If you’ve ever wanted to design your own board game, The White Box aims to make it a reality

Who hasn’t found themselves playing an old favourite and suddenly had a burst of inspiration for their very own board game? Of course, actually making an idea into something real is a whole other step, but a new project on Kickstarter plans to offer everything you need to painlessly turn your (at least hypothetically) clever inventions into working games so you can see if your genius concept really is the next Pandemic or Codenames.

The White Box is described as a game design workshop in a box and includes both vital advice on the ins and outs of making a tabletop title and the physical components required to craft and test prototypes.

The 128-page book includes ‘how to’ 18 essays by Jeremy Holcomb, a professor of game design at the DigiPen Institute of Technology and creator of game such as The Duke and Timestreams. Some of the subjects covered include advice on working out a winning concept, implementing randomness, how to work with playtesters and the question of self-publishing – tabletop 101 for veteran designers, but crucial for those embarking on their journey.

When it comes to components, there’s an abundance of bits and bobs, including punchboard sheets full of counters and markers both pre-printed with numbers and symbols and left blank for custom tokens, 100 coloured cubes, 24 meeples, four giant cubes, 90 plastic discs and eight six-sided dice.

The creators of the box have also promised bonus bits if the campaign reaches certain stretch goals, including extra essays, additional tokens and black and white components to join the multi-coloured pieces already included. At the time of writing, it’s already sitting pretty at more than $13,000 (£10,135) with 27 days left to go.

The whole box costs a fairly respectable $30 (£23), although you’ll need to add $25 (£19) for shipping to the UK, which does almost double the cost. If you’d rather source your own components but would like the advice of an expert, the book of essays can be brought in a digital form for a much more wallet-friendly $8 (£6).

At the very top end of the tiers is an hour of consultation on your game idea from Holcomb – but you’ll want to be sure it’s more than just a pipedream, as it’ll set you back $350 (£273).

And, hey, if your idea turns out to be a hit – why not get in touch? We'd love to hear from you!