#58 - Audience Sell-Sheets 2

Music. Hello, and welcome to Probe Funlands. I'm Peter C. Hayward. I'm AJ Brandon.

And this is the podcast where we talk about cell sheets and do nothing else ever under any circumstance. This is all cell sheets, all the time, forever. You're trapped now. You're already listening. You have no way of getting out of this. AJ, what is the concept of this series? Concept of this series is we have listeners submit their cell sheets.

We review them on air and give our opinions on where they could improve so that when they are pitching them to publishers, they will be much more likely to close the deal, sign it, be enticing to the publishers. However, today we've got some special sell sheets from games that have been signed so we can use them probably as good examples since obviously they, at the bare minimum, did their job and got the game signed.

Yes, I did a call out with some designer friends just being like, hey, can you send me a sell sheet that got the game signed? So these are some that literally got the game in with a publisher and they were like, I want to see more based on this. Two quick bookkeeping things. One is that we've had, this is going to come out both on YouTube and via the podcast. We've gotten feedback from podcast listeners that it's hard to understand what we're talking about.

We've also received feedback saying, please keep posting this on the podcast. It's really interesting even without knowing what you're talking about. So what we will do is start linking to the sell sheets in the show notes. So we'll make a little public folder with the sell sheets on them with no contact details or anything like that. so that if you are listening, you can open them up and look at what we're talking about as we do.

If you're on YouTube, obviously, you can literally see it. And as part of that, we'll probably do a little bit less describing than we've historically done.

Cool. AJ, are we still accepting soul sheets or are we full up for the next seven years? Peter wants to do a million of these, so we're still accepting. Cool. Okay, are we starting with one of mine or one of Mike's? I don't think we need to do ours anymore unless you particularly want to. Do you want to start each of these with one of ours? Have we done my NetIt one? Because that one is the only other one that I think I have. It doesn't sound familiar.

All right. Well, we'll just do mics. And if we do another one of these, I'll find NetIt. We can do that. Can you go back to your full screen? Yeah, full screen is actually going to be better, I think, for the YouTube format. Do you see my whole screen when I don't do that? Or do you just see the page smaller? This is perfect. Everything you're doing now, continue. Okay. This is a sell sheet called Bullseye. The tagline is, can you tell what your friends are aiming for?

It's 25 minutes three to eight players eight plus and this is actually a game that got signed mike belsoll is the designer he also made uh smug owls which is what was my game of the year a few back my favorite cards against humanity style party game really excellent design i've not played this one have you played bullseye.

So i don't know this game at all so go ahead i didn't know it was out like maybe it's not maybe it's just signed but not actually released chat so we are actually coming to this as bad as raw as we would with any other place only sell sheet except that we do know ahead of time that it was signed uh can you scroll down a little bit for me please aj so this is a very text heavy sell sheet and part of the reason i did this call out was

because i was like we're giving a lot of advice without actually showing successful examples maybe our advice is all wrong we're also talked to some publishers about coming on as guests for the series so we get opinions from other people other than aj and i uh basically i want to make sure this series is producing as much value as possible and i was worried that we were being a little bit too didactic.

So this is uh by grace kendall and mike belsoll i'm so sorry grace for omitting you from the credits mike's the one who sent it to me so i just mentioned him it is a word guessing party game with a clues written by everyone one letter at the time aj what are these diagrams look like to you it looks like there's a central target bullseye with a keyword on it and then there's a bunch of fruit yeah and there's a bunch of dry erase arrows that clearly

have words starting to be written on them a couple individual letters and they have point values above them so this is something i like to to do is can i already figure what the game is it seems like the fewer letters you use it's a great exercise the more points you get because there's 20 points above the first letter 10 points above the second seven five three and so you were trying to get someone to guess it as close as possible and you want to them to put the arrow as close

as you as as it belongs to the center so your arrow will eventually have a word and that is supposed to go in a certain ring and i'm guessing that's how closely it relates to that thing that's my guess is how it works but we'll see. So, just because I'm interested in this, the words written so far are Y-E, P-E, P-O, Y-E, and M-O.

So, I'm actually going to play the game right now. Without knowing anything else, I would guess that two people are writing yellow, and someone's maybe writing peach or pear? I was thinking peel for a banana. Oh, peel! It's totally peel. So, obviously, I'm thinking banana here. Just from the Y-E alone, I would have guessed banana. What do you think M-O or P-O is?

I was trying to think if there's someone who's going a bit more abstract like the since i saw the peel that made me think are they are they taking it like one step further like a frozen banana or like someone slipping or something like that but i can't quite figure it so maybe it has to do with like a combination of things but i'm not quite sure i don't know so very very very very positive point in favor of the sell sheet is that i am literally engaging with

the game without having read a single thing past what i read out loud like i feel like for me the puzzle of like guessing the game is really compelling and then the game itself seems to be really compelling so i can see why this got signed in bullseye you're working together to get 50 points in as few rounds as possible you do this by giving clues to a guesser leading to a target word or phrase so it sounds like everyone is going towards the same

thing however you only write and reveal the first letter of your clue the twist is that if the guesser passes you pass your clue to your neighbor who adds the next letter without your input do they know what clue you're thinking of do you know what clue they were thinking of does the guesser know what any of you are thinking of, now that is wordy that is that is more words than i would typically recommend. But by the end of that i feel like i could teach this game.

I feel like i could like take these components and that description and run a full game now this is a party game obviously that makes it easier to do movie night was similar as like you play the whole game on the sheet but this this and again we are we are coming in with the curse of knowledge this wasn't this was signed from the sell sheet yeah i i did kind of feel like going into this i was worried that we'd be biased because you'd be like oh it's signed so of course it's great but.

But i i really do feel like from this i get a very solid idea of the game i could play the game I don't know if it's fun, but as a publisher, I'd be like, I want to give this a shot. Like, this sounds interesting. And again, the goal of the sell sheet is just to get to the pitch. And for me, this would get me to the pitch. I don't love that they have so much of the real estate of the screen covered with just a picture of the components when we already have a list of components.

And we can already see examples of the components in the really, really good first image that shows us a game in play. I'd rather see that being like a step one, two, three sort of system to show you the mechanics of play. And then you can cut down on the text, which make it much more parsable. Yeah. There's also a whole key features area. I would just cut that. I think that adds nothing.

I'll read it just for context, which is high player interaction, simultaneous play, strong moments of tension broken by thrilling reveals, clever deduction for all players. I don't think it hurts the sheet, but I don't think it adds anything either. Yeah, I see why they have that sort of a thing. It feels like you want to put your hook down. But for a game this simple, we already know how to play. So it's already going to be a pass or fail from the publisher.

