As designers have recently asked me about remote blind play testing, here are two such services that you can use to improve your game and/or your written rules.
The Game Krackers
You can also reach them via Facebook:
Shadowsong Industries
https://www.facebook.com/ShadowsongIndustries
Shadowsong offers remote blind play testing with analytics.
You can also reach them via kivafecteau at gmail dot com
http://www.albinodragon.com/genegrafter-kickstarter-case-study/
Albino Dragon’s first Kickstarter went $20,000 into the negative because of some simple mistakes you can easily learn to avoid. Well worth reading if you have any plans to Kickstart a game in the future.
I backed that Kickstarter years ago and befriended Erik during the the campaign. I now see him around at Cons and events. I'm glad he is sharing lessons from Albino Dragon's early start. I backed their most recent Kickstarter for a Goonies game and I hope to see great games from Albino Dragon in the future.
Mark Rosewater the head designer for Magic gave a talk at GDC called
“Magic: the Gathering: Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons Learned”
If you haven’t seen it yet, it has great lessons for any game designer and fun stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=QHHg99hwQGY&
Each year I like to publicly post the budget for Protospiel San Jose. It shows every dollar taken in and where all of that money went. The first year (2014) Protospiel San Jose lost about $50. The second year better planning yielded only a small loss of $16. This year, Protospiel San Jose actually turned a small profit of around $90.
Attendance numbers for Protospiel San Jose 2016 were:
76 Designers (this includes sponsors that were also designers).
500+ unique attendees.
That is almost double what we had last year in 2015.
Registration for Designer/Publisher Speed Dating at Gen Con 2016 is open now. Deadline to apply is June 12th. Competition for the few available spots is tough, don't feel bad if you don't make the cut.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1voYyqxvXpD6_OGNYliAGltYMQ6mR1rOZTVUKhLpEeuM/viewform?c=0&w=1
The League of Gamemakers has an nice article on Sell Sheets with examples here:
http://www.leagueofgamemakers.com/how-to-build-a-sell-sheet-for-your-game/
As a reminder, I previously published a gallery of good sell sheet examples here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127569255@N08/albums/72157666590157051
