Are there any publishers, websites, or anything that you can send in that will possibly publish your game for you?
Mail in idea?
You can send your game to any publisher for review. If they think its good enough, they'll take it. Try publishers that publish games similar to yours. Like you wouldn't send a party game to GMT.
Go to the publishers website and see if they have submission criteria. Some require you to sign some paperwork and some do not accept "blind" mail submissions period.
Yeah I should add that most will not accept "blind" submissions. and even if they do, it might take 12-18 months for them to even get around to looking at it. Also, try to schedule a meeting with them at a convention. A lot of publishers go to show off games as well as have games presented to them.
Try any of the major publishers. Find games similar to yours and see who published them.
Are you submitting a game or an idea for a game? Most publishers will only look at yor game if it has already been playtested and is "ready for production". They may still want to tweak it or change it at that point but they are not going to even listen to you if all you have is..."Hey I have an idea for a game where you ride donkeys down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon while trying to avoid getting hit by lightning!!!"
whoa! that gives me an idea of a game. ;)
Anyways back to the point. To expand on this, the better the game looks, the more serious they will consider it. if you bring them loose pieces of paper, it'll likely get trashed without a second thought.
Go watch this YouTube video with Boyan Radakovich on "How to pitch your game"..it may help you out a lot
http://www.youtube.com/user/neoncon#p/u/1/Jsh0NSdLbXY
(Note: this is part 2 but it has everything you need to know but feel fre to watch part 1 too)
On Board Games made a series of podcasts about making your own board game and getting it published. The most relevant one to you may be.
OBG 45: Submit and Like It
http://onboardgames.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=621855
This is not necessarily so.
I have play tested for several publishers and I have seen prototype boards that where colored pencil on paper given serious consideration*. What they want is a functioning game. The board, cards, game aids etc.. need to be clear and usable not pretty.
*Note: I have also seen games with professional grade graphics that we stoped playing by the third round because there was an obvious flaw that should have been caught by the designer. I guess they spent all their time making it look nice.
I'd like to follow on to what Dralius said. Clean layout, graphics, and such help a lot with the initial impression, but are not as important as having a game with clear, smooth rules and fun, problem-free gameplay.
If you have a choice between submitting a game that looks pretty but has mechanical issues, or submitting a game that's plain but has rock solid gameplay, don't even bother submitting the pretty game. Ideally, you'll be able to hit both targets and submit a rock solid game that's nice to look at.
Touching back on, "clear, smooth rules and fun, problem-free gameplay..." Going simple and handmade is fine as long as your game is *legible*. I'm sure that this is obvious, but if the publisher can't read what you've submitted, they're not likely to publish it. Proper grammar, punctuation, capitalization spelling, and so on go a long way toward creating a good impression.
Well what I meant by having a "pretty" game is that it needs to look good enough to not be problematic. Thanks guys for clearing that up. If you look at the initial prototypes for Pandemic, it doesn't even look fun to play; that's the difference I was trying to make.
know of any websites