Are you developing a cool new board game? And can you finish it in time for Easter? Then we’d love to see it on Fastaval’s board game program, where we present a range of creative and innovative new board game designs every year.
Send us your board game!
With the program, we want to give Fastaval participants great gaming experiences with a wide range of games. Fastaval participants range from role-players with limited board game experience to hardcore eurogamers, from casual gamers to miniature gamers. We welcome all kinds of games, from social games to in-depth narratives, creative party games, innovative eurogames, dexterity games and more. And both brand new and very experienced designers are welcome to submit!
Why send your game to Fastaval?
Bringing your game to Fastaval is a very special experience.
In the months leading up to Fastaval, a community is built up among designers who can discuss everything from game design, balance, interaction design, graphic design and production in the Facebook group. Many designers learn a lot in the process.
You’ll receive ongoing deadlines and support to finish the design on time, and a test day will be organized just for Fastaval games.
At Fastaval itself, you’ll have the pleasure of watching excited participants play your game.
If your game excels in one of the board game categories, you can also be honored with one of the Golden Ottos. You can read more about them here.
During Fastaval, we also systematically collect feedback from players and Otto judges, and you will have access to this after Fastaval.
How to submit a pitch
You submit your pitch along with your information via our online submission form. Please note that the form is in English, but you are free to choose whether you write your pitch in Danish or English. Click on the link here to open the form:
Pitches can be submitted between August 1 and August 31, 2025 .
If you have any questions, write to us at gamedesign@fastaval.dk
What should a pitch contain?
In your presentation of your game, we want you to focus on the following:
- What is special about your game? We receive many more pitches than we can include, so you need to highlight exactly what makes your game stand out from the crowd.
- What experience do you want to give the players? Try to describe the interesting choices, dilemmas and emotions that you want your players to experience.
- How far along are you in development? How much playtesting have you done? What are your next tasks and challenges on the project?
- Show us pictures or other illustrations of the current prototype.
Fastaval is not a testing event or a publishing fair, but a gaming convention where the focus is on giving attendees full experiences with newly developed board games that premiere at the convention.
It’s all organized in a program with three rounds of each game, and there will also be a jury that reads all the rules and plays all the games to decide which ones deserve the golden penguin statuettes called the Ottos.
If your game is selected for Fastaval, you will have to go through the following process between selection and Easter:
1) Develop and test the game (of course :-))
2) Arrange logistics with us so we can plan a good program with room for everyone
3) Write a teaser of the game and create images for presentation on the website
4) Write down the rules andsend a digital copy to the Otto jury one month before Fastaval
5) Make multiple copies of your game (typically 3-5)
6) Send one of the copies to the Otto jury before Fastaval
7) Sign up for Fastaval and pay admission (you get a designer discount :-))
8) Show up to your three events, set up the games and explain rules to the registered participants
To help in this process, we set up a Facebook group for all this year’s designers and us organizers, where we can help each other with ongoing information, deadlines, sparring/experience exchange and shared hype. We also organize a test day specifically for the Fastaval games in both Copenhagen and Aarhus.
June-August:
In the run-up to the August deadline, we recommend that you work on your concept and test it with your gaming group. It will often benefit your pitch if you have ensured that the core mechanics of your concept actually work as intended.
September:
As soon as we’ve received all the pitches, we’ll start assessing and selecting the games we want to include. A few weeks after the deadline, we will contact you to let you know if your game has been selected for this year’s field. If your game is selected, we will contact you to discuss the further process leading up to Easter and Fastaval. You will also be invited to join our Facebook group for all designers of the year, where there are plenty of opportunities for ongoing feedback and advice.
October:
By October at the latest, we expect your game to have gone through an end-to-end playthrough and a first review of the rules, and that you have received some feedback.
January:
This is where the cover story and a front page for your game should be in place
February:
The rules need to be finalized so that the last month and a half can be spent on final testing and production of the physical games
March:
Here you need to build/produce a number of copies of your Fastaval game. Typically around 3-5 copies. We will communicate with you about the exact number at that time.
March/April:
Fastaval!
May-June:
After Fastaval, you will receive feedback from the judges on your game, as well as a summary of the rating sheets the participants have filled out about your game at Fastaval
Designer board games at Fastaval
There have been board games at Fastaval since the very first con in the mid-80s, but since 2012, Board Games has been a category with its own program. Every year, a number of board games premiere at Fastaval – brand new, unreleased board games that you can be among the first to play.
What is special about Fastaval board games?
At Fastaval, you’ll find innovative board games that challenge our understanding of what board games are and can do. Social games that stage the interaction between players in creative ways – like “Magic Maze”, where players have to cooperate without talking to each other. Board games that tell stories – like the double award winner “Z” from Fastaval 2017, where players must survive together in a wasteland overrun by zombies.
Games for completely new audiences – like “Fog of Love”, a romantic comedy board game perfect for couples. Games that engage players in societal challenges – at Fastaval 2018 we had games about climate change, superpower information wars and the treatment of mental illness throughout history.
World-class board games
And it’s world-class board games that premiere at Fastaval.