They don't need to read all these things They know what they are You have already shown, you don't need to tell. So this might be an example where the game is so strong that it's working, or at least the way that the game is pitched makes me want to play it.

We have another one from Mike. This is called Riddle Me This, a riddle... It's also by Grace. I'm so sorry, Grace. I'm friends with Grace, and I am doing her dirty on this podcast. Riddle Me This, a riddle-solving party game about being clever, designed by Mike Belsol and Grace Kendall. Let's say mostly Grace Kendall. Let's really give her all the props. How to play. Oh, here we go. They're doing exactly what you asked for.

How to play. Draw cards to create a riddle. The two decks are riddle part and conjunction. Think of an answer and put your hand in. What flies when it breathes is the example. If you're the only one without a hand in, you're the judge. The judge listens to all the answers. The judge awards cards as they see fit. Create a new riddle and play again. The examples are what flies when it breathes air. An accordion soloist. A jet engine. A hot air balloon. Oh, that's a good one.

AJ, thoughts? Yeah, so this is exactly what I wanted from the first one.

This one very clearly shows me how to play six steps feels like it's a little unnecessary there you know I don't need step five play it again or sorry step six play it again but this does a great job I can see it visually like I can see these cards I can see how they move I can I completely understand how the game plays very clearly they didn't waste any space with any unnecessary information this is 10 out of 10 for how clean the cell sheet is I think it's really good,

this game went on to become Smug Owls which is In my top five party games of all time. You know what's funny? I've played Smug Owls and I didn't realize this was Smug Owls. Even when you said the designer was the designer of Smug Owls. So I am as biased as you can get, but I do think that these are really excellent spell sheets. And I think the second one far better than the first, but even the first one, I was like, I want to play.

Hopefully some of our listeners submitted spell sheets will garner the same reaction, or if not, hopefully we'll have valuable feedback to give.

All right onwards so okay stuff we're just going in order yes okay give me a zoom oh it's kind of being fussy give me one sec here yeah you're gonna do it manually okay spelling buzz now this one is is i think about three times as much text as the text heavy one we just did so i'm not going to read everything out spelling buzz a buzzing blend of strategy and wordplay in this worker placement world building word building game you'll need to be clever guide your colony

to gather the perfect letters and combine them into high-scoring words that become the sweetest honey in the garden two to four players 45 to 60 minutes 10 plus i will tell you i want to play this, i love bees i love worker placement i love word building i love puns this one has very much sold me just right off the bat it also looks like it's very inspired by the new york times game, word buzz or something like that which i love so i i'm sold.

Which is not useful feedback but i'll tell you that i would i would happily play test this game this seems really really like my jam uh they've listed the components they've said the hook and then given a decent length paragraph which i'm not going to read and then gameplay oh go ahead sorry you're not going to read the hook it's just a lot of words if you want to read it out you can i do in this dyslexic friendly lightweight game

featuring a unique blend of worker placement and word building mechanics you control a colony of bees flying over a garden land on different flowers to collect letters you need and build the best possible words with the strong bee theme and fantastic table presence this game is as engaging as it is visually charming aj i have a strong thought here can you guess what my thought is less text uh i mean yes but specifically this is this part is labeled the hook yeah and uh

what is the hook yeah i don't know they said a lot of different things that sound like a general description not yes it also overlaps that first paragraph that sold me almost completely yeah i would just cut that whole section yeah yeah there is nothing in there that is new except for land on different flowers which i think i can kind of also before we move down just this is just a hierarchy of information positioning sort of thing the components should not be this high that like you

want to start top down that's how people read components should be tucked away in the corner off to the side we don't care about that.

In the in the fun problems discord channel we've been having people submit sell sheets and i've been if i have the time i've just been scrambling on it with with the with my phone app and a lot of the time i'm just circling components and moving it to the corner circling contact information moving into the corner those are the things that if the publisher is interested they're going to look for in the same way as in your daily life here's a life tip for you if you're eating too much chocolate

make the chocolate hard to get to and make the vegetables front and center easy to see if the if the publisher wants to know the components the contact details they will go find them you don't need to put those front and center.

Yeah the game oh sorry go ahead no please the gameplay spelling buzz is divided into three phases scouting players one by one will place their scouting bees on available flowers hoping to obtain the right letters oh sorry one thing we did get from the hook is that it's dyslexic friendly which i think is actually an interesting and notable point and worth including it doesn't justify the rest of the paragraph but i think that is that is valuable foraging each flower is

activated from left to right during which time players compete for letters from their chosen flower turn order is determined by the strength of the scout bee they send to each flower sounds like critical kitchen production players simultaneously arrange the letters they obtain during the foraging phase to create honey words to build their beehive so there's definitely some i don't know if this told me anything go ahead yeah yeah i think i wouldn't say it told me nothing but i would say like

you're saying a lot of words and i'm getting very little out of it as a really really simple example each flower is activated from left to right that is way too in the weeds don't don't care about that yeah like i think the the three phases step one you worker place like you can use these terms the publishers know what worker placement is you step one you work a place step place bees yeah place bees step two collect letters cool step three arrange letters like i'm pretty sure words

yeah yeah make words yeah so i i think like keeping this here and just like retuning it trimming down the words working on your clarity the the The two. Things you always want to be whenever you're writing text, clear and concise, right? And this is unfortunately- Check out on writing well. It's amazing. Right. And then there's a little bit- AJ, philosophical question for you. Sure. How would you feel if I just cut that whole section?

What has that told you that you don't already know from it's a worker placement game where you place Bs to get letters and make words? You're not wrong. Yeah, I think, again, we're going to harp on this a lot. And I was saying to AJ before the recording, I want to make sure we bring new points, but I'm going to repeat a point. This is about selling the game. I am your target audience for this game. I was sold from worker placement, bees, word building.

Everything else is in the weeds to a point where, what does it matter? Like, you've told me in that gameplay section that in this worker placement, word building, bee placing game, you place bees to collect letters and build words. I knew that. That was already from that first paragraph. stuff. Now, I'm sort of a bit more hard-lined about this.

I think there is potentially value in just being like, terms are very simple, and I've actually advocated this on my sales sheets before, but I just don't, I would either have it here and not in that other section or have it in that other section and not here. I just don't think we need both. The reason why Mike's cell sheets worked in a way that is this is because you could play the game from that. If you could isolate a turn and be like, here's letters you have.

