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computer games conferences games design games industry

Got an idea for a new game? Want some feedback and publicity?

In general, it seems that most entrants to game-design-competitions could get huge benefit from just a small amount of fairly simple advice and feedback.

I’ve been a judge on several game-design competitions. I’ve seen a lot of recurring mistakes and successes, and I’d like to see less of the former, more of the latter.

I’m hereby offering to provide *public* feedback to anyone who wants to send me their idea. I’ll publish your idea on my blog, along with my thoughts and reactions.

Here are my rules:

  1. MINIMUM of 300 words
  2. MAXIMUM of 500 words
  3. State whether it’s intended to be a Casual game, or a AAA game
  4. State whether it’s anonymous, or if you want me to include an email address and/or website URL (for people to contact you if they liked your idea)
  5. I will pick the most interesting ones, and publish the main text of your email, and my reactions, on this blog
  6. Email it to me directly, at adam.m.s.martin at gmail.com
  7. You must include the text: “I have read everything on the blog post, and understand and accept all the terms and conditions”
  8. If I can think of someone better-placed to comment on your idea, I *might* forward your idea to another industry-expert blogger, on the condition that they publish it on their blog with their own feedback, just as I would have done myself (unless you SPECIFICALLY state that you don’t want me to do this)

Some notes…

SXSW entrants

If you’re already entered for SXSW 2010, don’t bother sending me your idea until after the conference. I’m not going to allow this to interfere with that event.

Public vs. NDA

If you ask for an NDA, you’ve already lost. Forget it.

In general, the only people who would bother to “steal” your game idea are so incompetent / uncreative that the “best” game they could create – even using your idea! – would be so appallingly bad that no-one would ever play it or talk about it.

Spelling and grammar

I will judge you on your spelling and grammar. Get used to it. If you are so lazy you can’t be bothered to spellcheck your entry, you’ve just screamed:

“I AM TOO LAZY TO DESIGN OR MAKE A GAME, I WILL GIVE UP AS SOON AS IT GETS MILDLY CHALLENGING!!!”

Cheat, cheat, and cheat again

Anything you can do to make your pitch more convincing is acceptable. Within the 500 words limit, of course.

If you’ve got concept art, a downloadable MOD, or even better a faked gameplay video … include links!

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computer games conferences dev-process games design games industry

Panel at SXSW – AAA Game Design competition

In a few months time, I’ll be in Austin, TX, sitting on a panel at SXSW … judging people’s ideas for new computer games. I’m going to make an offer here, now, to help people entering future competitions (FYI: it’s too late for SXSW 2010).

This is the fourth time I’ve been a reviewer or judge for a game-design competition/panel/etc, and I’m noticing some recurring themes. This is interesting, since everything I’ve judged has been completely different (different countries, different audiences, different rules).

Recurring themes of game-design competitions

One theme in particular is that a large percentage (circa 30%) of entries are depressingly bad; it seems that many of the wannabe-game-designers in the world are just plain lazy.

Another theme is that when someone has a good idea, they often don’t realise how good it is. They end up spending one sentence (or, if you’re lucky, two sentences) talking about the interesting part, and the next 500 words spewing out meaningless drivel that applies to every game ever made.

e.g. “you will have different choices to make in this game, there will be puzzles, and when you finish a puzzle you will get a reward, rewards will be used to unlock more levels, and to finish the game you have to get to the last level, which will be harder than the earlier levels, and … ”

… and: STFU. You’re boring. Do you think that I’ve never played a computer game before? Or do you just think I’m so stupid that I can’t remember what they’re like?

Some tragic outcomes

NB: this is just one example of what goes wrong with competition entries; I could give you countless more…

Some of the judging I’ve done was at the start of a competition, where the teams then spent the next 3+ months full-time actually building their games. On those occasions where a team was let through because we saw something special in their core idea, despite them waffling about a million other things, the team tended to make the EXACT SAME MISTAKE during production. They would spend 10% of their time on the cool idea, and 1% on each of 90 irrelevant distractions. They never won (surprise!).

For the times when we just judge ideas, not actual games, my distinct impression is that a lot of “good” ideas get thrown out because they’re submerged in so much rubbish that the judges either don’t see them … or assume the above is going to happen, and so they want to give the attention to other, more focussed teams.

So…

So, I’m offering anyone (anyone!) the chance to get some free feedback on their game idea, in the mindset of a competition judge. Maybe you’ll discover holes in your pitch, maybe you’ll discover ways to improve your core game … maybe it won’t help you at all :).

Details here: Got an idea for a new Game?