Ever wonder why a game everyone loved at a convention never actually comes out? Scott Brady, the designer behind the colour-guessing party hit Hues and Cues, reckons he has part of the answer, and a fix. On 22 July he launched Proof-of-Play, a new label under his A Game Studio aimed squarely at good games stuck in limbo.
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See how it worksBrady's argument, as he told BoardGameWire, is that plenty of excellent games never reach a shelf not because they are bad, but because publishers lock in their release calendars years ahead and only have so many slots. A brilliant design that misses the window can wait forever. Proof-of-Play tries to break that logjam by printing small runs of 1,500 to 3,000 copies, selling them direct to players and to game shops through trade platforms like Faire, and using the resulting sales and feedback as hard evidence that a bigger publisher should pick the game up for a full release.
The label is starting with two titles from other designers: Lock & Chain, an area-control card game, and Perfect 10, a number-combination card game. A Game Studio keeps the licensing rights and can sub-license to larger partners down the line.
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Start organising for free"Our goal isn't to compete with traditional publishers, but to support them," Brady said.
Brady knows the pipeline from both ends, having designed Hues and Cues and the cat-themed abstract boop. For the rest of us, the interesting bit is simple: more of those "why isn't this a real game?" designs might finally get a shot at your table.
Sources: BoardGameWire | Wikipedia: Hues and Cues
