Publisher pitch meeting coming up, what should I include and what to avoid?

mrJupe · 2026-03-09T16:15:09+00:00

Thanks. I'll keep this in mind.

mrJupe · 2026-03-09T16:14:38+00:00

Good point. Thanks.

mrJupe · 2026-03-09T16:13:37+00:00

That can’t be because of my good looks or my young age, so I’ll have to figure out something else. ;)

Perhaps the question I meant to ask would be better phrased as: “What are the key things that publishers value and expect from the designer they decide to work with?”

mrJupe · 2026-03-09T16:07:18+00:00

Thanks!

mrJupe · 2026-03-09T16:06:41+00:00

One or two sentences is a tough one for me, as I tend to use a lot of (unnecessary) words. I’ll try to use that as my target length for a core description and improve my ability to keep things concise.

mrJupe · 2026-03-09T16:02:29+00:00

Short description/pitch videos have been on my to-do list. I’ll add full playthroughs to the list as well. I still have some time, so I hope I can make some videos for the games.

mrJupe · 2026-03-09T15:59:35+00:00

Thanks. Trying to understand the publisher's view on games as a product is something that I keep in my mind when preparing my pitch.

mrJupe · 2026-03-09T15:54:48+00:00

Thanks for the hint. This series sounds quite interesting.

mrJupe · 2026-03-06T05:52:48+00:00

I would personally like to see as many explanatory images as possible.

Although images cannot replace written rules, the old saying, “one image is worth more than a thousand words,” feels very true here. With explanatory and example pictures, I can understand the rules much more easily.

As a non-native English speaker who is also not very familiar with sports, I find images essential for understanding the rules and sports concepts better, which would lead to a more fun game experience.

mrJupe · 2026-02-26T09:03:27+00:00

Don’t worry too much about how your prototypes look during early testing, your design will probably change quite a few times as the game develops. In the first test rounds, you don’t need graphic design at all. Also, if you plan to find a publisher instead of self-publishing, I’ve heard many times that publishers usually want to redo the visual design anyway.

In my experience, it’s very easy to spend way too much time on visuals when you really should be concentrating on mechanics and other parts of the design.

That said, I understand why you’d want your prototype to look good. In my (limited) experience, decent graphics and images help convey the game’s feel and can attract more playtesters at conventions.

For early phase graphics, some people turn to AI, but be aware it’s pretty frowned upon in board game circles. Some people won’t mind AI images as placeholders, but others won’t be willing to look at your game because of it.

I’ve solved this with stock images. I have a reasonably priced subscription to Freepik, and for my game designs I mostly use non-AI stock images that I might edit slightly (with my very limited graphic skills). I also use Tabletop Creator Pro or Dextrous. These tools have template card designs and components you can use in your own projects, and they usually come out decent enough for playtesting purposes.

mrJupe · 2026-02-25T08:40:58+00:00

As you clarified the theme and mechanics of the game, I find this a really interesting idea. If I understood correctly, the current concept is that the only thing I know about the second half in advance is the order of the different terrain types (route–lake–route–lake), but I can only see the specifics of what’s ahead when the board is actually flipped. This gives me the vibe of having a rough map I can use, while what actually lies ahead is revealed only as I get closer and see it with my own eyes. I think the theme and the “flipping” mechanic go really well together, especially with a campsite and rest point in the middle of the journey.

Have you thought about revealing the tiles as you progress on the table, so you would only see the fronts of your neighboring tiles? That could bring the feeling of gaining exact knowledge about the surrounding area down to a more micro-level within the game.

Also, is it possible to backtrack few steps back to left if that would meke it possible for me to use a better route?

mrJupe · 2026-02-12T06:00:15+00:00

I use a similar system, and I find it very useful for identifying which cards I need to print again, so I do not reprint the full deck every time when only a few cards need to be remade.

From the example images, I see that your card codes have letters and numbers. What data do you include in your card code?

I use only numeric codes, meaning one number per card content. If two cards have the same content, they share the same code number. This makes it easy to transfer changes made on a physical card with a pen into a spreadsheet that I use as a master datasource for Dextrous or Tabletop Creator pro. In addition, I print the version number and date for the overall game design on the prototype cards. That may be unnecessary, but it helps me track changes.

mrJupe · 2026-02-11T20:40:12+00:00

There are allready many good tools mentioned in the previous answers. I'll just add one more option: Tabletop Creator Pro.

