Evolve your sell-sheet!

 I am currently taking part in The Pitch Project - a competition in which game designers present their sell-sheets in the hopes of getting some pitch meetings with an impressive list of name board game publishers including Hasbro, The OP, Arcane Wonders, Renegade Games, AEG, WizKids, Stonemeier Games, Spin Master and many more!

I've submitted three pitches (so far), but the best thing that has come out of the process is the message board where all of the game designers are giving each other valuable feedback on their sell-sheets! This spirit of cooperation is one of the many reasons why I love the board game design community!

After reading the feedback on my own sell-sheet, I decided to go back and take a look at the evolution of one as it has improved over time. Let's take a look at the sell-sheet for my game Castle Climbers.

The first sell-sheet I created for Castle Climbers used my 1st version of the prototype featuring my hand-drawn, water-colored artwork! Obviously, I wanted to show it off... as well as recreate the castle wall that appears in the game. Note the character climbing up the wall while being menaced by the guardians in the windows - a strong visual element from the game. I've already come up with an OK catchphrase "Building the castle is easy... staying on it is the hard part!" and there is a brief description of game play but I am missing several important things! First off, I'm missing the "3 essentials": Number of players, Age of players and Play time. These should be on every sell-sheet as they are the first clue to the prospective publisher how to market your game.

Also missing is a components list. This is a list of all of the "things in the box". This is also very important to publishers as it gives them an idea of how much your game will cost. If your component list has 100's of miniatures or handfuls of custom dice, the publisher might pass because of the cost to make it.

Also missing is a good image of the game in action. I realize now that the images of the individual tiles doesn't give the viewer a good idea of the game in play or even how to play the game!

Finally, while horizontal orientation is not taboo, it doesn't play to the strength of the game's design: climbing the castle.

In version two, I've re-oriented the sheet vertically to make it feel more like the character is climbing the castle. Most of the same mistakes have been repeated, but at least I've added the "3 Essentials" to the sell-sheet.

Version three was created after I commissioned my daughter Evelyn to create artwork for the game. I now show the box cover, an OK photo of the game in action, but I'm still trying to recreate the wall using the artwork. The "3 Essentials" now have icons to help draw the eye and I have a component list, a better description of the game play and... maybe most important of all, contact information so potential publishers know where to contact me! (as well as a snazzy Bedbug Games company logo)

Version 4 represents the game after I streamlined the components list for potential a Kickstarter. I decide to take a new photo and labeled each part of game play with white text. I still think it's a cute idea, but it's also too cluttered for clear reading. Note the list of game play mechanisms (tile laying, take that, etc.) up near the top of the sheet. I actually entered this sell-sheet into a festival competition and was told it didn't clearly explain how the game was played.

Version 5 is the result of that festival feedback. I have now broken out the game play into their own little pictures with the big image of the castle in the middle. I also swapped out the picture of the treasure chest with the guardian. People are usually more interested in looking at characters than things. I was quite pleased with this sell-sheet until someone pointed out that I had organized the steps of the game play going down rather than across. Note, my contact information has been removed as per the rules of the Pitch Project contest.

The current final version (6) takes into account that feedback, so I have numbered each of the game play "call-outs" running from left to right, traveling downwards. This way you still get a good look at the castle (I couldn't find a good way to make the reader's eyes go from bottom to top to imitate the climb) and the game play is clearly explained to the reader. I'm pretty pleased with this final version, especially when you consider what it started as!

UPDATE: So, I wanted more feedback so I turned to Reddit. And man, o' man, did I get it. Several people complained about the fonts. One person said "my title font looked like it was made in Windows 95" and another said they hated the font used for the text. And even though their feedback was... raw... I still think it made some good points. So, I adjusted it again.

 I created a new logo for the game (I was inspired by the Clash of Clans logo - which has the right amount of silliness and medieval-ness I was looking for) and I changed the text. I moved some of the elements around to give the pictures on the left and the text a little more room for readability. I also noticed that several of my fellow designers were putting a "Tested at ProtoSpiel" logo on their sell-sheets and since I had done extensive testing of the game at several San Jose ProtoSpiel events, I figured it couldn't hurt. 

And to be honest, even though the feedback was a little tough to swallow, I think the sell-sheet is even better than before!

Do you have any suggestions to how to make this sell-sheet better? Do you have any sell-sheets you'd like to share? Post them in the comments below!

Sell Sheet templates

The last blog post I wrote about why it is important for a tabletop game designer to have a sell-sheet. This time I wanted to create some tools to help you make your own sell-sheet.

With any graphic design project, it can be challenging to determine where to begin, so I've created four templates to help inspire you when creating sell-sheets.