What's the word you can spell? Cool. Now I'm playing the game. But reading about the game is not the same as playing the game.

You want to do that last paragraph? The game ends when one player builds four words. At this point, all players score their beehive and the player with the most points wins. Again, this is the weeds. We don't care about that. It also has a typo. The player with the most points wins. It's not a huge deal, but if you're making a word game, especially, I feel like you want to, I mean, for one, if you only have 100 words, make sure there's no typos.

AJ, can you go down to those QR codes? Because I want to get your thoughts on that. I actually am a big fan of adding QR codes to it. Three minutes of public opinion? No, thank you. Okay. That was my thought. I wanted to make sure I wasn't being a curmudgeon. QR code to a five-minute overview? Make it two and then put it on there.

And then a QR code for... Yep, go ahead. for contact yeah uh these especially work against each other because i'm like oh there's a three minute option a five minute option oh all the information i want is only the five minute option not only is that the longer of the two but like you've contrasted it with the shorter one that i don't want yeah this game looks pretty neat though like oh i i like for for all our criticisms i want to play this i think i think this

this could be very much for me yeah it looks like there's a spatial element like almost a zool thing with how you're putting the words in i like bees.

I i will say 45 to 60 minutes does sound pretty long for a word game but you've got so much of like that that puzzly element that in some of those other games but again comparing it to something like cat lady that's a much shorter game a really long really thinky puzzle game sounds kind of mentally taxing to me so that's my only great for me yes this is this is a Peter of a game as it gets, basically.

Yeah. Me and Alex actually spent a substantial amount of time trying to adapt the Critic Kitchen mechanism to a word game, and we ended up abandoning it because we couldn't get it working. It sounds like that's what this is, and I genuinely want to play it. Yeah. No, this is really cool. And that was like a yellow flag, not even a red flag, just something to consider other things on the market are doing something like that. Oh, sorry, before we move on, I just want to say excellent photos.

I like all of these photos. You could argue there's too many, but I think each one of these serves a purpose. Each one of these is colorful and bright and shows people. You've got components. You've got people playing the game. You've got to play a board. You've got like the whole game laid out. I think these are arguably the best photos we've ever seen on a sell sheet. Yes, I think so for sure.

So all in all, this is probably like an A minus to me, despite the fact that we spent a lot of time criticizing it.

I think the game shines through. The game sounds really interesting. I would just, I mean, I think this is going to be effective for your target market, but I think you could cut a lot of the repetition of this unless you're getting points for every word you've included, in which case, well played, sir. Well played. I will say, I think a lot of publishers like to say aesthetics don't matter to them. I think that on a very- Who likes to say that? I'm sorry? Who says that? They're lying.

That's what I mean. This is a very pretty sell sheet. i don't think it needs to be this pretty but this is also one of the most aesthetically appealing sell sheets that we've seen yeah for the listeners it's got like all these components laid out on either a grass picture or an actual grass and it just gives you this nature it's really cool, a yeah a minus which is probably this is probably one of the best sell sheets

we've seen i think yeah calling calling card discerning detectives by day crafty criminals by night okay i have so many questions about the premise of this game.

My mind has gone like five steps in the future and i'm like is this game are you a criminal by night and a detective by day what is happening, it's like i feel like it's like a dirty cops kind of a thing that's right but it sounds like you're trying to solve the mystery of your of your fellow like there's something there's intriguing going on here so we've got the kind of how to play formatted as an email which is a nice little gimmick i like that

kind of stuff i know it can be divisive but i think it's cute from the chief inspector to you subject sorry calling card killer uh for context two to ten players 30 minutes 10 plus carry on thank you so much the criminal is struck again it's up to you to catch them we know their calling card is a valid reference for identity and murder weapon which they've obscured by transforming the words three times it's it's the riddler from batman apparently struck using the evidence

in your deduction skills work backwards step by step from the criminal's crawling card to figure out the original words card regards the chief this is zero percent delivered on the premise yeah i maybe it's a misunderstanding uh this is the game figure it out the the the tagline here discerning detectives by day crafty criminals by night scroll down maybe maybe we've missed something but typically when it's blank by day blank

by night there we go the twist the players create puzzles for each other to solve it is there okay puzzles that are just as fun to create as they ought to solve. Players get to feel twice as clever. No downtime. Create puzzles simultaneously, then solve together. It sounds like it's decrypto, right? Not decrypto, SoClover. It's a SoClover format where you make a puzzle and everyone else solves it, right? I think so.

Sorry, my ADD is going crazy because there's so much text spattered in so many different ways. And there's even the red line twine from classic detective things where it's wrapped around the clothespins and everything. But it's not done in the order that you would read, top left to bottom right.

It zigzags in the opposite direction for some reason and it's very jarring for me to know how i'm supposed to read all this different stuff like are these completely independent of each other and yeah i find this extremely overwhelming to try and figure out where i'm supposed to read this has zero to ten information hierarchy or close to it yeah i will tell you that i actually feel the same way to the point where i just blanked it out yeah like this stuff just didn't

exists that's why i was like scroll down what's next there's nothing here i'll be honest if i, at jellybean i looked through some sell sheets for for submissions if i saw this one i would strongly consider just dismissing it and not even looking at it just because it's so obnoxious like i probably would fight through it but i you're not doing yourself any favors at the least um okay let's not dive into the details then actually sorry there's a few things i want

to read anagram mix up the letters from both words together get two new words so it's just different ways of creating puzzles basically so i i think and aj i actually really want to see if you disagree with me on this i think this premise of police by day criminals by night to basically make so clover.

Is unhelpful yeah i agree i was expecting like a social deduction element yeah like a pair like that that tagline is so strong i think it's actually a really fun tagline and then you've pitch to a completely different game, which also seems fun. I would, I like puzzle games. I like word games. I'd probably check this out. But you've made a promise and then delivered on a completely different promise, which I think is unhelpful. Mm-hmm. All right, let's move on to the next one.

The Ritual, an unsettling occult experience like Ouija slash tarot. That, oh man, I want to explore that a bit. So, an unsettling occult experience like Ouija slash tarot. How much do you know about the history of Ouija and tarot? I know a ton.

