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Would love feedback on my Sell Sheet for GenCon

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JohnBrieger
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BTM sell sheet.jpg

Hi – I'm working on the sell sheet for my miniatures game and would love some feedback! I'm a little worried I have too much text, but it's hard with a minis game to show what makes it special. Want to get it all in top shape before meeting with publishers during GenCon.

Audience for the sheet is mostly small and medium size publishers who use kickstarter.

Would love feedback on anything/everything. Are there obvious questions the sell sheet doesn't answer? Is there critical information missing?

EDIT: Above image was the original, below is the new

PDF link to newest version

Mosker
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Starting with Instead of dice

(No particular order)

1. Consider cutting the text in half--at the very least.

(Off the cuff)

Managing tale decks, players use a black-jack like press-your-luck mechanic allows players to [Any specific examples?]

2. Also, with the two sided cards, are they simply level increases or significant transformations. If the latter, a few words would convey a great deal thematically.

3. Classic Fairy-tale characters. Understandable why mentioning Grimm, Perrault etc., might actually suggest limitations, but is there any way you could suggest the range, if it is impressive. Do the sources reach Russia? Scandinavia? Elsewhere?

JohnBrieger
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Thanks! I'm really worried

Thanks! I'm really worried about the amount of text – any suggestions for info that you think isn't necessary?

Esoteric Fulcrum
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As a suggestion, in the first

As a suggestion, in the first paragraph, there is no need to repeat the name of the game directly below the Header. It seems out of place to promote the use of classic fairytale characters, then claim they are unique. The learn and play time should just be in the bullet points, so we're left with, and apologies for putting words in your mouth, this sentence:

"Classic fairytale characters venture deep into the misty woods in search of treasure, with each step more dangerous than the last!"

Now the second half of this sentence is a bit too generic, so I think a specific danger is required here, and really, I think you should be stating the Objective of the game as it might be stated in your rule book. What am I trying to do? Or if collecting the treasure is the goal of the game, what is trying to stop me from doing that? So maybe tighten up that first part a little, and again apologies for writing directly:

"Play as (or "Control"?) classic fairytale characters (heroes?), searching for treasure deep within the misty woods, whilst (defeating bad guys/overcoming difficulties/etc)."

And I notice it is 2 OR 4 players. Is it cooperative in someway that requires teams of 2? Or does each Hero need a corresponding villain to play against? Essentially the first sentence has summed up theme of the game. The second sentence should sum up game play and how to win.

Pretty good shot of the game board showing it during play.

Then you go into specifics of how the cards work, which probably isn't necessary. The second paragraph which describes the Tale cards could probably be summed up:

"Players have a hand of cards which they use for combat (movement?) and to activate the abilities on their character cards."

Regarding the characters cards, how many does a player control in the game? 4 as shown in the image?

"Players control 4 characters, and choose one to activate each turn, moving that token, searching for treasure and fighting their foes."

I mean that's a bit generic, but I'm not sure of the specifics. The note about double sided cards I would move into the bullet points to the side.

Components, I would probably split up a bit more. I'm not sure what the 6 type of tokens are, and if they need mentioning individually, but I would certainly split up "Double sided Character Cards" and "Tale Cards", because that tells me a lot about the game.

The features (or most of them) you have listed I might retitle Game Categories.

Hope that has helped.
Shane

JohnBrieger
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Great feedback:

Thanks for all the help on shortening up!

The uniqueness is mechanical rather than thematic. e.g. every unit has unique abilities and stats. I've tentatively cut it, but I figured it might be worth emphasizing.

The goal is to steal a treasure from your opponent and return it to your camp, kind of like capture the flag, but with 2 flags on each side. Hopefully the new text makes that clearer.

For the 2 or 4, the game is played either 1v1 or 2v2on teams. Do you think I should call that out more explicitly?

