LG Board

thetrinabailey

Deciding how or what game board to draw is the most difficult part for me. Why?

LouisLitt

Knowing what game board to use comes naturally after you've done a ton of games. There will come a point in your studies that after reading the scenario and rules, deciding what game board to use will become instinctual.

AudaciousRed

^^^ That. All of what Louis said. It does take a while to learn. But then one day, you come across yet another in/out game with categories and you go "wow.. this is exactly the same as that other one..." Because there are only so many games they can make and questions they can ask before you catch that it's really all been done before, and only the names and characteristics change (dogs in a dog show become dinosaurs in a shop window like 50 tests later).

Learn the types and the board for those types. For example, if a game has fewer slots than game pieces, it's an in/out game, first and foremost. There's not enough room, something has to go. Start drawing the overall in/out layout. From there, there may be categories (male or female, colors and breeds, etc), but these categories will fall under the in/out system.

If you can read the stimulus and figure out what the game board will generally look like (in out, one to one, a circle game, a "back to headquarters" game, houses on streets, floors on buildings, charts for potentially unlimited options like cars with various factory options, etc).. you have the game. The rest is just applying rules carefully and realizing inferences. But that setup is key to it all. If you don't get the setup, the game is toast. And you only know these things if you've been exposed to them and study them.
It sounds like September got a circle game, which isn't done very often. Learn as many game board types as you can.