On okay so ouija was a toy made by parker brothers or hasbro or something like that in the 60s and it's literally like a pretend thing of like communicate with the dead and since then it's been picked up by the paranormal community they're like oh it's a real spooky thing literally was just a toy so like no history to it nothing like that a company made it to be like a fun spooky toy there is no game there are no rules it's just purely a toy for contacting the dead which is fine no

flame it's done very well it's part of pop culture now but it does not it does not have a game attached to it tarot is a normal deck of cards with just like tarot is actually just a different way of doing a deck of cards that was very very popular in europe for hundreds of years and nowadays is used to do you know the tarot reading and stuff like that in some english speaking countries in most of europe it's still just a normal deck of cards the equivalent i was think of as if in 100 years time

you're like i'm really the scrabble and someone was like oh i didn't know you're into the supernatural you'd be like no i mean i'm into the game scrabble they're like yeah right the supernatural like it's it's so ouija and tarot for me particularly who's obsessed with like game history are really strange touch points and immediately be like oh this is a toy and not a game in any way but maybe i'm being unfair um,

The Ritual is a pick and pass, sorry, four to six players, 20 minutes, 16 plus. 16 plus? That's interesting. Well, if it's unsettling occult experience, that's probably why they have that age on it. It's probably not to do with complexity. No, no, but even that, I don't know. Again, Ouija was not an adult toy. It's just a general pretend to talk to the dead toy. No, I think there's a lot of parents who would look twice at something like this, you know?

Yeah, I can see that. i i feel like your audience is like 14 year old witches yeah the ritual it's sorry that that's how it's integrating i didn't mean that in a patronizing or diminishing way the ritual is a pick and pass drafting games styled as a cursed victorian parlor game recovered from the remains of a real church file okay i actually really really like that vibe yeah with it i'm too autistic i'm like a victorian parlor

game neither of these are victorian like your references are anyway i'm getting stuck on stupid things with it players try to summon a demon it will grant the winner's secret witch with the loser sacrificing their soul that's cool as heck i love that uh tension builds each round as additional summon cards are added to the deck increasing the chances the game will end and seal the sacrificial player's fate, then there is oh i thought that was a pierced hand it's a candle melting out

of hand so there's some cards with like vaguely spooky images but nothing nothing graphic i would say. There might be some boobs on that topless demon, actually. Oh, my goodness. But anyway, each card scores differently. There's a picture of a church that I'm going to ignore. It's burning. Draft three summon black cards in a round to win and end the game. But beware, summon cards aren't worth points. If you don't have the Lewis score, you could become the sacrifice.

So this is really close to being super elegant.

It there's a few little things like you don't need to say it's black cards right but this tells me yes i don't need to say to win and end the game you just say to win the game well i think it should just be to end the game because they're not worth points you don't win the game just by having three of those the if i'm reading this correctly oh yeah you're right i didn't even pick up on that if you have three black cards that ends the game and you want to have

the highest score once the game ends that's really no i i think they're saying if you draft the three you are guaranteed to win and everyone else fails whoever fails and has the lowest score becomes a sacrifice oh i see okay yeah got it but you're right like mechanically that's a super clear and and this is sort of what we're always talking about where like you don't need that many words to give us the whole vibe of the game but you do have to be clear yes

yes the sacrifice player does not draft oh so the game's not over yet and to sacrifice players not draft instead they circle the table peek at players hands and last picks to guess who will have the lowest score that round if correct they rejoin the table with the losing player become the new sacrifice. Love it i want to play this game that seems so fun.

That's a great component hook that's a great mechanical hook ah this is great what what's happened aj why are we getting such good pictures who is this ben oh it's ben he's the one who sent that really lovely message recently oh nice yeah uh we will obviously censor out all of his contact details he's got a list of his published games have we talked about this before yes so the advice you gave was if you have something to brag about you can brag about it for example i

co-host this podcast but this podcast is not something that's going to convince a publisher to sign my game However, the game with AEG, that is something where it would be relevant. Or if I put my developer credits there, that could be an appropriate thing to just show that you're serious, you know, or you have industry. I was right I came down too harsh on it because I really like this. As soon as I see, oh, he's got a game with Pandasaurus and Floodgate and everything epic.

And, you know, we talk a lot about barriers to entry and stuff like that, but it is an undeniable factor that publishers want to work with people who've gone through the process before, if nothing else, so that they're not babying them. The fact that this guy has worked with three publishers and we haven't heard a bad thing about it. Now, I know Ben. He's very lovely. I would recommend him. He's great.

But the fact that he's worked with three pretty decent-sized publishers and there's not a whisper circle about what a nightmare was to work with, very good sign. Right. Plus, if the publisher is reading this, knows any of these publishers, they can reach out and be like, hey, how are they? And assuming you're a decent person, that's amazing. That's an in.

Yeah. This is great. Yeah. This would move from pitch to sell sheet to playing the game for me for sure if nothing else just because that's such an interesting mechanic of like walking around the table and.

Trying to yeah i love that hey you want to do this up this and i'll jump in oh hierarchy information hierarchy aj what what can we not see at the top we can't see the player count the length or the number of players that's tucked away on the side lower it's not it's not a terrible spot but i do think that's sort of the counter to the components you do want that top and front center yes agree so it's not hidden it's just the way that we were zooming in but i would definitely want that like

right right at the top yeah two seven players 20 minutes 10 plus detective ish a cooperative game of amateur detectives making clever if far-fetched connections i think that's a pretty cute tagline yeah i i can again without without having seen anything other than that play account i'm like oh i can see five ways this could go and all of them sound really interesting.

The items are we just in better moods today aj i don't know these are these are kind of crushing it yeah i think so the items are known the order is the key piece it together and you might just understand what the maniac was thinking do you want to read to the next bit yes step one thefts everyone knows the stolen items but each player has been given a secret tip about the sequence of the robberies oh i want to pause there because that is dry as hell firstly i

don't know i i feel like if you're going to do detectives a stolen items is kind of the least interesting detective story like i'm not saying every game has to have a murder in it but i just feel like stolen items are sort of like the lowest hanging fruit for a detective each player has been given a secret tip about the sequence of the robberies that sounds dry to me and i think i think it could work i again i'm imagining like you've you've got to guess that it goes apple then diamond

then boat or whatever that can be interesting and that is a sequencing of objects but the way that's written is so dry that i'm sort of turned off by it yeah a tip about the sequence of robberies that like imagine if i was describing hanabi as like each turn you spend a resource to give a clue to a player about a card type in their hand it's like yeah that just doesn't sound sexy even And that's literally what you do.

And that game is genuinely very, like, not sexy, sexy, but it's a very hooky game. Two, I have a theory. Any player may give a clue to communicate the order they know. An example of a clue would be, here we go, stolen in order of how, oh God, stolen in order of how easy each item is to make easiest first. I want to like this. I'm so on board with this premise and I feel like I'm getting roadblock after roadblock. Like, that's not a sexy clue.

