The Swedish curriculum for primary school emphasizes the importance of learning and play. How can teacher students learn about teaching by becoming designers of board games for learning? Recent research shows potential in board games for learning purposes as engaging social spaces for communication and dialogue of high relevance to L1 education (Bayeck, 2020). Based on the curriculum and research, we wanted to design for playful learning in teacher L1 education using board games' construction as a dialogical setting. The paper presents a pilot study's findings in an educational design project with a dialogical setting (McKenney & Reeves, 2018). The aim is to explore and stimulate playfulness and learning in L1 teacher education. The research questions are: What are the students' main perspectives made about learning during the design? Which design elements support a learning dialogue? What design principles be stated for further development? The research method used is qualitative thematic coding (Mason 1996). The design was tested as a part of two L1 courses for primary (year 0-3 and 4-6) teacher students; 62 students choose to participate. The design contained an introduction, two game workshops, and a finishing board game competition. The sessions took place online in Zoom in November and December 2020 and the finishing reports were submitted in January 2021. The students worked in groups online to create a board game to participate in the final contest. The empirical material is 186 written reflections after each session and 124 reports in a feedback process, and 62 final reports about the game's didactical concept. Preliminary results are that the game-making process in the study groups during workshops sustained and nourished playfulness, creativity, and didactic design thinking. On the other hand, the finishing game competition only supported learning for some of the students, while others were left with a sense of emptiness.