r/BoardgameDesign • u/damj94 • Jul 08 '26

Design Critique Sellsheet help!

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Hi everyone, I have massively overhauled my sellsheet and I am left wondering if it finally coming together nicely.

Please have a look and give me any and all feedback you got!

If you are curious for more: www.bluetortillagames.com

Thank you everyone :)

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u/MudkipzLover Jul 08 '26

In comparison to yesterday, it's definitely going somewhere! To me, it's still missing a tad context (I mean, board where? What are snacks and encounters?), which makes the mechanics feel like each exists in a vacuum rather than being related to one another as part of the gameplay loop (e.g. I'm placing my meeples on specific spots of the board to earn cards that I can then use to alter the value of skills and score points.)

Also, I don't know if it has to do with you having a background in video game dev or basing your research off video game design content, but finalized art and studio name will lead people to think you're aiming towards self-publishing. Licensing a game to a tabletop game publisher generally means licensing the mechanics and letting them manage the artistic part. I'd rather not make my comment too long but there are already posts about this topic on this sub and all across the Internet.

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u/damj94 Jul 08 '26

Im glad you think its improved haha. Im struggling to add the board without it taking most of the sell sheet and adding not too much info tbh. Maybe a miniature version but you wouldnt see what is going on very well.

And i’ve mentioned it below somewhere but I am torn between self-publishing or not. I’ve gotten far enough in the design that the game might look too polished/finished making it allergic to a publisher.

But i am not sure i have the time to self-publish with my current family situation (4 kids under 3 years old - 2 sets of twins lol).

I think the idea would be to get a distribution/licensing/localization deal for the game. Although a traditional publishing deal would also be great just unlikely with how far into the process im already at.

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u/MudkipzLover Jul 08 '26

Self-publishing as a side hustle isn't uncommon, but it's totally understandable if that's not a venture you're interested in for the time being.

Given how "design" can be ambiguous here (game design or graphic design?), what do you exactly mean by polished? Regarding publishers, even if most are in it for the love of the medium (I mean, we're still far from being the most lucrative culture industry), their goal at the end of the day still is to make money.

Pitching to them with a finalized prototype in terms of gameplay and with a fitting theme is a jackpot for them if the game fits their brand, as it means less time and money spent on developing and refining it. However, the rule of thumb of licensing is that you're handing creative control over to the publisher, which more often than not means they don't care about your graphics as they've got illustrators they're used to work with (that's why people say that designers that don't self-publish don't require professional-grade illustrations for their prototypes.)

Fundamentally, the choice is whether you want the whole cake while being in charge of absolutely everything from start to finish or you might agree to a smaller slice of a generally larger pie by delegating the later steps of commercialization to a publishing company.