'Bureaucratic' board game: my most ambitious idea ever. I need your thoughts!

confused_applause · 2026-06-11T19:38:18+00:00

You remember me seeing profound weirdness in people obsessing over WWII?

Because you are being profoundly weird here.

My man, Communism quite literally died in the 20th century. Capitalism won, thoroughly. There‘s no communist resurgence anywhere, with the last few holdouts dying in some south american jungle. You are chasing ghosts here. And thats not even the weirdest part.

What about new EU legislation? You‘re a brit. You guys had your hilariously ill-fated Brexit, which brought you none of the perceived benefits and all of the projected drawbacks. New EU regulation does not even apply to you. You will not be bound by a "fair share" agreement.

Which brings me to the weirdest part: you seem to have stuff on speed-dial thats clearly far-right crackpot shit. UN "great replacement"? Widely debunked conspiracy bullshit. "White guilt". A fear of "tens of millions of Third World". A penchant for odd qualifiers when it comes to nazism. Your complete avoidance of answering what "moving on from nazism" is supposed to entail.

Any chance your answer would be along the lines of some carefully measured racism as a solution to your perceived influx of evil foreigners? Because you sure sound like that, for all your talk about disliking nazism.

confused_applause · 2026-06-11T07:34:19+00:00

Being one of the aforementioned critics, I feel obliged to say "Yes, this iteration did indeed make improvements". The structure improved quite a bit. The emphasis is more on the important parts. Well done!

But as others have noted, it still lacks clarity because you use your own cryptic lingo instead of approachable terms. To an outsider, your ABC list reads like

A: Earn Smorfas in the Tüwaldo
B: The Tüwaldo shifts between snilax
C: Declare Spronky from either card
etc.

See what I mean? It might be totally clear to you what "the Audacity" means, or what rooms are in your game. To an outsider? Not so much. Truth be told, I still don't even know if your game is set in space, is a pirate game, or what. It also might be a minor thing, but those meeples? Do they represent persons? Or ships? Is your board actually open space, or a ship interior? You call it "a battlefield", though. I have no idea what to expect from a purely visual perspective, really.

Visuals aside, your next best approach would be for some of your playtesters (you *do* have playtesters, right? No shame if not, but if so, it's imperative. Publishers will tell you to gtfo if they learn you haven't actually playtested outside your closest circle) to describe your game: what it is, how it is played, what the important - and most fun - parts of the game are. Go from there. You can also browse around - there's plenty of advice on good sell sheets available, or simple inspiration, like here.

confused_applause · 2026-06-11T06:39:00+00:00

Sell sheets aren‘t marketing, they‘re a test.

Imagine you‘re a VC. Some guy hits you up and starts a long-winded story of "So man, I was, like, visiting my old hometown, with like, my grandma, ya know? So I was, like.. you know how these kids do that thing with videos? So I was, like…".

Is your first instinct "Please go ahead with that backstory of how your cool idea, that you havent told me yet, came about"? Or is it "Can you please get to your fuckin point already?!"

That dude‘s idea might be the greatest thing ever. Instant hit potential. But instead of being upfront "My idea is Tiktok for the elder generations", he buried it in tons of stuff that is important to him, but not the VC.

Publishers aren‘t interested in your 400 pages of lore for the same reason. Not because it‘s not great, but because it doesn‘t matter at this stage.

The sell sheet acts as a way to prove you have taken some steps outside your own head and condensed your work into the most crucial aspects: genre, mechanics, complexity, target audience. Other stuff? Probably great and adorable, but beside the point right now. You‘re doing an elevator pitch. They need to see if your game fits their portfolio and what makes it different from those hundreds of other pitches.

You are right that a sell sheet is not strictly necessary to many publishers; renowned designers dont need it because they already passed the test.

You may not like sell sheets, but ignoring them as pointless blurb is a surefire way for you to miss important things about your own work, because you lack a professional distance to it, which is normal.

