We’re excited about the new platform we’re developing called InstantAction. We believe it will be an exciting new medium for indies to publish to. But no matter what platform a game resides on or what new technology exists, the same bread and butter principles still guide all good design. Having a cool platform with the opportunities and features that platform affords is not a shortcut to good design. And a part of good design is focusing your game to give players a satisfying experience. This post describes a technique to help bring focus to your design to give players more of what they want and less of what they don’t. This is one technique and not the last word on the matter, but try it and see if it’s useful to you.

You have a vision for what your game should be, but you can’t see it with a hundred percent clarity yet. Sometimes it feels like you’re a jazz musician trying out different riffs and going with what seems cool. In the end, as long as the behavior of the game works — that is, it’s fun — the process of how you got there doesn’t matter. Or does it?

In later stages of game design it takes structure to produce a well balanced design, unlike abstract painting where you dabble and feel your way through the entire process. Game design is in good part a methodology. That methodology taken to its extreme removes the creative element from design. But used in good measure, design benefits from structural techniques. The following is a simple design focusing technique that I employ. In addition to using it, I’ve helped several developers with it to help them focus their designs too. It is another tool for the designer’s arsenal. Let’s begin!
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It was one year ago that GarageGames introduced the Affiliated Developer program. In that year as a producer I’ve reviewed countless video game pitches from good to awful. I am marking the one year occasion by guest authoring Jeff’s blog to offer broad tips that will help independent game developers successfully pitch themselves or their game to any publisher without boring the publisher or losing their interest. Batter up!

Insider tip: “Zzzz” is not the sound of approval

First, a quick reminder on what our own AD program is:

“We are working with a few great developers to make games that are exclusive to GarageGames and that we help bring to market. We call this our Affiliated Developer partnership program.”

- Jeff Tunnell in Sept 2006, coining the Affiliated Developer program

Even before the coining of Affiliated Developer we always got pitches and sought good developers. It did not change with the AD program and has not changed since. Good publishers are always on the lookout for new projects and people to work with and we are no exception. This has always been the case and is no different now.

My goal here is to help you make better pitches by sharing what I’ve seen. It is broad advice and totally non-specific to GG (making it highly DIGGable *wink*). The subtitle for this post could be “pitching tips from a game industry catcher.”

The range of pitches I’ve reviewed is huge, from literally two word emails (“you like?” followed by an attached movie) to 30 page design docs complete with appendix detailing every mouse click. Everything from casual puzzle games to WOW clones; from someone who’s never shipped a game requesting a third of a million dollars to start their business to experienced developers delivering sober proposals. From that stack, here’s my advice:
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