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[fatso]

If you're not already a media darling or a "known face" , don't bother entering IGF...
Why would I give a flying crap about a caste of people wh spend their time autocongratulating themselves in festivals and chosen media channels. ALL THE TIME.

^This. People seem to forget that all major developers could have once been considered "indie," and that indie developers are not somehow immune from this trend. If IGF turns into the Academy Awards with their pretentiousness, snobbery and pat-on-the-backs five years down the road, someone shoot me.

[fucrate]

I will be submitting Storyteller this year, which is unfinished.

But last year I was a judge for IGF, and there are a couple of things I noticed would have helped many entries:

* Many many (would guess most) judges didn't start judging until quite a while after the deadline, so I will update compulsively all along until the end.
* If your game is complicated to learn but has cool stuff about it if you do, make a video showing how to do some of the cool stuff! If I made a game like SpaceChem, would totally do that to avoid the risk of being dismissed as "another hard game with poor UI and tutorial and ultimately bad gameplay".
* Would not make a wall of text in the form that has info about the game for the judges. I've seen games include the whole backstory, hoping it would increase its value somehow, burying important info. I will focus on briefly explaining how to make the game work, and what's supposed to be interesting about it.
* (very) Short but impactful works *much* better than long and "less than great" (this goes specially for unfinished games). I will be trimming the doubtful levels out of my game, even if it makes it extremely short. I might add some of the experimental levels at the end, clearly marked as "Experimental".

you just spelled out exactly why I dont enter. a shined up one level nothing will beat the fucking mozart of gaming all day everyday.

Well, it can't be THAT short either. It would not have worked for me if the game felt like it didn't go very far in exploring its own ideas, even if it was a good initial attempt.

I did find lots of games with many levels that were not very good. Some were filler and others felt far too clunky.

Honestly, having your game be fun and interesting and "hook-y" from the first 10 seconds is kind of important no matter what you're doing.  If you want to win an award or make money or just interest players in general, you need to get people's attention.  More indies would be more successful overall if they took that kind of advice to heart.

[XRA]

I don't think the point is that a short game is more likely to win over a long one.

Think of it like a big cake. You don't serve IGF the entire cake. They've got too much cake to eat. You cut them a delicious slice that gives a concise flavor of all the layers within the cake.

[jonschubbe]

yeah i was gonna say, most game demo's you play at any game convention don't start you at the very beginning of the game with all the intro cutscenes, dialogue, menu's, options, etc. it puts you right into the game so you're enjoying it in the first 5 minutes you play. they know there are other games there for people to play so it's important to hook the player and try to give them a good idea of what the rest of the game is going to be. yeah, it's not the same as playing through the whole game, but it's just how it works.

i'm wondering how competitions with novels and the like work. judges don't read through 1000s of pages per entry do they? or do they not even give out awards to writing until they are finished and published?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

you mean like the nebula and hugo awards? usually there are nominations and only a few entries, those aren't 'open' the way the igf is, a novel has to be nominated, so there are only a few contestants

[Glaiel-Gamer]

If you're not already a media darling or a "known face" , don't bother entering IGF...

ug... this is wrong and dangerous advice

[Randomasta]

i'm wondering how competitions with novels and the like work. judges don't read through 1000s of pages per entry do they? or do they not even give out awards to writing until they are finished and published?

Sometimes my father judge a novel/literature awards (he's a writer) and he usually he just read some pages from the beginning/middle/end and only continue reading if those pages shows that the rest of the book might be good

[RichMakeGame!]

Personally, I think any changes you make to have a game 'grab' you in the first few minutes are for the better. Keep the big picture long-play depth for sure, but imo the first five-ten minutes should strive to excite players to reach that depth.

[Hempuli‽]

Here’s me atop my freshly created stack-o-workshops a few builds ago.

Here's a little part of the intro cutscene.

[Oddball]

I would laugh so hard if Fez won the visual excellence award again. I'm assume the visuals in Fez have only got better, and not worse, since it won it in 2008.

[Movius]

Every year the same shit

[FK in the Coffee]

I'm personally hoping Jasper Byrne's Lone Survivor ends up taking something away from this festival.  I have to say, it's the most chilling 2-D game I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

If you're not already a media darling or a "known face" , don't bother entering IGF...

ug... this is wrong and dangerous advice

can you name an example of an unknown game coming out of nowhere by someone nobody knows and winning a prize? the last one i can think of is blueberry garden

i don't think you should not enter if you are unknown, but it's kind of obvious that having a popular game or having made popular games in the past gives you an advantage

Personally, I think any changes you make to have a game 'grab' you in the first few minutes are for the better. Keep the big picture long-play depth for sure, but imo the first five-ten minutes should strive to excite players to reach that depth.

we make games not heroin; i don't think we should try to hook or addict players early. intrigue, yes, but i hate when a game starts off with a bang and then peters out. i'd rather a game build up to a climax, gradually getting better as you go

if the legend of zelda, super metroid, or final fantasy 6 were never released and were just entering the IGF right now, they would not even be a finalist, because they start off slow and build up: the beginning of zelda1 doesn't give you anything, just a sword, and you'll die a lot and not know where to go. super metroid also starts you off with almost nothing, just a basic gun, and you can't explore much or do much until you progress. ff6 starts you off only with the ability to fight and use a few spells, you have to play hours before you get to the good parts. and so on -- a lot of the games we consider classics are not games that hook people in the first few minutes, they're games that grow on you

[Hangedman]

Here's a little part of the intro cutscene.