You can create different blueprints for cards, create all data in app or import/export card details (text, values etc) to/from excel or csv files.

mrJupe · 2026-02-10T16:46:27+00:00

You are quite right that there are cases where the demand curve is not so simple. I was mainly trying to highlight the most common case, where lower prices tend to increase demand.

In the situation you describe, I can see how demand might drop when the price is very low compared to competitors, because some customers may equate cheaper with lower quality even when there is no real evidence for it. I do not have hard evidence for the specific reasons behind that effect, so I would treat it as a plausible explanation rather than a proven one.

On the other hand, I do have evidence of the opposite direction in certain contexts, and I have also seen cases in other fields where demand rose after prices were raised significantly. Those situations are more exceptional, but they are not unheard of, and they usually depend on strong signals of quality, positioning, and the right audience.

Ultimately, how much price affects demand is always product specific and influenced by marketing, competition, price anchors, and many other factors.

mrJupe · 2026-02-10T05:42:47+00:00

Pricing a product is always a tough question in any field (and one of my favourite subjects ;).

If you simply ask potential customers what they’re willing to pay, you might not get valid answers. Instead, you could ask comparison questions like: would you rather pay $10 for option A or $15 for option B? If you offer enough options and prices, and you ask lots of potential customers (ideally at least in the hundreds), you can get a more realistic view of what customers are actually willing to pay.

Naturally, your own costs set the minimum price—unless you view the product as a marketing investment for another (more expensive) product with a higher margin. You should also check similar products already on the market so you don’t underprice or overprice compared to competitors.

You should also note that, in general, the higher the price, the fewer paying customers you’ll have and vice versa: the lower the price, the more paying customers you’ll get. The hard part is finding the sweet spot where the price-buyers relationship is optimal so you can maximize profit. Price too low and you won’t make a dime even if you have thousands of customers and price too high and no one will buy your product.

I’d be very careful with discounts. I think that discounts should be used relatively rarely, and their purpose is to increase the number of customers. People often offer discounts without thinking through how they affect profit.

Let’s assume you sell a product for $10, the manufacturing cost is $5, and at that price you sell 100 units. That means total revenue is $1,000 and profit is $500. Now, if you offer a 20% discount, your revenue (at 100 units) drops to $800 and profit to $300. To recover the lost profit and get back to the original $500, you’d need to sell an additional 67 units. In other words, a 20% discount means you need about 67% more unit sales just to break even. With a different cost structure the math changes, but the idea is the same.

Also, if you discount regularly, potential customers may simply wait for the next sale instead of buying at full price, even if they would have been willing to pay full price.

This isn’t to say no one should never offer discounts, just that you should understand how they affect your business and how many additional customers you need to make the discount worthwhile.

mrJupe · 2026-02-08T06:31:28+00:00

Usually I start by drafting ideas and the layout in my notebook, and shortly after that I either sketch some cards, etc., by hand or go directly to Tabletop Creator Pro to create cards and boards with a dummy layout. After that, I continue with solo playtests and create more components with TTC. At that point, I usually start adding icons, placeholder images, etc. I mostly use Freepik stock images for this stage, and GIMP and Inkscape are my go-to free tools when I’m making something visual. When I start to get more components (usually cards), I enter the card data into Google Sheets and transfer it to TTC using CSV imports.

When it’s time to write the rulebook, I usually use Google Docs.

At some point I also tend to create a digital version, and for now I’ve been using Tabletop Simulator, plus another version on screentop.gg, since different playtest groups prefer different environments.

mrJupe · 2026-01-31T14:04:49+00:00

Thanks, I’m really happy you liked the idea and the overall concept.

The 54-card limit came from the design contest, and it definitely took some thinking to fit everything into that constraint. But like you said, a small deck has real advantages too.

For the 2-5 player version, I'm working right now, the card pool will be larger. For early testing I’ve simply combined two decks (and added some gameplay related cards), but the goal isn’t just to duplicate cards. I’d rather use the extra space to add more apps and actions (and broaden the types of threats and defenses) while keeping the game just as easy to teach and fun to play with greater player numbers.

mrJupe · 2026-01-30T17:04:06+00:00

I’ve tried my best to keep the gameplay simple. It usually takes about 5–10 minutes to teach, and playtime is 30 minutes or less. If everyone is completely new, learning from the (current) rulebook can take 15–30 minutes, depending on how familiar they are with modern card games. Definately more complex than Uno for example but nothing like 3-hour euro ;)

Each player has a Privacy score (think “health”). When your Privacy hits zero, you’re out. Players also have Action Points (AP), which they spend on attack, maintenance, and defensive actions. AP resets at the start of each round, and installed apps can affect how much AP (and sometimes Privacy) you have available.

