In week 5 we had the pleasure of welcoming guest speaker Jupiter Hadley to discuss building a personal brand and voice in games.

The talk was broken down into three parts: Who is the audience, Who to reach out to and Public presence.

The audience is found by breaking the game down to its most essential parts, for example – the genre, the graphic style, the playstyle. By doing that, similar games can be found. The task is to then find and pay similar games, seek out their communities and then identify what makes your game different and what makes your game like theirs

Reaching out is all about making noise and traction for the game, whether thats through social media or press. What’s important is that the game has a good pitch and that you know why it’s important. It’s also the time to network and seek valuable feedback.

Creating a public presence means making people feel connected and a part of the process when developing the game. This can be done through testing events, sharing patch notes, accomplishments or funny moments. It’s also important to consider the development of a demo.

pros	cons
– Playable build to talk about – Creates more wishlist – Something to play	– Not enough polish – Major changes may happen – You only get one release

After the talk we were given the opportunity to pitch our games to Jupiter to receive feedback. We were tight on time and this was the pitch I came up with for Those Left behind.

“Those left behind” is a post-apocalyptic resource management and narrative game where family comes first. Take on the role of a leader of a survival camp guiding people through the new ruined world.

The game prides itself on being a game about humans for humans, aiming to shed light on topics like morality and social responsibility – specifically in regards to negligence and climate change.

Feedback:

The feedback was very positive and we were told that the pitch was effective and concise, she knew exactly what it was about and that they would even play it themselves. The only criticism was that the unique selling point should come first. New pitch:

A deeply human post-apocalyptic resource management game, “Those Left Behind” explores morality and social responsibility in a world shaped by negligence and climate change. As the leader of a survival camp, you must make tough choices to protect your family and ensure their future.

Sophie tasked us further to look into what similar games are there, where are their communities and what are they saying. I’ll make sure to apply this when doing my game research.