It's a different game so it's not really fair to compare them but like in in smug owls it was a hot air balloon i'm like cool i know what hot air balloon is so firstly stolen in order of is unnecessary you're just putting words like we know it we already know that information how easy each item is to make i'm sure that that is fun in context but pick pick a better example, largest to smallest like immediately if you just said largest to smallest i know everything that i need to

know about these clues and okay you're saying replace the text of that text box stolen in order of how easy each item is to make easiest first literally just say smallest to largest that's all you need to say and obviously this is a different clue i'm pitching an alternative not not not rewording that but it just tells me what a clue looks like and it cuts out all the cruft and it's just a thousand times easier to pass than than all this text three the debate the other players discuss.

A parachute would take lots of sewing. I've made ice cream. It isn't that hard. Is a piano complicated? Four, the timeline. They guess the order of stolen goods. In this case, ice cream, parachute, piano. Scroll down for me. This is a second pinboard with red string game, by the way. I'm going to zoom in on number three here. So the debate, is a piano complicated? That's just- Yeah, it's not much of a debate. Yeah, it's just so jarring to me.

I would take a quick pass of this and try and make it a little bit more realistic.

A lot of these are content notes rather than structure notes. i actually think that the layout of this is really good etc yeah those specific examples too are not really a debate in any way like ice cream parachute piano easiest to hardest to make there's just no question there like i don't think anyone's going to be like oh is ice cream harder than a piano it's like no obviously not now my example is smallest to largest if you said something like dog chair whale then

it's like oh okay so we know the whale now about this dog and chair thing are we thinking yeah is a dog being a check that's a debate and this is the premise of like things in rings so uh or french ties this is this is my area now it's your turn the other players know the stolen items but they don't know the timeline give them a clue to order them something that will help them place the items in this exact sequence pickle camel barn okay

we're playing the game i like that so much we're never going to stop making this point aj what's a clue that we give to go oh pickle camel barn would just be smallest to largest right well we can give any type of clue to get them to put them in that sequence. Yeah, small star just would be one. Let's pick a more interesting one.

Most to least edible i was thinking the exact same thing i was hoping with two different ones but that's cool too it is oh man again to to go back to our structure versus content model the structure of this is almost perfect i don't think i would i would change the arrangement of stuff on the page maybe move those um yeah the the player count and all that sort of stuff should be up higher but mostly this is very yeah the thing that i want is more than three

in a line because three is just not as well as that you've set us up for success now if all this was pickle barn camel now i'm like oh how do i order that that's presumably your game has an interesting puzzle you've given us a very boring version of that puzzle if it was pickle barn camel i would say most to least likely to be found in america you know like it it lets me be.

Creative and be like oh this is fun i'm i'm i'm i'm being clever pickle camel barn is like yeah smallest largest done like it it's not interesting so i don't give us a go ahead the the red flag for me is something i think about a lot with party games you're putting 100 of the creativity on the players and the obvious boring uninteresting answer is the default like as soon as someone says size it's like okay now that's the thing i think about and anytime that's

like the first time i look at any set of three i'm gonna think is it smallest largest one direction or the other every single one of your clues has to have that in mind which limits it whereas if you were like and this is a different game but if it was instead like you have an order and then you have to try and figure out which way they go those types of things there's more variety to what it could be this one my concern if i

was going to consider signing it is just that players would just default to the same thing every single round my fix and i don't know why we're developing this but i'm developing this now i would just make it five i think with five you're going to really struggle to find clear smallest largest lists. It'll sometimes happen, but it's going to be way less than with three. Because with three, you just need the medium one to be in the middle. That's it.

Right. Oh, I had to add something, but it's gone. Oh, yeah, yeah. Ice cream, parachute, piano. Least to most portable. Sorry, most to least portable. That tickled me. I think the concept of this is really fun. I think the layout of this is great. It's got like a little professor, sort of an Einstein-y character holding up his finger and waggling it and holding up a card.

The components are great. the graphic design is great the game seems interesting i just think i would cut a bunch of the tech i would rephrase a lot of the text i would cut a bunch of the text and i would, come up with more interesting puzzles with the movie night one that we did in our first episode or whenever we did that i deliberately chose a set that had an answer that was very hard to get to, right because if i'd just been like what's a movie that has magic and a school but nothing

in america you'd be like it's harry potter cool yeah but instead it was i think it was diehard or something like that it was like a nice little like they were they were positioned such that there was an answer and if you got it you felt really smart but you didn't immediately be like oh it's the obvious answer maybe it's harry potter i'm misremembering enough i'm lying about my own thing um so i would just do that here i would i would cut a bunch of

not not a bunch of text i would rephrase a bunch of text i'd come up with more interesting framing more interesting examples, more interesting puzzle and then i think this is great and then i'm at the second level question of like, would this replace DeCrypto? Would this replace whatever other ordering games there are? Go ahead.

That's it. I don't have anything else. Hey, you want to do another one? Yep. Ooh, you want to read this one? Strange Glass Window. The relaxing picture recreation solo game. One player, of course. 15 to 20 minutes. 11 up. Rearrange tiles to restore an old stained glass window. I also see dice and a grid. So the Sagrado comparisons are going to be impossible to not notice. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Premise. The stained glass window of an old cathedral was shattered long ago, and its shards placed back here relatively.

Slowly over time the glass would have rearranged itself back to its former glory this is a high concept if i've ever seen one yeah you you play as the cathedral's window, each dot each turn you roll three dice with each face offering a specific action for rearranging the tiles the goal is to recreate the image in the fewer steps i have a quick question for you do you think this was theme or mechanics first.

It's solo games are weird man solo games sort of have room for mechanics that you wouldn't do elsewhere like a competitive game where you all start stained glass windows i guess that is sagrada but it still feels weird but like especially in the cozy world like a slightly magical stained glass window it doesn't turn me off it's just it just is notably really weird i i would be very surprised to see that theme survive to print it's just so high concept so weird and can you scroll up for

me just to the top uh yeah so each of these things on a grid has a like c2 e4 e5 d1 etc, it seems to me from what i've seen so far that it's just literally get those in order so it's like do a1 then a2 then a3 right like a sliding puzzle yeah and then also there's a picture and you're putting it together and i i don't know that that that feels weird to me like,

It's like a jigsaw puzzle with the answer key right there. I just feel like there's got to be a theme that makes much more sense for things to be moving around and then the final version of it looks like something than saying you are playing as a window and you're rearranging yourself after the shards from being broken came back in. Well, placed back in randomly. Yeah, I can't click with that. It's got a bunch of selling points. I'm happy to skip those unless you want to read them.