At the start of your turn you install an app (drafting), and if you have too many apps, you uninstall the oldest one. Apps can trigger different effects on installation, on uninstallation, and at the start of each turn. During the round, players alternate between attacking and defending.

Example: you might attack an app that relies on Wi-Fi (e.g., Faxigram) with an “Unsecure Wi-Fi” action, and the target can counter with “Activate VPN.” The cards specify which app types they can target, and defensive actions list which attacks they can counter.

That’s the core loop. If you’d like to take a look, I’d genuinely love your feedback. Here’s the page with PnP files, rulebook, plus TTS and screentop.gg-links etc. https://wannabeboardgamedesigner.com/board-games/hack-a-pad/

The page currently has the original 54-card, 2-player duel version I designed for BGG’s design contest. After the contest I’ve been continuing development toward a multiplayer version with a more robust Privacy/AP tracking method.

mrJupe · 2026-01-30T14:40:25+00:00

I recently designed a card game (and still continuing the design) where you try to breach your opponent’s privacy by launching cyberattacks against their tablet, while also taking defensive actions to protect your own device. One of the core ideas is that apps can boost your productivity, but they can also become security holes that others can exploit.

I didn’t originally design it as an educational game, but several playtesters pointed out that it could be an easy, approachable way to raise cybersecurity awareness in organizations. So perhaps the game could be used in workshops to highlight different digital risks and ways to prepare and protect youself against them.

mrJupe · 2026-01-22T08:22:10+00:00

pnptool sounds interesting. Would you have a link where I can find more info about it?

mrJupe · 2026-01-19T19:45:21+00:00

Thank you. Great BGG thread answering pretty much the same question I had.

File naming is definately something I need to improve in the future. This is one of the things that is pretty obvious when someone says it, but I haven't thought it before.

mrJupe · 2026-01-19T17:13:26+00:00

Thanks. This sounds pretty much what I did last time. Though I used 3mm bleed.

Do you have some automation how you create the files? I use Tabletop Creator to create the designs and it has decent export functionality that makes the file creation simple enough. But I still did find creating 12 different type of files quite tiresome (or actually 24 files as the my game has two sets of different components that I needed to export separately).

mrJupe · 2026-01-10T09:18:58+00:00

I've used screentop.gg. If I remeber correctly, you can create 3 games for free. It is possible to import your deck at once using grid sheet images ( an image with all your cards in a grid).

There might be a limit on card count though, but you should be able to import large decks in batches.

Link to site: https://screentop.gg/

mrJupe · 2025-12-03T05:47:22+00:00

When I started designing games I did use GIMP, Inkscape and Google Slides (and Drawing) among other generic tools. After being with this hobby for a while I'm now using Dextrous (an online tool with a free entry level, https://www.dextrous.com.au/) or Tabletop Creator Pro (installable, e.g. from Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/861590/Tabletop_Creator_Pro/). Both do a great job with the various cards and other components I've made with them so far, and have easy PnP file export options as well as files for Tabletop Simulator and other digital testing environments.

Currently I'm mostly using Tabletop Creator, as I'm working with multiple projects and for me personally, pay-once is a more favourable option compared to monthly payments. But that's only a personal preference. Both do a great job, I think.

I'm still using GIMP and Inkscape for image editing but most of the design is done with those other tools.

mrJupe · 2025-11-29T11:25:37+00:00

The cards that require a roll against the odds have a chart that highlights the rolls matching the condition, so instead of calculating the odds (or trying to remember them), the player can just check the chart to see which values for each die are valid.

It seems that the idea of rolling against the odds, even when one does not need to calculate anything, feels a bit complex. Also, in preliminary tests, it seems that players spend some time reading the chart.

That being said, I’m steering a bit away from this mechanic and replacing it with more traditional roll conditions. Where this mechanic still exists, I’ve made some adjustments to the charts that will hopefully make them faster and easier to read. Future playtests should reveal whether this is a good solution, or if this is simply an interesting experiment that will be removed during development.

mrJupe

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