungeons and Dragons, examples also include Tigris & Euphrates, Axis & Allies, and Wits & Wagers. Another great place for alliteration or rhyme. However, if you use this formation there is an expectation that the nouns will be closely tied to the gameplay. 

Now we enter into more dangerous territory. The first couple of categories fell under "hard to go wrong." The rest are "try at your own risk." And yes, the first half dozen that follow are single word titles, because getting the one perfect word to describe a game is hard and should not be attempted lightly. 

A common but tricky formation is the Idea-Noun. Examples include Photosynthesis, Wingspan, and Pandemic. These titles are processes or concepts that are difficult to illustrate (i.e. not a person, place, or thing). In some cases (Wingspan) the title may only be tangentially related to the core gameplay. Done well, these titles leap off the box cover and into your memory. Done poorly, you will likely have to add a lengthy subtitle just so players know what the game is about. (I'm looking at you, Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy.) 

While we're on nouns, let's blitz through (Real) Place, Person, and Thing. Anyone reading this could probably list off a dozen Place titles of board games (but also, Village and Citadels are examples of generic place names). If you go this route, make sure your game does the location justice and that the title isn't going to be confused for another game. Same thing goes with Person titles. Examples of Person titles are Trajan, Shakespeare, and Lorenzo il Magnifico.  I'd avoid naming your game after an object unless it's super evocative, like Scythe. Trains is a terrible title. 

For a truly risky title formation, use a Verb. Examples include Unlock!, Unearth, and Roam. While there is room for more Verb titles in the hobby, there is a reason most titles with verbs in them are parts of phrases. "Race" would be an extremely confusing title in this hobby. This is another formation to be avoided unless the verb is evocative and descriptive of gameplay. 

Honestly, the Adjective/Adverb formation is risky because of how tempting it is. Look at the examples: Azul, Imperial, Ingenious, Quantum, The Grizzled—don't they sound so pithy and fun? Well, not Ingenious, because that's setting expectations too high. And Imperial causes confusion with other games... Yeah, this is a hard sell. 

For the highest highs and lowest lows look to the Sentence Fragment formation. On the one hand, you have the common Prepositional Phrase, which usually works out. Examples include Through the Desert, For Sale, At the Gates of Loyang. On the other hand, Exclamations will make a game sound mass market. Examples include Just One, No Thanks!, and That's Pretty Clever! Sometimes, Exclamations don't always make sense, like with Camel Up or Sushi Go! Tread carefully here. Other subtypes can get trickier to pull off well, such as Conjunction Clause formations like ...and then, we held hands. Or the full sentence It's a Wonderful World.  Sentence fragments that start with a conjunction make poor titles in my opinion because they soften their approach (titles should grab customers) in addition to typically being too long. Longer definitely isn't better when it comes to board game titles. It's a Wonderful World only gets a pass because using a cliche allows us to store the title as a smaller chunk in our memory.  At the Gates of Loyang should be at least one word shorter. 

The following formations should be avoided because they make board gaming more opaque to anyone entering the hobby: Latin titles, like Ex Libris or Mare Nostrum; Fantasy Names like Valeria (this only works for established IPs); Compound Words like Zombicide, KeyForge, or RoboRally. These are very easy ways to make a bad game title even if you are an experienced titler. These types are in turn too obscure, too vague, and too weird. 

Of course the worst titles are the Nth Edition of a game like One Night Ultimate Werewolf Daybreak, a title so bad it is only rivaled by Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective in terms of being just a string of unnecessary, repetitive words. 

If you're very clever, you can twist a category into something new like how Above and Below and Near and Far turn Noun and Noun into Adverb and Adverb. Ryan Laukat deserves more credit for his consistently good titles. 

Collaboration in the Arts

In this mini-series on art, I've looked at where designers fit in as artists, the misconception that artists never finish their art, how craft relates to art, and the misconception that art primarily occurs as inspiration rather than skilled work. Finally, in this post I am looking at how collaboration works in the arts. 

Let's start with the misconception. When most people think "artist," they think of a person working alone on a project from start to finish. While many artists (especially visual artists) work this way, it is an extremely narrow vision of how artists make art. 

There are several types of artistic collaboration: collaboration between members of a group or collaboration between groups, but also immediate, back-and-forth, and pass-off styles of collaboration. (I'm just making up these terms to describe types of collaboration I have seen in the arts.) Collaboration between members of a group that is an immediate style can look like dancers practicing and refining a piece or like an improvised live performance; the feedback from collaborators occurs in real time. Collaboration between groups is the basis of most theatre productions. Lighting designers, scenic designers, directors, choreographers, etc. collaborate, usually in a back-and-forth style that involves a series of production meetings and emails, to create several designs (e.g. costume design) that all mesh together as a whole. Immediate style means the collaborators are in the same room while they work; back-and-forth means that collaborators meet to share progress. 

