November 2014

November 17, 2014

How to Win the Independent Games Festival (IGF)

The following is just, like, my opinion, okay? I’m not part of the IGF in any official capacity beyond acting as an unpaid judge, a position I volunteered for & you can too (maybe).

Listen, if you’re going to enter a contest it’s very important to first know what the rules are. Even more important than that is knowing how the contest is going to be judged, for in that knowledge lies the clues on how to win.

I’ve served as 1st-round judge in this and last year’s IGF. This means I’ve sifted through hundreds of potential McNally Grand Prize winners and made my recommendations based on my own personal biases when it comes to gaming and game design. After I and 100+ other sets of eyeballs have made their nomination a smaller panel of judges decides who wins what. This is how the IGF works. Check the IGF site for a full clarification on the judging process.

The IGF is far from perfect, like most everything in life. There are numerous alternatives and a free market for establishing new ones. But if you’ve got your heart set on winning one of the IGF prizes, then here’s a short list of tips to help in that endeavor:

• Your game must be basically comprehensible within 5 minutes.

Not only is this a great rule of thumb for any creative effort, but it’s especially important for the IGF as the first round of judging is left to 100+ volunteers who may or may not have the time to gain a deep understanding of what you’re selling.

Note that I said basically comprehensible. Your game could (and many would argue should) have deep mechanics, secrets, and Easter eggs that go beyond the first blush. But if you can’t hook the player in the opening gambit then all of that extra stuff is made in vain.

• Your game’s summary info must be attractive.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Yes, of course it is, but if your attraction materials, such as screenshots and synopsis text, are not immediately interesting there’s a very good chance your entry will be passed over for something that is.

So how do you go about making your materials attractive? Beyond taking a beginner’s course in marketing you can look through the games on Steam using its various layers of interaction. Start with the front page and figure out what catches your eye. Go through the list of top sellers and see how the thumbnails are composed, then hover over the image and check how they sell the game concept in the pitch paragraph.

Yes, it sucks that such a superficial quantifier can make or break your game’s chances of winning a prize, but this is the nature of the contest. On the plus side, the sooner you embrace the marketing side of game development the better of an overall producer you become.

• Your game must be accessible.

No tutorial? No tooltips? Relying on the cleverer players to simply “get” your game? Congratulations, you’ve just eliminated a large number of the players out there from achieving engagement. These days the way you introduce your players to your game’s mechanisms is paramount. Once, a long time ago in another reality, players would actually sit down and read copious documentation to understand how their videogames worked. We still will for boardgames, so why not for videogames? Because a generation of developers got wise and realized they could make accessibility part of the game itself.

Yes, making tutorials and preparing a game for less ludocentric minds is extra work, but it’s acknowledged as part of the overall polish. In addition to teaching the player the game’s systems the game itself should be playable by a wide range of setups. Is your game only available on some obscure hardware that a player needs to go on an actual quest for before playing? Good luck getting eyes on it.

Other areas to consider: resolution, controllers, color blindness, and various socio-political norms.

• Your game must be (mostly) playable.

This should go without saying, but the IGF has become a place where unfinished concept entries are competing side-by-side with polished near AAA-level product. The less polish that’s apparent on your darling the more obvious it becomes as judges work their ways through the entries. I’m not saying don’t take a chance that someone will recognize your unbridled genius in what amounts to the sketch of a final videogame, just don’t be surprised when it gets passed over for more fleshed out examples.

Hopefully that gives a little insight into what’s needed to get attention in a contest like the IGF. What you may notice is that it’s a microcosm of what it takes to actually sell a videogame into the larger market. Always bear in mind that entry into the IGF is 100% voluntary on the side of the competitors, and they accept the rules and conditions of the contest by making an entry.

Institutions and organizations only ever have as much power as we’ve chosen to give them.

---

November 24, 2014

Month 50 Report

No development snapshot this month. Good thing there’s no backers, eh?

For those Friends on Facebook who may have been confused, dismayed, amused, or otherwise confounded by the announcement of the UPS job, let’s clarify:

• Working in isolation for 4+ years does interesting & potentially toxic things to the mind.

• Living in a town for a year without really getting to know it starts to grate.

• Sometimes it’s important to be reminded of why independence rules.

Was surfing Facebook one October afternoon, looking for inspiration or just distraction, & a job offer popped up. It sounded cushy: seasonal, part-time, low responsibility.

An application was made & forgotten about. Then the call came, & an interview & orientation later there was a foot in the door at the largest commercial package delivery service in the world.

A few observations after a week of structured shift work:

• People are interesting. It’s not enough to read about them on the Internet, & direct interface in meatspace helps overall spiritual health, if that’s a thing that matters.

• Policy-based organizations are fantastic. Protection from harassment is a privilege that exists almost everywhere except the Internet, & it’s good to be reminded of this.

• The gift of a completely open schedule can only be fully appreciated when it’s impinged upon. Having to be anywhere at a specific time sucks.

• Weekends are amazing.

There’s still plenty of funds in the Dark Acre warchest, no fear of dissolution any time soon, so put those fears to rest. This career in digital publishing is the result of almost a decade of careful planning & hard work, it’s not about to get abandoned any time soon.

One negative effect of the “official” job has been a marked reduction in overall productivity on the publishing & development work. Though the job is only 4 hours a day, 5 days a week it happens first thing in the morning & more or less destroys the remainder of the day. The weekend becomes a battle between using the free time for creating & resting, in order to remain functional for the coming work week.

It also seems that this year’s attempt at NaNoWriMo is failing. It’s unlikely that the burgeoning Solarus interlude novel will be drafted by the end of the month, certainly not within the purview of the event. Apologies to anyone who was following along, & much love & thanks to those who openly supported the effort. If you’re nearing the end of your own NaNoWriMo draft, best of luck & congratulations.

The UPS work will end on December 24th, so barring getting bitten by a rabid dog or rolled over by a package van the regular production on the Acre will resume after XMAS. Either way, see you in a month.

2014.11.01 – 2024.11.30

---