Freelance tabletop game developer · Belgium
I make good games better.
Development critique, structured playtesting, and rulebook editing for publishers and serious designers. I find where a game creaks — then propose the smallest fix that respects your design and your component budget.
Services
Modular by design: start with a small, low-risk engagement and scale up only if the work earns it.
Development critique
A written deep-dive on your prototype: what the game is trying to do, where it breaks, and prioritized fixes — each costed in complexity and components.
Best before pitching or signing.
Blind playtest coordination
Structured sessions built around a defined question, observed without steering, and synthesized into evidence — what players did, not just what they said.
Best for pre-production titles.
Rulebook editing
Terminology discipline, teach-in-play-order structure, edge cases found before your players find them. A rulebook that carries the game on its own.
Best 1–2 months before print.
Insert & organizer design
The inside of the box, designed like the building it is: trays and organizers that fit your components, speed up setup, and survive shelf storage. Prototyped in-house on a 3D printer, so you hold a working sample — not a drawing.
Best during production planning.
Full development
From signed prototype to shippable game: balancing, cutting, testing cycles, and rules polish — within your budget, your audience, and your deadline.
Scoped per project.
Organizers
Free to print on MakerWorld
The Production service, in public: organizers I design to cut setup and teardown time as far as it will go, published free to print with a tested print profile. It's the same work I'd do on the inside of your box.
See them on MakerWorld →
About
I'm Shahdad "Buddieh" Neshin, a game developer and designer based in Ghent, Belgium. By training I'm an architect — which turns out to be excellent preparation for games: both are systems people move through, and both live or die on clear documentation. It's also why I design the inside of the box, not just the game in it. On other people's games I bring that same precision: it's never my game, and my best work is invisible.
I play and analyze 60+ new titles a year across every genre and weight — euros to children's games — and keep a structural log of all of them. That library is what I think with.
Let's make your game better
Tell me what you're working on and where it creaks. I'll reply within two working days with an honest read on whether I can help.
hello@buddieh.com