Board Game Tycoon

About the game

Board Game Tycoon is an approachable single-player management sim about designing and publishing your own board games. Choose themes and mechanics, name your games and customize their covers. Simulated playtest groups try your prototypes and show you what needs work. Revise your designs, arrange a print run and find out how your games fare with players, critics and fictional content creators. Manage sales, stock and reprints as your catalog grows, all from a warm isometric publishing studio.

The long version

In Board Game Tycoon, your idea becomes a box with your company's name on it. Combine themes and mechanics, name your games and customize their covers in the cover designer. Simulated playtest groups try your prototypes: click a tester to hear what bugged them, work out the rough edges at the game table, and test again. Every change takes time and money. You decide when the design is ready for print.

Send your first print run to the printer and publish your game. The prototype becomes a title in your catalog, and now you find out how many boxes sell and how much of your budget is left for the next idea. Unsold boxes tie up money on your shelves; as the last copies sell, it is time to arrange a reprint.

Fictional magazines review your titles over weeks, each from its own perspective. Players rate and discuss them on BoardGameFreak, the game's fictional community site. Invite a content creator to a stream night with your prototype, or commission videos about games you have already published. Once a year, a jury picks the finalists for the Golden Die. Your isometric office brings it all together: the next playtest at the table, sales figures on the computer, another idea on the whiteboard. Game by game, your catalog tells the story of the games you have made.

What's inside

• Game concepts for different audiences, shaped by themes and mechanics.
• Individual names and covers for your games, built in a layer-based cover designer.
• Simulated playtest groups, visible reactions and focused revisions.
• Publishing, sales, stock management and reprints.
• Fictional content creators, magazines and the BoardGameFreak community site.
• Conventions and an annual award gala as further stages for your games.
• Single-player management in English and German, played with mouse or controller.

What it is not

Board Game Tycoon is a management sim. The board games you design are simulated: playtest groups, critics and the market react to your decisions inside the game. It is not a toolkit for building board games you can play yourself.

Planned for the full release

Your games on other players' shelves: if you opt in, the games you publish can appear on the BoardGameFreak charts of other players in the same season, next to the simulated competition, complete with their names and covers. Every name is reviewed by hand before it shows up. Two of the screenshots below are previews of the full release and are labeled as such.

For press and creators

Usage

You are welcome to use the screenshots, key art and logo from this kit to cover Board Game Tycoon in articles, videos and streams, monetized or not. These images have no embargo. Trailer coverage, embeds, uploads and excerpts by outlets and creators are permitted from October 23, 2026 at 10:00 CEST (08:00 UTC), unless a separate publication time is agreed in writing. Please link to boardgametycoon.com or the Steam page once it is live, keep the two preview images labeled as full release previews, and keep the trailer credits if you cut your own edit. Please do not alter the key art or present the artwork as gameplay.

Playable builds and keys

Playable builds for coverage are available on request, and Steam keys will follow once the store page is live. Email hello@gladrex.com with your outlet or channel and you will get a build plus a short note on what is in and what is not yet.

Interviews and questions

Alex answers questions by email in English or German and is happy to do a call. Topics that come up a lot: why a tycoon about board games, how the playtest simulation works, what the game borrows from real publishing, and what the demo will contain.

About the developer

Gladrex Interactive is the one-person studio of Alexander Kreitner in Bavaria, Germany. Board Game Tycoon is built in Godot 4 and has been playtested in closed rounds since August 2026. The game is written in German and English in parallel, not translated after the fact.