Week 10: Advertising

MONDAY:

Class cancelled.

THURSDAY:

Weird Art of the Week 1: Babylon short animation (1986)

Do game designers have a responsibility to focus on politics in games?

The word “responsibility” implies that you HAVE to make the game political, which I don’t believe is true; while game designers need to be as conscientious as possible to a game’s many interpretations, they should be free to make games about what they want.

Weird Art of the Week 2: Rattenkonig

How else can you take your game in a completely different direction in tone?

Kinetic Panic: make the world seem abandoned.
Those Left Behind: enable the player to pollute the Earth as much as possible to combat its themes of climate change
Tales from a Misty Seashore: more focus on kinetics
Lament: Try to induce the five stages of grief instead of conquer them
Violet’s Dates: make it yuri

Community Engagement:
– Showcasing the game in the cafeteria
– Build it and playtest it and make sure it’s playable on the machines (add controller support; the average winchester person would probably prefer a controller)
– Advertise it

The Advertising Campaign Brainstorm
– Send someone in a rat costume to interview the people of Winchester and film it, with some staged ones of the rats attacking the people. Upload to on Instagram and TikTok (show up at PLACE at TIME; when it starts and when it finishes)
– Flyers and posters and merchandise to tempt people (stickers, bracelets, cutouts + standees, bookmarks, free boba)
– Leech off of other people’s advertising campaigns
– Offer people money for beating the game. If they win and demand the money, tell them the previous player already took the money (fraud)
– Create a trail to WSA (with a mousetrap at the end)

What Employers are Looking For:
– Finished games
– Good portfolio
– Degree

Next steps:

• Hosting
  • Itch vs. Steam
    • Steam has a steeper barrier of entry for publishing. It requires £100, to understand the guidelines, and to understand the game specs
• Portfolio Site (links to games, image and walk-throughs, and descriptions of what you did)
• Awards (IGF (end of May), Game Dev World Champions, Student Game Awards)
• Press Kit
  • Fact sheet (dev team, publisher, genre, platform, release date)
  • Synopsis (elevator pitch)
  • Key art (poster, banners, icons)
  • Screenshots (4-10)

1-1 Group Feedback:

Parker and I recieved a videocall from our tutor, where we expressed interest in publication if we continued working over summer. She encouraged this, with a few cautions about ethical working practices.