The winner of the Otto Award for Best Board Game 2015 “Magic Maze” was nominated for the world’s biggest board game award Spiel des Jahres. “Fog of Love” from the same Fastaval became the first game for which the American chain Walmart secured exclusive rights – and “Fog of Love” was also nominated for three Golden Geek Awards.
A large number of games from Fastaval have since been released or kickstarted. So it’s not just us who think our board games are amazing.
An environment for creativity driven by volunteerism
Fastaval is a creative environment where gaming frameworks are explored and tested within our two core areas of role-playing and board games.
Everything you will experience around Fastaval is carried by volunteers, i.e. everyone who organizes Fastaval is unpaid and are participants in Fastaval on equal terms, this is both the main organizers, the board game managers here on the site, and you as a designer.
As a designer, you are considered a volunteer contributor to Fastaval by virtue of designing a board game experience for the other participants at Fastaval.
Selection of games
When we read through the game pitches received to select the field for Fastaval, our job is to give Fastaval goers the greatest possible potential for the best gaming experiences. Therefore, we consider a number of factors that all play a part in our decision:
The communication
Can we understand the description of the game well enough to get a good impression of the ideas and basic concepts in the pitch?
Quality
Are the mechanics and theme coherent? Does it seem like a good game?
Appeal
Are we excited about the concept? Do we believe it can deliver a great gaming experience for players?
The indefinable ‘something’
We have a great fondness for the different and innovative – the games that may not be obvious commercial releases, but bring something new and different to the table – in short: Is it a game design that fits the spirit and audience of Fastaval?
Development potential
There is not much time between August and Fastaval at Easter, so it is important that the basic elements are more or less in place, and it seems realistic that the game can be ready for Fastaval.
At the same time, it doesn’t have to be completely finished yet, as developing the game in collaboration with the other designers is also part of the Fastaval experience.
Diversity
Finally, we want to have a wide range of different games, covering everything from light to heavy games, short to longer games, serious to humorous games, from both Danish and foreign designers, and from both new and experienced designers, both men and women.
There are many parameters we try to take into account when selecting the field for Fastaval from the pitches submitted. Every year we receive somewhere between 50-120 pitches, and we only have room for around 20-24 games in the Fastaval program. In the end, we often have to reject many good pitches to ensure a wide selection.
Unfortunately, we are not able to give a reasoned rejection to everyone who receives a rejection. But keep in mind that a rejection from Fastaval does not necessarily mean that your game is bad, but simply that we did not have room for it in this year’s field.
Requirements for designer board games
Fastaval’s board game program is an event focusing on the design process, innovation and cool board game experiences for Fastaval participants. We are not interested in releasing games or supporting the commercial processes. Therefore, games that have already been released or are in the process of being released are not interesting, as these games (and their designers) have achieved their design goals without keeping the Fastaval experience or Fastaval’s audience in mind.
Games that are ready for release, ready for crowdfunding campaigns, or have signed an agreement with a publisher cannot be included in the program.
The board game managers for Fastaval 2026
The task of the board game managers is to ensure that Fastaval goers have the best experiences in a wide range of board and card games. We will be an active sparring partner in the design process through advice and guidance, setting sub-goals and deadlines, and especially opportunities to playtest the prototypes along the way. Our goal is to adapt the process to the needs of the individual game.
The board game managers are also tasked with selecting this year’s field of designer board games from the submitted pitches based on criteria such as potential, skill level, theme and mechanics. The board game managers are not part of the jury that judges the finished games at Fastaval.
You can contact the board game managers at: gamedesign@fastaval.dk
The board game organizers for Fastaval 2026 are:
Elias Daniel Nielsen
Elias started at Fastaval with the gamerush winner "Clockwork", after which he became an organizer to support the awesome community he met. Elias is both a roleplayer and board gamer; he especially enjoys roleplaying games such as Call of Cthulhu or board games such as Avalon or Eldritch Horror. He is hooked on Secret Role games, but also enjoys Real-time games or heavier eurogames like SETI.
Elias plans to start studying Physics & Engineering at DTU, and in the meantime he works as a substitute teacher at a special school. Most of his board game intake comes in the form of board game fun with friends.
Stefan Tonnesen Bubel
Stefan is a newcomer to Fastaval with only two years under his belt, but with significantly more experience from the board game family he grew up in. Here he has built a passion for games based on rolling combos and interesting strategies like Deck Builder's like Clank and Tableau Builder's like Earth and Meadow.
Stefan is in his final year at HTX, where he also plays board games with his friends. So he started a board game club that he hopes will live on after he finishes high school.
Rikke Munchkin Sørensen
Rikke Munchkin started out at Fastaval in 1995 as a 100% role-player, but over time she has also discovered the virtues of cardboard. She designed the gallows humor Gertrude's Room for FV 2020 and is generally fond of quirky themes that tell a funny story.
However, she also enjoys many of the more classic games and currently plays Forest Shuffle, 7 Wonders and Oh My Goods!
She works as an audiologist at a hearing research department at DTU, where luckily there are also plenty of nerds.