Pass-off collaboration is more linear. It looks like an artistic director selecting a play script and hiring a group of artists. Then the director (different role from artistic director) creates a concept for the show and sends it to the team. Then the set designer designs a set based on the script and the concept. Then the lighting designer takes the script, concept, and set design and designs the lighting. Many theaters use a more back-and-forth style, but I have seen linear style used as often if not more. In the case of linear style, usually someone on the back-end has collaborate using another style. In this case, the scenic artist and the assistant lighting designer might go back-and-forth about the exact colors to make sure that the realized production looks as good as possible. [Sometimes, these back-end collaborators aren't considered artists, like electricians or carpenters. This is where the arts vs. crafts debate results in the technical workers of theatre being devalued and underpaid even though they make artistic decisions all the time (usually small ones that promote cohesiveness of the production). I left this out of the last post, but wanted to clarify that artistic misconceptions do have real financial consequences.]

Why bring up collaboration? Two reasons. One, I want to point out the misconception of the solo artist. Even in the visual arts, many large works are produced by groups even if they are designed by one person. Often the collaborators are uncredited, as is the case in Renaissance art where a master painter had a number of apprentices working on a piece. We need to get over the solo genius myth. It applies to like two people in history. Everyone else had help. 

The second reason is that artistic collaboration looks a whole lot like how board games get made, even in the case of a solo designer. The designer passes the game off to the publisher, who sends it to the graphic artist and illustrator. This results in either linear or back-and-forth collaboration. 

The reason I wrote this mini-series on art is to argue that board game design is art. The only reason I can think of that would make designers believe otherwise is that they have a number of misconceptions about what art-making looks like, especially in a professional context. I believe that in order for the industry to continue to develop, we need to examine our place as entertainment (i.e. art) makers. We could learn a lot from our fellow artists, but we need to recognize them as peers first. 

Art Versus Craft

This is shaping up to be a mini-series on what art is. Last post, I addressed if a game designer is an artist. This post, I will look at the concept of 'craft' as it relates to art. Next post, I will discuss artistic collaboration. The purpose of these posts is to shed light on what counts as art and who artists really are. 

The barriers between art and craft involve a lot of misconceptions and prejudice. In the last post, I discussed the misconception around artists who never let go of their creations. There are several more misconceptions around the lines that get drawn between art and craft.

There is a duality to the concept of craft. One aspect is the Western image of skilled workers (usually male) making high quality products by hand. The other aspect is the relegation of crafts made by women to chintzy decor that is neither art nor quality handiwork. I won't be delving into this duality, but as I continue to discuss craft it will mostly be in reference to the first image, emphasizing skill and reproducibility. However, I think it is important to point out that the idea of craft/crafts has been used to denigrate women and non-western cultures. 

When discussing the perceived dividing line between art and craft, it becomes apparent that the line exists to divide skill and inspiration. Craft is seen as skill, something you can learn and perfect and repeat. Largely, I agree with this definition; crafts do require specialized knowledge with a number of levels of ability thresholds, whether it's knitting or wood-working. However, I would list crafts as a sub-genre of art. 

So, let's talk about art. Art is viewed as inspiration striking the artist and then flowing from them through their brush or pen or chisel and resulting in an effortlessly created masterpiece. (Unless they are finicky artists who adjust details of that work for decades rather than selling it.) But in my experience, most people see art as existing within the inspiration, the ideas, or "creativity" of the artist. Thus we get the image of the dreamy artist who always has their head in the clouds. Here's the truth, a really great idea may be what makes a work famous, but ideas are less than 10% of the effort required to make art. The rest is skill and tedium. 

If I want to paint a painting, I may first have an idea. But then I will research similar images to help me get proportions correct, sketch several possible poses, prepare my canvas, put down some reference lines, mix the colors I want to use, and eventually "start" painting. Later, I will have to clean up so that my equipment (in this cases brushes) stays in good repair. When does the art start? If your answer is when I start painting, you should know that if I were to skip to that step, the painting would turn out much worse than if I properly prepare. Good art is the result of hard work and detailed, often boring, steps. Also, I may have a knack for painting, but I didn't get decent at it until I took drawing and painting classes. Because art is a skill. 

If you think art is in the ideas only, you should know that good execution is worth a lot more than good ideas. And I do mean worth in the financial sense. Ideas don't feed artists; turning quality work in on time does. In board games, we say that no one will steal your idea because how the game is realized is where the value is. 

Another point to consider: artists cheat professionally. Vanishingly little art is made whole cloth ex nihilo. Artists recycle ideas and methods. They trace, copy, borrow, and steal from other artists. Yes, it is unethical to do so in a way that is noticeable in the final product, but as long as the end result is unique to the artist, any shortcut is time and money saved. Most people don't think of artists this way, partially because if customers knew about all the shortcuts they might not want to pay as much for a piece of art. The downside to maintaining an air of artistic mastery is that the public has come to view art as an intangible process that occurs largely due to inspiration (also intangible). Art is a skill. Art is a craft. Crafts are a form of art. 

There is a small point to be made that the perception of art is that art-works are one-offs and reproducibility reduces the impact of art. However, Edvard Munch's The Scream exists as four paintings and is easily one of the most recognizable pieces of Western art. 

I think one of the reasons board game designers are resistant to being labeled artists is because they understand the skill and tedium involved in their craft. What they don't realize is that skill and tedium is present in every other form of art. Don't take my word for it. Ask any professional painter, musician, actor, photographer, dancer, or poet if their job requires skill or contains boring elements.