Summarizing a game

[Lork]

A common piece of advice given to people making a game (or any personal project really) is to come up with an "elevator pitch" for it.  Basically a concise summary of the concept and why it's great, which you can use to convince people to pay attention to your thing.  I have a game that I'm working on and while I myself understand what it is and what I want it to be, I'm struggling to find a way to easily explain it to other people.

 

I suppose if you held a gun to my head and told me to come up with a pitch for the game in once sentence, I would say "it's a third person action game which elegantly combines melee combat and gunplay, with a focus on skillfully avoiding enemy attacks."  Which is perhaps not as awful as I thought it would be before I wrote it, but still just comes off as innacurate and generic to me.

 

Part of it is that the verbal shortcuts that are typically used in these pitches seem like a minefield of popular ideas that threaten to overwhelm anything I have to say and paint an innacurate picture of the game.  For example, mentioning a focus on dodging in the context of a shooter probably brings to mind "the the lost age of PC first person shooters where movement was king and slow moving projectiles ruled the day", which is a big part of the zeitgeist right now.  Unfortunately for me, the game I'm attempting to describe is not like that at all.  The completely unrestricted movement of those games is less interesting to me than the style of Japanese action games which emphasize the fact that you are controlling a character and focus on limiting the player's ability to move or act in interesting ways, which is how I've built the game.  There are several examples of near universally beloved games that do this (eg. Dark Souls, Resident Evil 4), but the concept itself has not entered the public consciousness in a way that can be easily referenced like "The old shooters" can.  A more accurate shortcut might be to say that it falls in roughly the same subgenre as Vanquish and the modern Resident Evil games, but while a small percentage of people would know exactly what I'm talking about, my perception is that most people don't know or care about what distinguishes those games from something like Gears of War, and so would just be confused.

 

Another problem is that so much of what I think makes the game unique comes down to so called "intangibles" - things most people don't even consciously perceive at all, but which I think have a huge effect on their enjoyment of any game.  For example, I've spent (and will continue to spend) a lot of time trying to build a diverse, robust moveset for the player character and tweaking the controls to make it easy to pull off, and think a large part of the joy of playing the game will come from learning the ins and outs of the controls and putting them to use in creative ways.  This is actually a proven concept - the closest example that springs to mind for me is Monster Hunter, but of course I can't make that comparison without immediately alienating a large percentage of people by bringing to mind the very long animations and strict/rigid controls that game is known for, which is very much not what my game is like.  The next comparison I would make is

, but that's so different in theme and genre that I'm afraid it would come off as a non sequitur.  Without making a direct comparison, how do you sum that up in a catchy way?  "It has good controls"?  That's neither exciting nor something I would believe if someone just said it to me.  It's one of those things that is just taken for granted except in the most extreme cases (good or bad), so there's no language to describe it.

 

What do you guys think, am I just terrible at this?  I know I'm overthinking it - that's part of me being terrible.  I definitely think that it's a lot harder to explain what makes certain games unique though, regardless of (or perhaps because of) what makes them distinct.  Two of the games I mentioned are actually pretty good examples.  If you love Monster Hunter, how would you pitch it to somebody who knows nothing about it?  Mario 64 might seem easier, but that's only because it's a Mario game by Miyamoto.  Could you make a convincing sales pitch for Mario 64 without mentioning who it stars or who made it?

[itsamoose]

What is your goal in coming up with this pitch? If it is to sell it, buzzwords might actually benefit you quite a bit, or the typical meets-meets-meets breakdown. Personally when working on a project I like to create a focus statement that describes the feel of the game. This should be a short phrase that describes the main focus of the project, which helps guide your development as well. For example Rock Band's Focus statement was "Rock Music World", and Mass Effect's was "Jack Bauer in Space". I think if you can nail that down you'll have an easier time coming up with a description.

My advice would be to not focus on the specifics of the game, but rather try to paint it in broad strokes.