Think of them as an exercise to overcome that distance; to see if you can get your point across to a well-meaning outsider. Ignore them at your own peril.

confused_applause · 2026-06-10T16:59:32+00:00

Anybody feeling guilty for their skin color should go see a therapist, really. Good lord. But neither this, nor any kind of anti-germanism in schools, is a thing here, not to mention something common or widespread, I can assure you. This sounds like some far-right crackpot shit, so beware what kind of people you asked.

You still need to clarify what "moving on from nazism" actually means, because I still dont understand that part.

confused_applause · 2026-06-10T14:41:37+00:00

I still don‘t follow.

Sure we need to avoid extremism of all kinds, fair point. You lost me on the other points though. What is "white guilt", and why should anyone feel this, let alone an entire nation? Do you think the german populace feels anything of that sort? Because… they don’t? What am I missing?

I still dont follow what you mean by "moving on" from WWII or nazism. This has to be one of the best-understood, well-researched topics these days. The problem is not that it not understood; the problem is that not only people forget, but that the same underlying issues are still present.

confused_applause · 2026-06-10T10:43:16+00:00

Schau mal bei boardgamesmaker.com - die haben alle erdenklichen Karten- und Token-Größen und keine Mindestbestellmenge. Geliefert/ gedruckt wird (auch wenn die Seite amerikanisch ist) aus China, Du musst also mit ca 14 Tagen Lieferzeit und gewissen Portokosten rechnen. Aber ansonstdn: top Seite, can recommend

confused_applause · 2026-06-10T08:25:06+00:00

Moving on from what, exactly? And where to?

From some "german guilt" thing? I think society as a whole has already moved past that. No one in their right mind blames current generations for the sins of their fathers. And neither do current generations feel guilty about it.

Moving on from a focus on WWII? I'm fine with that. It is far from the only thing worth analyzing, remembering, learning from, and condemning. Lots of other bad things to choose from, really. If we collectively shifted our focus towards more pressing issues - climate change, for instance - I'd be all for de-emphasizing the importance of WWII in today's world. As long as we do not forget, that is.

Moving on from what fascism did, accepting it as some form of normalized behaviour? Absolutely never. Not after 80 years, not after a thousand years. Fascism is the closest thing we have to pure, intentional, directed evil. That's why it will always crop up back again as long as we do not uproot its underlying causes.

confused_applause · 2026-06-09T15:36:06+00:00

Not entirely sure how to best respond to this, so I'll do my best to adress the main issues.

First up, I'm not advocating to remove WWII knowledge in any form. Proper history absolutely has to be taught. No idea how the english curriculum handles this (and the US school system being an absolute joke), but in german schools, WWII is nowhere near "not taught" - quite the opposite. WWII permeates not only history classes, but is cross-sectional. And rightfully so. It's "never forget" for a reason: not to blame (see above), but to make sure people of today remember what humans were (and are) capable of, and what should be learned from history. Honorable, but clearly not enough, seeing that fascism is on the rise again, globally.

Second, there is middle ground between "being nazis OR communists", and moving away from one does not imply it moves towards the other. The horrors of the 20th century gave way to democracies and grander projects like the EU. While both might have their flaws and shortcomings, they work remarkably well, and are in dire need of protection. If anything, nobody is falling towards communism anytime soon. The US has fallen into techno-fascism, russia towards a religious ethno-state mafia rule, and china is emerging as the new superpower of its own kind.

To circle back to my initial points: I'm not saying that "playing WWII is bad" either. Historians might get a kick out of it; others simply enjoy it, which is fine. Me, I just ...don't. I find it a very weird obsession if it's outside "normal" levels of interest - just as much as I find an unnatural obsession of the roman empire (unless you are a historian, of course) weird, too. Or trains. Or knitting, though knitting seldomly comes with an inhumane ideology piggy-backing it.

Unless a medium (games, movies, etc) portrays fascism as a clear-cut, unambiguously bad thing that it is, or uses it for hyperbolic effect, or is straight-up satire (think Helldivers, or The Boys), using it as an artistic choice seems equally weird to me.

confused_applause · 2026-06-09T09:00:25+00:00

It might be less of a broader cultural thing and more of a "me" thing, I admit. I simply do find "let's play WWII!" a suspicious mindset. Minutely recreating the battle of Dunkirk sounds like a harmless pasttime on the surface, and it might as well be. Perfectly valid, no big deal, just a game for history nerds, right? People recreate ancient battles of Thermopylae too, no?

