Your pitch, written by Monday.
A 15-second hook, a two-minute script, a one-page pitch, ten answers. From your notes. $39.
Before · the designer's notes
“I ramble, I start explaining the rules from setup and people's eyes glaze. I also undersell it, I say “it's just a little set collection game”. … The tide track moves every time anyone takes a tile so EVERYONE is pushing the tide in for everyone … One tester called it “Incan Gold meets Cascadia” but not sure if that's a thing you say to a publisher?”
After · the pitch pack
The 15-second hook
Tidewrack is a 45-minute set-collection game for two to four players about beachcombers salvaging after storms. Every tile you take pushes the tide in for everyone, so the whole table shares one timer and everyone keeps making it worse.
Publisher question 4
What does it play like? Incan Gold's push-your-luck inside Cascadia's tile-and-tableau scoring, with the timer shared. Use the comparison when they ask, not before.
Questions for you
Best player count: the pack says three and four. Confirm from your logs; they will ask.
Sample pitch pack · an invented game, from the 500-word email below
Three steps.
Send the brain-dump
The game in your own words, however rough: how a turn goes, what testers say, the numbers you have, the component list, who the slot is with, and the questions you dread. The email you were going to send a friend the night before is exactly right.
We write the pitch
A hook you can say in one breath. A two-minute script that shows one round instead of starting at setup. A one-page pitch in the order a publisher reads it. The ten questions they ask, each answered from your facts, including the awkward ones. Nothing added that you did not give.
Read the questions
A Word file, a text file and a PDF proof within two days, with a list of what we moved or cut and why, and your open questions: best player count, the age band, whether to name the scout. One free round of changes within a week, so a new play count still goes in.
What you send, what you get.
Subject: pitch help - Tidewrack - Essen meeting in 3 weeks!! Ok so I got a 20 min slot with a mid-size publisher at Essen (not naming them yet) and I have never pitched anything in my life. Here is everything about the game, brain dump, sorry. TIDEWRACK. 2-4 players, plays in about 45 min (we timed 38-52 over the last 10 plays). Ages 10+ probably, my 11 year old nephew plays it fine, my 8 yr old not really. It's a set collection / tableau thing about beachcombers after storms on a Cornish coast. Each round a storm card flips and "washes up" tiles onto the beach board (there are 60 tiles - driftwood, rope, glass, bottles w messages, crates, sometimes a whale bone). Players walk their beachcomber along the beach (movement is a push your luck thing, you can keep walking but the tide comes in and you might lose what you're carrying). You build a "hut" tableau with what you bring back. Sets of glass score, bottles give one off powers, crates are like wild. Game ends after 6 storms. Highest hut wins, most points. The thing people always say when they play is the tide. The tide track moves every time anyone takes a tile so EVERYONE is pushing the tide in for everyone, so it's this shared timer that you all make worse. That's the bit that makes people laugh/groan. One tester called it "Incan Gold meets Cascadia" which i quite like but not sure if that's a thing you say to a publisher? Component list: 60 tiles, 4 beachcomber meeples, 24 storm cards, tide track + marker, 4 hut …
Tidewrack · the pitch pack
The two-minute pitch, with timings
“0:15 — One round, not the rules. Flip a storm card: six tiles wash up along the beach. Walk your beachcomber down the beach and pick up what you want: driftwood, sea glass, a crate, a bottle with a message in it. Every tile anyone picks up moves the tide marker one step. When the tide reaches your b…” one round, not the rules
The one-page pitch
“Why it sells. One shared push-your-luck timer that the players themselves advance, so the table's pressure is on each other, not on a clock. A theme with no direct competitor on the shelf, a 45-minute length and a family-weight rules set that an eleven-year-old handles.”
What we changed · questions for you
Eight lines saying what was moved, cut or written from your facts (the rules explanation replaced by one round, “just a little game” cut, the failed blind test turned into evidence that you fix things, the ask written out) and six questions your notes left open, each a one-line change. No play count, quote or comparison is in the pack that you did not give. nothing invented
An invented game and a 500-word email. Yours is written from your own notes: one game, one pitch slot.
Pitch-deck designers on freelance marketplaces list board game pitch decks from $30 to $60 for the slides, and a game pitch presentation from $1,500, with the words left to you. This is the words: what you say in the first fifteen seconds, the two minutes after, the one page you leave behind and the ten answers, written from your own notes, with every right kept by you.
- A fifteen-second hook, in one breath
- A two-minute pitch script with timings: one round, not the rules
- A one-page pitch in the order a publisher reads it
- The ten questions a publisher asks, answered from your facts
- A Word file, a text file and a PDF proof, A4 or Letter
- One free round of changes within a week
Send the notes.
Three questions.
What exactly do I get?
Four things, within two days after payment, as a Word file you can edit, a text file and a PDF proof (A4 or Letter): a fifteen-second hook you can say in one breath; a two-minute pitch script with timings that shows one round instead of explaining the rules; a one-page pitch (title line, what it is, how a turn goes, why it sells, where it sits, the numbers, components, status, contact) in the order a publisher reads it; and the ten questions publishers ask (who is it for, what is the hook, how tested, has anyone else seen it, why this theme, what would it cost, art, what do you want), each answered from your own facts. With it: a list of what we moved, cut or wrote from your notes and why, and a numbered list of the things your notes left open. One free round of changes within a week.
Will you make anything up to make it sound better?
No. Every play count, score, comparison and quote in the pack is one you gave us; a figure you did not give is not in it. If your notes say thirty-one plays, the pitch says thirty-one plays. What we do is choose, order and cut: lead with the thing testers name, hold the rules back until asked, turn the blind test that went badly into evidence that you fix things, and write out the ask you forgot. The pack also does not name the publisher's staff, promise coverage or a signing, or contact anyone for you.
Is this a sell-sheet, a deck or a video?
Words only. No slides, no art, no sell-sheet layout and no video script: the one-page pitch drops into the sell-sheet you already have (or the Board Game Sell Sheet next door), and the two-minute script is what you say at the table or on the call. One game and one pitch at this price; a second game, a crowdfunding page or an email submission letter set is a new order, and we say so before you pay.
Get the sample pitch pack first
The invented Tidewrack pack: the designer's email and the finished pitch as a PDF, and our one-page list of the ten questions a publisher asks and the order the one-page pitch goes in.