[Gaizokubanou]

Using genre description is too likely too come off as generic (unless you are doing something bizarre with the genre but still that has dangers of sounding like gimmicky pitch).

 

"third person action game" no don't call it that.  What are you suppose to be in that game?

 

For example, let's look at Phoenix Wright.  Genre wise you can call it a visual novel... that's bad pitch, doesn't tell us a thing exciting about the game.  Instead, here is CEO of Paradox, Fredrik Wester's elevator pitch for that game - "A game about being a badass Lawyer".

 

Monster Hunter - Becoming a super warrior by wearing parts of monsters you hunt

Super Mario 64 - Platformer... except you move in completely 3d environment (to be frank the game is actually quite boring to describe outside of its era and IP context (which is that it's a Mario game and one of the first games to get the 3d platforming right)

[Spenny]

I definitely get an idea of what you're talking about Lork. I'm going to break it down a first, then punch it up.

 it's a third person action game

This is not the most interesting thing about the game, you've pretty much just described the camera.

 

 which elegantly combines melee combat and gunplay

You're not the first game to do this, and it sounds a bit self congratulatory to say definitively that it achieves this.

 

with a focus on skillfully avoiding enemy attacks.

This is the most interesting part! But how does it focus on those things? How does the player avoid?
 

Sorry if that's all a bit mean. What I take away from everything you have said is that this game fundamentally challenges the player to make weighty decisions within a 3rd person context of melee, shooting and dodging. I think that's interesting. Maybe start with something like "The game forces the player to make split second choices, be that shooting an ogre from a distance, punching a demon in the face, or rolling under the unicorn's laser horn, the consequences of which would be dire". I don't know, that isn't my best work, but I think instead of explaining the conventions that inform the design (third person, shooting, etc.) it's more interesting to give me a taste of what I'm going to be doing, what I might be seeing, or which character I'm going to embody.

 

As a secondary point, I think the meets-meets-meets description shouldn't be used, and if that is the best way to describe the game, instead say "it was inspired by mechanic X from game Y".

 

Hope that's not all too catty, and maybe helps some. 

 

[juv3nal]

Assuming your game isnt totally abstract, another tack to take is to focus on theme/character/story rather than mechanics.

Who do you control? What do they want? What obstacles stand in their way? What techniques are available to the player to overcome those obstacles?

so for example:

"In this game you play Chiseljaw Grimdark, elite spec ops operative for the hegemonic megacorp Invictus Biotech until they betrayed him, killing his family and leaving him for dead. Now he is out for revenge and will use cunning and megaviolence to visit murdery murder upon the army of cyberninjas employed by those what wronged him."

[Lork]

What is your goal in coming up with this pitch? If it is to sell it, buzzwords might actually benefit you quite a bit, or the typical meets-meets-meets breakdown. Personally when working on a project I like to create a focus statement that describes the feel of the game. This should be a short phrase that describes the main focus of the project, which helps guide your development as well. For example Rock Band's Focus statement was "Rock Music World", and Mass Effect's was "Jack Bauer in Space". I think if you can nail that down you'll have an easier time coming up with a description.

My advice would be to not focus on the specifics of the game, but rather try to paint it in broad strokes.

I guess when I say "Sell" I mean it as a synonym for "convince".  I'm not even thinking about what ad copy would look like as that's way off.  I was thinking more along the lines of the typical role of the elevator pitch:  Something I could use to explain to friends what I've been spending all this time on, potentially convince another game developer to work with me, or just to explain what the game is and why someone might be interested if I were to put the game up for playtesting and feedback on a forum like this.

