How do we decide to do a game at Level 99?

Where do the board games come from?

We use a process called Greenlighting to advance ideas from our office team and trusted designers into the spotlight.

Most small game publishers are single-person operations, where a company president uses a bunch of contractors to build the games they think will best fit their lineup. Contractors are fairly mercenary, and it's important to find the right team for each game.

By contrast, Level 99 Games is a team of career designers and publishers with a shared passion for creating games. Because of this, our team is mostly fixed, and it's important that we find the right game for the team.

Each week, our team members are each encouraged to take 20% of their time and invest it in design, process improvement, and future ideas. Sometimes new games or new properties come out of this design time.

Every Friday, we get together for a playtest day. Sometimes we're testing games in development.

Often, we're kicking around ideas or prototypes for new games.

Once a game has been played by every member of our team, and contributions have been made from around the table, we ask the question:

Do we ALL want to see this game come to life?

Are we ALL going to be able to work passionately to see it through?

If the answer is yes, then we're ready to start the planning step!

If no, then it's back to the drawing board for some reworking and another round.