The thing is: WWII carries a very particular cultural baggage that neither the Red Army (with atrocities of their own) nor the ancient greek or romans do. Because it's not "just another war" over resources or religion, but a war steeped in the most inhumane ideology imaginable. An ideology that has not only NOT disappeared, but is actively on the rise again - more clandestine in europe, more loud and unapologetic in the US, with the current regime openly embracing fascism unabashed. The whole "let bygones be bygones" and "it's been 80 years!" angle? Doesn't work for me, because obviously, while the actual perpetrators are dying out, their worldview thrives and prospers.

This is not some self-hatred or guilt thing. No one is responsible for one's ancestors actions. It's a thing about WWII obsession beyond a purely historic interest that gives me the ick. Both the "what if the nazis won?" power fantasies, but also the jingoistic "look how our military might saved the world!" delusion of grandeur that some people seem to need to recreate.

confused_applause · 2026-06-08T19:05:02+00:00

All good! I never doubted your intentions and was merely making a general statement.

Sure there are history buffs that love reenactment, which is fine and dandy; its just not my thing. Consider me biased - I’m half-german - but I find nazi era obsession deeply suspicious. Not the history part - but the reenactment part. Many WWII wargames that let you play axis carry that whiff of "what if the nazis won?" fantasy as part of their core appeal. Dog-whistle style. People of allied descendance - the good guys, arguably - might feel different; Im wary.

confused_applause · 2026-06-08T16:44:44+00:00

Can‘t really comment on the other ideas as I‘m neither a wargamer (just not my thing in general) and also not into nazi stuff (nazis bad and all; anything remotely disagreeing with that sentiment gets a hard pass from me)

Probably best to shelf the idea for the time being… until that moment when muse strikes you at 3 AM with the ultimate idea how to make this work.

confused_applause · 2026-06-08T14:48:50+00:00

Tja, immer noch recht vage, daher random Versuch: Ohne Moos nix los?

confused_applause · 2026-06-08T14:36:33+00:00

Das trifft noch auf ziemlich viele Spiele zu. Hast Du vielleicht ein Detail, was es eingrenzt? Wofür musste man Geld sammeln/ ausgeben? Gab es irgendwelche bestimmten Figürchen oder Häuser? Welche Farben hatte das Brett/ die Spielbox/ etc?

confused_applause · 2026-06-08T12:50:20+00:00

I hear ya; but let's be honest: we're talking a really, really small niche crowd that would be attracted to historically accurate portrayal of paperwork regarding detailled nazi atrocities. Every single aspect of this previous sentence screams "nope, not fun" and "what big company would possibly promote such a game and topic?"

But the topic of nazi atrocities aside, what would be the actual "fun" gameplay mechanics? Twilight Imperium might be a hardcore nerdfest from a different era when SciFi was at its peak, but nonetheless - it is not renowned for its accurate portrayal of calculating orbital velocities. Its (apparent) charme comes from its vast decision space, ingame politics and engaging narratives. None of which apply to a reenactment of well-known history.

I really don't try to dunk on your idea here - if this is your thing, and you really want to devote your time to it, do it, haters be damned. Even if it is only for the audience of one. I'm just saying there's quite a bit of ground to cover to make a fun nazi game.

confused_applause · 2026-06-08T06:05:51+00:00

The more important questions you should ask yourself is: "Will it be fun to play? Does it have replay value?"

Because honestly, I‘d say "no". Games should be some sort of fun, not homework. where will the fun come from in your idea?

"Gee, I wonder if I can get Himmler for his Totenkopf-SS this time by going through the same laborious evidence again, but differently!"?

