We designed a compact card-based board game that dropped players straight into the shoes of startup founders chasing investor buy-in. An easy, communication-focused party game, where the concept was instantly familiar: you pitch your idea, the investors weigh up how much they believe you, and the longer you keep going, the bigger your potential reward, but also the bigger the risk of losing everything when the sharks lose faith.

The game itself was deliberately minimal: six Pitch Cards, six Investor Cards, two dice, a rulebook, and a palm-sized box. No setup time, no instructions you needed to read twice. A few rounds fit into a coffee break, and the whole thing slipped into a festival bag.

But we did not just hand the game out at the door. We split the five components across five featured exhibitor stands scattered throughout the festival grounds. To assemble a complete Pitch, Please! set, visitors had to solve the official event puzzle, say the password at each stand, and collect every piece. The game became the reason to explore the whole festival, a meta-game running quietly beneath the conference itself, turning attendees into active players from the moment they arrived.