This is a great thing to learn! Game designers are artists after all.
I think it's important to recognize that programming a great game is an incredibly difficult thing to accomplish compared to programming traditional apps. Getting a feel for the game isn't a binary operation. You have to playtest and observe all scenarios that your game is capable of and use art/music to sell the experience beyond the game logic. Whether you succeed or fail is entirely subjective from the perspective of the player.
Cool that you mention board games too! Programming a game allows you to account for variables that would be hard to keep track of in a board game, so there's a lot more freedom to customize the experience without being overwhelming.