Pre Production Cultural complicity -Examine the behaviors your game encourages -Question the explicit and implicit messages in your game -Think about the way your game encourages interactions with others -Imagine that your game wholly defines someone’s viewpoint for the world -Think about the impact of the fantasies that you’re selling -Consider who you empower through the nature of your marketing -Every piece of media is a reflection of who and what you stand for -Embrace complicity and responsibility Narrative Prototype Digital Sandbox -Showcases controls -Asks and answers “is this immediately enjoyable?” Game Narrative The player is performing actions that influence events and learns to master the system/rules to achieve their goal. Your prototype toolbox: -An Idea -A deadline: at most 3 days -Narrative reference points: at least one game that has similarities to your idea -A personal storytelling experience: a time when you felt engaged and empowered as a storyteller -A focus on the central question of game narrative Initial Writeup -Premise: go nuts, for about ten minutes -Player role: is the player supposed to be a character or themselves? -Player goals: simple and relatable. There is an experience that he wants to get out of this -Player conflict: what obstacles are in the way of that goal? What are the barriers? -Player choices: big interactive choices. What is the player trying to do? Are these choices tough? meaningful? strategic? -Player actions: the verbs -Resources: what in the world can the player use? a good resource gives opportunity, information, challenge -Game events: what changes take place? Building the story -Show the player their goal. In Journey it was the mountain with the light -Give meaning to the rules -Use characters as goals, resources and conflict -Goals: Clementine (keep her safe) -Resources: info/item vendors in RPGs -Conflict: Donkey Kong -Grow the story events around the action Cut the story points that don’t: -Reinforce or showcase goals -Call the player to action -Give the player feedback on their choices -Provide a break/reward after heavy action Production Experience Based Environment Design Identity. Figure out the function or purpose of the room. Background/History. Is the room new or old? How much wear and tear should there be? Is there any backstory you should support? Support objectives and reinforce ideas. Explain gameplay. Tutorial areas or introducing new mechanics. What happened here? blood splatter, fire, disarray. Uncovering mystery. Questions build and you start seeking answers. Hide clues under the player’s nose for attentive players. Visual Design Choices. Our choices tell the player what kind of entities we present: impressive, grand, they spared no expense… Say yes to the player. If the player thinks they can do it, we let them do it. Signage. To help with navigation or to strengthen ideas within the game. Homage/Easter Eggs Environment Design Principles Environment Design as Visual Storytelling: Theory and Practice Mimesis- mimicking and copying reality Roleplaying: Who were the characters that were involved? What resources did they have at hand? What was their interest/fashion at the time? Personality: Behavioral Traces: It’s what you leave in an environment as you use it. It could be garbage and clutter, but also a couch or a chair under a window or next to a lamp because somebody is using them to read. Identity Claims: reminders of who you are for yourself or other people in the environment. Photographs on the wall or diplomas, but also the type of artwork or objects on display. Mood Modifiers: candles, paint colors (subdued, calming, etc) Affordances: actions that an object allows that add to the storytelling (chairs and sofas for comfort, car, door... but also a torture chair, wine barrels and such) Sizes: Materials and Structure: varies according to the function. Characters: how size in structure affects social dynamics and appearance. Consider normal vs oversized stairs. The last thing you want is to make the characters look small and weak. Layout: a necessary part of research, it deals with architectural flow and real-world constraints of the space. Semiotics- signs and symbols and how we communicate Signifiers/signified: plane of expression vs content. Types: Symbol: cultural references, like language or traffic lights Icon: uniqueness because of the design Index: a link to a causal relationship between the signifier and the signified. Smoke signifying a fire, packs of money and drugs to convey illegal activities. Aesthetic Language Shape Language: intentional association between elements and form, an understanding of the visual components of an art style or research into specific construction types. Density: how sparse or dense in detail Cohesion: the amount of repetition of shapes and colors or how limited is the color palette. Order: simple or complex/chaotic level Layers: evaluating aspects like order, cohesion, textures, shapes in different features of the composition (architecture, set dressing, 2d graphics) Tropes: figurative language Metonymy: referring to something that is related to a concept (white house for US government) Synecdoche: using a part to refer to the whole (Eiffel Tower to refer to