The first step in making a board game into a Yoto experience is to make sure that you are legally free to use it, and we go into that over in this article.
Games in the public domain include Bridge, Go, Ur, Crokinole, Chess, Hearts, Mahjong, Backgammon, Perudo, but there are tens of thousands more.
Many public domain games like Parchessi have modern counterparts like Sorry and Trouble that are copyrighted, these can be a great way to understand how modifying the art, as with Trouble, or changing dice to cards, like Sorry, makes the game your own. While the text itself is protected, the play and rules for role-playing games are generally not covered by copyright. However, story arch, actions and creature names, like Hobbit, Mind Flayer and Beholder are protected.
Getting Started
Start with a game you know well. Play it and think about if a part of the game could be replaced using audio. For instance, Chess is hard to learn and CHEEKY CHESS replaces teaching instruction with audio. You can replace a game part, like DICE. You could also create a game like War where the Yoto serves as half a deck of cards.
Some tips
Adding new rules or playing an entirely different game with the pieces or adding more may also create interesting Yoto content:
Giving each of the colors in Chinese Checkers super powers?
Swapping the pawns in 9 Men's Morris with chess pieces and instructing the user how to play?
Using a deck of cards to determine what happens in an audio adventure?
Using the Yoto as a role-playing game with a different NPC (non playable character) on each card?
There are more ideas than hours in the day! Feel free to use any of these, for each person, there's a whole creative way to go with the idea. Make sure you test any new rules first, and your own kids can make great game testers. They often can be paid in chocolate, which is a super cost-effective way to see if your game works!