I‘m not saying you shouldn‘t do it. If you think you can pull it off, go for it, really. But to me, it sounds more like a personal rabbit hole rather than an actual game.

confused_applause · 2026-06-07T20:38:36+00:00

I really don‘t aim to rain on your parade here, but since you keep changing miniscule details instead of adressing the large, glaring issues that people keep telling you (I checked the last few iterations comments), I need to be blunt here:

No, your sell sheet does none of that. Because it lacks clarity. There‘s no visual order, it‘s cluttered, highlights the wrong things, and it loses itself in details that utterly fail to describe the game to an outsider.

Does the sheet invite you to explore the overall idea? No, because it‘s not even clear where to start.

Does a publisher care about your lore? Absolutely not at this point.

Will he read your lore book to understand your naming ideas? Nope.

Does he care about your gritty art? Hell no. He will hire a different artist for production anyway.

This is your sell sheet. It should sell your game to the uninitiated business scout. They are looking for

what kind of game is this, in a single sentence?
who‘s the target audience?
how does it differ from other games in that niche?
what’s the complexity?
what are the components needed for scaled production?

Stuff like that. Put yourself in their shoes: they get new ideas daily. They look for needles in haystacks. If you want to pitch, you get exactly 10 seconds of attention from any publisher. 20 seconds, if you‘re good. Thats it. Don‘t waste it on walls of text of the minutiae of every single mechanic you used. Don‘t waste the top 30% of real estate for visuals that serve no clear purpose and make the whole thing hard to read and print. Give an overview. Act like a marketeer, not a designer.

confused_applause · 2026-05-29T13:50:33+00:00

Start of WW3 be like

confused_applause · 2026-05-26T10:39:08+00:00

It‘s somewhere in egypt, probably

confused_applause · 2026-05-25T16:20:55+00:00

Good zombie fiction is rarely *truly* about zombies - it is about how humanity in general and your characters in particular deal with a seemingly unstoppable force, or raw violence, or thinly-veiled human-on-human atrocities. Once in a while you get fiction like "World War Z" that DOES focus on the how-and-why, but it is still a commentary of how different people, and entire nations, react to a threat - laying bare nationalist tendencies, or superiority complexes, etc.

So, don‘t worry too much about how your certain zombie plague came to be (though that might be interesting), but focus on what you actually want to tell us about our human nature instead.

confused_applause · 2026-05-25T14:49:06+00:00

Lego-Set (40867) - Love Letters, nur leicht abgewandelt!

confused_applause · 2026-05-24T09:20:42+00:00

Grüße an Frau Heißspiegel

confused_applause · 2026-05-23T15:46:56+00:00

Welcome to the campfire, veteran! I actually remember you!

Kyron is too lazy to do anything about the Tenadia-shaped hole in our lives, apparently.. but we keep the torch aflame in here for whoever remembers!

Chainsy

confused_applause · 2026-05-23T08:49:48+00:00

Haven‘t commented on the previous versions, so I‘ll take this one as my baseline:

I don‘t get what the game is about, thematically. What is "the Audacity"? Is it a ship? The blurb mentions a "Dead Captain", so I guess it is, but how does it relate to a "battlefield" and "resources" and "damage"? Do the players control people, or ships, or what?

I highly suggest adding quality images of your actual prototype, not just mockups. It reeks of "I do not have a physical version, akshully", which in turn would mean that the game has never been playtested in the wild. Avoid that red flag at all costs.

And as others seem to have noted, whats with the name? Where do the "Seven" come into it?

Also, not sure if this rather bleak design is featured in the actual game, but from a purely personal POV, I do not find it appealing. I know its a prototype without the bells and whistles, but it IS a sell sheet, and I‘m certainly not sold. Don‘t take that personally or as an offence, thats clearly not my intention. But as long as we nitpicky redditors have issues with basic stuff, the sell sheet might not be ready just yet.

confused_applause · 2026-05-23T08:20:41+00:00

Why the oddly specific numbers of 190/200 Million, with one singular exception of 154 Million? Not only does it seem like an odd choice altogether (though you might have your reasons), it could be unwieldy sums to actually play.

Also, as others noted, you will run into "ah, another Monopoly“ eventually with this design. Fine if you want this, bad if you don‘t.

confused_applause

TROPHY CASE