The deadline for Button Shy’s design challenge was fast approaching so it was time to prepare the materials to submit. The cards and rulebook were in a good state but there was one thing left to do: the pitch video. These videos are an important part of the process. Button Shy gets so many submissions for the challenges that they need these short videos in order to speed up their triage process. They’re also great practice for the designers so they can learn how to pitch their games and the video itself could be sent to publishers.

There were a few technical challenges. It was hard to find a place that didn’t create glare on the cards so I ended up recording on top of our bed, which meant I had to be on my knees. I had to rely on the camera’s microphone, which isn’t the best and left the sound a bit muffled.

I took the chance to try youtube’s automated subtitle feature, which is handy but gets confused with Portuguese names and words. Still, it was quicker to correct the transcriptions than to write everything from scratch.

Given the constraints, I’m happy with how it turned out. It gives you a quick overview of the game’s theme, rules and an example turn from the middle of the game, with five seconds to spare from the three minute limit.

I must add that I kept working on the game after the contest so these rules and cards don’t match the published version (spoilers!). I left it up as an example of a simple pitch video for other designers and people like you who are curious about how the game came to be.

Despite the demanding briefing there were over 150 games submitted to the design challenge! I was very happy that Cortiça made it to the 10 finalists but in the end the winner was Food Truck Feud, by Jay Yeates. It’s since been published by Button Shy as À la Food Cart.

At that time I was living in Ireland, and was a member of the board for IMIRT – The Irish Game Makers Association. One of my tasks was to help organize the IMIRT Irish Game Awards, which spotlight games made in the country. That year we were short on nominees, including for the Best Analogue Game category, which only had one. It was suggested I submit Cortiça.

I checked with the board before submitting because it could be seen as unfair since I was part of the organization, but since I was not a member of the Jury or part of the judging process, it was approved. I didn’t expect much because the other nominee was a published game with professional art. Mine was a tiny prototype, 18 handmade cards and rules in a ziploc bag.

Cortiça won Best Analogue Game and was the runner-up for Best Game Design at the Imirt Irish Game Awards 2020! 

One of the big winners that year was Empire of Sin, by Romero Games. It won the awards for Best Game Design, Best Game Art and Best Technical Achievement, and was the runner-up for Best Game Narrative, Best Game Audio and Game of the Year. I was one of the game designers on the team! That was my day job. Cortiça was created in my spare time.

You can check the full list of winners and nominees here.

But that’s not where Cortiça’s story ends! There’s a couple more posts left to go.

This design diary continues in Part 5 – Publishers.

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