I want to read them. relaxing solo puzzle game with a challenge cozy mode variant interesting so it actually says sorry we skipped this play challenge mode keep score or cozy mode don't keep score well i wouldn't consider that a different mode so much as just not keeping score satisfying to complete image inspired by a true inspired by a true story inspired by a true story i'm so glad i got the selling points please write in please write

in mike jones i would love to hear about this true story and gorgeous tactile components and then we've got some pictures of it in play from a random arrangement to its former glory yeah we see the grid actions determined by dice but then we don't have much of an explanation for that i see a one pip die moving a face of like three spaces and then yeah i i i think it's um to to give an unhelpful example it's like the mantis sisters it's like a little key of

what each number does i definitely don't feel like i understand how the game works which is a problem and i'm i'm intrigued but i'm very confused by the theme so i i don't know how i feel about a replayable jigsaw puzzle as a concept.

Definitely not against it i think like the the concept of the like the sliding puzzles but with extra mechanics to like affect how you can manipulate the pieces i think that's kind of interesting i i think maybe because he listed a selling point satisfying to complete image like i just don't know if that's going to be the case multiple maybe i don't know maybe i'm being precious about this yeah i that's definitely not turned off for me i i totally fine with that i think

this would be a pass for me it's just a little dry a little abstracted it's selling itself with a cozy mode but it's just it's first to points like my concern here is that it's literally just roll a die and then if you have it only has three possible dice results listed a one a three or an any it would be it'd be one for like one through six i'm guessing.

Maybe but i worry that it's just too simple of a thing where it's just like roll a die do a thing and that just doesn't stay interesting but i'm also not the target audience of this game so i am like naturally biased against it to begin with i've also noticed that there's there's exactly 25 tiles which doesn't i don't know i'm stuck in jigsaw puzzle mode i think like that just doesn't feel like enough to give me that satisfaction of an image coming together hmm it's

interesting i i feel like part of it is they wanted the number of components to be small because like solo games you would like them to be cheap and ideally portable so like that is appealing to me that's that's actually a nice element of it as opposed to a downside but yeah i don't know how much you lose from having a jigsaw puzzle that you complete every time the same thing like a lot of people if you like jigsaw puzzles you

don't like build a puzzle take it apart then put it together again over and over again right right i i think it's it's weird in a way that didn't connect with me but i might just not be the target audience.

Okay pack flat two to four players 30 minutes for ages eight plus welcome to your apartment i hope you brought it down key pick up assembly instructions materials from the showroom then piece together the most stylish home in the neighborhood so this is very ikea inspired i've seen a few of these games pop up oh nice slight grammatic slight storytelling.

Nitpick welcome to your new apartment pick up stuff in the showroom wait so is the showroom in my apartment i don't think it is why am i being welcomed to my apartment when i'm in ikea that's just just the way that that is ordered is a little bit to me this is a drafting tile placement polyomino assembly on your turn take one of two actions a take one assembly card and move tiles to the center very azul yeah b take tiles of a single color from the center okay

so this this oh i see no it's not as all because you take the card and then the and the tiles or you take the tile so it is it's sort of azul adjacent that's actually like a downside to me because i I like the two for one element of Azul. I think that's really interesting, but let's carry on. Optionally, take one arrangement card. These are goal cards for how to place furniture. Rearrange furniture. You can move furniture in your apartment at any time.

Place decorations. Complete arrangements to place decorations. Locking your furniture in place. I will say, before we jump into anything else, I understand everything about how to play this game. Crystal clear, succinct. You know, you could always go more succinct, but I think this is a really crisp rules explanation.

It took me a second to understand the difference between assembly card and arrangement card but the picture clears that up very easily so uh by the way everything we're reading is on the right on the left there's a big picture of the game in play in a way that gives me reference points for everything like, this is a plus layout in my mind yeah this is something where i think normally i would be saying it doesn't need to be this big but in this game it needs to

be this big and it's serving its job really really well everything's really laid out i can see everything super clearly you've highlighted at the important things like.

Everything's great excellent yeah assemble furniture tactile fun relatable flat pack experience and then there's components audience for fans of harmonies acropolis project l and azul i don't think we've had an audience before what do you think of that i'm fine with it i think it's i i don't think it's something that should be necessary because your game should already tell the publisher what it is but i don't think it's a turnoff you know what i mean like i think i should mention

just that alex my co-design i've been working on a cozy furniture apartment building game for a while so if that gets signed and released don't don't come i can point to receipts of us working on this for like almost a year now uh but.

Yeah i think best placement oh go ahead sorry i just think with audience if you explain the game well then the publisher is smart and they're in the industry they're going to know who this appeals to i i think this doesn't offend me because it is tucked away in the corner between components and designer like this is this is the space where you want to hide stuff and i think that's a perfectly fine place to put it i agree it doesn't harm it i also just don't think it adds anything and so

just remove it that's my opinion having said that this this whole thing is very well laid out yes puzzle out the best placement satisfying puzzle avoid covering feng shui stars while completing goals decorate your apartment cozy theme feel like you have made the apartment your own and there's some very cute imagery of a little cat and a pillow and a luxo lamp and a laptop this is excellent this is excellent one thing i see sometimes in pro type games that i feel like aren't quite there

is it feels like there's like one tiny bit of complexity missing especially in like these more puzzly games if you compare it to something like cat lady or azul or something like those they often have like the get stuff the lay stuff and then there's like one little twist and when you're laying the stuff and as soon as i saw like the feng shui thing there yeah it's like oh that's that's thematic that tells me that there's like a really interesting

extra twist to the puzzle to consider while I'm doing everything else. This looks really cool. Yeah, that's what reminded me of my game because we actually just rode out the Feng Shui. Also, I like that there's the component hook of assembling your pieces. You can see the little dowels there and everything. And they don't even have to draw attention to it on the sell sheet. I can see it. It looks cool. Yes. Show, don't tell. They've nailed it. Yeah. I think this is a solid A for me.

This is an a plus for me oh i just realized look at the logo at the top packed flat, yeah what about it's in the ikea font and colors yep i didn't pick up on that because ikea's full caps so i was not that right that's very cute true true uh okay let's do one more for the day, grim tide oh i think i've i've played this so i should uh recuse myself all right i will read it Grimtide, a deeply thematic game about hunting sea monsters.

