The Kids’ Tabletop Game Design Challenge is a new competition for children aged 7-16 to design board and card games. 

We are looking for individuals or organisations to help with:

• promoting the contest
• volunteer judges to choose between 9 and 15 finalists
• individuals or publishers to consider the finalist games and choose overall winners

If you think that’s you, please a) read on, and b) fill out the online volunteers form.

Summary

This is a contest for tabletop games designed by children. Parents can help, but the ideas and design should be the child’s work. The games must be analogue tabletop games with no video or online components. 

The children enter one of three age categories, which correspond to school years in England (and are close to the school years in Scotland). Roughly, these are age 7-10, age 11-13, and age 14-16.

Between three and five finalists will chosen from each category, meaning between nine and 15 finalists overall. These finalists each get a certificate and maybe a special pin badge. One overall winner is chosen per age category. All the finalist game designs are seen by a small selection of publishers, but we make it really clear that there is no guarantee that any of the game designs would be picked up by publishers. 

General questions

There will be no charge to enter. No money is being made — this is essentially costing time with the organisation and admin. Maybe next year, if it goes well, we can see if there is any funding anywhere. But it’s very much done on a shoestring.

Some of you might be thinking “my child will definitely enter, so I can’t be a judge”. You can! We can make sure that you don’t judge any of the games submitted by someone in your family. All judging would be done after the submission deadline.

Another question is “Will there be a website?” Yes, we will create a simple WordPress site. There should probably also be a discord group too, but we haven’t got that far yet. Definitely by January 2026.

The logo will look like this, below…

Who’s involved and who do we need?

Can you help us by being any of the following?

• people to help promote the contest to children and their responsible adults
• people to judge the games and choose up to 15 finalists (between 1 September and mid November 2026)
• publishers to look at the finalist games and choose overall winners (between 1 January and 31 March 2027)

The organisation will be done by Jessica Metheringham of Dissent Games. 

Promotion can be done via social media, the BoardGameProtoHype group (mainly on Instagram), and live at events such as AireCon and UKGE. However, it would be useful to receive more promotion help, particularly people who are able to tell schools about the contest. All ideas are very welcome.

We need game designers and those with some experience in the industry to be volunteer judges and help consider the games submitted. We will produce a form with the criteria to be judged against and the possible marks to be awarded. These volunteer judges will probably be judging up to ten games each, and so we’ll need quite a lot of people. It will all be co-ordinated by Jess at Dissent Games. 

Once the best games are chosen as finalists, we will ask those designers to send in prototypes and/or print and play copies.
This is the point at which we’d like some publishers to be the judges. This might be an event at AireCon, or posting prototypes around. We will make it very clear that there is no guarantee that any of these games are picked up anyone. If you are one of these judges then we would expect you to give a few minutes to each of the finalists’ games (it might just be watching 15 videos or reading 15 sets of rules), to make some comment about all or most of the games, and to tell us which games you think should win.

At this point we are interested in hearing from people who can help — whether that’s as a volunteer judge, with promotion, or as a publisher who would like to see the games at the end of the contest. Please fill in this online form here: https://forms.gle/LkwDQSxJdUZvxXvt5

We would like to use your name or your company logo to say that you support the Kids’ Tabletop Game Design Challenge. We won’t do anything else with it apart from having a strip at the bottom of a webpage saying “Kids’ Tabletop Game Design Challenge supported by….xyz, etc etc.”

Contest timeline

This contest will officially open on 29 May 2026. The closing date for entries is 31 August 2026.

Children be able to enter via a Google form from 29 May until 11:59pm on 31 August. 

We will look at all entries. We promise to provide at least one piece of feedback for each game which is entered. We expect to judge the games on a number of factors including the potential of the idea (ie how interesting it is) and the practical viability (ie whether it’s easy to actually make). There will be some more guidelines online, and there may be links to suggestions or other websites for inspiration. 

We will shortlist between three and five games from each age category to be finalists. (Of those finalists, one per age category will eventually be chosen as the winner of that group.) This will happen during the autumn, and the finalists informed by 30 November 2026.

The finalists will all be invited to submit their games to a small selection of publishers. This might take place in person, via zoom, or simply by having the publisher look at the game as submitted. (It might be that the publisher has been one of the judges making the decision about which of the finalists should be the overall winner.) There may not be an actual meeting, and there is no guarantee that any of the publishers wish to take any of the games further — simply that the finalist games will be shown to publishers. This will happen between the end of November 2026 and April 2027, and perhaps it could involve a meeting of publishers looking at the finalists’ prototypes at AireCon.

We expect to tell the three winners that they won in April 2027.

Entry requirements

(This is what the contestants will see.)

About the contestants

This contest is open to children from the UK. In the future it may be open to children worldwide, but for now it is UK only. 

There are three different entry groups, and children should enter the one which is right for their age.

Group 1: children aged 7, 8, 9 or 10 on 31 August 2026. 

Group 2: children aged 11, 12, or 13 on 31 August 2026. 

Group 3: children aged 14, 15, or 16 on 31 August 2026. 

These groupings are based on the school year in England. The school age groupings follow a different pattern in Scotland, and many children across the UK are homeschooled. We will say to children that if their birthday falls close to the edge of one of these groups and they think it would be better to be in a different group, then to enter for their preferred group and let us know why on the form. 

About the game

This competition is for tabletop analogue games. The game could include a board, cards, dice, tokens, pen and paper, or any other physical pieces. It can’t involve any video game or online element. 

The game could be a replayable game, or a single-play puzzle adventure. It could be a role playing game. 

The game could be for any number of players, and for any age range. 

What we need on 31 August 2026

What children will need to submit as part of the form:

• Name and date of birth 
• Permission from a responsible grown up
• Key details such as the name of the game, how long it takes to play, and the number of players
• 1-3 minute video of the game
• Up to 500 words explaining the rules
• Up to 500 words of anything else about the game (optional)

What happens after that 

We will choose between three and five games from each category to be finalists. Of those finalists, one per group will be the winner. This will happen during the autumn, and the finalists chosen and informed by 30 November 2026.

if your game has been chosen to be a finalist, then we will ask you to send us a prototype. That doesn’t need to be expensive, and it could simply be handwritten cards. We will make sure that the prototype is available for publishers to consider. While there is no guarantee that any of these games will be picked up by the publishers, we will do our best to support any finalists in their conversations with publishers. 

One winner per age category will also be chosen. The winners will be announced during April 2027.