 

One thing that's probably making this a lot harder is that the game doesn't really have a fantasy that it's trying to bring to life.  Both of your examples focus on a sort of wish fulfillment goal rather than anything specific about the mechanics themselves.  I on the other hand am working in the abstract; tinkering with mechanics to create dynamics that I find fascinating in and of themselves rather than as a means to make the player feel like a space marine or whatever.  There's a strange pairing of theme and mechanics going on - The closest thing in terms of "theme" is something like Geometry Wars, which trades on simplicity, but the dense mechanics resemble larger/bigger budget games, which almost always have some kind of fantasy fulfillment component.

 

Using genre description is too likely too come off as generic (unless you are doing something bizarre with the genre but still that has dangers of sounding like gimmicky pitch).

 

"third person action game" no don't call it that.  What are you suppose to be in that game?

 

For example, let's look at Phoenix Wright.  Genre wise you can call it a visual novel... that's bad pitch, doesn't tell us a thing exciting about the game.  Instead, here is CEO of Paradox, Fredrik Wester's elevator pitch for that game - "A game about being a badass Lawyer".

 

Monster Hunter - Becoming a super warrior by wearing parts of monsters you hunt

Super Mario 64 - Platformer... except you move in completely 3d environment (to be frank the game is actually quite boring to describe outside of its era and IP context (which is that it's a Mario game and one of the first games to get the 3d platforming right)

More fantasy fulfillment stuff.  I guess I'm really going against the grain by not focusing on that, which just makes me sad.  I find the feeling of being pandered to very distasteful, and only enjoy narrative games despite, not because of that aspect.

 

Your Mario 64 example sort of demonstrates how hard it is to do without being able to reference theme, although it also just sounds like you're not familiar with or don't like the game/genre.  If the mechanics of Mario 64 are what we're using as the bar for "getting 3D platforming right" then there can't be more than half a dozen games that don't get it wrong, which is selling both the game and the entire genre incredibly short.

 

 

I definitely get an idea of what you're talking about Lork. I'm going to break it down a first, then punch it up.

 

Quote

 it's a third person action game

This is not the most interesting thing about the game, you've pretty much just described the camera.

 

 

Quote

>

which elegantly combines melee combat and gunplay

You're not the first game to do this, and it sounds a bit self congratulatory to say definitively that it achieves this.

 

 

Quote

with a focus on skillfully avoiding enemy attacks.

This is the most interesting part! But how does it focus on those things? How does the player avoid?

 

Sorry if that's all a bit mean. What I take away from everything you have said is that this game fundamentally challenges the player to make weighty decisions within a 3rd person context of melee, shooting and dodging. I think that's interesting. Maybe start with something like "The game forces the player to make split second choices, be that shooting an ogre from a distance, punching a demon in the face, or rolling under the unicorn's laser horn, the consequences of which would be dire". I don't know, that isn't my best work, but I think instead of explaining the conventions that inform the design (third person, shooting, etc.) it's more interesting to give me a taste of what I'm going to be doing, what I might be seeing, or which character I'm going to embody.

 

As a secondary point, I think the meets-meets-meets description shouldn't be used, and if that is the best way to describe the game, instead say "it was inspired by mechanic X from game Y".

 

Hope that's not all too catty, and maybe helps some.

That sounds way better than what I came up with, so I think you're definitely on the right track.  If I'm going to describe the game purely on the basis of its mechanics, it makes a lot of sense to talk about it in terms of the actions you can perform.  I'll keep this in mind, thanks.

 

By the way, does anybody know if there's a way to get the forums to show the actual BBCode for quotes in the text editor?  The way it tries to "help" right now makes dealing with them a complete nightmare.

[juv3nal]

One thing that's probably making this a lot harder is that the game doesn't really have a fantasy that it's trying to bring to life.  Both of your examples focus on a sort of wish fulfillment goal rather than anything specific about the mechanics themselves.  I on the other hand am working in the abstract; tinkering with mechanics to create dynamics that I find fascinating in and of themselves rather than as a means to make the player feel like a space marine or whatever.  There's a strange pairing of theme and mechanics going on - The closest thing in terms of "theme" is something like Geometry Wars, which trades on simplicity, but the dense mechanics resemble larger/bigger budget games, which almost always have some kind of fantasy fulfillment component.