My entry; here's what happens when you fall too far. Art still in progress.

I'd love to see other people's entries as well

[dustin]

if the legend of zelda, super metroid, or final fantasy 6 were never released and were just entering the IGF right now, they would not even be a finalist, because they start off slow and build up:

I agree with zelda 1 but zelda LttP has an awesome exciting first 5 minutes.  I play that raining/going to find zelda in the castle scene over and over again.

Super metroid I think has a pretty exciting beginning also what with that tense escape from the ship scene.

I haven't played FF6 recently enough so I can't argue you

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

the intro parts to zelda3 and super metroid were cool but they played very differently from the rest of the game -- both were linear, cinematic, and limited in what you could do, whereas the rest of the game was more open. so they were fun, but not really representative of what the rest of the game is like

[RichMakeGame!]

heroin??  

All I'm suggesting is looking at the dramatic curve often used in pacing films and musical compositions. Often a work will begin with a 'hook' to pique interest and develop an appetite in the audience for more, ramping down and then building up to a climax and then tailing out as the piece finishes.

You can argue this is robotically following a formula but imo the way you implement the curve is completely open to your own interpretation/creativity. The curve was simply developed as a response to human nature and what captures our interest the most.

for those who don't know what I'm referencing: http://www.cosmoedu.net/DoctorFields/1.htm
you find it applied in many fields of creative work; books, films, music and naturally games

PS. intro cinematics, or initial bits of gameplay which are different and intriguing are hooks. It doesn't matter if they're representative of the entire game, their purpose is simply to make you want to see more

[SirNiko]

Also keep in mind that what is submitted to IGF is not equivalent to what you will be presenting to a player.

The goal for an IGF entry is to demonstrate to the judge why your game is really great in an efficient manner. For example, for Zelda you would probably set up a demo with two parts, one showing the free-exploration at the beginning and then a second one that cuts into the middle of the game where Link has a small collection of tools to show off the character progression. For Super Metroid you would show off the Ceres Station and some of Crateria, then perhaps have a second demo to show off an area with a lot of hidden secrets to find and collect.

When you produce the game for the consumption of players, you can slow things down and build up to the good stuff with a long introduction. The players have the added assurance of various awards that their patience will be rewarded.

[Dragonmaw]

As an aside, from previous IGF judging experience:

Monaco is the single best game I have played as part of the IGF. It 100% deserved that Grand Prize award and I want it in my pants RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

Edit: Also, everyone please leave your egos at the door.

[Montoli]

if the legend of zelda, super metroid, or final fantasy 6 were never released and were just entering the IGF right now, they would not even be a finalist, because they start off slow and build up: the beginning of zelda1 doesn't give you anything, just a sword, and you'll die a lot and not know where to go. super metroid also starts you off with almost nothing, just a basic gun, and you can't explore much or do much until you progress. ff6 starts you off only with the ability to fight and use a few spells, you have to play hours before you get to the good parts. and so on -- a lot of the games we consider classics are not games that hook people in the first few minutes, they're games that grow on you

Gonna have to disagree vehemently with you re: super metroid.  It is almost the textbook example of the OPPOSITE of what you're suggesting.  And, I would say, a fantastic hook.  (I showed it to a friend earlier this month - I found out he hadn't played it, said "ok, come sit here, you are playing 15 minutes of this, no arguing" and when he got up, he said "I am going home and borrowing that from my roommate and playing it tonight.")

It is:

• as you say in a later post, nothing like the rest of the game.  There is no exploring, it is linear, you have no weapon choices.  This makes it SUPER EASY for a new person to get into without having to have a games-worth of explanations for how to play.
• it conveys a nice range of emotions, in a nice cinematic way.  Starting with unease (something is wrong, where is everyone int he station) and moving on to dread (the metroid is missing.  and... are those human bodies?) moving on to excitement (boss fight!) and finally more excitement (escape before the whole thing explodes!)  It's like a microcosm of metroid, right there in the first 10 minutes.
• It does a really good job of giving you the FEEL of metroid, right off the bat.  The feeling of wandering around some place, all alone, and being completely on your own.  (And bonus points since even after you finish, and start the "real game", you land your ship on an abandoned planet, with no enemies for a while, lots of mist around, and it's raining.  You can practically feel the loneliness.)

So yeah. I would say Metroid actually frontloads a TON of good stuff, for the purpose of letting you know right off the bat "here is what this game will feel like" and trying to hook you.  Heck, the whole tilting walls in the station escape are one of the biggest set pieces in the whole game, and they're right there at the 10 minute mark.  Saying that metroid starts off slow is pretty blatantly wrong, I think.  It certainly doesn't start off slow, narrative-wise, even if the early gameplay is fairly undemanding.