Before they release games, publishers like us send pre-release copies to reviewers.
And those reviewers get to have a good time. They get to play all the games long before anyone else and present them to the rest us like future-divining shamans. The popular reviewers float through convention halls with contrails of groupies (reviewer groupies exist btw) as publisher after publisher tries to catch their eyes with hopeful, upturned faces. It's good to be a reviewer.
It occurred to us there might be a fun opportunity here. What if we could give our fans a taste of what that's like? We can't provide groupies (lacking any ourselves), but we can send an unpublished game to a small group of fans to review it and crow (or complain) about it before the world.
Interested? Let's try it.
We have a game coming this summer called Most Wanted. It's a loose, zippy filler for 2 to 8 players that takes the core fun of hand bluffing and makes a doublethinky, thematic game of it - you're an outlaw raising hell in an old west border town. It's great for families and friends, even those who don't play games all the time.
Play testing a fun, fast new Wild West game from @NorthStarGames. Bandits! Bluffing! Train Robberies! Gun Slingers! Nuns With Bad Habits! #roundhouse— Brett Myers @ work. Have a great Origins! (@brettspiel) June 7, 2018
If you think that’s a cool concept and you'd like to review it, you can be one of 50 fans to preorder and receive a press copy of Most Wanted before it’s published. In return we ask:
- You play the game, ideally a bunch of times.
- You post a thoughtful review (video or text) publicly online on July 16 (but not before), and share your review everywhere (social media, BGG, other forums, etc.)
- There are secrets in the game and we ask that you not spoil 'em in your review (if you find 'em).
To participate, just preorder Most Wanted here by June 18.
It’s first come, first serve, and it's the honor system. We hope you help make this experiment work. It'll be more fun for everyone if it does, and we’ll do it again in the future.
Finally:
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Did the games ship out yet?
@Erin Dean
We’re going to start shipping them out next week.
@Holger Schmidt
“What exactly do I have to do?”
1) Purchase a pre-order copy of the game by clicking on the link above. We will send your game by the end of next week.
2) Play it a bunch of times! As a filler with gamers and especially with family and friends. This game shines with casual gamers.
3) Post a review and pictures on July 16th and let the world know what you think!
@Brandon Jacobs
“Would be very much interested in doing this for Oceans — is that being considered as an option?”
Maybe. We’re considering doing this for all of our games. But since Oceans will be Kickstarted we might not be able to do something like this. We need to think about it. It’s hard to predict demand before the campaign is over and I doubt we’ll want to do do two print runs (per unit cost goes up with smaller print runs).
Great idea! I would love to preorder a copy as well. What exactly do I have to do?
Would be very much interested in doing this for Oceans — is that being considered as an option?
You can make me look like that?!! Sign me up for all 50 copies!
Will you be doing this for Oceans?
Just preordered Most Wanted! When are you expecting to ship out the games to the first 50 fans?