It's actually written in that accent, which is impressive. Actually, I think that the italics on a deeply thematic game is a very nice, subtle touch. Two to four players. I don't know why. If I saw an icon with three meeples that are slightly overlapping or whatever, I'd be like, yeah, that's the player count. Because it's three fists and it says two to four players and each one of those is completely distinct, it actually throws me off and I want a fourth thing on there.

But i'm being super weird and pedantic about it 60 minute play time 14 plus there's a few little components spread out all around the the sell sheet description grim tide is a thematic nautical exploration game about hunting sea monsters sick that sounds awesome navigate the ocean using a novel movement system earn knowledge and renown by defeating monsters build a crew of seafarers with unique combat abilities hunt and slay the terrible kraken now there's no more text

on it i don't know what your novel movement system is and i would like to if that's a hook it should be there and you can't if you say something's novel and you don't explain it you're doing the opposite of show don't tell you're telling and not showing i don't believe you that's novel i want to believe you but like is it momentum based is it based off of like the wind or something it's based off the wind i i kind of assume i i hate to tell you this i have seen ship games that use wind as

a movement mechanic i i will say having played it is actually really cool um i completely agree with you it should it should be shown not just told but. So I don't think this will influence your thoughts. The context of this is as a tantrum con and the designer whose name is, scroll down so I can pretend like I remembered his name, Chris, yeah. The designer Chris, whose name I definitely remembered, saw me and I was looking for a game to play and he's like, Peter, you don't want to play this.

It's like against everything you like. And I was like, well, there's nothing else. And also now you've intrigued me. And I said, I had a really good time. Like there were mechanical problems, but it's a, yeah. So I have played this. I had a very good time with it. I do think the navigation system is like, It's the core of the game, and it's very interesting. I had another thought, which is that... Oh, yeah. So what are your thoughts before I talk about it anymore?

I have one very specific thought, which is that I see dice, which makes me think Ameritrash. I see player board, which has a lot of spaces for things to go. I assume as you explore spaces, you cover up the things and get the bonuses or something like that.

And I can see slots for crew members and things. and i just want to know like the i mean most games these days are a hybrid of ameritrash and and and euro games that that term is those terms are very very outdated but i want to kind of know which direction it's going how how random are the dice is it output randomness is how does the like feel of the game go because i can tell the weight of the game very well from this i can tell like the vibes of the game it seems nice and

thematic and everything but i just want to know is this type of thing where it's a heavy euro that i aj am not going to like or is this a heavy exploration combat game that i might like so you feel like this cell sheet is straddling that line in an unhelpful way yes interesting um scroll to the top something here jumped out at me, what do you think it is no no that was a that was a great pun we love that.

I look at this game i hear like nautical exploration games and then i see two to four players is that weird or am i am i making up problems really i would i would have expected like like what's what's merchants and marauders that goes up high doesn't it, don't know off the top of my head just gotta look it up i've to do it because because like you're saying this this does sort of like the soul sheets oh yeah it's two to four never mind ignore me

i'm just wrong about this kind of stuff i i hear two to four i think euro i do i just don't think ameritrash but the thing is completely proves that so ignore the thing is though deeply thematic about hunting monsters that sounds really ameritrash so yeah to me i just want a little bit more clarity on where it falls that spectrum something like that but forgotten waters is three to seven that that's what i was expecting that's what i was expecting.

So i've played this so i can't speak to it just because i look at this i'm like oh i remember exactly how every part of this works so i'm able to like detach myself but i think aj's points are very valid and this game's really cool if you get a chance i would recommend playing it i really like it let's see cool i remember having hopefully useful notes but nothing beyond that, cool um well that has been our second user submitted sell sheets episode second right.

Yes uh we are we're deciding whether to keep going with this so please please weigh in uh let us know if you love this if you hate it if you want it to be video only if you want it to be on the podcast if you want only your cell sheets featured and no one else's if you think we're too harsh you think it's too nice let us know we are we are generally pretty confident about this podcast but this is one we are a little bit torn as to like whether this is providing as

much value as we hope publishing tip let me grab my notes oh okay uh so this one's very simple i've just written the ui your prototypes and that is to say i think it is very important to make your prototypes as user-friendly as possible and this is a very obvious note but we talk a lot about mvp mvp can be as ugly as sin uh in fact often are and should be i i put a big focus in ui we actually talked about doing a ui focus episode.

And the other reason we haven't is because i need to do a bunch of prep for it i try to make my games as clean as possible as as streamlined as possible i go into like mid-journey make art for them and stuff like that you don't need to do that that's a controversial stance i just like doing it because i like presenting the full product but what i do think that everyone should agree on is to make your ui as clean as possible and a lot of the notes we actually give in the sell

sheet episodes directly apply like if you can cut words cut words if you can you know trim trim trim shorten shorten shorten make it as clean layered like think actively think about layout we haven't done our zones of play episode yet but we will do zones of play episode at some point but just think about like when i guess ux more than ui but ui is particularly like is it if i'm looking for a thing can i see it age uh not aj alex and i are working on

a game called uh i won't say the name but it's it's a big big three-hour euro for carpet alchemy and alex at one point was like you know what i can never find the income tiles so we just change the color made in bright yellow in the final game they're not going to be bright yellow.

They are ugly but you can damn find them every time you're like oh there they are the yellow things and so when we get to publication we're going to be like hey make sure these are really visible give them a glow effect or like make them a different color or anything else and it would be very very easy for a designer to be like well sure they're hard to find now but that'll be fixed by the graphic designer no if you want your game

signed if you want your game to be as published as possible make it as close to and i'm not saying hire a graphic designer or anything like that but Like smooth off those rough edges. AJ, these notes are just for you, by the way. Rightfully so. Yeah. Just like. Pay attention to what people are not understanding. Obviously, if you can mechanically simplify it or mechanically streamline it, do that. But also just actively have UI at the forefront of your mind and think,

is it overwhelming them because there's a block of text? Is it confusing them because the icons are in different places? Should it be icons instead of text? Oh, AJ, do you want to talk about the icon pass we recently did on our AEG game? No, do you? No, I thought it was relevant and interesting. That wasn't like a, no, we will not talk about it. It's just that I'm not quite sure where you want to go with that. So in this game, everyone has these tiles that they activate every turn.

This is the core engine of the game. You activate a tile, your opponent activates a tile, they activate a tile, you activate a tile. That's it. That's all the action of the game. And we've been talking for a long time about if we wanted to be icons or not. And so we sat down, took us, what, 20 minutes, half an hour? Yeah, yeah. We sat down and decided on an icon for everything and put them into the Component Studio file that we use.