Each player controls 4 characters in 1v1, or 3 characters in 2v2 (figured that wasn't worth putting on the sell sheet)

I had previously split up all the tokens and cards but was told publishers wouldn't care. Decided to expand the cards back out.

Link to new version

ElKobold
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Do you aim at younger

Do you aim at younger audience with fairy-tale theme?

JohnBrieger
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Audience:

Not particularly aiming for a younger audience – I'd put the game at a 13+ age bracket.

Of course, a publisher is pretty likely to retheme this game. It could work well as pirate crews sailing beneath fog, gangs of post apocalyptic outlaws avoiding radiation, wizards casting spells through cursed blight, etc etc

We're also pitching to a lot of publishers who license IPs for games.

JohnBrieger
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Audience:

Not particularly aiming for a younger audience – I'd put the game at a 13+ age bracket.

Of course, a publisher is pretty likely to retheme this game. It could work well as pirate crews sailing beneath fog, gangs of post apocalyptic outlaws avoiding radiation, wizards casting spells through cursed blight, etc etc

We're also pitching to a lot of publishers who license IPs for games.

ElKobold
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I'm not sure if placing

I'm not sure if placing miniatures in component list is a good idea. Maybe list minis as an option (standees / miniatures)?

Do you really need that many tokens?

Esoteric Fulcrum
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What are the Mist cards for?

Some good clarification in there now. But it has revealed another question; What are the Mist cards for?

JohnBrieger
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Mist cards for press-your-luck-movement

The mist card are for our second press your luck system - the movement

"Each step into the mist is more dangerous than the last."

When a character moves through the mist, they gain a curse counter, then at the end of their movement, flip over a number of mist cards equal to the number of curse counters they have, all of which are bad for you. So you can play it safe by taking the long route around the mist or risk it by braving the mist.

+@ELKobold, after a long talk with my codesigner, we figured we can cut down to 105 tokens for 4p and 80 for 2p. The current breakdown is:

30 wound cubes
27 curse counters
16 plastic gems
20 mist tiles
8 status tokens
4 treasures

Updated sheet link

Esoteric Fulcrum
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Okay, do you have to defeat

Okay, do you have to defeat your opponents to gain their treasure, or do you hide your treasure in the forest somewhere and have to find where your opponents have hidden theirs? Sorry for all the questions. It might have been easier to ask if you had a link to the rules. :-)

JohnBrieger
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Questions are good!

Questions are good – they make me think how/what I should try to communicate more clearly!

Treasures are placed in the corners of the map at the beginning of the game, 2 on each side (link to board image). If you can return either treasure from your opponent's side to your camp, you win! One of the things that makes Beneath the Mists unusual for miniatures games is that defeating your opponents in combat has little to do with victory.

Defeating your opponents in combat earns you a separate resource, gems, which you can spend to activate some special player powers, as well as to make a card's suit "wild" for future combats or character abilities. Winning combats also helps reset your opponent's momentum, as it'll take at least 3 turns for a character that's been defeated to be able to activate again (and they get come back in their camp).

Mosker
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Again I go with the "instead of dice" and an unrelated question.

Is the phrase even needed? Why mention dice if they're not part of the play--or do games you identify as primary competition rely (perhaps too much) on dice? Stay positive if you can, don't focus on absence of a negative.

You said questions are good: a publisher asks, "It says two or four players--teams of two, I assume. Do you have a one vs. two variant in the rules? In development?"

Publisher might not care too much about 1v2, but may care about the team behind the game, how you respond.

JohnBrieger
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If a publisher asked me about

If a publisher asked me about 1v2, my answer would probably be along the lines of:

"We do have a variant for 1v2, but it needs a additional development work. My co-designer and I need to do more testing before it could be included it in the ruleset, but it's certainly a possibility if that's something you're interested in."

Broadly, the 1v2 variant plays like the 2v2 setup, but with the 1 player controlling 2 stories at once. So right now it's quite a bit more complexity than we'd like for the 1 player.

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