Paris or France) Metaphor: comparing two seemingly unrelated things to add shades of meaning. For example, having circular shape metaphors to signify wellness and straight or jagged angular shapes to signify tension and danger Cognition: neuroscience and psychology Association: tie meaning to visual features like color, shapes Spatial Metaphors: the implied meaning behind the position of elements or the audience in relationship to the environment. Being above/below other people, obscuring the view, sacred spaces Peak Shift: Visual hyperbole used to represent in a more efficient, hyper-realistic way or even caricature Gestalt: understanding things as a whole instead of parts. Affinity and Contrast: to signify social cohesion and bonding or to communicate conflict. Structure Layout Layout of the Form: affects the mental model of a space. Centralized, linear, grid-like, and so on. Layout of the Path: affects the experience of a space over time. Can be seen as trajectory or flow. It is advised to look at references to achieve richness and complexity of layout of form and path. Intensity: it’s important to vary the level of intensity in order to make a rich experience because a consistently high level can become overwhelming for the audience and consistently low can be boring. Interior Design Principles Mastering Space, Mastering Place Order Deals with the arrangement and position of elements in space, so as to increase our sense of understanding within that place. We deal with complex spaces with many elements and when placed together the user should be able to understand where they are, which can give them a feeling of ease. That’s powerful for us. If we don’t arrange things people can get lost and lose their sense of orientation. How do we deal with orientation? -Patterns. Perceptible repetition within space. For example, patterns of color, material, subject, etc. There’s also a hierarchy of pattern -most noticeable patterns and less noticeable patterns. -Identity. Creating an iconic element that people can remember and come back to. The Eiffel Tower, for example -Structure. It’s the pattern within those spaces. The easily memorable repetition of elements. For example the closeness of building units and their size in a neighborhood. -Meaning. Something you remember about a place. For example, a wedding taking place. How do we define space? We use enclosure and implied space (the suggestion of one space from another). Walls and corners imply safety and comfort. We feel more comfortable in smaller pockets of a space.. Methods for implying space: -Compartmentalize literal space into smaller spots. -Changing the patterns. -Arranging elements within a group. Even light fixtures in the ceiling create a perceived spatial definition. -Use of verticality. To increase orientation we need to create perceptible patterns. In practice, we want to look at scenes and start to ask questions about how order exists, how they create orientation/identity/structures… Enrichment Elevating the experience in a space. Visually we like scenes where there is a lot of complexity in them. If a space is too boring and simple you don’t necessarily want to go there. However, if the space is too complex you also don’t want to either. The spaces that people appreciate the most are naturalistic, where we can see perceptible patterns and repetition of elements. Techniques to increase approachability: -Complexity. We like to see things that we can break down. -Legibility. Our ability to break down a space into its component parts. A lack of legibility means that we can’t understand what’s going on -and it becomes less approachable. If you increase legibility in a space you can still have significant amounts of complexity within it. -Coherence. Our appreciation for patterns within a space. Adding these elements makes the environment work as a whole. -Mystery. The idea that we want to investigate spaces, that we want to move into them. Present something that people would want to investigate further to enrich the space.. Universal Enrichment -Manipulation of enclosing space. -Surface articulation. Adding patterns to surfaces to enrich them, as long as the patterns aren’t too repetitive. It can be applied to movement as well as spatial definition (boring-interesting-messy places). -Spatial composition. Changing the pattern between areas. If an area gives us a space that we can relax with, then we could feel more at ease moving through it and around it. -Novelty. The idea that we want something that’s going to stand out from everything else. It needs to be kept under control though, if everything’s memorable then nothing really is. -Tension. As we move through a space, if it closes around us or expands itself -either gradually or abruptly- that’s an enriching experience. We can release that tension in different ways. Expression How we deal with the mood, or tone, or narrative of a space. We tell the audience the broad ideas. World Expression techniques -Historical: The history of a place told through its visuals. What time period was this place built in? and how does the place express this history? -Cultural: The use of symbols to suggest or express a specific type of culture. It can be subtle or heavy handed. Inhabitant