Almost a year back I blogged about my new social deduction game. Since then the games seen a couple of fairly chunky changes and I've been gradually refining it ever since. With every iteration the play tests became smoother and the game simpler. I think that this might be my first game I actually think is ready to publish! This is uncharted territory for me -I feel like there is nothing more that I can really add or take away from the game. I'm sure there will be a little tweaking to the balance (at various player counts) but essentially the concept has been been fully realised and it actually stands-up to my expectations! It's a tight little game with a juicy little deduction puzzle!

The Elevator Pitch

When you pitch your game to publishers, often they want to see a 'Sell Sheet'. It's a single page document that gives them a very quick overview of the game. Here's my sell sheet for Fake Cultists:

So what's next?

I ran the game a couple of times at Airecon last weekend and I have a few more big group events coming up over the few weeks. They will be perfect for a play-testing and a good opportunity to check the games' balance.

Publishing-wise I've actually just sent the sell sheet over a publisher that I think would be a really good fit for this game... so that's bonkers! I've never really considered how I'd feel about handing a game over to a publisher but now I'm starting on that journey I'm feeling a little protective over it! I've quite a lot of ideas about how I'd like it producing such as using black core for the box, game cards and tokens to give it a gothic vibe and spot printing with neons inks to give it a super striking table presence! The way something looks and feels is really important to me and relinquishing that control might be a challenge! Anyway, it's very early days and publishers might not be interested my little game! My fallback would be to release it as print-and-play or possibly look at self-publishing... 🫣

What ever happens I'll be sure to keep the blog updated with any new developments!