 

I dunno, I feel GW does have the kind of narrative fantasy you say your game doesn't have: you're piloting a space ship blasting an alien horde to smithereens, even if that's ultimately not super important to the game. I mean it's important to remember the box art of old atari stuff like combat. Even if it is basically a bunch of squares that projects a smaller square out from it...the fantasy is what is used to sell it.

[Lork]

I dunno, I feel GW does have the kind of narrative fantasy you say your game doesn't have: you're piloting a space ship blasting an alien horde to smithereens, even if that's ultimately not super important to the game. I mean it's important to remember the box art of old atari stuff like combat. Even if it is basically a bunch of squares that projects a smaller square out from it...the fantasy is what is used to sell it.

The games that inspired Geometry Wars are as you described, but I strongly disagree about GW itself.  GW is a game that revels in its abstractness.  It riffs on the aesthetic of those old games, but almost seems like it's making an implicit statement about how irrelevant the themes and the primitive shapes that represented them were to our enjoyment of those games.  "That's not an alien ship coming at you, it's a square!", it says. And yet it's completely thrilling anyway.  I also don't think for a second that anybody is playing that game because it makes them feel like a rad space pilot.  Would somebody who isn't familiar with GW's influences even make that connection?

[juv3nal]

The games that inspired Geometry Wars are as you described, but I strongly disagree about GW itself.  GW is a game that revels in its abstractness.  It riffs on the aesthetic of those old games, but almost seems like it's making an implicit statement about how irrelevant the themes and the primitive shapes that represented them were to our enjoyment of those games.  "That's not an alien ship coming at you, it's a square!", it says. And yet it's completely thrilling anyway.  I also don't think for a second that anybody is playing that game because it makes them feel like a rad space pilot.  Would somebody who isn't familiar with GW's influences even make that connection?

I'm not saying the fantasy is important to the game, because it's not, but it's what you bring up if you're trying to sell it, if only obliquely by referencing its influences. Heck, the word "wars" is in the freaking title.

[Lork]

I'm not saying the fantasy is important to the game, because it's not, but it's what you bring up if you're trying to sell it, if only obliquely by referencing its influences. Heck, the word "wars" is in the freaking title.

And I still disagree.  Geometry Wars is sold as a refreshing throwback to "those old arcade game where you were a triangle shooting at other shapes", in stark contrast to the narrative heavy games of today.  The fact that there isn't an overwrought story with long cutscenes is an explicit selling point.  The name, to me, communicates the idea that in a video game you can have a war, with all the intense action that implies, without giving even the slightest bit of thought to who's fighting it or why.  I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

Having this conversation has show me that I was wrong to think that my game is similar to Geometry Wars in theme, though.  Geometry Wars actually has a fairly nuanced take on theme, even if that take is to make a point of distancing itself from concept of theme.  I on the other hand simply didn't give it much thought, and it's becoming increasingly clear to me that that's not good enough.  Thank you for helping me come to this realization.

[Gaizokubanou]

Your Mario 64 example sort of demonstrates how hard it is to do without being able to reference theme, although it also just sounds like you're not familiar with or don't like the game/genre.  If the mechanics of Mario 64 are what we're using as the bar for "getting 3D platforming right" then there can't be more than half a dozen games that don't get

 

Because that's what elevator pitch is, it's super brief description.  Nuanced stuff isn't meant to do well in an elevator pitch because you are suppose to grab the attention right there immediately.  For the most part anyways.

 

Obviously such a pitch can differ and if you are pitching it to a hardcore platform fan then you can go with a pitch about nuanced bit of how camera is separately controlled  to allow fluid 3d movement or how you would use shadow to make platform positioning in 3d world work.