Expression techniques -Identity: informs our relationship to that space. Techniques: -Attitude: how friendly or unfriendly the inhabitants may be. It can be something that they built to suggest that attitude (like a classical, expensive setting) or something that was placed on the space (like graffiti). It can also be a sense of their humor! You can find who these people are, who they think they are, and maybe who they want to be. -Sophistication: Suggests their appreciation for taste and aesthetics. -Self-Presentation: How much do they want you to see their sophistication or attitude? -Symbolism: is that broader communication of story and a universal human experience for users. -Ascending/Descending: when you move up through a space there’s a suggestion of a heavenly movement. When you descend you fall, you lose something of yourself. -Admittance/Refusal: When you want somebody to come into a space, you can show them that. You can open doors and lots of light to make sure that somebody feels like they’re welcome. Marketing Messaging How do you want consumers to recognise your company? What are you trying to achieve? Figure out 1 key message and 1 key artwork. You’re selling a story. Roadmap ● ● ● ● ● ● Product announcement First screenshots First trailer (most important), sells credibility Preview possibilities Release date announcement Release announcement (+launch trailer) Encourage people to follow you, for example: “As development ramps up, we’ll be releasing more screenshots of unseen areas. You won’t want to miss this, so make sure to follow!” How to say it Websites. The central Hub of your online presence, it needs to be well maintained and presented. -You are greeted by a large and beautiful graphic of the product -Next is the latest video or trailer -Followed by a short explanation of the product -More graphics and a box to subscribe to the mailing list and social links Social Media. You can use Trello as a planning board. Use hashtags like #indiedev, #animation, #indiedevhour, #screenshotsaturday, #ue4, #unreal When showing off video, always directly upload it to Twitter. Timing: Consider what month to communicate new beats. For gaming audiences, June (E3) and Christmas should be avoided. Consider what day: Tuesday to Thursday preferably. Consider what time: during business hours (9:00 - 16:00). Keep timezones in mind (around 06:00 PST / 14:00 GMT is a good time) as well as bank holidays. Trailer: -You’re missing out! We don’t want you to miss a one-of-a-kind experience. It’s even better when the product has already blown up. -There’s way more inside! You want to stick within the comforts of established narrative, but cram as many flashes of related material into the margins, to leave an impression in the back of the viewer’s mind that there’s a whole world here. -This feels comfortable… Whether at the very beginning or a bit later, we need to establish the genre and bring people up to speed. -This also feels really different! Once you frame things, you’re free to stack on top to make the viewer happily disoriented. -This is my stuff! Think hard about your last shot. The last emotion you land on, that’s the lasting connection folks have with your product. You want them to leave with some big feelings. Stand out from the crowd -Evaluate the quantity and quality of your hooks. Ideally you want every facet of your project to be unique and compelling in some way: art, name, story, dev team, everything. You will need to become adept at evaluating hooks. Find 10 or 20 products that you think are close to yours. Watch all of them, examine their hooks and look at their results. -Sell it with a GIF: can you present your selling points in a GIF? Can you show that in a span of five or six seconds? If you can’t, try instead to capture a big, exciting or engaging moment so that people can quickly grasp what’s great about it. -Create your posts 48 or 24 hours in advance, re-read and re-edit. -Look at what your competitors are doing and promoting, check out some kickstarter videos. -Content ideas: The challenges you’re facing What you’re working on. Stories that have occurred since you last posted. -Build a strong library of in-editor content and features, specifically tutorial videos early on and then deeper content as your short takes shape. -Build a strong library of out-of-editor features such as developer diaries. -Build a library of content that will demonstrate personality. Getting others to say it Press packs. You can create your own and host it on your site (like the Snake Pass team has, or the online presskit() from Rami Ismail). Make sure to cover: short name, studio name, studio location (city), website social links, contact details, trailer (link to a youtube version and a downloadable version), key art, screenshots (high resolution and no logo), logo, description of the short / press release (in the length of a tweet, two sentences, a paragraph, a page) Contacting the press. Identify smaller sites with less traffic where an email will be warmly appreciated, bigger sites with more traffic where they have sections devoted to your kind of product, and specialist sites where your product makes sense to feature. Learn about the person you’re pitching to.
