I don't care about making money in board games. If I did I wouldn't bother, there's not a whole lot of money in there unless you make multiple mega-hits or you one of a handful of publishers, and that's getting harder and harder to do with so many games being put out there every year (I think it's 700+ that debut each year at Gen Con alone).

But I would like to find an audience that enjoys playing my designs, and pretty much the only way to find an audience is to get your game published via Kickstarter or a publisher (there are other methods, like Print and Play and The Game Crafter, but the potential audience is a tiny fraction of other methods, especially since there's already too many board games released every year by publishers to keep up with. I myself have slowed way down in my game acquisitions and the number of games I try every year, I've run out of room in the house and what I do have don't get played enough to warrant keeping anyway).

Otherwise I'm just designing games purely for the hell of it, and I almost might as well be solving Sudoku puzzles or playing Chess instead.

Also despite it being easier to develop and test board games, I've had a super hard time getting any luck in the industry. I've had a meetings with several publishers, but only got one game signed in about 5 years of trying.

But It's a lot easier if you're a known personality. Like I'm friends with a few people that have made more progress in less time because they volunteer a lot of time in the industry and are pretty well known...one woman has a podcast, works for a game manufacturer, has helped run a few board game conventions, and has three games in the pipeline after in less than half the time I've been trying, but she is fully immersed in the world so it's easier, whereas I'm juggling it with other interests and a job that has nothing to do with the industry. I could be putting myself out there more, but I just don't have the energy for it.

Whereas back when I used to only make video games, I was usually knocking out one or two web games a year, just on my own, and some were getting played millions of times, no publisher needed. If you played Flash games back in the day, there's a chance you played something I made. I still run into random people that have played my Flash games. Two coworkers at my current job alone played them over a decade ago. It has gotten harder to get back into that now that I'm older, slower, and have a wife and two dogs that need my attention, though.

I've considered using Twine for some story-based games before. How are you using it for playtesting?