How to make an indie game moodboard: references, mood and mechanics

A moodboard is not a collage: it is a decision tool

A nice grid of images is not enough. A good moodboard helps you say "yes" or "no" to a specific idea. To do that, it must cover what sets the mood, what the player does and what gives the rhythm, without mixing the three up. A few well-chosen, annotated references beat a hundred images with no explanation.

1. Make three columns: mood, mechanics, rhythm

For Dicebound, the fictional dice roguelike from our examples: for mood, a cream-and-coral palette and engraved dice; for mechanics, the equipment of Dicey Dungeons and the rerolls of Slice & Dice; for rhythm, a combat trailer. Keep it to five or six items per column. On the Impstash board you can place images, notes, Steam links and YouTube or TikTok videos, and group them in frames.

2. Annotate each reference in one sentence

A lone image can mean ten things. Add a note: "I keep the readability of the equipment, I refuse permanent progression." Separate what you observed ("the dice are always visible") from what you assume ("this makes combat more tactical"). These notes will later serve you, your teammates and the assistant.

3. Look for tensions between references

A moodboard that is 100% coherent is often too tame. Spot the contradictions: a soft mood with a ruthless system, or a fast rhythm with a slow-calculation mechanic. Write them down and decide which one wins, or whether the contrast becomes your signature. That is where your game starts to stand apart from its references.

4. Reduce it to a three-line direction

Select three to five cards and ask Claude, from the board, to cross them. Then write three lines yourself: the mood, the player's main decision, the production constraint. In Impstash these belong in "Project direction": pitch, genre, pillars, tone, audience and constraints. Connected assistants and agents can read them.

5. Use the moodboard to say no

When a new idea arrives, compare it to the board: does it serve the mood, the mechanic or the rhythm? If it serves none, set it aside instead of growing the game. Come back to the moodboard after each test: if players feel something other than planned, that is information, not failure.

A prompt to adapt to your game

Here is my moodboard for a dice roguelike, Dicebound. Mood: cream-and-coral palette, engraved dice. Mechanics: equipment that restricts dice (Dicey Dungeons), rerolls (Slice & Dice). Rhythm: two-minute fights. Spot the tensions between these references, then propose three directions of one sentence each. For each one, tell me what I keep, what I refuse and what I should check. Separate what you infer from the material provided from what you are assuming.

Replace the references and constraints with your own. The AI’s answers are leads to review; the choice remains yours.

References and communities to keep going

• Dicey Dungeons — Dice values turned into decisions: study equipment constraints.
• Slice & Dice — Visible enemy intents: compare risk, rerolls and dice teamwork.
• Dicey Dungeons — Creator notes and videos
• r/gamedesign — To discuss mechanics, rules, and design trade-offs.
• r/gameideas — To share a structured idea and explore its possibilities. Check the rules before publishing.