 

But in general elevator pitch should be broader.  It is a good idea to identify whom you are talking to (I would have different pitch for strategy game to say, Sid Meirs or Soren vs Kojima) but you were asking for generic advice so that's why I pushed for generic one.

 

Theme is important btw, otherwise we would all be able to sell math textbooks just as well.

 

Edit: Just got an interesting comparison... we live in an age where so many people are carrying smartphones... so perhaps elevator pitch doesn't have to be limited to words.  Like whatever you can fit on say, twitter, would make a good pitch.  That would include GIFs, which are pretty much video version of elevator pitch.

[clyde]

How about "The Minesweeper or 3rd Person Shooters"?

Typing that made me realize that even Minesweeper implies a fantasy of danger and duty.

[osmosisch]

By the way, does anybody know if there's a way to get the forums to show the actual BBCode for quotes in the text editor?  The way it tries to "help" right now makes dealing with them a complete nightmare.

There's a toggle switch in the top-left.

Your game sounds very intersting, I'd like to see it.

[clyde]

Maybe the pitch could include how mechanics are the focus and how it won't be glutted up with a narrative and the aesthetics will be purely servicable to the mechanics.

You can include anectdotes about why the dodge was tuned to take exactly 4/5ths the time it takes to reload the shotgun. You know? Like "If the melee attack took a fraction of a second longer, this game would completely break" type of thing. That's a theme and aesthetic in itself that some folks might be attracted to. It's not my thing, but you seem really confident about your priorities. I do like it when authors focus on their passions so that I can see how faiths different than my own resolve.

[Mawd]

I think that a pitch has to evoke something. You can include mechanics in that but I think you need something else to inspire people beyond a hardcore subset. 

I suppose you could lead with "Like Darksouls but.." or something similar if you're advertising pure mechanics. Though I think some sort of adjective should usually be around to hook players, even if it feels a little vague.

Take 'Clockwork Shooter" for instance. It puts mechanics first but also suggests that timing is very important to the game. If you wanted to get slightly more abstract (and maybe its a stretch but) the name also feels a little steam punk or conjures up imagery of wind up toys. Wind up toys don't just move based on timing they also move in a very determinate fashion which could be a good description for a game that relies on precise timed movement like Dark Souls, Biohazard, or maybe your game.

[Lork]

I think the running theme of this thread is that you need some kind of context for the game as a whole.  I can rattle off individual mechanics until my face is blue, but my audience will have become bored ages ago and be no closer to understanding what the game actually is.  The vast majority of games use the embodiment of a fantasy to fulfill this purpose while a few oddballs opt for some kind of meta-context instead, but they all have something to tie them together in an easily explainable way.

 

There's a toggle switch in the top-left.

Your game sounds very intersting, I'd like to see it.

Aww, thanks.  Part of the reason for this thread is that I want to start showing it to more people, but I find it hard to do that if I can't even explain what it is.  I actually posted an earlier version of the game in the "Post Your Game for Playtesting" thread and was under the impression that only one person had tried it.  However, that's only because I somehow managed to completely miss that clyde had posted a detailed critique.  Sorry, clyde!

 

Maybe the pitch could include how mechanics are the focus and how it won't be glutted up with a narrative and the aesthetics will be purely servicable to the mechanics.

You can include anectdotes about why the dodge was tuned to take exactly 4/5ths the time it takes to reload the shotgun. You know? Like "If the melee attack took a fraction of a second longer, this game would completely break" type of thing. That's a theme and aesthetic in itself that some folks might be attracted to. It's not my thing, but you seem really confident about your priorities. I do like it when authors focus on their passions so that I can see how faiths different than my own resolve.

I like this, but fear that I wouldn't be able to live up to it.  It inherently promises a level of perfection that I can't assume I would be able to achieve.  I think that what I've been able to pull off so far is pretty impressive for what one person can do, but I am just one person with no money and little experience, and that assumption of quality has not been tested in the wild.