Each sell-sheet has an area designated for the important information: Your game's logo, a log-line (often called an elevator pitch) for the game, the list of components, a short description of the gameplay, the game's unique selling points - the things that makes your game stand out from all of the others on the market, "the three essentials" - the number of players, age of players and time it takes to play the game and your contact information (name, email and/or phone number). The studio logo is purely optional, but I find it adds a nice professional touch.

The first template features a big bold title right in the middle to catch the reader's attention immediately. It only has a couple of spots for images, so the ones you use should be eye-catching - preferably of the game set up in all of it's glory.

The second template pulls the reader's eye around the page in a series of circular movements. The art that you use for these should compliment this movement - use preferably circular and diagonal artwork to facilitate the circular movement.

This third template draws the reader's eye downward, past the game's logo and down the page in a very dramatic fashion.

The fourth template allows the reader's eye spill down the page like a waterfall. It's much more flowing than the other templates, allowing the reader to catch the text as it travels downwards.

I hope you find these templates useful in the creation of your own sell-sheets! Feel free to use these when creating your own sell-sheets - and if you want to share them, please credit me.

The importance of sell-sheets

I'm starting to create my sell-sheets for the upcoming tabletop convention season and I realized that many of you might not realize how important they are in the world of tabletop game design... or even what sell-sheets are.

Sell-sheets are kind of like the one-pager document that you'll find in my book Level Up! the Guide to Great Video Game Design - these documents act as a touchstone for the design team (or designer) to remind them what is important about the game. But sell-sheets are much more than that.

Sell-sheets act as a promotional tool for the game - a game's resume as it were - that lets the reader know what's cool about the game. But it also provides vital information to a potential publisher - which helps them determine the game's genre, cost, play time, player age, and more.

A printed sell-sheet is a "leave-behind" for the designer to give to publishers at conventions.  They even are used as the first stage entry in many tabletop design contests.

Here are a few examples of sell-sheets that I've created over the years:

You'll notice that all of these sell-sheets have many elements in common. Let's take a look at what your sell-sheet needs.

1) Your game's title: Every game needs a title and yours is no different. Make sure you check Google and BoardGameGeek.com's database to make sure you aren't naming your game after something that already exists. I try to create the logo of the game on the sell-sheet. Fonts go pretty far to give a game an identity and get the game's genre across to the reader.

2) The "three essentials": Number of Players, Minimum Age of Players and Time it Takes to Play your game. These three pieces of information are critical to have on your sell sheet as it informs the publisher of many things about your game and whether they will want to publish it or not. For example, some publishers won't make games for two players, while others specialize in them.

3) Game play overview: A brief overview of how to play the game and how to win the game. Keep this as brief as possible, no more than a sentence. If you can't describe your game play in a sentence, you might have a problem.

4) Game photos: Show at least one photo of the game in action, preferably with it set up to show what it is like to play. You don't always need to show players playing the game in your photos - but if you do, make sure they look like they are having a good time. Fake the shot if you have to. Nobody want to buy a game if your models don't look like they are enjoying themselves.

5) Game play description: Describe the action that is going on in the photos. Tell the reader how the game is played, what's cool and unique about the game play and why they would want to make it. Use short sentence or bullet-points to get this across. Once again, beware the blocks of text. I also think that "beautiful art" and "great story" are not valid bullet points. All games should have these (unless they are an abstract game)

6) Components List: This is a list of all of the components the player will get in the game. This is actually very important because they let the publisher know just how much your game will cost to make. Have hundreds of miniatures in your game? Some publishers might think twice or reject your game completely based on that. Others, might welcome it. (Knowing who you are pitching your game to is a very important part of the selling process.)

7) Your contact information: You should always include your name, e-mail address and/or phone number on a sell-sheet. Otherwise, how will the publisher be able to contact you when they are ready to buy your game? I also put my "studio's logo" on the sell-sheet. It gives me a little bit of a "brand identity" and makes me feel a little more professional. It's not necessary, but it's fun.

8) Graphics: Finally, make your sell-sheet look nice. You don't necessarily need pictures on your sell-sheet but if you are trying to create a mood or a theme, drawings, fonts, and graphics can go far. Even at a glance, you can tell that A Town Called Showdown is a western themed game while Rayguns and Rocketships is a pulp sci-fi game all because of the color, graphics and fonts I used on the sell-sheet. When dealing with fonts, don't forget the "two-font" rule. You should never use more than two styles of fonts on your documents: a "fancy" or thematic one for titles and headers and a simple font for the rest of the text. I am a big fan of simple, legible fonts like Calibri, Cambria and Helvetica Neue.

I hope this helps you understand why sell-sheets are so important and some ideas and guidance on how to create your own. Good luck and be sure to share your own sell-sheets in the comments below!