And export it all looked at it and we're like oh no we hate that and we tried three different things we tried replacing words with icons we tried having words with the icons in brackets and we tried having the words and we i think fairly unanimously and immediately were like it should just be the words because the others sucked yeah.

Sounds weird because i'm like hey spend a bunch of time to do nothing but had we made the icons i've been like oh immediately better like that's a step that we took that we didn't have to take the game is signed you know like this this is that i just i want to have that kind of stuff at the forefront of your mind while you're while you're prototyping like what if this was an icon what if it was a word maybe i started with an icon

it goes to a word what is the easiest to understand because the fewer obstacles you have to get into your game the easier it is to get into your game. It's definitional. And the more likely the publisher will play it. And if your game is fun and they want to publish it, then you need to get them into it. And getting them into it is just like making that path as smooth and as clean as easy as possible. Yeah. And especially if you're bad at graphic design like me, put extra care into it.

Try to figure out what the issues are and make sure that when someone has a problem with the game, make sure that the reason that they're having an issue isn't your graphic design.

Sometimes you'll be like, oh, this rule is too confusing no there wasn't confusing your card is confusing yeah i'll give i'll give some broad tips like i said i'm gonna do a ui episode at some point but one thing is i would start with no graphics aj do you remember we're working on royal blood and you made that big map and it was a very very busy map and i just got overwhelmed looking at it so i think i can't remember if i do this but i was like in our in our ag game the background

is just a single pastel color i like pastels i work a lot with pastels and prototypes and it just doesn't it just zero percent overwhelms you because there's no nothing to overwhelm you whereas had we used for a while we were using a niroshima hex map and it was just very very busy and it made the game harder to play now the final game will have some graphics there but they're we're gonna you know gonna work with really talented graphic designers artists

to make sure it's not overwhelming and so if if you're worried about it start with nothing start with blank and just put the vital stuff there rather than starting complicated and having to pare back from there. I use really simple sans serif fonts. I have one font that I use. It's called Poppins. I just use it for every game. And it means that for me, the font just doesn't exist.

It's just a blank font. Actually, since I started using Component Studio, whatever their default font is, that is now my default font. Sometimes I'll go in and add a font for a particular game if I can come up with something thematic. But most of the time, I'm just like, cool, the generic font is a non-font, so it doesn't get in the way of the players. I like sans serif. I like big text. I like as few words as possible.

AJ and I are working on a faction, and I'm just like, AJ, I want to go in and reword all this just to cut words. Right before we recorded, AJ, I spent about half an hour just trimming down our rules. I was like, oh, we don't need to say fly to any space. Fly to any empty space, because that's what fly means 100% of the time. One of the characters had spawn a barricade to an adjacent space. It's like, no, the word can just be barricade. You don't need all that text.

It's essentially an icon, but as words.

So yeah, cut, cut, cut, sans serif, make it flat i use pastels i like to if you can differentiate stuff by color oh one big ui tip and then i'll stop this publishing tip if you have a deck of unique things just grab images from anywhere and give each one an image because it is so much easier to glance over and see two images rather than having to like squint and read you know hat versus shoe if there's a big picture of a hat a big picture of a shoe even if your game has nothing to

do with hats and shoes just use generic images because then if they have two of the same card i can just immediately see that at a glance if they have the same card as me i can see that as a glance so just if you have a big deck of cards like radlan style or magic the gathering just put a simple image i will often just use noun project i'll just be like what is a generic like image and put one in each and just it gives you a visual hook to be like oh i know that card it's the big star i've seen

the big star before now i don't have to read anything the lowest hanging fruit sort of example that, is if you have different types of cards make each one of them just have a solid color background that's like oh i drew a green card i know that's an enchantment i drew a red card i know that's an attack and just it just helps people really quickly almost zero effort to you i think this is magic the other ring but i might be misremembering but there is a difference.

It can't be magic anyway some game that some old game classic game might be magic the other ring if it if it stays in play it's landscape if it gets played and discarded immediately it's um portrait little stuff like that is so simple to implement and yet like it just helps you with the visual language so in my games generally speaking if it's kind of if it's a thing that flips out stays out it's landscape if i'm playing it it goes away it's portrait.

Anything to add to that? Nope. You want to have some fun? How would you feel like adding some fun? I'd love to. Hit me. Peter, what are you in the top 1% of besides handsomest men on planet?

Longest time having a blue beard. 15 years consistently. Yeah, that's pretty good. My paying job is rude, so I won't talk about it. But in my specific genre, I am number two in the world.

So that is uh number two someone else took over about five years back and i'm like ah well done well played uh but i i am the second best in the world at the particular sub-genre that i write which is dirty so i can't talk about it beyond that i think you said top one percent right yeah, i think i'm one top one percent of the game in the world of game designers number of published games which sounds braggy i'm at 30 odd i could

find the exact number that's all but there are a lot of games yeah like bruno for duty i think he only has like 20 or something right right and my numbers are a little bit juked by the fact that i published 13 of my own games actually i have a list let me find the exact number i have okay including signed but not published games i have 31. 13 of those are published by my own company and 11 are published by other companies so far. So I have, what's that? 31 minus 24.

17 upcoming games, 11 published games and 13. No, that's not right. Whatever the numbers is. Seven. Seven upcoming games, 11 published games and 13 self-published games. How about you, AJ? This sounds like a cop-out. I think I am in the top 1% of people who get misrecognized or people like, oh, I saw this person. They're your doppelganger. It sounds like a cop-out because if other people look like me, then surely they are also like that.

But I feel like I know a lot of white guys with brown hair and a beard who are relatively tall who don't get that kind of thing. And I got to tell you, it's like probably... Every other month I have someone like, oh, there's this guy. He looks just like you. Or like, I thought you were over here and I went to talk to them and it wasn't you. I think I just have a very generic, you know, white guy look. I'm going to do the classic Peter thing of overanalyzing the question.

If it's top 1% of all people in the world, you're actually in a lot of different categories. If it's top 1% of people who are trying to do the thing that we're talking about, it changes.

So for example you are easily in top one percent of the world of most podcast episodes recorded sure like easily if you include everyone in the world if you include people who podcast, i would say top 10 to 20 but maybe not top one percent right you know so it's an interesting differentiation yeah it is like i might actually be like top one percent of like game designers but it's like yeah with one signed game exactly AJ how would you like to end this

podcast now and forevermore by saying goodbye everyone bye. Music. Piano plays softly, thanks for joining us you can find us and our incredible discord community in the show notes or reach out to us privately at funproblemspodcast at gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed the podcast, please tell a friend.