I suspect many don’t write anything down and do this largely by intuition/experience but I want to tease out some ideas.

when it comes to describing and designing a system from a blank piece of paper, what are the parameters you think of?

I’m thinking napkin sketch level of software design.

So things like:
Number of users, are they concurrent users, what load dimensions there are (disk IO, network IO etc.), target platform (everything is a web app these days), how do you design/visualise the data model?

Any decisions or constraints that impact what and how you build a proof of concept / MVP? How do you document this? How do you test it against the finished software?

My buddy and I grew up in the 80's and 90's together in a mostly analog world, so we spent a bunch of time outside on bikes and getting dirty. We played board games a lot with each other and our family, but as the turn of the century hit we were more engrossed in technology.

We both ended up in careers around creative design and technology, but still have that nostalgia from our past. We have been hanging out this past year and started streaming on Twitch so we can put our skills to use in a fun hobby.

Since January we had the idea to see how far we could push AI to help us create a board game! It's been a fun time starting from nothing and producing something. While the AI craze and controversy are out there. We realized that going all AI to make a fun game wasn't going to work. We've been using it as a tool but adding a lot of ourselves to it.

We hope to give a free downloadable and 3d printable version out. We are excited to get where we are and have an actual fun game. We figured we'd share our progress of the game. Frostbite: The Curse of Doctor Frost

Does anybody know of communities that would be into downloading, printing, and playing board games?

I like a bit of M.C. Escher art, and I was looking for some Escher images when I stumbled across this old blog post by someone who designed and made his own Escher-inspired floor tiles. Fascinating stuff!

Here's the main page, showing a photo of the finished floor: https://danceswithferrets.org/geekblog/?page_id=911

Then there's 8 blog entries, showing the steps he went through from initial idea to finished product.

As a bonus, here's a simple guide I found, which explains how Escher designed & made his tiles: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5754f47fcf80a16bffa02c45/t/57c6b680f7e0abc8f6ac6993/1472640669212/Escher-tiling-instructions.pdf

It's so simple when you know how! But there's obviously still some artistry involved in deciding what shapes to cut & paste.