This game was named Words, then Draft, then Writer’s Block, and finally Bestseller, which has nothing to do with the fact that every publisher’s goal is making one, but instead is related to how much we tried to add a theme to a party game involving words.

We developed this game during covid, and it was clear that was not an optimal time to publish a game like this. As a word game, you need to be very careful about localization. It’s crucial that every partner launches the game at the same time, and this requires a lot of coordination. We pitched it to our distribution partners this year, and hopefully, we will be able to release it soon. 

Bestseller was unconventional for us, but very exciting since it is outside of our comfort zone. It is not the first time we have stepped outside of our comfort zone, but we feel motivated by novelty each and every time since one of our goals as a board game publisher is always trying to push ourselves out of what we are used to. It’s incredible how much creativity goes into a new project and how fulfilling it can be to find out that you enjoy it, despite it being our first time trying.

We believe that party games should have the following criteria:

In this first blog post, we are not revealing the game yet, but we will talk about the lore and the name behind it. In future posts, you will be able to decide if we made justice to the theme itself and open a discussion together.

Bestseller back box reads: “Your career as a writer is blossoming, and after years of trial and error, you finally feel confident with your skills. Your favorite publisher has just signed a contract for your biggest book deal yet, and there is much to do. You’ve assembled a team of ambitious writing assistants, and it’s time to write a bestseller!”

In this game, you provide clues to your assistants to help them guess the required word, but there’s a twist – you’ll be using a typewriter keyboard to create these clues. The more keys you use, the tougher it becomes to come up with a suitable hint word.

The game’s first name was ‘Draft’ which refers to the iconic paper balls you are throwing to the bin for the entire game, trying to make guesses as an assistant. At the beginning, it felt like a great name, but eventually, gamers could be deceived, as the drafting mechanism is not present in this game, and the name could create a bit of confusion.

Moreover, draft is also used for other meanings.

Writer’s Block was the best way to describe the feeling you experience when time is running out and you have the typewriter with just a few available letters, but for localization purposes, it was really complicated to fit the name in the cover concept we had created. For example in Spanish would be: ‘El bloque del escritor’ which was way too long to fit.

We felt it was important that the name could be kept the same among all languages, and that’s how Bestseller was born. It gives the sense that you are sitting down to do something really important, and time is running out.

Funnily enough, internally everyone calls it differently, but we will get used to it.

Next time, we will be unboxing a copy of Bestseller and explain more about the game and how it was conceived. Thanks for taking the time to read this foundry update!