 

I'll have to do some thinking about how to provide a context for the game, but it's probably going to end up being a narrative conceit.  As much as I like the idea that my mechanics should be able to stand on their own, I'm not so attached to it that I would let it sabotage the game.

[Gaizokubanou]

I still stand by gif idea.

 

You don't have to say anything.  Make a gif of a cool moment and share that.  It's today's version of elevator pitch.

[Lork]

I still stand by gif idea.

 

You don't have to say anything.  Make a gif of a cool moment and share that.  It's today's version of elevator pitch.

You're probably right, although I still think not being able to explain it verbally looks really bad (because it is bad).

 

I have a bunch of hang ups about posting gifs/screenshots at this early stage in development, but I recognize that it's really just me being overly self conscious and dumb, and that I need to push past that stuff if I want to move forward.

 

So I made a gif.  How does it look?

 

[Gaizokubanou]

That says a lot actually.  Good stuff.  Like you said it's rough around the edges but any people with industry experience get that prototypes are well, rough.

 

So beyond the rough exterior, I see mobility heavy third person gameplay.  Interesting stuff, maybe another gif showing another aspect as well?  Like, would you have player ever shoot or is this meant to be melee focused?

 

Also given that premise (mobility heavy third person), what's your thought on Vanquish?  Is that perhaps something close to what you are going for?

[Lork]

That says a lot actually.  Good stuff.  Like you said it's rough around the edges but any people with industry experience get that prototypes are well, rough.

 

So beyond the rough exterior, I see mobility heavy third person gameplay.  Interesting stuff, maybe another gif showing another aspect as well?  Like, would you have player ever shoot or is this meant to be melee focused?

 

Also given that premise (mobility heavy third person), what's your thought on Vanquish?  Is that perhaps something close to what you are going for?

(The low framerate of the first one makes it look like the gun is firing really slowly.  Oh well.)

 

Vanquish is a few structural and design issues away from being one of my favorite games ever, and my time in the challenge mode of that game directly led to me dropping a couple other projects I was working on and starting this one.  That experience of being pushed to master the controls to the point of becoming one with the character and narrowly escaping death by making skillful use of all of his moves to dance around an overwhelming rush of threats is exactly what I'm chasing here.

[osmosisch]

That really does look fascinating. If I had to describe it I'd say something like 

"a mix of dark souls and third-person shooter, focusing on combat, mainly dodging and responding" - I'd probably also say something about the aesthetic, I dig the battlezone look.

[Mawd]

It does look good. That sword whoosh is something that needs to be seen around more since its super cool (heh). I might be misinterpreting it here but it seems like its both fast paced and positioning heavy and I think if you were looking for a pitch that puts those concepts forward then there's a lot of room to combine the two into something snappy.

[Spenny]

That does look real cool. Much faster character movements than I had imagined in my head.

[Lork]

It's interesting that everybody interprets those gifs as being so fast paced.  It might be because I've deliberately captured moments that make the action look as fluid as possible, or maybe I just gave the impression of a much slower game with my lame initial pitch.  I've always seen it as being downright glacial compared to, say, a Platinum Game.

 

Anyway, I came up with this: Axon is a fast, kinetic action game that arms you with guns, blades, and a variety of acrobatic moves, and sets you loose in a retro-chic virtual world with one objective: fight your way to the top.  Smart positioning and split second dodging are key to victory, but in order to truly master the intricate combat system you must make full use of the vast array of options at your disposal to shoot, stab, roll, flip, dash and dive your way past the attacks of a large cast of enemies who will respond in kind.

 

It reads much more like advertising copy than something I would actually say to another human being out loud, but I can use it as a guide for what to emphasize when talking about the game.  What do you guys think, is that at all evocative of the game suggested by those gifs?

 

(Axon is a working title that I doubt will stick, which is why I was reluctant to use it, but trying to avoid using a name just gets increasingly awkward, so screw it.)

[Spenny]

Sounds good to me!