After designing and coding many computer games, I recently got around to designing and publishing a tabletop game. But wait, a board game is hardware! Using PHP to design a board game seems unconventional. How did that come about? Here’s the project history showing how I used PHP as a tool for rapid prototyping. Given I teach game design and have been a professional game designer for 35 years, I’ll include a few other important principles of game design as well.