The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion of formative design in the context of the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a collectible card game (CCG) for teaching cybersecurity to middle school students. The approach involved a formative design approach, educational design research (EDR) that evolved from design-based research and design experiments commonly employed in fields such as the learning sciences, educational technology, and instructional design. The authors assert that the EDR process used to design an educational CCG is an effective approach for formative learning game design work.